International Office Of Public Hygiene
It is the world's first universal health organization. Member states exchanged information about the presence and spread of disease, as well as provided recommendations for sanitation. The organization helped restructure public health services in Greece and China in the late 1920s.
History
It was created to oversee international rules regarding the quarantining of ships and ports to prevent the spread of plague and cholera, and to administer other public health conventions, leading to engage on other epidemics, and the collection of broader epidemiological data on various diseases, as well as issues such as the control of medicinal opium, cannabis, and other drugs, the traumas created by World War I, etc.
The OIHP was part of the complex structure known as the Health Organization (Organisation d'Hygiène) of the League of Nations, in an often-competing, and sometimes collaborative relation with the League of Nations' Health Committee.
The OIHP was dissolved by protocols signed 22 July 1946 and its epidemiological service was incorporated into the Interim Commission of the World Health Organization on 1 January 1947. However, the OIHP remained in existence legally until 1952.
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5d/League_of_Nations_Organization.png/400px-League_of_Nations_Organization.png)
Organisation
The OIHP was managed by a "Permanent Committee" chaired successively by Rocco Santoliquido (1908-1919), Oscar Velghe (1919-1932), George S. Buchanan (1932-1936). Important personalities were taking part in the work of the OIHP such as Camille Barrère.
As of 1933, the OIHP was composed of the following contracting parties:
Argentina, 1910
Australia, 1909
Belgian Congo, 1927
Belgium, 1907
Bolivia, 1912
Brazil, 1907
UK British dominions, 1927
UK British India, 1908
Bulgaria, 1909
Canada, 1910
Chile, 1912
Denmark, 1913
Netherlands (Dutch Indies), 1925
Egypt, 1907
France, 1907
French Algeria, 1910
French Equatorial Africa, 1929
French Indochina, 1914
French West Africa, 1920
Germany, 1928
UK (Great Britain), 1907
Greece, 1913
Kingdom of Hejaz, 1932
Ireland (Irish Free State), 1928
Italy, 1907
Japan, 1924
Luxembourg, 1926
Madagascar, 1920
Morocco, 1920
Mexico, 1909
Monaco, 1913
Netherlands, 1907
Norway, 1912
New Zealand, 1924
Peru, 1908
Persia, 1909
Poland, 1920
Portugal, 1907
Romania, 1921
Sudan, 1926
Sweden, 1909
Switzerland
Czechoslovakia, 1922
Union of South Africa, 1919
Spain, 1907
French protectorate of Tunisia, 1908
Turkey, 1911
USA, 1907
Soviet Union, 1926 (initially accessed as
Russian Empire in 1907)
Uruguay, 1913
See also
- International Sanitary Conferences
- League of Nations
- Hygiene
- Public health
- World Health Organization
- Camille Barrère
- Drug Supervisory Body