492 EDITORIALS

YEAR-END NATIONAL MEETING ASSOCIATION FOR RESEARCH The December national meeting of the

Association for Research in Ophthalmol­ogy was held in comfortable, warm and pleasant surroundings at the Camelback Inn, Phoenix, Arizona, December 8-10, 1963. Alson E. Braley presided as chair­man of the board of trustees. Eighty-six members and a number of guests attended.

On the first evening, papers were pre­sented by the neurologic and ophthalmic groups at Iowa City (Van Allen, von Noorden and Campbell) describing de­tailed studies of a group of 10 patients with myotonic dystrophy in whom pursuit movements of the eyes were studied by means of electro-oculography, and the pu­pillary response by means of the Lowen-stein and Loewenfeld apparatus. The re­sults suggested that this might well be a disease of the central nervous system rather than of peripheral muscle, a con­clusion that was questioned by Matthew Alpern of the University of Michigan. Kenneth Ogle, of the Mayo Clinic, studied the resolving power of the fovea and found it to be constant as light intensity increased. Maurice Van Allen, of the Uni­versity of Iowa, described the paradoxical actions of the levator following paresis of the seventh nerve in which the upper lid follows the globe on downward gaze but does not move with closure.

Levene and his co-workers at New York University studied the dehydrogen-ases of carbohydrate metabolism in retinal blood vessels and prompted a general dis­cussion of variables which arise because of tissue damage in histochemical tech­niques. A. I. Cohen, of Washington Uni­versity, Saint Louis, correlated the fine anatomy of retinal receptors with function in the all-rod retina of the American gray squirrel. S. L. Bonting and L. L. Caravag­gio discussed ATPase of rhodopsin, again indicating the advances being made in learn­ing the nature of retinal pigment.

The Friedenwald Memorial Lecture was presented in a superb manner by Endre A. Balazs, of the Retina Foundation, Boston. The title of his paper was "Rheol-ogy of the vitreous body." By study of the flow, change in shape and volume of the vitreous he derived a considerable amount of information concerning its submicro-scopic structure. Despite the complexity of the title and the topic, the material was presented in such a graphic, clear method and manner that all of the listeners could un­derstand.

At the annual banquet, Paul Boeder, of the University of Iowa, discussed Balazs' contribution to biology, medicine and oph­thalmology. Balazs paid tribute to the three men who had influenced him most: the Hungarian professor, Huzella; the Swed­ish scientist, Holmgren; and the Belgian physician, Charles Schepens, the director of the Retina Foundation where Balazs has done his most significant work.

The following day Albert Potts, of the University of Chicago, indicated the com­bination of uveal pigment in vitro with a number of polycyclic compounds of which the phenothiazines are an example. The study has considerable importance in re­spect; to the long-term ocular damage aris­ing from certain tranquilizers and antima-larial drugs used in therapy. W. L. Fowlks and V. R. Havener, of the University of Minnesota, created a stir by studies, which appeared incontrovertible, suggesting the flow of aqueous into the perivascular space of a rabbit's ciliary body.

At the business meeting Herbert E. Kaufman, of the University of Florida, Gainesville, was elected secretary-treas­urer to succeed Dr. Samuel Kimura of the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Kimura in the past several years was responsible for carrying out a major reor­ganization of the Association and did an outstandingly efficient and effective job. John E. Harris, of the University of Min­nesota, succeeded Alson E. Braley as chair-

EDITORIALS 493

man of the Board of Trustees. The next annual meeting of the Associ­

ation for Research will be held in conjunc­tion with the meeting of the Section on Ophthalmology of the American Medical Association June 22-25 in San Francisco. The year-end meeting will be held at the University of Minnesota November 29 and 30 and December 1. It will be followed by a symposium on the lens on December 2, 3, 4 and 5, which is open to those attending the association meeting.

During the business session a simplified application for membership in the associa­tion was advocated and a committee ap­pointed to implement the suggestion. The importance of scientific studies concerning man was emphasized, and Potts, current chairman of the program committee, pointed out the paucity of papers sub­mitted concerning clinical research. He in­dicated that the program committee was most anxious to consider such studies for presentation at the annual meeting. The chairman of the program committee for 1964 is Goodwin M. Breinin, New York University Medical Center, New York.

Frank W. Newel 1.

T H E NATIONAL COMMITTEE FOR RESEARCH IN OPHTHALMOLOGY

AND BLINDNESS At the 1963 meeting of the National

Committee for Research in Ophthalmology and Blindness, Arthur H. Keeney, Louis­ville, Kentucky, was named secretary-treasurer effective January 1, 1964. He succeeds Frank W. Newell, who has held this office since the committee was formed. It is appropriate with this change in lead­ership to review the accomplishments and failures of the group, and to examine its importance and contribution to ophthalmol­ogy.

The formation of the committee was recommended by a 1955 report of an ad hoc committee (F . H. Adler, E. B. Dunphy,

D. T. Vail and A. C. Woods) which was appointed by the four national ophthalmic societies. The original aims, organization, and membership of the group have been described previously (Am. J. Ophth., 45: 130, 1958, and AMA Arch. Ophth., 59:1, 1958).

The education, welfare, and rehabilita­tion of the blind constituted one of the ear­liest types of philanthropy. These activities were established long before the emergence of the scientific method in medical research. The combination of service and basic bio­logic studies, which has characterized some of the more recently established groups (such as those in cancer and heart disease), did not play a major role in groups inter­ested in blindness.

The many unique and difficult problems involved in providing the blind with the op­portunity to develop to their greatest po­tential despite their handicap, led to a large number and a wide variety of small philan­thropic groups providing specialized and es­sential work in this field. Inasmuch as the activities of each of the various groups were fairly well defined there was little, if any, overlapping of action.

With the emphasis upon scientific research which followed World War II, new philanthropic groups were established, mainly interested in biologic research in ophthalmology in which a theory or hypoth­esis was proved or disproved by means of the experimental method. Such groups are of relatively recent origin and have never become involved in educational and reha­bilitation activities upon which the welfare of literally thousands of blind depends. Some of the research groups wished to be identified solely with medical investigators and believed that the word research should not be used to describe any accumulation of data, investigation or observation which did not involve the traditional biologic sci­entific method. This viewpoint coincided with a long-time indifference of organized medicine to philanthropic activities con-