695 



medicine. * * * The League of Nations Health Organization 

 made substantial progress in a relatively short time." 

 In her 1947 study, Ruth Masters was similarly complimentary of the 

 Health Organization of the League : 



It was an outstanding achievement of the Health Organi- 

 zation that it succeeded in bringing together public health of- 

 ficials from almost all countries for the purpose of 

 coordinating their efforts, and that it thus brought about a 

 lowering of the artificial barriers dividing people engaged in 

 work of a similar character.^® 



[It made] a large amount of knowledge and experience 

 available to national health administrations (a series of 

 monographs on the Organization of Public Health Services. 

 the International Eealth Tearhook and the Bulletin of the 

 Health Organisation) . Tlie Statistical Handbooks described 

 vital statistics in different countries, and nurnerous other re- 

 ports and surveys dealt with such varied questions as malaria, 

 leprosy, rural hygiene, nutrition, etc. Never before had so 

 much information on every aspect of health been assembled 

 and free! V made available to all interested persons.-' 



[In addition to this] the Organization rendered direct as- 

 sistance to governments. On request it placed its experts at the 

 disposal of governments desiring advice and help with spe- 

 cific problems, and in a number of cases it assisted govern- 

 ments in the reorganization of their health services. Thus, 

 advice was asked and given to * * * Albania * * * Bulgaria 



* * * Greece * * * Ireland * * * Chile * * * Bolivia 



* * * China * * * Czechoslovakia * * * and Riunania 



* * *. In appraising its achievements it has been said : "the 

 steady work of nearly twenty years has gone to create a strong 

 network of effort to assist humanity in improving the condi- 

 tions of nearly every phase of its daily life. The fight against 

 disease, the development of knowledge of the factors which 

 make for physical and mental fitness, have welded a strong 

 body of scientific and lay opinion in a real collaborative and 

 enthusiastic comradeship. The call is not merely to expose 

 and remedy the defects arising from primitive modes of life, 

 but also to provide advanced modernity with the means to 

 guard itself against the new perils of its conquest in the air, 

 on land, and overseas." ^^ 



World War 11 brought an end to tlie 1923 Health Organization of 

 the League and created the need for a new international health 

 agency — a separate one, affiliated with the United Nations but operat- 

 ing under its own constitution. It was thus that the new World Health 

 Organization was bom — not as a revolutionary experiment in public 

 health — but as a logical evolutionary development from its predeces- 

 sor conventions, international offices, and agreements. ^^ 



25 Ibid., pages 395-396. 



^ Masters, op. clt., page 19. 



" Ibid., pages 57-.58. 



« Ibid., pages 22-23. 



=» Russell, op. clt., page 397. 



