Abstract

INTERNATIONAL co-operation in public health is assuming much importance at the present time, and formed the subject of Sir George Buchanan’s Milroy Lectures, delivered before the Royal College of Physicians, London, in February and March last (reprinted from the Lancet, April and May, 1934, pp. 879, 935, and 992). After some introductory remarks respecting the Rockefeller Foundation, the Red Cross and League of Red Cross Societies, he proceeds to survey some of the public health activities of the League of Nations, and of the Office Inter national d’Hygiene Publique, Paris. The former have included health missions to various countries, international regulation of opium and drugs of addiction, statistics and radiological treatment of cancer, standardisation of biological products such as therapeutic sera, and inquiries into the laboratory procedures employed in the Wassennann test for syphilis. At the International Office in Paris, a permanent committee of delegates, representing fifty-one Governments, meets in regular half-yearly sessions, and is concerned with the prevention of plague, cholera and some other communicable diseases. It drafted the International Sanitary Convention, 1926, which deals with quarantine and de-ratisation of ships, it co-ordinates the sanitary control of the Mecca Pilgrimage, and it drew up the International Sanitary Convention for Aerial Navi gation, 1933, which has already been signed by many nations. These international meetings also serve to establish a personal relationship with fellow-workers overseas and in foreign countries, and are invaluable as a time-saver when dealing with common problems.