History and Past Congresses

GUILLERMO R. di PAOLA,MD,PhD

At the inaugural Meeting of the International Society for the Study of Vulvar Disease* in San Francisco, California on May 5, 1971, the Secretary-Treasurer, Dr. Eduard G. Friedrich, Jr., submitted the following resolution hereafter known as our FOUNDING DOCUMENT:

“WHEREAS, diseases affecting the human vulva are not confined to the limitations of a single medical specialty, nor to the borders of a single nation, and

WHEREAS, there apparently exists no generally agreed upon terminology regarding classification of vulvar disease, and

WHEREAS, the free and efficient communication of facts and ideas is necessary, if we are to apply the ever-advancing wave of medical knowledge to the field of vulvar disease,

WE, the undersigned, do hereby resolve that there is justification for an international society devoted to the subject of vulvar disease and do hereby constitute THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR THE STUDY OF VULVAR DISEASE.”

This document was signed May 5, 1971 by the following Founding Fellows:

• G.R. di Paola
• A.F. Lash
• J. Donald Woodruff
• Ernest W. Franklin III
• Herman L. Gardner
• Vincent J. Capraro
• Eduard G. Friedrich, Jr.
• William C. Fetherston
• Kane Zelle
• Raymond H. Kaufman
• George W. Morley
• Harold M. Tovell
• V. Cecil Wright
• John R.G. Gosling

*At the XII Congress in Quebec on September 23, 1993, the ISSVD voted to modify the name of the Society to THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR THE STUDY OF VULVOVAGINAL DISEASE.

Click Here to read the Founding President’s Lecture Presented in Queenstown New Zealand, February 2006