Mr. Chairman, let me express my gratitude for the privilege of delivering this lecture. Dr. Walter L. Bierring, present here today, was good enough to dip down into the inexhaustible well of his historical knowledge and tell me something about the founding and development of this lectureship. It was proposed in 1927 by Dr. Henry A. Christian. The original five trustees were Lewellys F. Barker, Rollin T. Woodyatt, Eugene F. Kilgore, Warfield T. Longcope, and Walter L. Bierring. In 1928 the Section voted to name the annual lecture in honor of Dr. Frank Billings of Chicago. This was in recognition of Dr. Billings' many important contributions to the activities of the Section and of his general eminence as a teacher, practitioner, and statesman of medicine.

The Billings Lecture, in my view, has three distinctions. It is named for a great figure in American medicine, it is the official lectureship of