Commissioned by the Swiss Federation of Manual Medicine and under the patronage of FIMM (International Federation of Manual Medicine) we conducted an international seminar during the week following the 7th Inter national Congress of FIMM (Zuerich/Switzerland - September 1983). Thirty Manual Medicine experts had come together in the education center of the Cloister Fischingen secluded in the eastern part of Switzerland and away from any city life, to discuss in a week long seminar the status of Man ual Medicine. Working together in the form of several groups, the following points were emphasized: - terminology - diagnostic criteria (are Manual Medicine findings reproducible?) - therapeutic interventions (degree of congruity of treatment plans) The participants demonstrated great enthusiasm and commitment, and so it was possible to have the content of the individual group's discussion com municated to and presented for further scrutiny to all participants during the seminar week. As members of the organizing committee and as the editors of this publica tion, we hope to help establish a more standardized international terminolo gy concerning the field of Manual Medicine. As this clinical trial (investigating the diagnostic reliability and the therapeu tic efficiency of MM) shows, factors such as terminology, diagnostic criteria and therapeutic plans are a prerequisite for multi-center studies.