[Comment by a surgeon on Japan Endocrine Society, its past and future].

From reviewing the activity of the Japan Endocrine Society over the last 30 years, the author can point out that the overall number of researchers has increased, the relative ratio of researchers from internal medicine has increased, and the society has become oriented toward clinical research. Newly independent conferences and societies on several special endocrinological fields have evolved from the Society, which might have brought about the decrease in the relative ratio of researchers from these fields. One of the important characteristics of endocrinology is that it has developed on the basis of mutual understanding among different medical fields. Therefore, the Japan Endocrine Society should manage to convey the information from related fields to the members of the society in the annual conference and in its journal. Future, endocrinology would become a more clinically oriented bioscience, and it may include a part of immunology and neurology in addition to conventional endocrinology, in order to understand the physiological and pathological whole body reaction.