3rd meeting on clinical measurement and new drug development, Royal Society of Edinburgh, 13–14 June 2001

Abstract

This and the next issue of the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology report the proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on the Role of Clinical Measurement in New Drug Development, held in Edinburgh, 13–14 June 2001. The meeting was sponsored and organized by Inveresk Research and supported by the Scottish Executive. It was held in the premises of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. The foundation of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1783 came at a time of intellectual ferment in Scotland when Edinburgh could justify the claim of a place of high distinction as a centre of learning in science. The men of the Scottish Enlightenment left their successors a rich legacy of achievement in every field of learning and scientific enquiry. In 1783 a royal charter was sought and granted for ‘the advancement of learning and useful knowledge’. The heirs were to provide a forum for discussion as well as a channel of communication. Institutions similar to the Royal Society of London and the Royal Society of Edinburgh can be traced back to the Italian academies of the 16th and 17th centuries. Measurement has existed for many centuries. Primitive people like the Neanderthals knew how to tally but they had few things that needed tallying. They marked the passage of days on a stone or a log and kept track of the number of animals they killed. The sun kept time for them in units of days and the units were of little significance as the primary activity if the Neanderthals was hunting and sex. The first systematic efforts to measure and count were undertaken some 10 000 years before the birth of Christ. When humans settled down to grow food in the valleys washed by such great rivers as the Tigris and the Euphrates, the Nile, the Yangtse, the Mississippi and the Amazon. Trade and travel along the rivers, time, geography and navigation began to matter and required computations. Priests were the first astronomers and from astronomy came mathematics. The Egyptians were experts in astronomy and predicted when the Nile would flood but managing or influencing the future never entered their minds. The Greeks had letters for numbers but they recorded the results of calculations made by other methods. The Greeks were interested in why rather than what, and in proof – not calculation. As a result, they had no interest in experimentation. Precision was the monopoly of the Gods. If they wanted to know what would happen in the future, they asked the Gods. The discovery of a superior numbering system did not occur until approximately 500 ad. There was a delay in using numbers until well into the 1500s – for two reasons – one inertia and one that fraud was easier. Printing with moveable type in the 15th century was the catalyst. In 1583 Galileo at a cathedral in Pisa watched a lamp swing in the breeze – wide arcs and narrow ones. Each arc took the same time – from this observation came the pendulum clock. Within 30 years, the average timing error was cut from 15 min a day to less than 10 s. The third meeting on the Role of Clinical Measurement of New Drug Development once again explores the accuracy and precision of measurement, the reduction of error and the appropriate interpretation of results. Improvement is always possible and accurate, precise measurements shoud reduce the number of patients, the time and the cost of bringing new medicines to market. We are grateful to the scientists and authors who came to present at the meeting in Edinburgh. We acknowledge the help of many of our colleagues who made the meeting possible and we thank the audience who participated in 2 days of exciting discussion.