Page:Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, volume 1.djvu/26

2 efforts, however humble, are appreciated by my colleagues is to me most gratifying. I need hardly say that I thank you sincerely for the compliment, and that I shall do my best to discharge the duties of the office with which I am entrusted, and to forward the interests of our Society.

Our objects are various. An important one is to bring together the men who are interesting themselves in tropical medicine, with the idea that by so doing the subject itself will be advanced and we ourselves benefited. With a view to securing these objects, the Society has been placed on a basis as broad as possible. Although domiciled in the Metropolis, it is open to any member of the profession, whether domiciled in London, Great Britain and Ireland, or abroad, and also to those followers of any science or profession capable of forwarding, directly or indirectly, the interests of tropical medicine.

It is apparent to any one who has followed the discoveries of recent years that tropical medicine, more than any other branch of medicine, is dependent on several of the collateral sciences, more especially on the various branches of natural history. Our basis therefore has to be a broad one, and in drawing up the constitution of the Society this point has been kept steadily in view.

At one time the specialising of tropical medicine was looked on somewhat askance, and still more so the establishment of special schools for the teaching of tropical medicine. Doubtless the formation of this Society will be regarded by some in a similar way, but as time goes on and the general body of the profession becomes acquainted with our objects and our work, I have no doubt, as has been the case with the special teaching of tropical medicine, that we shall soon be tolerated and ultimately approved.

How important it is for the subject itself, as well as for those who are engaged in its study, that the latter should have opportunities, such as this Society is calculated to