AbriefhistoryofBritishPharmacologicalSociety meetingsA. Richard Green

Global Discovery CNS and Pain Control, AstraZeneca R&D Charnwood, Loughborough LE11 5RH, UK

The British Pharmacological Society (BPS) is currently

celebrating its 75th anniversary. It is therefore a young

society compared with some other biomedical societies

and particularly when compared with the origins of the

oldest learned societies. In this article, I briefly review

the origins of learned societies and examine the rise of

pharmacology in the UK, as reflected in the scientific

meetings of the BPS. The rapid growth of British

pharmacology and clinical pharmacology in the 1970s

and 1980s and changes in the way that scientific

literature is published have resulted in the BPS having

to adapt quickly in the way that its meetings are run.

However, evidence suggests that the Society will

continue to move strongly and confidently towards its

100th birthday.

The origins of learned societies

The desire of people to form societies where like-mindedindividuals gather together to discuss matters of mutualinterest, or to influence events associated with thatinterest, particularly with respect to religion and politics,goes back to the earliest days of communities. Knowledgeand craft-based societies also have a long history, as can beseen with the establishment of craft guilds and liverysocieties from the middle ages onwards in London andother major cities. Livery societies include TheWorshipfulSociety of Apothecaries (founded in 1617), a City ofLondon society that recently started awarding a diplomain clinical pharmacology.

Learned societies, involving cultural pursuits, becameestablished in the 17th century [e.g. the AcademieFrancaise (1635) and The Royal Society (1660)]. TheRoyal Societywas formed following a lecturebyChristopherWren at Gresham College when 12 persons decided tofound ‘a Colledge for Promoting of Physico-MathematicallExperimental Learning’. This Society then met weekly todiscuss subjects in the area of natural philosophy, or whatwe would now refer to as science. Robert Hooke was thefirst ‘Curator of Experiments’. Sir Robert Moray gainedthe approval and encouragement of King Charles II andthe name ‘The Royal Society’ appeared in print in 1661and a Royal Charter was granted in 1663.

The number of societies grew enormously duringthe 18th century as people formed clubs, primarilyin major cities, that were concerned with both serious

Corresponding author: Green, A.R. (Richard.Green@astrazeneca.com).Available online 3 February 2006

www.sciencedirect.com 0165-6147/$ - see front matter Q 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

and less-serious matters, and there was a particularenthusiasm for societies that brought the world oflearning and science to educated men (and at that timeit was only men). Although these societies often had closelinks with academics in universities, they were clearlyseparate and usually complementary.

One might particularly note ‘The Lunar Society’ (socalled because the members met in Birmingham on theMonday nearest each full moon to have light for theirtravel home) that is celebrated in a recent wonderful bookby Jenny Uglow [1]. Here were a group of men withoutstanding minds (including Josiah Wedgwood, ErasmusDarwin, Joseph Priestley, James Watt, Mathew Boultonand Samuel Galton) who met for the prime purpose ofdiscussing science. I have chosen this society for specificmention because of a comment by Priestley that shouldstand as an ideal for all scientific societies: ‘We hadnothing to do with the religious or political principles ofeach other. We were united by a common love of science,which we thought sufficient to bring together persons of alldistinctions, Christians, Jews, Mohammetans andHeathens, Monarchists and Republicans.’

This group also embraced another characteristic ofmodern societies: the desire to discuss science withpersons from other countries; they invited Ben Franklinto attend their meetings following his arrival in Londonand Priestley organized discussions with Lavoisier whenon a visit to Paris. Finally, it should also be noted thata key member of The Lunar Society was someone whowe might claim to be an early pharmacologist,William Withering.

The birth of the British Pharmacological Society

As science developed so did the existence of learnedsocieties, from the generalist, with an interest in allmatters scientific, to the specialist. Most UK learnedsocieties in the biological sciences were founded in the late19th century or the first half of the 20th century [2].

