3. small anim. Pract. Vol. 6, pp. 411 to 412. Pergamon Press Ltd. Printed in Great Britain.

The Opening of The Eighth Annual Congress of the B.S.A.V.A. Held at the Kensington Palace Hotel, London, 22-25 April 1965

Addresses by: The President, B.S.A. V.A. and Professor Keith Simpson

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In opening the Congress, the President of the B.S.A.V.A., Mr. K. G. D. EVANS said :

Ladies and Gentlemen, The choice of opener for our Annual Congress is the first prerogative of the

reigning President. In previous years we have had a variety of distinguished men connected in some way with the welfare of small animals. This year we have a man no less distinguished and connected in an indirect way with the welfare of man. I am particularly fortunate in being able to number him among my friends and I consider his presence here today as symbolic of the increasing liaison and rapproach- ment between our two professions as underlined in the joint symposia of recent years sponsored by this Association.

Professor Keith Simpson had a distinguished career as a student at Guy’s Hospital, London, and won many prizes. After qualifying, he has pursued an academic career and has held the post of Lecturer in Pathology and Forensic Medicine at London and Oxford Universities. He has examined in Forensic Medicine at the Universities of London, St. Andrews, Leeds, Ireland, Wales, Oxford and Glasgow, and has made many contributions to scientific literature. He is the first holder of the Chair of Forensic Medicine at the Univesity of London, and is head of the Department of Forensic Medicine at Guy’s Hospital.

We are delighted that Mrs. Simpson will be with us on Saturday evening-not only for her charming presence, but because of the fact that she is the daughter of a well-known and well-liked Veterinary Surgeon, the late Mr. Scott Dunn, and the sister of Mr. Peter Scott Dunn of Reading.

Professor Simpson, you are most welcome Sir, and we hope that you will enjoy the next few days with us and spend as much time as you can spare at our Sessions, both Social and Scientific.

41 1

41 2 KEITH S I M P S O N

In reply, Professor Keith Simpson said : I shall very shortly have the honour to declare open this 8th Congress of the

British Small Animal Veterinary Association, together with the Trade Exhibition which has increasingly become a feature of the Meeting. Your Committee’s reasons for inviting me to do so were not disclosed, but I think it can be assumed that it was not an interest in crime, criminal practices or even questionable professional ethics. I t was, I believe, a growing conviction of the need to develop closer relations between the veterinary and the medical professions. In educational standards and academic achievement, in research problems and the betterment of practice, there is much overlap. Mutual problems in student training, improvement of the curricula and in post-graduate education and “refresher maintenance”, in research, both in the Schools and the Animal Health Trust and Commercial Laboratories, would all benefit from better integration. One has only to glance at the close similarity in the nature of progress in genetic, microbiological, serological, pathological, anaesthetic and prosthetic surgical advances to appreciate the advantages of closer collaboration between our two professions.

There is a great need for expansion in facilities for both training and research- most of all, I believe, in our Schools. Those of us who have seen what the enormous financial resources of the United States, of Canada, or of the prosperous Scandinavian countries can provide, can only smile wanly and wave a hopeless gesture at the miserable research funds available in this country. The University Grants Committee, the Medical Research Council, your own Animal Health Trust, are crippled by a comparative poverty and most University Departments like my own are almost wholly reliant upon aid from bodies like the Nuffield Trust, the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations, the United States Public Health grants, or the D.S.I.R.-or upon the generosity of interested commercial firms-of which I see at least seven whom I know to be most liberal in their grants in your Exhibit list of advertisers.

Research is a broad spectrum word ; history, statistics, practice-improvements in anaesthetic and radiological techniques, experience in the delicacies of surgery can all provide the basic materials for advances in knowledge, and your own Congress Meetings have plainly been most fruitful in disseminating this progress. No veterin- ary surgeon need live in professional isolation so long as bodies like the British Small Animal Veterinary Association live and flourish.

The British Small Animal Veterinary Association is to be congratulated, not only upon its painstaking organization of this Scientific Programme and the Trade Exhibition, but also on its choice of President, Mr. Kenneth Evans. In declaring the Congress open, Sir, I wish your Association a most happy and fruitful meeting.