TY - JOUR T1 - A thousand years of pulmonary medicine: good news and bad JF - European Respiratory Journal JO - Eur Respir J SP - 558 LP - 565 DO - 10.1183/09031936.01.17305580 VL - 17 IS - 3 AU - J.F. Murray Y1 - 2001/03/01 UR - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/17/3/558.abstract N2 - I should like to start by thanking Professor Gibson and all members of the Programme Committee for asking me to give this Millennial Lecture. I am, of course, greatly honoured at having been chosen for this, a once every one-thousand years event. One of the things Professor Gibson refrained from saying in his overly flattering introduction is that I actually started my medical career back in the first half of the last century, a long time ago. So I have been witness to over50 years of medical progress – and what a half century it has been! But that is not what I am going to talk about.What I propose to do this morning is, first of all, to discuss briefly some of the remarkable achievements in pulmonary medicine and the men and women who made them during the recently departed millennium. Consequently, I will start my review in the year 1000. Then, I will reflect on the evolution and present deplorable status of two of mankind's deadliest scourges, both of them chiefly pulmonary disorders, one practically as old as human beings themselves, and the other practically brand new. And finally, I will make some suggestions as to how the members of the societies that are sponsoring this World Congress on Lung Health can help solve a few of the existing problems. May I remind you that as the title of my talk indicates, I bring you both good news and bad news.The year 1000 marked the end in Europe of the formless Dark Ages and the beginning of the slightly more progressive Medieval Period; culture and enlightenment were considerably more advanced in Asia at the time. There isn't much information available about ordinary life in Europe in the year 1000, but it has been characterized as “unimaginably … ER -