Brock Chisholm: Doctor to the World by Allan Irving (review)

734 The Canadian Historical Review action.' Christina McCall observes in the same vein that, in presiding over his government's enactment of such a far-reaching social reform agenda, Pearson 'helped consolidate a political culture north of the American border that centred on the value of government, rather than on its venality.' Canadians could only have fared better from such social reform had the Pearson Liberals possessed that 'prudent sense of balance,' to appropriate Ross Campbell's phrase, to heed their retired colleague, Brooke Claxton. An innovator and social reformer himself, Claxton had warned ominously in 1957 that 'the built-in increases in Canada's social security program [had] put the economy on a "collision course."' D.C. STORY University ofSaskatchewan Brock Chisholm: Doctor to the World. ALLAN IRVING. Toronto: Associated Medical Services Inc./The Hannah Institute for the History of Medicine /Fitzhenry and Whiteside 1998. Pp. 149· $18.95 In Brock Chisholm: Doctor to the World, sociologist Allan Irving attempts to bring a complex person to life and to assess his influence in both the national and the international spheres at mid-century. In so doing, he has undertaken the challenging task ofwriting a historical biographythat raises many questions about the influence of family background, formative social experiences, the structure of the Canadian medical profession, the Canadian armed forces and the Canadian bureaucracy, and the role of Canadians in international organizations. Can such issues be dealt with effectively, given the focus and space limitations of the Hannah Institute's Canadian Medical Lives series for which this study was produced? Beginning with a brief discussion of Chisholm's childhood, Irving outlines when this visionary developed his far-sighted beliefs, but never suggests whether this was unique or typical behaviour. After grim war experiences between 1915 and 1918, Chisholm studied medicine at the University of Toronto and chose to specialize in psychiatry. He had concluded that world peace depended on the development of 'mature' human beings who were not prey to the lies and deceptions that had marked human society to date. Such iconoclastic views brought him public and professional notoriety that contrasted with the growing administrative expertise which flourished after his appointment as the director of personnel selection for the Canadian Army in 194!. Chisholm's multiphased approach to selecting and allocating military personnel was so highly regarded that in 1944 he was appointed the first deputy minister ofthe new Department ofNational Health and Welfare. Book Reviews 735 From this position he decided to challenge Canadians' deeply entrenched social and religious beliefs, including the 'myth of Santa Claus,' arguing that they contributed to the hostility that led to world conflicts. Was his outspoken advocacy ofmore progressive child-rearing practices, which would produce neurosis-free adults, an attempt to shock his fellow citizens into action jn 1945 or an indication of his unwillingness to see his vision ofnational health undermined by shibboleths from the past? Alas, Irving provides little analysis of Chisholm's character and fails to discuss what motivated the deputy minister to undertake his mission or to examine whether he recognized the price that visionaries pay for being out ofsync with their times. After setting offa storm ofcontroversy within the cabinet, clergy, and the educational establishment, Chisholm found a more congenial position : executive secretary to the Interim Commission charged with organizing the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1946. His diplomatic and administrative skills and vision of health for all through social change resulted in his appointment as the first director general in 1948. Holding this position through the challenging formative years ofthe new agency until 1953, Chisholm redefined health as a positive concept: 'health is a state ofphysical fitness and ofmental and social well-being, not only the absence of infirmity and disease.' That definition was his legacy to the world and has yet to be brought to fruition. How did an apparently modest but driven Canadian achieve national opprobrium and international admiration? Irving confined his research to Chisholm's personal papers, reminiscences of family and friends, WHO records, and journal articles and press clippings that seem either to have supported or demonized the doctor. Tantalizing hints ofthe man's complexity are evident in his inability to tell his...