“To unite Red Cross Societies throughout the world in a concerted effort to prevent, mitigate and alleviate the suffering caused by disease and major disasters”. This was the primary aim of the League of Red Cross Societies (now the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies) whose seventy-fifth anniversary we have just celebrated. The League, it will be recalled, was founded in response to the wishes of National Red Cross Society leaders and eminent representatives of the medical world — inspired by President Woodrow Wilson's ideals — to submit to Societies programmes of action in the general interest of humanity and coordinate their efforts in dealing with the scourges of that time.