Germany was pre-eminent in the late 19th century inthe developing science of pharmacology, both academicallyand industrially, and this influence spread to the USAwhere pharmacology became an established disciplinethrough the efforts of John J. Abel. Although there wereprofessors of Materia Medica and Therapeutics in severalScottish universities and chairs in pharmacology inEdinburgh, Glasgow, St Andrew’s (at Queen’s College,Dundee) and Aberdeen during the 19th century, therewere no chairs of pharmacology in England until 1905

Review TRENDS in Pharmacological Sciences Vol.27 No.3 March 2006

. doi:10.1016/j.tips.2006.01.001

Figure 1. Some officers of the BPS at the 150th meeting of the Society (Autumn

1992). Right to left: Geoff Woodruff, Meetings Secretary (MS) 1983–1985 and

General Secretary (GS) 1986–1988; Walter Perry (Lord Perry of Walton), Secretary

1957–1960 and Foreign Secretary (FS) 1959; Bill Bowman, Chairman of Committee

1982 and FS 1993–1996; James Mitchell, MS 1971–1973, GS 1974–1966 and

Chairman of the Editorial Board of the British Journal of Pharmacology 1983–1989;

Richard Green, MS 1986–1988 and GS 1989–1991. Photograph taken by Geraldine

Green.

Review TRENDS in Pharmacological Sciences Vol.27 No.3 March 2006178

(held by Arthur R. Cushny at University College London).Pharmacology in the UK was generally subsumed withinphysiology and if a paper was to be presented to a learnedsociety that society was likely to be The PhysiologicalSociety (founded 1867) or a medical meeting. However,Henry H. Dale noted that even by 1911 the Journal ofPhysiology had rejected one of his papers because it feltpharmacology was encroaching on its space [3].

It is interesting to note that this influence of physiologyon British pharmacology meant that the formation of aspecific society for pharmacology was delayed. The firstorganizational meeting of the American Society forPharmacology and Therapeutics took place in 1908, andGerman pharmacology had founded a dedicated society(Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Experimentelle und KlinischePharmakologie und Toxikologie) in 1920. However, it wasnot until 1931 that the British Pharmacological Society(BPS) was formed. An excellent short review of the historyof the Society and its meetings during the period soonafter the Society was founded has been published else-where [4]; therefore, I shall cover this time only briefly.I shall focus on the history of the meetings of the BPSbecause a review of the Society itself is being publishedelsewhere [5].

Not surprisingly, given the role of The PhysiologicalSociety in the dissemination of pharmacological infor-mation, the letter to possible members suggesting theformation of a ‘Pharmacological Club’ (signed by Henry H.Dale, Walter E. Dixon and James A. Gunn) proposed thatdiscussions be held in Oxford on Friday 3 July before ameeting of the Physiological Society. The result was that19 pharmacologists attended a dinner on the evening of 3July atWadhamCollege. Twomore joined on the Saturdaymorning (and 7 sent apologies). On that morning fivepapers were presented together with one demonstration(Box 1), and the British Pharmacological Society (it wasdecided that ‘Society’ was a better designation than ‘Club’)came into existence. Women were initially excluded frommembership. There was also discussion as to whether ‘alimited number of clinicians might be admitted’ withconcern expressed as to whether there was a possibility ofbeing ‘swamped by clinicians’, an interesting commentgiven that almost every original member was medicallyqualified. The problem was solved by deciding thatinvitations for the next meeting should be restricted tothose engaged in pharmacological research and teaching.

The 1932 meeting was held in London and there werefive communications and three demonstrations, including

Box 1. The programme of the first meeting of the British

Pharmacological Society, Saturday 4 July, 1931

J.H. Burn: ‘Is cocaine a sympathetic stimulant?’

J.A. Gunn: ‘The pharmacological action of harmine and some of its

derivatives’.

A.D. Macdonald: ‘The estimation of the toxicity of local

anaesthetics’.

E. Mellanby: ‘Convulsive ergotism’.

A.C. White: ‘The fatty infiltration of the liver in rabbits produced by

injection of large doses of pituitary extract’.

J. Trevan: ‘Demonstration of a light frog lever suitable for class and

research work’.

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one demonstration by Mary Pickford, who became anelected member of the Society in 1935. Thus, the ‘nowomen’ rule was transient, particularly because Pick-ford’s membership was followed rapidly by that of MartheVogt and Edith Bulbring, both of whom presented to earlymeetings of the Society. However, the generally accepted(but unofficial) rule was that any female author shouldinclude her first name (rather than initials) on thecommunication to indicate the fact that she was awoman. This practice was overturned at a meeting inCambridge in 1975 following a lively discussion betweenthe Meetings Secretary [James Mitchell (Figure 1)], thepresenter and the audience (Box 2). The final equalitybarrier was breached in 1989 with the appointment ofJenny Maclagan as Meetings Secretary.

