Clearinghouse

The delegates of 69 nations meeting in the main hall of the old League of Nations building in Geneva were there on serious business. Their job was to make the world a somewhat healthier place to live in. Last week the 450 delegates to the U.N.'s World Health Organization ended their 1948 sessions convinced that they had taken a few steps forward.

Little Money. They had had little money to work with. WHO's budget would be only $5,000,000 (U.S. contribution: about $1,925,000), most of it for passing out public health know-how to less advanced members. Priority programs (with $1,038,000): malaria, tuberculosis, maternal and child health, venereal disease, nutrition and "environmental hygiene" (including tropical hygiene, housing and town planning).

The assembly also adopted new international rules for the statistical reporting of disease and causes of death. WHO delegates thought this important for two reasons: health services are handicapped in curing the world until they find out what (in exact language) ails it, and they must be sure that a report of "plague" somewhere back of Singapore means the same thing as "plague" in Geneva.

Finally, the assembly heard reports on the work of missions sent out by the interim commission that preceded the present permanent organization (TIME, April 5). Said Dr. Neville Gordon, pipe-smoking British head of WHO field services, about DDT-spraying planes in Greece: "Our slow, low-flying planes could be shot down like ducks by anybody with a gun on a hill [but] the rebels even sent guides through the lines to our spraying teams, asking them to come up and spray rebel-held villages." In China, a WHO mission, with authorization of the Central government, is working in Communist-held as well as government-held provinces.

Much Hope. Nearly all the assembly's decisions were unanimous. Chairman and newly elected president was Yugoslavia's esteemed, bull-necked Andrija Stampar, rector of the University of Zagreb. He had, said one delegate, a "unanimity complex." He would make assembly procedure a personal issue: "If you have confidence in your chairman you will adopt this item"; or "I would be the most unhappy man in the world if the assembly rejected this proposal." WHO, Dr. Stampar thinks, should not set out to be a super health department for the world, but rather a clearinghouse for vital information, and a place where nations could get doctors and technicians when disease strikes.

The new director-general is Psychiatrist Brock Chisholm, wartime head of the Canadian Army's medical service. A methodical administrator who gets angry if an assistant is half a minute late for an appointment, he will stay in Geneva to get WHO's machinery moving. Said he as the assembly closed: "Our delegates are too damned cooperative — at least for the press. But some day the press will admit the dramatic news values of this international cooperation."