The Histochemical Society is an academic society that was founded on March 24, 1950 at a meeting organized by Ralph D. Lillie of the National Institutes of Health. The idea for the Society arose during the 1949 Biological Stain Commission meeting at which a symposia encompassing anatomy, cytology, pathology and biochemistry was proposed by Lillie, Charles Leblond and Edward Dempsey. Lillie became the first editor of HCS's journal, Journal of Histochemistry and Cytochemistry.