Subsequent meetings (1933–1939) were held in Oxfordor Cambridge, with the exception of 1937, when theSociety travelled to Edinburgh. The size of the meetingsgrew rapidly during this period and in 1939 the meetingconsisted of 17 oral communications and four demon-strations, with attendance by 67 members and guests.

After World War II, meetings grew in size and number(adding a winter meeting to the established summermeeting) and were hosted by departments in cities otherthan Oxford, London, Cambridge and Edinburgh. In 1955,a symposium on histamine was held to honour Sir HenryDale on his 80th birthday, as part of the Bristol meeting.Nevertheless, there were still only 35 communications andfive demonstrations at that meeting and membership wasstill restricted to prevent excessive growth of the Society.A year later saw the 25th Anniversary Meeting being heldin Edinburgh.

The expansion of the British Pharmacological Society

Pharmacology continued to expand and flourish in the UKand in 1967 the Society started running three meetings

Box 2. Extracts taken from the ‘Social Minutes of the Last Meeting’ [6] and minutes of more-recent BPS meetings

† Cambridge, 1975. After a paper on the effects of L-dihydroxyphe-

nylalanine (L-dopa) on rodents, the Meetings Secretary innocently

asked the authoress for her Christian name for the published record.

This enquiry unleashed a holocaust of protest from the audience, and

the authoress, Dr Dolphin, declared that ‘in the name of women’s lib

it is not necessary for me to answer but my name happens to be

Annette’. All this took many by surprise and clearly the Society must

mend its ways quickly before bevies of pharmacologists become

chained to the rostrum. In future I suppose I will have to report that

‘an excellent paper on L-dopa in mice was read by a dolphin’ but she

asked for that!

† Leicester, 1983. The author of C61, in extolling the virtues of rectal

over intravenous administration of benzodiazepines for controlling fits

said, ‘well, at least the target’s larger’.

† Cambridge, 1987. There was little discussion during the poster

approval session. The Meetings Secretary tried hard and commented

to the Treasurer on his poster, P135, ‘Why was it’, he asked, ‘that the

lines on your graphs failed to go through any of the points?’ Brian

Callingham quickly replied, ‘It shows lack of bias’.

† London, 1987. Phil Routledge explained how he became a

clinical pharmacologist. Apparently he approached his mentor

saying that he had half a mind to specialize in clinical

pharmacology and was told that you only need half a mind to

become a clinical pharmacologist.

† Nottingham, 1988. Several of our members queried if they had come

to the right spot because on the approach roads to the Medical School

large AA signs announced a meeting of the Society for Homeopathic

Medicine. We considered inviting Members of that Society to our

reception for a get together for drinks. However, this plan had to be

abandoned when we couldn’t find any glasses small enough.

† Bristol, 1989. The meeting coincided with the opening of the

Reckitt and Colman Psychopharmacology Unit in Bristol and the

Director, Dave Nutt, was in expansive mood. At the dinner he was

telling his friends about his love of golf: ‘It teaches you humility’,

he commented. ‘He hasn’t played for a long time’, Bruce Holman

was heard to mutter.

† London, 1989. Following the full-page advertisements for SmithK-

line Beecham with the slogan ‘Now we are one’ we all looked

expectantly to their abstracts for this new spirit of glasnost. In fact

there were six abstracts with the firm designation Beecham

Pharmaceuticals, five abstracts with the affiliation Smith Kline and

French and only one saying SmithKline Beecham. At the poster

approval session one of the authors of this abstract required an

alteration to be made: could the name be changed back to Smith Kline

and French?

† Manchester, 1989. When discussion is lacking the Meetings

Secretary likes to initiate some, particularly if she finds the abstract

is incorrect. She told Mike Dascombe that he had spelt defecation

wrongly in P33 but declined his offer of a shorter alternative.

† Newcastle, 1992. Extrapolation from animals to humans continues

to fascinate our members. After C7 Alan Bennett asked Miss Welsh

whether she thought man was more like a guinea-pig or rat. The

formidable Miss Welsh looked him straight in the eye and replied,

‘Actually I think he is more like a mouse’.

