London.—A The Hague last week I attended the Third European Conference of Internal Medicine—AEMIE in French, which gives a better idea of what it is about as MIE stands for "Medicine interne d'ensemble" (my italics). The organisation largely exists to promote preservation of general internists, against the challenge of organ specialists such as cardiologists and neurologists. In fact I was the only specialist there except for some experts in tropical disease—neither they nor I being organ or system specialists.
It was an interesting group consisting of mainly nationals who have been scrapping for centuries about who shall control the "cockpit of Europe" (Belgium) and the Rhine delta. Thus, of 162 who attended, only Netherlands, Britain, France, and Belgium achieved double figures. Nevertheless there were visitors from four iron curtain countries in addition to such well-known bulwarks of Europe as the United States, Canada, Australia, and Algeria. Of the speakers,