Should spontaneous or timed intercourse guide couples trying to conceive?

This letter pays tribute to one of the many sound ideas of Herman Snick, a superb clinician and critical investigator who sadly passed away on 24 April 2009 at the age of 70 in Canet de Rousillon, France, where he had retired after his active clinical life. We have been fortunate enough to have worked with Herman for many years and always have appreciated his ideas about not interfering with the normal lives of infertile couples. It started in 1984 when Herman stressed the dangers of orchidopexy for future fertility if applied for anything else than proven cryptorchidism in young boys (Snick, 1984). This was followed by his landmark ‘Walcheren study’ in 1997 (Snick et al., 1997), and his war on inappropriately applied intrauterine insemination (IUI) that is referred to in the Hampton and Mazza ‘Letters to the Editor’ (Snick, 2005). During his illness, Herman further developed his thinking about IUI in his 2008 paper in this journal (Snick et al., 2008). It was a sombre and saddening event when Herman informed us of his diagnosis, and we were all grateful that the paper could be published while he was alive.