† Sunderland, 1994. There was an excellent symposium on ‘Ion

Channels’, including a lecture by Arthur Weston. He referred to a

Zeneca compound that was selective for irritable bowl syndrome and

called it a ‘block-buster’.

† Harrogate, 1997. One of the best-attended oral communications was

C27, given by D.R. Howlett, who was impressed with the large

attendance at his communication, many of whom had to stand at the

back of Lecture Theatre 2. His elation and pride in his presentation,

however, was quickly dashed when he was informed by the chairman

Professor Norman Bowery that he had run over time and people were

waiting for the poster approval session because they had heard that

there was free wine and cheese immediately following it.

† Harrogate, 1997. The stress placed on our poster referee was

highlighted again when assessing P147 in which the authors from

Pfizer presented their work on the potencies of opioid agonists at the

human recombinant and mouse delta opioid peptide receptor. Our

otherwise stoic poster referee, Professor Terry Bennett, confidently

asked the authors of P147 for the sex of the mouse used in the vas

deferens experiment to be included in the abstract.

† Dublin, 2001. In addition to an ambitious scientific programme,

there were also some wonderful social events. These commenced on

the Monday evening with a whiskey-tasting event at Jameson’s

distillery. Several Council members attended and as they sat at their

table for dinner, Dan Hoyer could not decide on what he wanted to

order. While the waitress waited patiently, Norman Bowery, trying to

be helpful, told the waitress, ‘You will have to forgive him, he is

Swiss!’ On hearing this Dan stated indignantly, ‘I am not Swiss, I am

French!’ to which the waitress, with a wry smile, rejoined, ‘Well, at

least you have your health.’

† Bristol, 2002. One of the most difficult jobs when you are Vice

President, Meetings, is allocating poster referees to particular batches

of posters. Often this is done randomly, but sometimes it is easy to

think that there must be some hidden message in the allocation. Thus,

the BPS office received a worried phone call from one senior

pharmacologist asking if there was any significance in the fact that

he had been asked to referee posters that dealt mainly with ageing and

testosterone. Pam Dale, who was at the peak of her very considerable

form replied: ‘Yes – we didn’t have any on paranoia’.

† Hatfield, 2002. In the ‘Topics and issues in veterinary and basic

pharmacology’ symposium Tony Dickenson gave a lecture entitled

‘Recent advances in mechanisms of pain’. He was introduced by Fiona

Cunningham as a ‘Basic Pharmacologist’ but Tony, who refused to be

pigeonholed in this way, quick to correct us: ‘No, no’, he said, ‘I am a

suave and sophisticated pharmacologist’.

Review TRENDS in Pharmacological Sciences Vol.27 No.3 March 2006 179

a year, changing rapidly in 1970 to four domestic meetingsa year, unless an international meeting such as Inter-national Union of Pharmacology (IUPHAR) intervened orthere was a joint meeting with another European Society,such as the visit to Paris in 1971 to meet with theFrench Society.

The expansion of the number of meetings was due inpart to the formation of a specific Clinical PharmacologySection in 1970. Departments in clinical pharmacologywere opening inmedical schools throughout the UK and inthe 1970–1980s this Section became a major force inSociety meetings. However, sadly, the number of clinicalcommunications has declined rapidly during the past 10years. Indeed, the Clinical Section now only formallypresents at a proportion of the meetings held, whichreflects both the increased time pressures on clinical

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scientists and the changing place of clinical pharmacologyin medicine. This change is also indicated by the proposedabsorption in 2006 of the clinical section of IUPHAR[which held its own meetings: Clinical Pharmacology andTherapeutics (CPT)] back into IUPHAR and the renamingof the organization as the ‘International Union of Basicand Clinical Pharmacology’.

During the 1970s there was a relaxation of membershiprules and the number of total members increased rapidlyfrom w500 to O2000 by the 50th Anniversary Meeting inOxford in 1981. This hugely successful meeting was jointlyhosted by the Departments of Pharmacology and ClinicalPharmacology and was attended by O1200 persons, withfour colleges being used for accommodation.

