The history of the World Medical Association should be compulsory
reading for national member associations, members of the WMA Council,
officers, officials, associate members, and for all interested in
the problems of organized medicine. It is a mine of information
set out clearly in chapters with a reference section. Here can be
found answers to the many questions asked about the WMA, its history,
what it is, how it is organized, what are its objectives, what it
has accomplished and hopes to accomplish, and how it is financed.
Here is the fascinating story of how an idea born in the House
of the British Medical Association in 1945 became a fact in Paris
in 1947, and how the WMA has become the recognized authority to
speak for the doctors of the world in international affairs.
Those closely connected with the WMA will read this book with
considerable pride, and it will bring back a host of memories
of old friends, extremely hard work, hot discussions conducted
in four languages going on to midnight, wonderful hospitality,
long tiring journeys across half the world, but most of all of
a group of doctors sustained by faith in an ideal. This ideal
is to sustain and increase the importance of the WMA in order
to foster the essential unity of doctors all over the world -
doctors differing in language and culture and in many other ways
but united in their service to mankind irrespective of creed or
colour or politics; and to educate, encourage, and assist them
in a struggle to preserve their professional traditions from encroachment
by many hostile forces.
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