Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Notes on the contributors
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Introduction: constructing international health between the wars
- 2 ‘Custodians of the sacred fire’: the ICRC and the postwar reorganisation of the International Red Cross
- 3 Red Cross organisational politics, 1918–1922: relations of dominance and the influence of the United States
- 4 The League of Nations Health Organisation
- 5 Assistance and not mere relief: the Epidemic Commission of the League of Nations, 1920–1923
- 6 Wireless wars in the eastern arena: epidemiological surveillance, disease prevention and the work of the Eastern Bureau of the League of Nations Health Organisation, 1925–1942
- 7 Social medicine at the League of Nations Health Organisation and the International Labour Office compared
- 8 The Social Section and Advisory Committee on Social Questions of the League of Nations
- 9 ‘Uncramping child life’: international children's organisations, 1914–1939
- 10 The International Health Division of the Rockefeller Foundation: the Russell years, 1920–1934
- 11 The cycles of eradication: the Rockefeller Foundation and Latin American public health, 1918–1940
- 12 The Pasteur Institutes between the two world wars. The transformation of the international sanitary order
- 13 Internationalising nursing education during the interwar period
- 14 Mental hygiene as an international movement
- 15 Mobilising social knowledge for social welfare: intermediary institutions in the political systems of the United States and Great Britain between the First and Second World Wars
- Index
- Cambridge History of Medicine
6 - Wireless wars in the eastern arena: epidemiological surveillance, disease prevention and the work of the Eastern Bureau of the League of Nations Health Organisation, 1925–1942
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 November 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Notes on the contributors
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Introduction: constructing international health between the wars
- 2 ‘Custodians of the sacred fire’: the ICRC and the postwar reorganisation of the International Red Cross
- 3 Red Cross organisational politics, 1918–1922: relations of dominance and the influence of the United States
- 4 The League of Nations Health Organisation
- 5 Assistance and not mere relief: the Epidemic Commission of the League of Nations, 1920–1923
- 6 Wireless wars in the eastern arena: epidemiological surveillance, disease prevention and the work of the Eastern Bureau of the League of Nations Health Organisation, 1925–1942
- 7 Social medicine at the League of Nations Health Organisation and the International Labour Office compared
- 8 The Social Section and Advisory Committee on Social Questions of the League of Nations
- 9 ‘Uncramping child life’: international children's organisations, 1914–1939
- 10 The International Health Division of the Rockefeller Foundation: the Russell years, 1920–1934
- 11 The cycles of eradication: the Rockefeller Foundation and Latin American public health, 1918–1940
- 12 The Pasteur Institutes between the two world wars. The transformation of the international sanitary order
- 13 Internationalising nursing education during the interwar period
- 14 Mental hygiene as an international movement
- 15 Mobilising social knowledge for social welfare: intermediary institutions in the political systems of the United States and Great Britain between the First and Second World Wars
- Index
- Cambridge History of Medicine
Summary
Introduction
The Eastern Bureau of the League of Nations Health Section was established in 1925 to collect and disseminate epidemiological information. Until February 1942, when Singapore was invaded by Japanese troops, the Bureau served a variety of functions; the receipt, compilation and dissemination of health statistics, quarantine procedures and other information related to the control of disease were only part of its wider role. Its functions included the co-ordination and review of scientific research; the provision of in-service training of sanitation, public health and medical officers through staff interchanges, study tours and from 1934 annual short-course training programmes for malariologists; and sponsorship of and participation in scientific conferences and symposia. Through these various activities, the Bureau helped to identify the primary public health concerns of the region, facilitate co-operation between individual researchers and research institutions, and develop public health expertise. Less easily documented, the Bureau also played a role in fostering a sense of common purpose among countries in the region. Its primary function and central activity, however, as noted, was the collection and dissemination of epidemiological information; this is the focus of this chapter.
The Commission of Enquiry in the Far East
Epidemic disease in East Asia was first brought before the Health Committee of the League of Nations (LN) at its second session in October 1921, when the Japanese delegate, Dr Miyajima, drew attention to the incidence of pneumonic plague in Manchuria and Siberia.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- International Health Organisations and Movements, 1918–1939 , pp. 109 - 133Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1995
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