A short history of the World Muscle Society.

In the early months of 1995 Luciano Merlini and I flirted with the idea of forming a new muscle society. There was a general feeling within the neuromuscular fraternity that the 4-yearly muscle congresses organised by the World Federation of Neurology, were too large and too expensive. In addition the whole field was advancing at such a rapid rate that the 4-year interval between meetings was much too long. There thus seemed to be an inherent need for a new multidisciplinary society to meet on a more frequent basis and to direct its objectives more to the active research community rather than the established icons, who were recycled from one meeting to the next in the WFN congresses. We were still at a stage of very preliminary and informal discussions when things took a leap ahead for a totally unpredictable reason.