Thank you, Ray, not only for your introduction but for being a good friend and colleague through the years. To the members of the American Society of Parasitologists, I would like to thank you for the honor of representing you and our Society as your President. It is an honor that I neither anticipated nor expected. President Flisser, members and guests, be it from Mexico, Canada, the Unites States or elsewhere, I am honored by your presence here this afternoon.
I have always been impressed with the number of disciplines one must use to understand the host–parasite relationship. You can get a feel for this diversity, in a small way, by looking at the various topics for which there is an assigned Associate Editor listed on the front cover of the Journal of Parasitology. But you will notice no mention of paleoparasitology or archeoparasitology, no mention of socioparasitology or...