The Fondazione Lorenzini has been sponsoring Postgraduate Courses for physicians and specialists, in Italy, since 1970. Its aim, as an institution, has been that of promoting postgraduate medical education. In these years, recent advances in a wide range of medical fields have been discussed by distinguished experts from many countries throughout the world. Courses dealing with methodologies and technical problems have been designed to include practical demonstrations of the various methods and techniques in the relevant fields. The Postgraduate Course on "Platelets and Thrombosis: Methods of Study" was held in Milan, at the Fondazione Lorenzini, from February 24th to 26th, 1972. This volume contains the edited and somewhat extended papers presented at the Course, which was sponsored and organized by the Italian Society for the Study of Atherosclerosis.

The special contribution of the present volume is that of gathering a large amount of up-to-date information on the formidable problem of the methods used for testing platelet function in thrombosis. The methods used for studying platelet behavior in hemorrhagic disorders due to abnormal platelet function are undoubtedly characterized by difficulties in interpretation and by poor reproducibility. However, all will agree that the problem of the significance and importance of platelet function tests in thrombosis and atherosclerosis is an absolute "morass," and recent and past papers on the measurement of platelet adhesiveness in myocardial infarction could well appear in a special issue of the new "Journal of Irreproducible Results". This volume includes both general papers on the role of platelets in thrombosis by G. V. R. Born, Duncan P. Thomas, and J. R.

O'Brien, and general reviews of the main methods used in clinical and research work written by individuals whose experience has been gained directly. There is, moreover, a technical section, which includes the detailed description of some of the methods and their interpretation. It is hoped that this publication, which deals with several of the more important aspects of platelet function tests, will furnish a guide to recent advances in the field, which may help those attending the Course as well as others to a more critical approach to these tests and to new contributions. If this proves to be the case, the efforts of the publication will have been justified.