This supplement of MMWR celebrates the 50th anniversary of CDC's
first publication of MMWR on January 13, 1961 (Figure 1). MMWR
was not new in 1961, but it was new to CDC, an agency that
itself had been founded only 15 years earlier, in 1946 (1). The
longer history of MMWR traces back to July 13, 1878, when the
first predecessor of MMWR, called simply The Bulletin of the
Public Health, was inaugurated. The Bulletin was established in
accordance with the first National Quarantine Act, passed by
Congress 2 months earlier. The Act ordered the Surgeon General
of the U.S. Marine-Hospital Service to begin publishing
abstracted disease reports collected from U.S. consuls in
foreign lands to alert U.S. quarantine officials about what
diseases could be expected among passengers arriving on
steamships (2,3). In the 83 years from 1878 to 1961, MMWR went
through several incarnations. By 1952, the publication had its
current name and was being published by the National Office of
Vital Statistics, an agency within the U.S.