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MY LORDS, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, This year, again, I shall not have the pleasure of addressing you personally, as it has been considered inadvisable to call members of the Council together in London for the Annual Meeting. I submit to you the Annual Report to October 31, 1940, repeating the assurance given last year that if any member wishes to bring up a matter arising out of the Report prompt attention will be given to it by the War Emergency Committee. During twelve months of resistance to the Nazi attempt to plunge the world again into a Dark Age, the full brunt of which has fallen on these islands, the decision of 1939 that our Council should carry on its work has been justified. Difficulties and even dangers have been encountered, but with one exception the research tasks undertaken were continued until almost the close of the year. Substantial progress has been made with plans for a national scheme of treatment, and this is now almost ready for publication. We may claim, too, the moral advantage of carrying on a campaign such as ours during this mortal struggle. This fact indicates the sober confidence of the British peoples that our humane civilisation is not doomed to perish and that they will come out of this ordeal strong enough, and wise enough, to give a lead in building up a better world. In that task medical research has a great part to play in bringing under control those secular enemies of mankind, the agencies ofdisease. It is fitting that its workers should keep to their tasks, following the high example of doctor and nurse who stand by their patients in the shattered hospitals. The healing institutions seem to be the favoured objectives of a malignant barbarism.

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