The future of lung research in the UK

The 25th anniversary of the British Thoracic Society (BTS) and the 60th anniversary of the Society’s journal, Thorax, seems an appropriate time to take stock of where we have come from, where we are now and where we wish to be in the future. Our beginning had its roots in the industrial revolution with poor and overcrowded housing and the ever present scourge of tuberculosis (TB). It was in 1928 that an ENT surgeon, St Clair Thomson, brought together The Sanatorium Superintendents’ Society, The Tuberculosis Society and The Nursing Committee into a single professional body, The Tuberculosis Association, which was reformed in 1945 as The British Tuberculosis Association (BTA), interested in the prevention and treatment of tuberculosis (fig 1).1 The Association was small but highly effective in driving forward new ways of managing TB centred on sanatoria, fresh air and good food, but was quite separate from main stream medicine and surgery. With the incorporation of the Joint Tuberculosis Council, a second powerful group with responsibility for maintaining standards in TB care, and the increasing recognition that the health impacts of lung disease extended far wider than TB, the British Thoracic and Tuberculosis Society emerged in 1968. It was decided to simplify its name in 1977 to the British Thoracic Association. The final iteration occurred in 1982 when, after some deliberation, the more academic Thoracic Society (that had its origins largely in academic physiologists and a forum for presenting research) merged with the BTA to accommodate the changing face of lung disease.2 The new British Thoracic Society (BTS) met the principles laid out by Sir William Osler who stated that “the attributes of a good professional society should be to help members discover their true professional potential and keep them receptive and abreast of advances in …