International Symposia sponsored by ClBA Basle have been held once a year since 1959 in various European countries. In con trast to the many scientific meetings organised by the ClBA FOUN DATION either at its headquarters in London or occasionally abroad, the subjects dealt with at these International Symposia have con cerned problems more directly related to ClBA'S own research work in the pharmaceutical field. The various topics covered up to the present reflect the far-reaching interests and the wide spread activities that a pharmaceutical enterprise develops in quite diverse fields of chemical, biological, and medical research, and to which the ba.sic approach is an increasingly important prerequisite for the development of a new and useful therapeutic agent. Iron metabolism came into the sphere of interest in connection with CIBA'S research on antibiotics and related natural products containing iron, substances which act in their metal-free form as strong and specific chelating agents. Of course, these observations, interesting though they are, would not in themselves have justi fied a symposium. It seemed, however, useful to examine the new results from a wider perspective and to attempt to relate them to present-day knowledge of iron metabolism in general its physiology, its pathology, and therapeutic aspects. The success of a scientific symposium depends on the concep tion of the programme and the selection of the participants.

Iron metabolism, past, present, and future Introduction

Biochemistry of iron
The function of iron in biochemistry
Incorporation of iron in the haem moiety of chromoproteins
Ferritin and haemosiderin
Some observations on transferring
Iron-containing compounds in micro-organisms
Physiology of iron
Digestive absorption of iron
The role of transferrin in the transport of iron into the developing red cell
Mechanisms of iron storage
Iron kinetics
Iron deficiency
Experimental hyposiderosis
Human hyposideraemia
Some aspects of iron-deficiency anaemia in India
Iron nutrition
Tissue effects of iron deficiency
Neuro-endocrine control of iron metabolism
Iron overload
The metabolism of iron in haemochromatosis
Surcharge ferrique dans les cirrhoses (à l'exclusion de l'hémochromatose idiopathique)
Post-transfusional haemosiderosis
Iron overload in the Bantu
Hereditary hypochromic hypersideraemic anaemia
Therapeutics
Oral treatment of iron deficiency
Parenteral treatment of iron deficiency
Physiopathologic mechanisms of iron excretion
The chemical basis of chelation
A pharmacological comparison of the binding of iron and other metals
Treatment of primary and secondary haemochromatosis and acute iron poisoning with a new, potent iron-eliminating agent (desferrioxamine B)
The treatment of haemochromatosis with desferrioxamine
Evaluation of trisodium calcium diethylene-triamine penta-acetate in hemochromatosis and transfusion hemosiderosis
Summing up
List of authors.