Abstract
Acceptable standards of medical and surgical diagnosis and treatment depend upon the ready availability of high capacity chemical analysis. This need is expanding and there are valid reasons for believing that it will continue to do so. The present and future needs arise from clinical problems. The efflorescence of clinical chemistry during the past two decades has resulted from these problems and not from autonomous growth which then stimulated further demands from the bedside. The application of chemistry to medicine presents special problems in the fields of: (1) data interpretation, (2) data handling, (3) the need to incorporate a wide ranging consultative function into the system. Adaptability as well as new instruments will be needed in laboratory and clinical practice if we are to meet our patient's needs as clinicians and as laboratory workers.