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Marta A Balinska, For the good of humanity: Ludwik Rajchman, medical statesman, trans. Rebecca Howell, Budapest, Central European University Press, 1998, pp. xvii, 293, illus., L22.00 (hardback 963-9116-17-3).
Marta Balinska's book brings to life a little known figure, her great-grandfather, Ludwik Rajchman, the medical director of the Sanitary Commission of the League of the Nations, and a little known period, the early development of international health organizations. Rajchman, a Polish-Jewish physician who specialized in public health, created in 1919 the first epidemiology laboratory in the newly independent Poland (this laboratory later became the Polish National Institute of Hygiene). His key role in the control of the typhus epidemic in post-war Poland led to his appointment as the director of the Health Office in the League of Nations. Rajchman's qualifications for his job included excellent organizational skills, first-hand experience with control of epidemic diseases, and the fact that as a citizen of a peripheral country he did not threaten the delicate political equilibrium of the League. The title "Director of Health Office of the League of Nations" was more impressive than the function related with it. The Office's main task was the collection of information, and it had a small staff and infrastructure, and a limited budget. On the other hand, the Office had high visibility, and close links with other international organizations. Rajchman's headquarters were in Geneva, but he spent much of his time travelling, and many of his concrete achievements were related to the development of personal contacts with politicians and health administrators all over the world.
In the late 1930s, the increasingly rightwing Polish government became suspicious of Rajchman. His loss of political favour coincided with increased paralysis in the League of Nations' activities in the late 1930s. The League's Health Office was closed in...