The board of the Association for the Aid of Crippled Children asked me to convey its greetings to the participants in this conference and the hope that it would prove to be a valuable one. The Association is happy to have had a part in making the conference possible and it is an additional pleasure to have joined with the Human Embryology and Development Study Section of the National Institutes of Health in furnishing the auspices for it.On the assumption that not everyone is acquainted with the present program of the Association and why it is interested particularly in teratology and related research, a brief description of the current program will be given.The Association was founded in 1900. Its first service was the teaching of crippled children. As new developments dictated, it moved later into a program of financial, material and medical aid to handicapped children and their families and later to nursing and physical therapy and the teaching of public health nurses in orthopedic nursing.In 1900, a horse-drawn carriage trundled through a small East Side New York neighborhood bringing crippled children to the first special class in the city conducted by the Association. In 1953, a huge Stratoliner flew the Association's director halfway around the world to help plan for the rehabilitation of Korean children. This switch from horsepower to air power is more than symbolic. It represents the changes in program brought about through the years. The Association had a part in shifting the focus of interest in handicapped children from the handicap itself to the whole child and his total needs and this in turn led to a new emphasis on prevention.
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