1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910825938303321

Autore

Farley John <1936->

Titolo

Brock Chisholm, the World Health Organization, and the Cold War / / John Farley

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Vancouver, : UBC Press, c2008

ISBN

1-282-45735-7

9786612457357

0-7748-1478-0

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (273 pages)

Disciplina

362.106/01

Soggetti

World health

Public health - International cooperation

Cold War

Health services administrators - Canada

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

First steps, 1945-46 -- Who was Brock Chisholm? -- Interim Commission, 1946-48: The long wait -- First World Health assemblies: into the Cold War -- Money matters -- Politics matter --Social medicine and its decline -- Tuberculosis: the vaccine controversy -- Penicillin bullet: syphilis and yaws -- Malaria and famine -- Nearly torn apart: the WHO and the Catholic Church -- Only one term -- Retirement.

Sommario/riassunto

This is the story of a man and an institution. Brock Chisholm was one of the most influential Canadians of the twentieth century. A world-renowned psychiatrist, he was the first director-general of the World Health Organization, and built it up against overwhelming political odds in the years immediately following the Second World War. During Chisholm's lifetime, the only other Canadians as internationally prominent were Lester B. Pearson and Marshall McLuhan. Yet today he has been largely forgotten � perhaps because he was so controversial. An atheist and a fierce critic of jingoistic nationalism, he supported world peace and world government and became a champion of the United Nations and the WHO. Official histories of the WHO place the



organization in a political vacuum, but John Farley focuses on the battles Chisholm and his allies waged during the early Cold War, as the United States and the Soviet Union eyed each other warily and the Roman Catholic Church flexed its muscle on morally sensitive medical issues. Post-1945 international politics, global health issues, and medical history intersect in this highly readable account of a remarkable Canadian.