None of these speculations made too much sense, so I began asking around at meetings as to the meaning of the emblem. I rapidly came to the conclusion that not many people were really too clear on what our emblem meant. So I then decided to go straight to the top, and I wrote a letter to our national office. Unfortunately, I wrote to Natursources shortly after they accepted the AmSECT contract, and their paperwork was not completely organized. I asked for a definition of the emblem and a short history of the organization. What I received was a 26-page document entitled "History of Extra-Corporeal Circulation." It read much like the first chapter of Galletti & Brecher.

It was then that I had the brilliant idea to call Calvin Scott, who has been active in AmSECT since before I knew that dacron wool took out platelets. Calvin, in turn, wrote to Pierre J. Morin, who helped design the AmSECT emblem. Here is an excerpt of Pierre Morin's letter to Calvin Scott:

"As you probably remember, the emblem first appeared on the cover of the program for the meeting which took place in Montreal in 1967. This meeting was held during the World's Fair and afforded an opportunity for everyone to attend both events.

"The emblem itself was designated by Ian Ross, Roger Samson, Jacques Lussier and myself. We started from the idea of incorporating into it both fields of activity of our group. Starting at the left therefore you have a bubble oxygenator with stylized helix and a roller pump transferring blood from the artificial lung to the recipient. The recipient appears as a dark ring in the center which is surrounded by a thin ring with an arrow to indicate man in general. Further right is a stylized finger pump which is again transferring blood from the stylized coiled kidney at the extreme right to the recipient in the center. Ian Ross's brother, who was a student in architecture, looked after balancing the composition of the design and the graphics.

"I am glad that you have asked the question about the emblem, since I got the impression that many members of AmSECT were not aware of the meaning and origin of the emblem."