Brock Chisholm

Major-General
Brock Chisholm
Director-General of World Health Organization
In office
1948–1953
Preceded by Position established
Succeeded by Marcolino Gomes Candau
Personal details
Born George Brock Chisholm
(1896-05-18)18 May 1896
Oakville, Ontario, Canada
Died 4 February 1971(1971-02-04) (aged 74)
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
Nationality Canadian
Spouse(s)
Grace Ryrie Chisholm (m. 1924)
Alma mater University of Toronto
Yale University

Brock Chisholm, CC, CBE, MC & Bar, ED, (18 May 1896 - 4 February 1971) was a 20th-century Canadian First World War veteran, medical practitioner, well-known psychiatrist, first Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), and the 13th officer to serve as the head of the Canadian Army medical service.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7]

Background

George Brock Chisholm was born on 18 May 1896, in Oakville, Ontario, to a family with deep ties to the region. Under Sir Isaac Brock, after whom Chisholm was named, his great-great-grandfather fought against the Americans during the War of 1812 and was Oakville's founder. His father was Frank Chisholm, who ran a coal yard.[1][2][3][4][5][6]

Career

Canada

In 1915 during the First World War, age 18, Chisholm joined the Canadian Expeditionary Force, serving in the 15th Battalion, CEF as a cook, sniper, machine gunner and scout. His leadership and heroism were twice rewarded (after being twice wounded): with a Military Cross for his efforts in a battle outside of Lens, France; and the Bar. He rose to the rank of captain, was injured once, and returned home in 1917.[1][3][4][5][6]

After the war, Chisholm pursued his lifelong passion of medicine, earning his MD from the University of Toronto by 1924 before interning in England, where he specialized in psychiatry. After six years in private practice in his native Oakville, he attended Yale University where he specialized in the mental health of children. During this time, Chisholm developed his strong Marxist view that children should be raised in an "as intellectually free environment" as possible, independent of the prejudices and biases (political, moral and religious) of their parents.[1][3][4][5][6]

At the outbreak of the Second World War, Chisholm rapidly rose in stature within the Canadian military and government. He joined the war effort as a psychiatrist dealing with psychological aspects of soldier training, before rising to the rank of Director General Medical Services, the highest position within the medical ranks of the Canadian Army. He was the first psychiatrist to head the medical ranks of any army in the world.[1][3][4][5][6]

In 1944, the Canadian Government created the position of Deputy Minister of Health. Chisholm was first the person to occupy the post and held it until 1946.[1][3][4][5][6]

WHO

In 1946, Chisholm became executive secretary of the Interim Commission of the World Health Organization (WHO), based in Geneva, Switzerland. The WHO succeeded the League of Nations's Health Organization. Chishom was one of 16 international experts consulted in drafting the agency's first constitution. He recommended the WHO's name, with emphasis on "world." He defined health for the WHO as "a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity." The WHO charter also established that health is a fundamental human right and that "the heath of all peoples is fundamental to the attainment of peace and security."[1][2][3][4][5][6][8]

The WHO became a permanent UN fixture in April 1948, and Chisholm became the agency's first Director General on a 46–2 vote. Chisholm was now in the unique position of being able to bring his views on the importance of international mental and physical health to the world. Refusing re-election, he occupied the post until 1953, during which time the WHO dealt successfully with a cholera epidemic in Egypt, malaria outbreaks in Greece and Sardinia, and introduced shortwave epidemic-warning services for ships at sea.[1][2][3][4][5][6]

Personal and death

On 21 June 1924, Chisholm married Grace McLean Ryrie. They had two children, Catherine Anne and Brock Ryrie.[1][5]

In 1934, he predicted the coming of World War II.[6]

Chisholm was a controversial public speaker who nevertheless had great conviction, and drew much cynicism within the Canadian public for comments in the mid-1940s that children should not be encouraged to believe in Santa Claus or the Bible or anything he regarded as supernaturalism. Calls for his resignation as Deputy Minister of Health were quelled by his appointment as Executive Secretary of the WHO, but his public perception as "Canada's most famously articulate angry man" lingered.[1][4]

