Schwarzacher (Vienna), and J. W. Spranger (Chairman). David W. Smith (Seattle, Washington, USA) was invited but unable to attend. The group met in the Library of the Department of History of Medicine at the gracious invitation of Professor G. Mann, and with the expert collaboration of Professor W. F. Kiimmel, also of that Department. The costs of the meeting were defrayed by a grant from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. Two members of the group (Lowry, Opitz) had also been present at an earlier meeting (National Institute of Dental Research, Bethesda, Maryland March 20, 1974) which had attempted "to provide a more rational approach to the classification and nomenclature of patterns of malformation." Widespread debate and dissatisfaction with some of the results of that conference [1--8] prompted the present meeting.
The proposed terms and definitions are preliminary suggestions. All correspondence on additions and changes should be sent to Dr. Spranger and will be considered before the next meeting in the spring and promulgation at the 1979 Birth Defects Meetings in Chicago.
The list of terms is followed by explanations and examples; future meetings will address certain concepts (deformities, fields, dysplasias, etc.) in greater detail.