693 



the United States. As in 1851 the French had taken the .initiative, this 

 time under the leadei*ship of dij)lomatist Camille Barrere, French 

 Ambassador to Rome. Although later resisting the absorption of his 

 "Paris Office" by the Health Office of the League of Nations, it was 

 diplomat Barrere who brought order out of chaos in international 

 quarantine during the 1907-1909 period.^s The "Paris Office" con- 

 tinued to function through both World War I and World War II, 

 and was not dissolved until the World Health Organization came into 

 existence. 



Tlie First Infetmxitwn<il Health Organization 



The first truly international health organization was not bom in 

 Euroi^e, Rome, or Paris, but in the New World. This was the Pan 

 American Sanitary Bureau, established in Mexico City in 1902, at the 

 Second Inter-American Conference of the Pan American Union. 

 Russell suggests that this organization was the first which "could 

 cross frontiers of member nations." ^^ Although the Pan American 

 scheme of cooperation in public health matters did not become power- 

 ful and comprehensive until the Pan American Sanitary Code was 

 ratified by 24 nations of the Americas in 1924, the system was from 

 the beginning more like that of an international sanitary policing 

 action. It also provided for regional cooperation in puBlic health 

 beyond that of mere notification and quarantine of communicable 

 disease, and tended to go somewhat further than the European con- 

 ventions in requiring compulsory notification of a larger number of 

 diseases.^^ 



The Pan American Sanitary Bureau, in the evolution of inter- 

 national health organizations, is important on several counts: 



1. It brought an extensive body of hemispheric knowledge and 

 experience in the control of disease before the post- World War II 

 health experts who were in the process of designing the new World 

 Health Organization. 



2. It still exists as an autonomous international health organization 

 for the Americas as well as the regional office for the Americas of the 

 World Health Organization. 



3. The executory powers bestowed upon the Pan American Sanitary 

 Bureau by the signatory states appear to have been adopted and ex- 

 panded when the World Health Organization was formed. 



4. The PASB organization, particularly two of its eminent Ameri- 

 can directors, played powerful roles in the decentralized regional 

 structure of WHO. This type of organization is unique among the 

 Specialized Agencies of the U.N.^^ 



'•^ Ibid., pages S1-.S2. 



1* RusspU. op. cit., page ."04. 



-" Masters, op. elt.. panes 10-4-''.. 



^ According to Calderwood : "The governments represented at the International Hea'.th 

 Conference in 1946 at which the Constitution of the World Health Organization was writ- 

 ten, were almost unanimous in the opinion that existing international health organizations 

 should be replaced by a single organization. It was agreed, however, that the disparity of 

 health conditions in different parts of the world was one of several reasons requiring a 

 decentralized organization. The form that decentralization took in the World Health Orga- 

 niz.ition was the establishment of regional organizations rather than administrative 

 decentralization. This form was dictated by circumstances at the time, particularly by tlie 



