BOYD ORR MEMORIAL LECTURE Crisis for nutrition

Almost exactly IOO years ago, in fact on 23 September, 1880, John Boyd Orr was born quite near here, at Kilmaurs, Ayrshire. It is fitting that this lecture should be given in the University of Glasgow with which he had such close relations, first as a student and research assistant, and later as Rector and finally Chancellor. I think that the best way of paying tribute to this remarkable man in the centenary year of his birth is to see how his career, his achievements, even his failures, and not least his character, relate to the problems we face in nutrition today. This is a hard task, and I can only touch on a few points. Unlike many of the previous lecturers I never had the opportunity of meeting or knowing Boyd Orr. I have therefore had to rely on his own writings and on the very detailed memoir of him by Kay (197z), which is not only a mine of information but a fascinating and readable account of the successive stages of Boyd Orr’s career. Some of you here knew him well and worked with him, and are therefore far better qualified to talk of him than I am. Yet in the long run what matters is the inspiration he provided to those who follow after, who could not know him, and it is these followers whom I must try to represent today.