Physicians, Activism and International Efforts in the Early Cold War
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Health and Medicine as “the Rallying Points of Unity:” Physicians, Activism and International Efforts in the Early Cold War by Casey D. Hurrell A thesis submitted to the Graduate Program in History in conformity with the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Queen’s University Kingston, Ontario, Canada July 2015 Copyright © Casey D. Hurrell, 2015 ABSTRACT This thesis is an exploration of different manifestations of the struggle to determine the place of health and medicine in the international diplomatic and institutional landscape during early years of the Cold War. Relying on analysis of archival material and a survey of contemporary medical literature, this thesis makes a contribution to the literatures on international health arrangements, the interplay between domestic and global policy issues, and the evolution of a humanitarian impulse within certain corners of the medical profession. The actors and organizations profiled here grappled with questions related to whether the medical profession could lead the international system to a higher moral plane through the intrinsically apolitical nature of the pursuance of health, or whether medicine and its inherent power relationships could ever escape politics. In their efforts to enshrine health and medicine within the international system, physicians and other health professionals pursued a course that was as pragmatic as any in the idealistic context of the postwar period, but they also demonstrated a philosophy and outlook that fit with the grand visions that dominated plans of the period. As medical professionals looked beyond their borders to address issues with global repercussions, they nonetheless brought their national paradigms, circumstances and preconceptions to their efforts. This thesis therefore casts a lens on the dynamic interplay between national and international efforts to apply the spirit of medicine to concerns ranging from cancer control to the prevention of war. It also explores the manner in which physicians sought to organize themselves on an international basis to exchange valuable expertise about issues affecting their profession domestically. "i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Prevailing wisdom holds that doctoral theses almost inevitably bite off research questions more vast and numerous than the average-length degree program can chew. The attempt to write a neat and tidy piece of scholarship is a fool’s errand on the one hand, for scholarship is never neat nor tidy — the state of this historian’s desk serving as perhaps the most blatant case in point. On the other hand, the effort of writing something so neat and tidy can result in a readable thesis while simultaneously forcing the author to leave certain questions and trails of research breadcrumbs by the wayside. For what it is worth, I hope that the former has been the case, and I regret the latter. The final result is the culmination of several years of effort on my part that could not have been accomplished were it not for the support of a vast number of other people along the way. I wish to thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) for its financial support from the very beginning of my graduate studies as a Masters student, and then in the first three years of my PhD. I also wish to thank the donors behind the Grace L. Boileau and Donald S. Rickerd awards at Queen’s, whose generosity funded the final year of this project. These funding bodies permitted me to travel near and far to research and attend conferences where I could test out the ideas that form the body of this thesis, and also permitted me to spend a semester living in London, where I was able to complete the bulk of the research and begin drafting this project. The archival research for this project drew from a variety of institutions, including the British National Archives, the Rockefeller Archives, Library and Archives Canada, and the Archives and Manuscripts Division at the Wellcome Library; thanks go to all of the archivists and librarians who assisted my often vaguely defined expedition through available materials.. I am "ii especially grateful to Alison Cunningford at the J.B. Priestley Library at the University of Bradford for her encyclopaedic expertise of the collection held there in Special Collections, in addition to the lovely company and hospitality that she showed me while I was working in the archives so far from home. The research material for my first chapter and much of the inspiration for this project came from a spectacular summer that I spent as a visiting research student at Columbia University in 2011, while I was completing my Master’s. From my peers, colleagues and mentors at the Hertog Global Strategy Initiative, I developed a keen sense of how the history of public health and public policy can inform and engage with contemporary questions and debates, and it would not be an overstatement to say that my desire to continue on in graduate school was almost entirely the result of the experience that I had sitting around a conference table on the Upper West Side and digging through archives in New York and environs. My fifth chapter benefitted enormously in early drafts from a productive editing session that emerged from a reading group that I was privileged to be a part of at Birkbeck College, University of London during the winter of 2014. For their input, advice, and support, I will long be indebted to Dr. Jessica Reinisch and the rest of the members of the Reluctant Internationalists research group, whose work I eagerly look forward to reading. While at Queen’s, I was privileged to encounter a great many supportive faculty members and to benefit from their wisdom and experience. Special recognition goes to Dr. Sandra den Otter, who supervised my MA year, and was a constant champion for the work that I was doing and where it could take me. I am also grateful to Dr. Rebecca Manley and Dr. Rosanne Curarrino, whose seminars in the first year of my PhD were truly the best historiographical training I could have hoped for. Additionally, I’d like to thank the series of graduate chairs who "iii oversaw my tenure at Queen’s, and especially the brilliant support staff in the main office, Cathy Dickinson, Cindy Fehr, and Debbie Stilton-Massey, who count among the most efficient and helpful people at Queen’s. My incomparably wonderful supervisors, Dr. Tim Smith and Dr. Jackie Duffin, deserve more credit than I can ever express in these acknowledgements. They were encouraging and insightful throughout the entirety of this process. Moreover, they are each brilliant scholars and mentors and I feel truly privileged to have worked with them. I also need to thank my students from HIST 356, who made the final academic year of my PhD the most inspiring one yet. I had no qualms about sharing the joys and challenges of the process of writing this thesis with them, and the support and encouragement that they showed me in return was delightful. I look forward to seeing where their newly-developed enthusiasm for the history of medicine will take them, and I thank them for allowing me the opportunity to effuse about my own fascination in the subject with them. I would not have gone to graduate school in the first place were it not for the mentorship of Dr. Alek Bennett at Carleton University. An experience in her second year British history lecture course truly changed the course of my adult life, and her support even as I’ve ventured far beyond the grassy quad at Carleton has been of more help than I can say. Her effort to turn me into a “research hound” with a keen eye for the synthetic nature of historical scholarship has guided me to this point, and I only hope that this thesis does her proud. The process of researching and writing a dissertation can be a lonely process, but I had the good fortune to make a number of excellent friends at Queen’s, whose own scholarship and achievements have proved more inspirational than I can say. I am particularly grateful for the friendship of Deanne van Tol, Kailey Hansson and Kendall Garton, each of whom are not only "iv excellent historians, but wonderful people and dear friends. Attending conferences near and far was an invaluable experience, not least because it introduced me to an entire tribe of other young historians of medicine, whose research was inspiring and made me feel part of a bigger community of scholars. I had the sincere pleasure of befriending Erin Murphy in the latter stages of this effort, just as I was set to begin writing it in earnest. Her companionship and firm stance that I would indeed “finish it on time” were comforting and encouraging, and I thank her. My academic journey and personal life were immeasurably improved when I befriended Nicole Marion while we were both acting as research assistants on an influenza research project. During a crazy summer of archival adventures to far and farther flung locales, we cemented our friendship sitting on the idyllic porch of her family cottage, writing together and trying valiantly to make sense of “the data” we had collected. Since then, her work ethic and attitude have been an inspiration to me, and I could not have survived the rigours of this process were it not for her practical pep talks. Moreover, she is a brilliant scholar and I could not be more pleased that our work has continued to overlap and intersect in such an unexpected way. The historiographical background to the pacifist and anti-nuclear wings of this project owe much to her encyclopaedic memory for authors and titles, and her mastery of her own research topic.