The number of presentations increased further duringthe 1980s, which required a major re-organization of

Review TRENDS in Pharmacological Sciences Vol.27 No.3 March 2006180

the way that abstracts were prepared and published.Originally abstracts had been printed only for pre-circulation to members but in 1968 they were pre-circulated and, after any required revision, subsequentlypublished in the British Journal of Pharmacology. Thismade them citable publications, which contributed to theenthusiasm of members to present their results. Journalsat that time took upwards of a year to publish anysubmitted paper, which meant that primacy of discoverycould be established with an abstract. However, the task oftypesetting, proofing and correcting abstracts becameoverwhelming and camera-ready abstracts became thenorm in 1981 (coinciding with start of the use of posterpresentations; see later). This assisted in another matter,namely the ‘quality’ of the abstract. Publication in theBritish Journal of Pharmacology (or British Journal ofClinical Pharmacology) gave abstracts a spurious associ-ation with the high standard of full papers in the sameissue and this worried many members. By publishingcamera-ready abstracts in a separate supplement, thisassociation was removed. The Clinical section, however,continues to typeset and publish abstracts in its journal(British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology). In 1988 theuse of word-processing techniques enabled the programmebook to be printed directly from pages sent to MacmillanPress by the Meetings Secretary, rather than beingtypeset. This innovation enabled the time from abstractsubmission to meeting to be shortened. It also enabled thebooklet to contain a short newsletter for members and thiswas expanded into a separate issue (The Bulletin) in 1992.Web-based abstract submission was established in 2003and now abstracts are published online, as part of theSociety newsletter (pA2online.org).

The sheer number of oral communications necessitatedthe introduction at the Winter 1981 meeting of anotherchange – poster presentations. This innovation wasreceived with suspicion by some members who viewed itas being likely to result in ‘dumbing down’ (to use currentparlance). However, everyone quickly grew to enjoy postersessions, finding that one could have long, informaldiscussions with the author. Nevertheless, accommo-dation had to be made for the regulations of the Society.Oral communications had always been voted on for‘acceptance’. That is, members affirmed by a show ofhands that the abstract was of acceptable quality forpublication. This was not merely an archaic ritual:discussion periods could be heated, although oftenhumorous (Box 2), and members sometimes demandedsignificant changes in wording and, occasionally, evenrejected abstracts. Clearly, this could not be done duringthe poster presentation period so ‘poster approval ses-sions’ were initiated. These were held in a lecture theatreand chaired by the Meetings Secretary who, after somediscussion, asked the audience to vote on approval ofposter-presented abstracts. These events soon becamesomewhat desultory occasions, and so in the 1990s thenon-clinical sessions adopted a procedure that had beenused for some time by the clinical section, namely theappointment of referees who would visit each poster todiscuss the scientific content and abstract wording andthen report back to the audience at the poster approval

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session. This approach continues today, although furthermodest changes are being mooted.

The size of meetings in terms of the number ofattendees and the number of communications peaked in1988, at the meeting hosted by King’s College Londonwhere there were 465 abstracts andO1700 delegates. Thenumber of abstract submissions and the number ofattendees subsequently decreased but now appear tohave levelled off, with the Winter 2003 meeting (whichwas also hosted by King’s College) comprising 241abstracts and 795 attendees. There are, I would suggest,several reasons for this decrease. First, the speed withwhich major journals now publish has resulted in fullpapers appearing almost as quickly as abstracts. Meetingssometimes overlap teaching terms and pharmacologistsand clinical pharmacologists sometimes prefer to presenttheir work at a specialist, rather than a generalpharmacology, meeting. Significantly, the pharmaceuticalindustry has also changed markedly with mergers andtakeovers. For example, in 1989 one would see pharma-cologists from Beecham, Wellcome, SmithKline and Glaxopresenting their sometimes competing work. These fourcompanies are now one company (Box 2).

Continuing change in the mature Society

Fewer free communications has resulted in the rise ofanother feature, and one that is popular with members:symposia on specialist topics. This is not to say that therewere not occasional symposia during the first 50 years ofthe Society. However, they were not a regular occurrence.Now, all BPS meetings contain several symposia. Veryrecently another change has occurred: whole meetings ona special topic, which, again, has proved a popularinnovation. With increasing numbers of joint meetingsor sessions with other learned societies, both overseas anddomestic (e.g. The Physiological Society and BritishAssociation for Psychopharmacology) and with its linksto international societies such as the Federation ofEuropean Pharmacological Societies (EPHAR) andIUPHAR, all with opportunities to present to a wideaudience, the Society is clearly evolving to meet thechanging requirements of members. This evolution hasincluded changed membership rules to make meetingsmore accessible to young scientists. Membership forgraduates was initiated in 1996 and undergraduatemembers were welcomed in 1998.

