The history of three scientific societies: the Society for the Study of Fertility (now the Society for Reproduction and Fertility) (Britain), the Société Française pour l’Étude de la Fertilité, and the Society for the Study of Reproduction (USA)

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Abstract

Three scientific societies devoted to the study of reproduction were established in Britain, France and USA in the middle of the twentieth century by clinical, veterinary and agricultural scientists. The principal motivation for their establishment had been the study of sterility and fertility of people and livestock. There was also a wider perspective embracing other biologists interested in reproduction more generally. Knowledge disseminated through the societies’ scientific meetings and publications would bear upon human and animal population problems as well as basic reproductive physiology and its applications. New journals dealing with reproductive physiology, having worldwide appeal, were established in Britain and USA. The financial resources of at least one of the societies and its journal are directed towards charitable functions, including financial support for travel to scientific meetings, for visits to particular laboratories, and for research in the short term, including that of undergraduates. Perhaps the example of the British society has given rise to others having a more specialised focus, as well as to the formation of the European Society for the Study of Human Reproduction and Embryology.

Section snippets

The general context for the study of reproductive physiology

The Society for the Study of Fertility (SSF), now the Society for Reproduction and Fertility (SRF), based in Britain, the Société Française pour l’Étude de la Fertilité (SFEF), and the Society for the Study of Reproduction (SSR), based in the USA, focus most of their attention in practice on the biology of reproduction of Homo sapiens and other mammalian species, some of them domestic or farm animals, but also common laboratory species as well as others of no obvious immediate commercial

How did the Society for the Study of Fertility arise?

Before and after the publication of Marshall’s landmark book the results of research in reproductive physiology were in Britain conveyed in the proceedings and publications of a wide range of scientific and clinical societies, such as the British Society for Animal Production, the Physiological Society, Royal Society, the Royal Society of Medicine, the Society for Experimental Biology, the Society for Endocrinology, and corresponding organisations in France, USA and elsewhere. However, the

Creation of a journal

The Proceedings of the annual meetings of the newly formed Society were published (at first by Heffers, Cambridge and then by Blackwells, Oxford) as Studies on Fertility, comprising Volumes 1–10, edited by R. G. Harrison, Professor of Anatomy, University of Liverpool. Through the initiative of Alan Parkes these gave way to the Journal of Reproduction and Fertility, launched by him and a small number of senior members of the Society as Journal of Reproduction and Fertility Ltd., being a company

Scientific meetings of the Society

Until very recently two scientific meetings, based on University departments, were held annually, made up of symposia with invited speakers, as well as short oral and poster communications by members of the Society. The Winter meeting was in London and a Summer one elsewhere in Britain or Ireland. However, now there is just one meeting, in the spring or summer. Meetings have often been held jointly with one of a number of different scientific societies having shared interests with SSF/SRF, for

Formation of the Société Nationale pour l’Étude de la Stérilité et de la Fécondité renamed by 1984 the Société Française pour l’Étude de la Fertilité

In 1954 professors Paul Funck-Brentano and Raoul Palmer, who were engaged in Paris23 with other endocrinologists, gynaecologists, and obstetricians in the treatment of clinical problems of human reproduction, proposed the formation of a Société Nationale pour l’Étude de la Stérilité et de la Fécondité. The executive was set up in 1955 with Professor Funck-Brentano its first President. The founders wanted to

Formation of the Society for the Study of Reproduction (SSR)

The origins of the Society for the Study of Reproduction in the USA can be traced to 1966 and the efforts of Philip Dziuk, at that time Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois. He wrote to persons he knew who were doing research on problems of reproduction, suggesting that there perhaps should be formed a society, structured after the model of the Society for the Study of Fertility ‘established in England in the late 1950s and managed to amalgamate diverse interests and groups’. It is

A new journal: Biology of Reproduction

In 1969 the SSR started a new journal entitled Biology of Reproduction. Its first Editor was H. H. Cole of the University of California, Davis, with six Associate Editors and an Editorial Board of forty-six scientists. After Volume 1, the journal greatly increased in size (see Table 2), but staffing for Volume 36 (1987) was essentially the same as for Volume 1. Although Volume 73 (2005) is no bigger than Volume 36, the administration of the journal has become much larger. By December 2005 there

Concluding remarks

We have seen that the number of members of the SSF/SRF has risen from about twenty or thirty to about 1288 in 1997, but there has been a decline since then to a little over 600. Membership, at least in its peak period, was drawn from many parts of the world. However, with increasing specialisation in the nature of the problems being investigated, new societies have developed: at least that is true of what has happened in Britain. The SSF can perhaps be regarded as the parent society out of

Acknowledgements

I am very grateful to Dr Brian Cook (formerly of the Endocrine Unit, University Department of Pathological Biochemistry, Royal Infirmary, Glasgow, Scotland), Professor Philip Dziuk (Department of Animal Sciences, University of Illinois, USA), Professor Patricia Hoyer (Department of Physiology, University of Arizona, USA), and Dr Karine Reynaud (Biologie de la Reproduction, École Nationale Vétérinaire d’Alfort, France) for their help in the preparation of this contribution. Fig. 1 is reproduced

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