Brock Chisholm

Dr. George Brock Chisholm (May 18, 1896 - February 4, 1971) was a Canadian World War I veteran, medical practitioner and the first Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO). He was a strong advocate of religious tolerance and often commented that man's worst enemy was not disease, which he felt was curable as long as men worked together, but man himself.

Chisholm was born in Oakville, Ontario, to a family with deep ties to the region. Under Sir Isaac Black, after whom Chisholm was named, his great-grandfather fought against the Americans during the War of 1812. His great-grandfather was also Oakville's founder.

As an 18-year-old at the start of World War I, Chisholm joined the Canadian Army's 15th battalion, serving as a cook, sniper, machine gunner and scout. His leadership and heroism were twice rewarded: with a Military Cross for his efforts in a battle outside of Lens, France, and the Bar. He rose as high in rank as captain, was injured once and returned home in 1917 as a Canadian war hero.

After the war, Chishold pursued his lifelong passion of medicine, earning his M.D. from the University of Toronto by 1924 before interning in England, where he specialized in psychiatry. After six years in general practice in his native Oakville, he attended Yale where he specialized in the mental health of children. During this time Chisholm developed his strong view that children should be raised in as intellectually free environment as possible, independent of the prejudices and biases - political, moral and religious - of their parents.

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

That same year, Chisholm took his views to the international scene, becoming the Executive Secretary of the Interim Commission of the World Health Organization, based in Geneva, Switzerland. He was one of 16 international experts consulted in drafting the agency's first constitution. 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 brings 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.

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. 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.

Chisholm was an Honorary President of the World Federalists of Canada, President of the World Federation of Mental Health (1957 - 1958) and an Honorary Fellow of a number of prestigious medical associations. He received numerous honorary degrees and was made a Companion of the Order of Canada in 1967.

Chisholm married Grace McLean Ryei on June 21, 1924 and had two children, Catherine Anne and Brock Ryrie. He died on February 4, 1971 in Veterans' Hospital, Victoria, Ontario after a plane crash. He was agnostic.

Quotes

• "Children must be free to think in all directions irrespective of the peculiar ideas of parents who often seal their children's minds with preconceived prejudices and false concepts of past generations. Unless we are very careful, very careful indeed, and very conscientious, there is still great danger that our children may turn out to be the same kind of people we are."
• "The world was sick, and the ills from which it was suffering were mainly due to the perversion of man, his inability to live at peace with himself. The microbe was no longer the main enemy; science was sufficiently advanced to be able to cope with it admirably. If it were not for such barriers as superstition, ignorance, religious intolerance, misery and poverty."
• "Instead of bringing our children up according to our own preconceived rules of good and bad we must teach them to question everything. Tell your child you believe in God, point out that some people don't."
• "The re-interpretation and eventually eradication of the concept of right and wrong which has been the basis of child training, the substitution of intelligent and rational thinking for faith in the certainties of the old people, these are the belated objectives of practically all effective psychotherapy."
• "To achieve world government, it is necessary to remove from the minds of men their individualism, loyalty to family tradition, national patriotism, and religious dogmas."

External links

• Biography and News Stories (http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/unitarians/chisholm.html)
• Biography (http://collections.ic.gc.ca/heirloom_series/volume6/296-297.htm)
• World Health Organization Biography (http://www.who.int/archives/who50/en/directors.htm)