In 1970, Curitiba hosted the XV Congresso Nacional de Tuberculose (XV National Conference on Tuberculosis) and the X Congresso de Doenças Torácicas (X Throacic Diseases Conference). The event, as always, featured the attraction of tuberculosis, but did not excel in science and organization to the degree that the (few) young attendees, who had recently entered the specialty, had hoped based on their experiences at national and international conferences for other specialties.

Wishing to have an appropriate forum in which to present their scientific production, the young attendees turned to the leaders at the time, among them Otávio Rato and Mário Rigatto, with a plea to form a new, separate, society of pulmonology dedicated to tuberculosis. Wisely, both were against the creation of a new society, thinking it better to unite than to divide. This was certainly the first attempt to create a society that brought together new means of performing the specialty and respiratory science. Nevertheless, at the next conference, held in 1972 in João Pessoa, several of the studies presented were already formatted in the scientific style, divided into Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results (even including statistical analysis) and Conclusions. This seemingly trivial fact represented a considerable advance for the specialty. Among the young attendees, the idea of a new society continued to mature.

As a result of the conversations had in João Pessoa, the idea of a new society began to become firmer, now with a representative number of adherents. It was decided that we would hold a one-day pulmonology conference that would lay the groundwork for the creation of the envisioned Brazilian Society of Pulmonology.

The conference, with the ostentatious name I Jornada Internacional de Pneumologia (I International Pulmonology Day), was held in the city of Campos do Jordão in the following year. In 1974, our new Brazilian Society of Pulmonology came into being. The first Board of Directors was elected, and the first society conference was scheduled to be held in Brasília, the capital of the nation, in 1975. Our Brazilian Society of Pulmonology was born in an appropriate place since Campos do Jordão was the cradle of tuberculosis treatment.

From the outset, the members of the Board reasoned that there should be an instrument that would allow the associates of the society to publish the (already considerable) science and knowledge that they were producing. From that thinking, the Jornal de Pneumologia (Journal of Pulmonology) was created, and, in October of 1975, the first issue was published.
Anyone who reads the content of the first printing will agree that our journal was not of modest birth. The objectives were as clear and ambitious as those of the specialty itself. The issues of atmospheric pollution and the smoking habit, as well as work-related accidents and diseases, (all ills that even today affect a large part of our population) were addressed. We even dreamed of a potential early indexing. However, that first Board of Directors had to deal with many, hidden, difficulties in order to keep that dream alive.

Over its 30 years of existence, the Journal of Pulmonology improved its graphic quality, increased its circulation and became indexed for the Latindex and Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO) databases.
Making the journal installments available on the Internet both in Portuguese and in English provided a greater number of readers access to our scientific production.
Our journal currently aggregates the best of Brazilian Pulmonology.

Manuel Lopes dos Santos
First Secretary of the First Board of Directors of the
Brazilian Society of Pulmonology