Practicing a Culture of Pediatric Immunogenetics,'' which appears within the pages of this issue, is an instructive and fascinating tribute to a great man and his many important contributions over a lifetime of dedicated study and service to medicine and to humankind.
How did this tribute come about? Who is this man? What is his place in the history of genetics? Why is it important to include his biography in this journal?
After meeting Professor Burgio and knowing of his many contributions in the ยฎelds of gonadal dysgenesis and sex differentiation, chromosomal aberrations, and immunogenetics, Professor Opitz recognized the importance of sharing the contributions of this great man with the readership of this journal.
The story begins in Palermo, Sicily, where he was born on April 30, 1919, to a mother of German ancestry dedicated to the arts and literature and a Sicilian father devoted to ranching and agriculture. This unique background, combining the wide diversity and richness of the Sicilian heritage and the precision and discipline of the German, produced a formidable and aweinspiring combination, not unlike that of another great Sicilian leader of antiquity, Frederick II-stupor mundi (1194ยฑ1250).
Picture if you will, a young, brilliant, and highly motivated student, whose early formation took place in pre-WWII years and later during the war in his homeland, which was ravaged by severe poverty, malnutrition and disease. After