Summing up

Abstract

In a recent monograph by Dr. Beutler and his colleagues (1), I was referred to as one of the early workers in this field, and I therefore have the feeling that I have been brought forward like a Rip Van Winkle to comment on the advances of the last 35 years; but first I should like to say a word about Dr. Dreyfus and Dr. Schapira. Whereas the iron in the tissues occurs in tetrads, haematologists interested in iron seem to work in pairs, as for example, Robscheit-Robbins and Whipple, or Mccance and Widdowson. We have been privileged this week to work under another famous pair, Dr. Dreyfus and Dr. Schapira. We were grateful to them before for their monograph on iron (2), and now we are grateful to them again for the way they have conducted this Symposium. Those of us who were born in English-speaking countries are indebted to the many members of the Symposium who were not and who have nevertheless all spoken in English. The one exception was the brilliant exposition by Dr. Caroli which was given in French, and this very exception shows the sacrifices many of you made in having to translate your thoughts into English.