CHAIRMAN'S OPENING REMARKS 



E. C. Amoroso 



I am deeply conscious of the honour which is mine in being 

 entrusted this morning with the chairmanship of this Sym- 

 posium, the thirty-fourth I believe, in the CIBA Foundation 

 series and the second on the problems of ageing. When about 

 a year ago the ageing of transient tissues was suggested 

 by Dr. Parkes as a possible subject for this Symposium and 

 having no alternative of my own to offer, I accepted the 

 suggestion with a procrastinator's easy optimism. Only during 

 the past week, when I received the complete programme from 

 Dr. Wolstenholme, did I begin to recognize the immensity of 

 the problem; and if I venture upon the task to-day of presiding 

 at this meeting, it is not because I have any special knowledge, 

 but only because I realise that among this audience there are 

 a number of experts from both sides of the Atlantic — many 

 of them friends of long standing — whose function it will be 

 to provide a picture of the present status of the subject, which 

 it is our business to discuss. My task will be, to offer, at a 

 somewhat later stage of the proceedings, some kind of general 

 synthesis combining the diverse views — which I imagine will 

 be frequent at this meeting — and not to attempt a speculative 

 review at this stage of what the succeeding papers will most 

 certainly present in great detail. 



For any shortcomings that may become apparent in the 

 conduct of the business of this meeting which will take 

 us certainly very far beyond the confines of the problem of 

 ageing such as we normally concede it to be, I must ask for 

 your indulgence, and I hope I may be permitted the same 

 latitude which so many of the Symposiasts have taken with 

 regard to the interpretation of the title. 



AGEING VOL. 2 1 2 



