2 R. A. McCance 



have "The developing organism", and lastly "Senescence 

 and disease". I recognize the problems that arise when a col- 

 lection of "experts" get together: some people who are going 

 to speak today may not have any experience at all of the new- 

 born baby or of the effect of age on electrolyte metabolism — 

 except perhaps on their own, and I hope they have not had too 

 much of that ! Prof. Wallace can hardly be expected to be very 

 interested in old age ; he would prefer, I dare say, to listen to a 

 paper about congenital heart failure rather than the one about 

 congestive heart failure which Dr. Fejfar is going to give. 

 One of the objects of the symposium, however, is that he shall 

 do it. People speaking on Thursdaj^ moreover, may not have 

 thought about a newborn baby's renal function since they were 

 one themselves! At the same time it is very useful to have a 

 collection of experts brought together like this, if they — so to 

 speak — play to the title. We must always try to keep before 

 us the object for which we have been brought together, that 

 is to say to pool our knowledge so far as possible about the 

 metabolism of electrolytes in relation to age and sex. 



As a corpus for dealing with electrolytes we may be a little 

 bit light on hormones. We could do with a few more specialists 

 in this field — there may be some unknown ones here who will 

 introduce themselves later — I hope there are! We shall re- 

 quire their assistance and I hope they will not be afraid of 

 saying what they think, when they think it. They will have 

 little chance of being contradicted! 



It is a great pity that we shall have one absentee. I am very 

 sorry that our colleague Kerpel-Fronius could not come. He 

 is an old friend of mine and a very old friend of paediatrics 

 and electrolytes. I saw him not so long ago and he was much 

 looking forward to this international gathering. I personally 

 think he would appreciate it very much indeed if we were to 

 send him a letter as from the conference, saying how much we 

 are missing him. With your permission I shall write a letter 

 and send it off as from all of us. 



