Introductory remarks
When Hugh Huxley and I, as organizers of this meeting, came to choose a title for it, we found it difficult to avoid repeating word for word the title of the Discussion Meeting (Hill 1949) that was arranged by the Royal Society in July 1949 under the leadership of A. V. Hill. In the end, we altered the wording a little, but the scope of the present meeting is very much the same as that of its predecessor. The continuity of work in this field is also emphasized by several of the names of people taking part. A. V. Hill is again present, and his son D. K. Hill will be reading a paper. H. H. Weber, who followed A. V. Hill at the 1949 meeting, has unfortunately been prevented from coming, but he is represented by his daughter Annemarie Weber and his pupil Hasselbach. Dorothy Needham read a paper in 1949, and will be doing so again at this meeting. Two others who we might have hoped would take part again were Astbury, who died two and a half years ago, and Kenneth Bailey, who died earlier this year. The main problems discussed at the 1949 meeting were: first, the contractile proteins and their arrangement in the fibril; second, the identity of the primary energy-yielding reaction; and third, the nature of the link from excitation in the membrane to activation of the contractile material. It so happens that major advances in each of these three topics have been made in the last few months and we are fortunate to have as speakers several who have taken leading parts in these advances. The meeting has been confined to these topics because of limitation of time; for example, important fields such as membrane phenomena, and the enzymology of the contractile proteins, have been completely omitted.