At the outset may I congratulate you on your initiative in establishing this national committee and thank you for inviting Dr. Clemmesen and me to attend this meeting.
That I cannot speak to you in your own great language is, for me, a matter not only of embarrassment, but also very true regret. So often I have wished I could read in the original Goethe, the German romantic poets and Thomas Mann but, fortunately, that incomparable treasury of German classical music, and most notably Bach and Beethoven, at least speak a language common to all of us.
It is also in the sciences that the discipline and quality of German scholarship has been one of the guides of European thought. This is particularly true of medical science including ophthalmology. It is, indeed, that combination of achievement in science and humanities -augmented now by your economic strength -that gives special significance to the contribution you make from this country to the advance of scientific research and to practical aid throughout the developing world.
The prevention of blindness, both nationally and on a global scale, is a challenge to our humanity, our science and to our imagination. The most recent estimate is that there are 42 million blind people in the world today. Unless decisive action is taken, that number will double by the end of this century.
In the advanced countries, our task is to break the link between blindness and ageing. Unless we can control diseases such as glaucoma, diabetes and macular degeneration, these diseases are going to place an increasing limitation on the life style and expectation of future generations here in Germany and throughout the western world.
That problem is dwarfed by the task which confronts the developing countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America. Blindness is increasing with the speed of the population growth, far outpacing the slow moving advance of specialised medical services and rehabilitation facilities. It is a race between the forces of development which are enriching and prolonging life and the science which can control the blindness which accompanies that development. This is a race we must win because the prevention of blindness is no