Before beginning my lectures I wish to record the pride and the pleasure with which I received the invitation to come to Birmingham in order to inaugurate the Leonard Parsons Lectures, and, at the same time, to express my regard for Sir Leonard. He was a distinguished physician in the British classical tradition, an accurate observer and full of the wisdom derived from great experience and wide reading and salted by innate common sense. To this was added his keen human interest, understanding and a great kindness. His perspective was broad so that, when he considered a detail, he never lost sight of the whole. This enabled him to perceive relationships in their large proportions and to measure situations correctly and this also kept him from being diverted to the fashions of thought or predilections of the moment. He always remained consistent with himself. Whether in medicine or outside it, his judgment could be counted on to show sanity and reliability and in approaching the problems of others he was able to withdraw himself.Sir Leonard had an easily awakened curiosity, and his nervous system must have been made of iron stuff and been under iron control, for in spite of the burden of his large practice and administrative duties he was able at will to disengage his thoughts from them and to turn to the problems of illness and to explore them. This ability always seemed to me remarkable; how few of us, carrying his responsibilities, would not be overwhelmed by them-too weary or absorbed to think beyond the attendant anxieties. His studies, which were always clinical and eminently practical, were characterized by breadth and soundness. Then, withal, he was simple, friendly and accessible and could adapt so easily to any situation, as when at my house he took off his coat and played baseball with the children and became one of them. It was these qualities of the heart which made people so love him.In his chosen subject of paediatrics he was a world figure and elder statesman, a combination of intelligence, integrity and practical idealism, which characterize so many of your distinguished men. Though I saw him infrequently, I was, like others, drawn to him by his worth, and felt for him unstinted admiration.