Cora Du Bois’ Brief Stint With the World Health Organization (1950–1951): Right Time, Wrong Place

Abstract

Brock Chisholm, director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO) in the early 1950s, was heard to say that “one cultural anthropologist [Cora Du Bois] was worth one hundred malaria teams.” Paul Russell, the leading malariologist at the time, responded (privately in his diary) that Chisholm’s remark was the sort that “one might expect from a psychiatrist planning a world health program.” George Foster reported that Du Bois “was completely disgusted with” her stay at WHO. “They never asked her to do anything. She never followed up.” Chisholm was not the only one who appreciated her contribution to the work of WHO; other WHO programs and offices would have welcomed her contribution. However, by operating out of WHO’s South-East Asia Regional Office (SEARO), she found herself isolated with little chance of her work being reviewed favorably, i.e., the “wrong place.”