Religious and other conservative writers and groups have accused Chisholm of being a Marxist or a Communist or subversive.[7] "For instance, Brock Chisholm, a former director of the World Health Organization, pronounced that 'To achieve One-World Government, it is necessary to remove from the minds of men their individualism, their loyalty to their traditions and national identification'."[9] Such accusations fit into a Cold War norm in which some conservatives claimed that "a large percentage of the U.S. Communist Party consisted of 'psychiatrists, psychologists, medical doctors and social, health, and welfare workers."[10] Others contended that one goal of Communism was to "dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.[11] Some lumped Chisholm among other Marxists and Communists "behind the scenes," including: Wilhelm Wundt, Otto Gross, Wilhelm Steckel, Max Horkheimer, Erich Fromm, Wilhelm Reich, Kurt Lewin, Herbert Marcuse, Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno, Robert Owen, A.S. Neill, Havelock Ellis, John Rawlings Rees, Sigmund Freud, Antonio Gramsci, Anatoly Lunacharsky, and Georg Lukacs.[12] Others placed Chisholm among three prominent Humanists who early on headed important United Nations agencies:Julian Huxley of UNESCO and John Boyd-Orr of the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO).[13] At least one conservative women's group in Southern California considered Chisholm to be the Anti-Christ.[14]

He served as president of the World Federation of Mental Health (1957–58).[3]

On 4 February 1971, Chisholm died age 74 in Veterans' Hospital, Victoria, British Columbia, after a series of strokes.[1][2][3][4][5]

Honors, awards

Chisholm's honors and awards include:

He was an Honorary Fellow of the Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine, of the American Psychiatric Association, and the American Public Health Association among others.[3][6]

Legacy

At his death, the New York Times remembered Chisholm as "small town doctor who became director general of the World Health Organization" and also called him "Prophet of Disaster."[1]

Historica Canada notes he was an early leader in warning about the "danger of pollution, overpopulation, and the nuclear arms race."[4]

Works

  • Social responsibility, and three memorial papers by Gordon W. Allport (New York: Association Press, 1948)
  • World health problems. Barriers to world health (New York: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1953)
  • Nations are learning to live together (Vancouver: University of British Columbia, 1954)
  • Prescription for survival (New York: Columbia University Press, 1957)
  • Can people learn to learn? How to know each other (New York: Harper, 1958)

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 "Dr. Brock Chisholm, Former W.H.O. Head, Dies". New York Times. 5 February 1971. Retrieved 19 November 2017.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 "Former Director-General: Dr Brock Chisholm, Director-General". World Health Organization. Retrieved 19 November 2017.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 "Director-General's Office: Dr George Brock Chisholm". World Health Organization. Retrieved 19 November 2017.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 "Brock Chisholm". Historica Canada. Retrieved 19 November 2017.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 "Chisholm, Brock (1896–1971)". Harvard Square Library. Retrieved 19 November 2017.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 "George Brock Chisholm – 1896-1971". Canadian Journal of Psychiatry. 1 April 1971. p. 166. Retrieved 19 November 2017.
  7. 1 2 Farley, John (1 January 2009). Brock Chisholm, the World Health Organization, and the Cold War. UBC Press. pp. 63 (subversive). Retrieved 19 November 2017.
  8. ↑ Chisholm, Brock; Winslow, C.-E.A.; Hiss, Alger (March 1948). "The World Health Organization". International Concilation. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Retrieved 19 November 2017.
  9. ↑ Story, Christopher (2007). The New Underworld Order: Triumph of Criminalism the Global Hegemony of Masonic Intelligence. Stanger Journalism. p. 441. Retrieved 19 November 2017.
  10. ↑ Dowbiggin, Ian (19 July 2011). The Quest for Mental Health: A Tale of Science, Medicine, Scandal, Sorrow, and Mass Society. Cambridge University Press. p. 158. Retrieved 19 November 2017.
  11. ↑ Bowers, James C. (15 November 2011). The Naked Truth: The Naked Communist - Revisited. Bookbaby. Retrieved 19 November 2017.
  12. ↑ Eakman, B. K. (2 January 2014). Push Back!: How to Take a Stand Against Groupthink, Bullies, Agitators, and Professional Manipulators. Skyhorse Publishing. p. 177. Retrieved 19 November 2017.
  13. ↑ Baumgarten, Grace (29 July 2016). Cannot Be Silenced. WestBow Press. Retrieved 19 November 2017.
  14. ↑ Nickerson, Michelle M. (15 April 2012). Mothers of Conservatism: Women and the Postwar Right. Princeton University Press. p. 113. Retrieved 19 November 2017.
  • Smithsonian Institution Archives: Photo of Brock Chisholm
  • Canadian Great War Project Captain George Brock Chisholm
  • Search, Who .
  • Biography and News Stories
  • Biography
  • World Health Organization Biography
  • Office of the Governor General of Canada. Order of Canada citation. Queen's Printer for Canada. Retrieved 26 May 2010
Non-profit organization positions
Preceded by
None (First in office)		 Director General of the World Health Organization
1948–1953		 Succeeded by
Marcolino Gomes Candau
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.