For the good of humanity: Ludwik Rajchman, medical statesman

Marta Balifiska'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 January 1939. Officially jobless, Rajchman nevertheless maintained close contacts with high officials in several countries, including China. In the 1930s he had become a close friend of the Chiang Kai-shek family, especially with Chiang Kai-shek's son-in-law, T V Soong, then the president of the Bank of China. His relationship with Soong provided him with his new occupation as a lobbyist for the Chinese government. Between 1940 and 1944, Rajchman, hired by Soong as a consultant for the Bank of China, settled in Washington, where he negotiated together with his friend Soong the conditions for the economic reconstruction of post-war China. His career as a lobbyist came to an end, however, when Soong fell from grace. After the end of the war, Rajchman tried to recover his position as an expert in international health policy. The fact that he found himself citizen of now-communist Poland did not facilitate his task. Nevertheless, thanks to the contacts he had made with several major players of the post-war international scene during his Geneva years, he was initially seen as an asset by the Polish government. Rajchman was named the Polish representative to the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA). He was then instrumental in the founding of the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and became UNICEF's first chairman (1947-50). His political situation as a Polish citizen who lived in France and whose political allegiances were never entirely clear, became, however, a liability with the intensification of the cold war. In 1950 the communist Polish government withdrew Rajchman's diplomatic passport, bringing to a close his international career. He ended his life peacefully on his rural property in France. Balifiska's carefully researched and well documented biography is written as a tribute to her great-grandfather. It accentuates Rajchman's role in establishing innovative international institutions, and