216 JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY OF COSMETIC CHEMISTS

THE SPECIAL AWARD 217 Socx•.T¾. First of all, because I realize that to be asked to speak on this occasion is in itself an honor and second, because I am permitted to address and to congratulate my good friend, Dr. Stephen Rothman. I have often wondered, perhaps somewhat wistfully (but I hope not at all jealously) how it was that he was always so far in advance of me in his accomplishments and in his contributions. It wasn't until a day or so ago that I discovered some of the possible reasons. In looking up some biographic data on Rothman, in order to speak to you today, I found two facts which I think will account in the main for his being always ahead of me. In the first place, he was born on Sept. 10 1894, which gives him a full six months' head-start over me. And in the second place, he was born in Budapest, Hungary, while I was merely born in New York. And while it may not be true as some have said, that "just to be a Hungarian is enough," in Rothman's case the place of his nativity and the cultural and scientific background which he received could not fail to help in the de- velopment of his talents. He was a physiologist even before he was a dermatologist, having been Assistant in Physiology at the University of Budapest from the year 1918 to 1920. He also had the invaluable opportunity to study with the masters of biochemistry of the time, including such renowned men as Hoffmeister and Spiro of Strassburg, as well as von Furth of Vienna. In 1920 he came to the Department of Dermatology and Syphilology of the University of Giessen, then under the direction of the famous Professor Albert Jesionek. He remained on Jesionek's faculty until the year 1928 when he became Director of the Public Health Insurance Clinic for Skin and Venereal Diseases, in Budapest, Hungary. This position he held until his coming to the United States in 1938. It was in that year that I first met Rothman personally and that year marked the beginning of our great friendship. Of course I had known of his work f'or many years previously, and he had been a great name to me ever since I began my studies in Dermatology and Syphilology. In 1929 just at the time I was finishing my graduate training under Bruno Bloch, in Ziirich, Rothman together with Fritz Schaaf, the biochemist of Bloch's institute, published their fundamental chapter on the chemistry of the skin in J. Jadassohn's Encyclopedic Handbuch der Haut & Geschlechtskrankheiten. So you see that it was by no means a neophyte in this field that was writing when Rothman began his monu- mental textbook on the "Physiology and Biochemistry of the Skin," which has now been published by the University of Chicago Press in May, 1954. This book is indeed the most authoritative work in this important and timely field. I have heard no adverse criticisms of it, with possibly one minor exception. One critic wrote in an entirely friendly vein and about as follows: "This book should have been entitled 'Physiology and Bio- chemistry of the Human Skin,' not just of the Skin." I think that you