As I write this Edinburgh it is in the grip of winter and the area outside my office is, in the words of the carol “hard as iron, and water like a stone”. Many of our European readers will not have been able to get away for their well-earned Christmas breaks as smoothly as in previous years. As editor I hope they spend their time productively writing papers! From tomorrow the days get longer in the northern hemisphere, not a day too soon!
More seriously the Journal has continued to grow in quality over the past 2 years and this is illustrated by the very many on-line accesses generated by the contributions we have received. Nevertheless we are always anxious to improve the content of the Journal both in academic and general interest terms. We appreciate the input of all our authors and you, our readers, to the success of the Journal. A large unsung group are our reviewers, who do sterling work to assist the editors and keep academic standards. As a token of our appreciation we are again printing a list of those our computer system reminds us have helped over the past 12 months. Our sincere thanks to all of you. I would also like to acknowledge the enormous work put in by the Associate Editor Martin Caravati, and the Review Editors Allister Vale and Michael Mullins.
We continue to look for new things that will interest and amuse you, and it is for this reason that in 2011 we will offer publications of historical interest in a new section entitled Historical Toxicology Commentaries.
Our first contribution is in this issue and, in my view, very appropriately discusses a British physician of great repute. I do not, however, think his approach to testing the effects of adder toxin, by getting the snake to bite the nose of a puppy, would be acceptable to modern day regulatory authorities! Interestingly, we also feature a review of a different European snake in this issue (no puppies involved).
We welcome new contributions, images of interesting cases, and letters from readers on articles that we have published.
We wish all our readers a happy 2011 and no doubt will meet many of you in either Dubrovnik at the EAPCCT meeting in May or in Washington DC in September at the NAACT.
Nick Bateman
Editor in Chief
Clinical Toxicology
Edinburgh December 2010