Dr. Robert L. Jackson, Professor of Child Health at the University of Missouri-Columbia, decided to retire from clinical practice in 1977 and the Department of Child Health planned a conference in his honor. The Thirteenth Annual MidweSt Conference on Endocrinology and Metabolism also was in the planning stages and scheduled for two days in the fall. It seemed appropriate to com­ bine the two into an expanded three-day conference. In view of Dr. Jackson's international reputation in the study and care of children with diabetes mellitus, the conference topic was not dif­ ficult to find. Experts in this field were delighted to be asked to speak at a conference in Dr. Jackson's honor. We selected a number of excellent speakers to survey the physiology and pathophy­ siology of pancreatic hormones and their effects in diabetes mel­ litus, to discuss current knowledge of the microvascular complications of the disease, and to put it all into the proper historical perspective of where we have been and where we are going. We think the conference achieved its objective to pay meaningful trib­ ute to a distinguished member of the scientific community. As with any conference, the conversion of the presentations and discussions to the printed page is a long and arduous process. Many manuscripts were completed well after the conference and references often are more recent than the date of the conference.