Transcribed by Roger Thomas

https://doi.org/10.36866/pn.102.17

The Physiological Society
Middlesex Hospital Meeting,
21–22 January 1966

At the invitation of the Treasurer, E. Neil, a meeting of the Society was held on the 21^st /22^nd January, 1966 in the Department of Physiology of the Middlesex Hospital Medical School.

With E. Neil, J.H. Green, C.A. Keele and F. Hobbiger successively in the Chair, 25 Communications were given with naturally a very strong bias towards work on the hairy cats and very hairy dogs beloved by cardiovascular physiologists. As might be expected in such difficult studies, criticism which was kindly but confident was met with an absolutely unyielding assurance of truth by the authors.

Immediately after dinner 0.G. Edholm gave thanks and ‘presentos’ to E. Neil and Miss G. Fetherstonhaugh from those Members who had so much profited from their difficult, often discouraging, but completely successful work in arranging transport to and from the Tokyo Congress.

1. Heymans than made a very affectionate speech of thanks to the Chairman. He delicately touched on his complete dependence on Mrs. Nail and upon Miss Fetherstonhaugh, not so much for support but for restraint, and he spoke of the good old days when the Society generously elected ‘Continentals’ to the ranks of Ordinary Membership.
2. Neil in reply warmly welcomed Members and their Guests especially a Guest of the Society Dr. J.W. Duyff, who had single-handed undertaken the burden of almost all the arrangements for the Leyden Congress. It appears that unlike the Secretaries of this Society, who have the privilege of hearing every possible Communication, the Secretariat of a Congress arrange several hundreds of Communications of which they can hear not even one.

On Saturday afternoon 13 Demonstrations, mostly of the chancey ‘wet’ type which Members so much prefer, were shown.

The Meeting ended with tea leaving the Middlesex Hospital with the distinction of having attracted and sustained the only full 2-day Meeting in January for at least 20 years.

Friday 21^st January Tea 110, Dinner 138; Saturday 22^nd January Lunch 128, Tea 149.

Signed: John McMichael

The Physiological Society Joint Meeting at the Wolfson Institute, Postgraduate Medical School,
25–26 February 1966

On the 25^th/26^th February, 1966 the second Joint Meeting of the Physiological Society and the Medical Research Society was held at the Wolfson Institute, Postgraduate Medical School, London, under the shadow of the princely laboratories which J. McMichael and his colleagues had achieved by ‘begging’ since the first such Meeting.

With J. McMichael, C.L. Cope, Russell Fraser and H. Barcroft successively in the Chair, 22 Communications were heard and 3 were given after dinner.

At dinner, H. Barcroft, speaking as a Member of both Societies, warmly thanked J. McMichael who in reply disclosed that C.T. Dollery had done nearly all the hard work. After dinner the Secretary of the Medical Research Society explained that their minutes were so much shorter than those of this Society because clinicians worked so much harder than physiologists. This may well be true but it is the kind of argument which could lead to a ‘reductio ad absurdum’.

Since only the Chairman, 2 Secretaries and 3 Foreign Visitors attended the Explanation of Demonstrations the Saturday morning was entirely given to 41 Demonstrations of great variety and interest.

The Meeting ended with tea and plans for a third Joint Meeting in 1969.

Friday, 25^th February: Tea 210, Dinner 158; Saturday, 26^th February. Lunch 142, Tea 142.

Signed: Andrew Huxley

The Physiological Society University College London Meeting,
25–26 March, 1966

The Annual General Meeting of the Society was held in the Department of Physiology of University College London on the afternoon of Saturday, 26^th March, 1966. At the invitation of A.F. Huxley, this was preceded by a scientific meeting, beginning at 2 p.m. on Friday, 25^th March, under the Chairmanships of A.F. Huxley and J.A.B. Gray, 26 Communications were presented in the Physiology and Anatomy Lecture Theatres and there were 12 particularly interesting Demonstrations.

At 5.30 p.m., with C. Lovatt Evans in the Chair, I. de Burgh Daly gave the second Bayliss-Starling Lecture to an audience which not only crowded the Physiology Lecture Theatre but also the Pharmacology Lecture Theatre to which his lecture was relayed. He traced the interlacing pattern of the lives and work of Bayliss and Starling and painted a striking picture of two men whose characters, complementary in everything else, shared a sustained and infectious enthusiasm for physiology. After dinner G.L. Brown returned to this theme and spoke of the spirit of physiology at University College which was undoubtedly a legacy of Bayliss and Starling. A.F. Huxley in reply welcomed the Society’s Guests, Mr. and Mrs. G. Bayliss, Mrs. Patterson, Mr. T. Patterson and Dr. and Mrs. H.J. Hufschmidt, and finally A.V. Hill presented T. de Burgh Daly with a silver dish as a momento of this occasion and of Members appreciation of his lecture.

The Society had now had the privilege of hearing, in one evening, from all of Starling’s successors in the Jodrell Chair, A.V. Hill, C. Lovatt Evans, G.L. Brown and A.F. Huxley; yet as A.F. Huxley, in an affectionate tribute to Grace Eggleton for her innumerable kindnesses to Members and for her unselfish service to the Society and the College, had reminded us, these four represented only a part of all that had made and sustained the splendid traditions of Physiology at University College London.

Friday, 25^th March Tea 450 Dinner 229; Saturday 26^th March Lunch 170 Tea 210.

Signed: J.P. Bouckaert