To Bear Witness: A Journey of Healing and Solidarity

Part Three: Continuity

142 143 and effective therapy was more a wish than a reality. Nonetheless, the book did suggest a way forward and the lessons of an early epidemic remain valid. Many varied topics were covered in these books, joined, I would suggest, by the mixture of passion and compassion that has motivated my actions. For example, the forceful response to draconian budget cuts covered in Imminent Peril: Public Health in a Declining Economy resulted in the restoration of over $50 million to a decimated health budget. A good summary of my own forty five year obsession with the struggles of the poor and oppressed are offered in one of my more recent books, Traditions, Values and Humanitarian Action. The final piece on Technology for Humanitarian Action is another effort in the continuous struggle to find better ways to help people survive, and live in dignity, good health, and freedom. Part Three: Continuity I was one of eight children raised in a loving but slightly dysfunctional home dominated by my Jesuit trained father, a physician who recited Latin and Greek poetry as bedtime lullabies. He insisted, if we wanted his attention on any serious matter, that we “put it on paper” declaring that “if it’s important enough to you then write it down.” I never forgot that lesson. I have written or edited thirty three books and well over two hundred medical and other articles on a wide range of topics, all important to me. My first book on clinical tropical medicine was written more than forty years ago and is still in use, in its sixth edition. This, and other technical texts, reflect an essential and integral part of my work, but excerpts from them do not fit in this broader, more philosophic book. The pieces chosen for this section cover a wide range of subjects but are linked, in an evolutionary way, by a number of constant and recurring themes. I present here Introductions and a Conclusion from thirteen volumes. I have placed the pieces in chronological order. In retrospect I see how much innocence there was in some of these attempts to change the world. For example, rereading The AIDS Epidemic twenty three years after it was written brings back those early days when we suspected, on the basis of some five hundred plus cases in New York City, that a new, puzzling disease might grow in significance. This was the first book published on AIDS, and it was translated into many languages. We did not then know the cause of AIDS, 142 143 and effective therapy was more a wish than a reality. Nonetheless, the book did suggest a way forward and the lessons of an early epidemic remain valid. Many varied topics were covered in these books, joined, I would suggest, by the mixture of passion and compassion that has motivated my actions. For example, the forceful response to draconian budget cuts covered in Imminent Peril: Public Health in a Declining Economy resulted in the restoration of over $50 million to a decimated health budget. A good summary of my own forty five year obsession with the struggles of the poor and oppressed are offered in one of my more recent books, Traditions, Values and Humanitarian Action. The final piece on Technology for Humanitarian Action is another effort in the continuous struggle to find better ways to help people survive, and live in dignity, good health, and freedom. Part Three: Continuity I was one of eight children raised in a loving but slightly dysfunctional home dominated by my Jesuit trained father, a physician who recited Latin and Greek poetry as bedtime lullabies. He insisted, if we wanted his attention on any serious matter, that we “put it on paper” declaring that “if it’s important enough to you then write it down.” I never forgot that lesson. I have written or edited thirty three books and well over two hundred medical and other articles on a wide range of topics, all important to me. My first book on clinical tropical medicine was written more than forty years ago and is still in use, in its sixth edition. This, and other technical texts, reflect an essential and integral part of my work, but excerpts from them do not fit in this broader, more philosophic book. The pieces chosen for this section cover a wide range of subjects but are linked, in an evolutionary way, by a number of constant and recurring themes. I present...