IT is interesting that recent advances in the management of head injuries the essentially practical aspect of the subject have come rather from a re-orientation and re-emphasis of existing knowledge than from much direct application of the fruits of basic research. Nevertheless, a great deal of experimental work on fundamental problems is being pursued, particularly in the U.S.A. where, for example, large sums of money and technical resources support efforts to elucidate the mechanism of concussion and problems connected with the physical protection of the heads of motorists and aviators, and where a vast research programme in connection with the exploration of space has enabled American scientists to overcome many difficulties that arise when man is subjected to great acceleratory forces. A reprepresentative picture of much recent American research can be found in Head Injury Conference Proceedings (Caveness & Walker, 1966). In Britain, however, the work being done is more appropriate to this country's incomparably smaller budget for this sort of activity, and its emphasis has been more on attempts to try to improve, on a wider basis of applied knowledge than hitherto, the standards of service and treatment for patients sustaining head injury, for it is certain that there is still much room for improvement. In this, as in many fields of medicine where new techniques, drugs and other advances arrive at bewildering speed, there is a correspondingly urgent need for their evaluation and consolidation at regular intervals, for the gap between discovery and full application appears to be widening. What is new can be overlooked while, even during our preoccupation with what is newer still, we are being jostled by the newest of all.