Twenty years of environmental health research. A dedication to David P. Rall. Introduction.

ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH PERSPECTIVES, thejournal of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, was first published as an experimental journal in April of 1972. The function of the NIEHS is to conduct and support basic biomedical research on the effects of various environmental agents and conditions adverse to human health and to inform the Federal and scientific community of possible health hazards associated with such environmental agents. For the last twenty years ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH PERSPECTIVES has been the vehicle by which this has been accomplished. Prior to the founding of the journal, Dr. David P. Rall, then Director of the NIEHS, recognized the need for the publication of research findings and commentaries on topics in the field ofenvironmental sciences. In his request for authorization to experiment with publication of the journal Dr. Rall set forth the goals and ideals of the journal which have remained both timely and expedient: to provide a forum for early publication of findings which might have broad impact due to the ubiquity of so many constituents of the human environment; to provide a forum for concentrated exploration of the context and perspective ofbasic research on such environmental constituents; to provide a focus which indisputably covers those aspects of basic environmental research which have human health implications; and to provide a medium for dissemination and exchange of adequately documented negative findings on these topics. It is in a continuing effort to remain true to the spirit and vision of these goals that we publish Volume 100 as a series ofperspectives on some ofthe topics that have predominated in the arena ofenvironmental health sciences in the last two decades. We believe it most fitting to dedicate this volume to a man whose career in the field of environmental science reflects a lifetime committment to the development of a network of interdisciplinary approaches to the issues of environmental health. Through his work as scientist, statesman, diplomat, and visionary, Dr. David P. Rall has pioneered the effort to identify and understand the elements that make up the human environment and their consequences for human health. Thus it is with a retrospective of Dr. Rall's career and contributions that we preface this volume, for in examining the last 20 years in the evolution ofenvironmental sciences we find the two inextricably interwoven.