The organization of the Society has also changedsubstantially over the years to deal with the workloadinvolved in running meetings. The Secretary (who alsoorganized meetings) and Treasurer positions were a singlepost until 1947, when they were separated. In 1967, therewas a further division of the Secretary position into‘General Secretary’ and ‘Meetings Secretary’. The Meet-ings Secretary organized the scientific programmefollowing the receipt of abstracts and liaised with the‘local host’ (i.e. the professor and staff of the universitydepartment hosting the meeting), who undertook all on-site duties, including receipt of booking forms and money,organizing lecture theatres and projectionists, regis-tration desk, meals and accommodation. The work

Review TRENDS in Pharmacological Sciences Vol.27 No.3 March 2006 181

involved was huge and academic staff, postdoctoratestudents and PhD students were all roped in to help.

By the time I becameMeetings Secretary in 1986 it wasclear the world was changing. Universities were seeingfacilities in monetary terms and charging for lecturetheatres and any other space used, and running a meetingwas no longer thought by university administrators toprovide tangible benefit to the department or university interms of kudos. Basically, staff were being forbidden tohelp in such an intense way. Officers of the Society wererunning into the same problems: the major officers(Meetings, General and Clinical Secretaries and Treas-urer) all had half-time local secretarial assistance and ranthe office from within their department, and universityadministrators hated this. I, therefore, proposed that theSociety should establish permanent accommodation withqualified, permanent staff. These staff would administermeetings and also run the Society under the guidance ofthe honorary officers. The proposal was approved and thefirst Society office was established in late 1991. The staff ofthe editorial office of the British Journal of Pharmacologyjoined them in 1997.

One feature of Society meetings is their internationalflavour. The Society often invites overseas scientists tospeak in symposia. However, it is much more than that.More than a third of BPS members are from outside theUK; these members are not all merely expatriate Britons.The Society also has a considerable number of foreignnationals as members who regularly attend and present atmeetings and who often bring guests. One aspect of themeetings that often fascinates the guests (in addition tothe voting procedure for approval of abstracts!) is thepresentation of the ‘social minutes’ at each Official Dinner.The history of the development of this featureis interesting.

Originally, the minutes of the previous meeting werepresented at the next Official Dinner and then containeddetails of the presentations and business matters of

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the Society. Changes occurred with the minutes presentedby Walter Perry (Figure 1), who increased the content ofpersonal comment and observation because serioussociety business was by then appearing separately in theminutes of the Committee or the Annual General Meeting(AGM). By the 1970s the requirement of the GeneralSecretary to make light-hearted comments at the OfficialDinner increased, primarily because the audienceexpected to be entertained. Comments can thereforeinvolve the science, presentations and gossip from theprevious meeting and anyone is considered fair game forinclusion, particularly if they hold a senior position inacademia or industry. Box 2 illustrates a few commentstaken from minutes over the years and illustrates theenjoyment members can obtain from interacting withtheir peers. Although they give the membership greatpleasure, they also ensure that the presenter (now thePresident) experiences perhaps eight official dinnerswhere the occasion is seriously spoilt by the knowledgethat he or she will have to stand up at the end and‘perform’. Against that, the delight in seeing membersand guests enjoy these social occasions is enormous andenables one to feel that even in spite of many changes,what continues to flourish is the spirit of the Society asdetailed by Walter Perry in 1961: ‘Our greatest strength isin friendliness and informality and in a refusal to takeourselves too seriously.’

References

1 Uglow, J. (2002) The Lunar Men, Faber & Faber2 Frazer, R. (2000) Some threats and opportunities for learned societies

in the new millennium. Microbiol. Tod. 27, 22–233 Dale, H.H. (1946) Forward. Br. J. Pharmacol. 1, 1–34 Bynum, W.F. (1981) An Early History of the British Pharmacological

Society, British Pharmacological Society, London5 Cuthbert, A.W. (2006) A brief history of the British Pharmacological

Society. Br. J. Pharmacol. 147(Suppl. 1), S2–S86 Green, A.R. (1992) The Social Minutes 1959–1991, British Pharmaco-

logical Society, London

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