This volume is the product of a symposium held on 14-16 February, 1985 in Ham- burg in honour of the 65th birthday of Prof. Hans-Joachim Schumann. Schumann was born on 28 December, 1919 in Stralsund. He studied medicine in Cologne, Greifswald and Rostock. The chair of pharmacology in Rostock was held at that time by Peter Holtz. It was he who first introduced Schumann to pharma- cology in 1944 and who was his Doktorvater (research supervisor). Mter the war, Schumann again worked with Holtz in Rostock and then in Frankfurt am Main. He received decisive stimuli during a research fellowship, in 1956, in Prof. J. H. Burn's department in Oxford, where he also worked with Prof. H. Blaschko. In 1964 he ac- cepted his present position as ordentlicher (full) Professor and Head of the Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology of the then newly founded Medical Faculty of Es- sen. He has remained in Essen despite being offered the chair of pharmacology in G6ttingen in 1968. It is interesting to observe how in the main lines of his scientific work, which now spans 40 years, Schumann has followed the steps involved in autonomic neuro- transmission from transmitter release to transmitter-receptor interaction.