In regard to health work, the representatives of the interna tional committee in Galicia and Ukraine and in the Black sea region were instructed in 1918 to lend their assistance in com bating the typhus epidemics then raging. In April 1918, the committee participated with the representatives of different coun tries in central and eastern Europe in founding a central study bureau for the combating of epidemics. Between 1921 and 1923, two medical missions were sent into the Ukraine to equip hospitals and supply food to famine sufferers. The committee's representa tives in Poland were associated in the anti-epidemic campaign there and between 1919 and 1923 a number of sanatoria and dispensaries in the Black sea region were re-established and equipped by the committee.
In order to assist in the relief of the populations most heavily affected by the economic consequences of the war, the committee undertook the systematic co-ordination of relief activities in Aus tria and Hungary. On Aug. 15, 1921 the committee joined with the League of Red Cross societies (see p. 18) in summoning in Geneva an international conference comprising 8o represent atives of governments, Red Cross societies and relief agencies, to organize relief for the famine stricken districts of Russia. A Rus sian relief committee was designated with Dr. Nansen as high commissioner, and the funds handled by this committee up to Jan. 1922, amounted to over 1800,000. In 1923 the economic position of the population in Germany and in the Ruhr was also investigated by delegates of the committee.
It was impossible to ignore the very special hardships to which children were exposed during the war and the years immediately following the conclusion of hostilities, and in order to facilitate the relief of children so situated the international committee par ticipated in Jan. 192o in founding the international Save the Children union, of which it became patron. The distribution of the relief funds handled by the union has been largely effected through the delegates of the international committee, and it is estimated that over £4,000,000 has been so distributed.
On numerous occasions the committee has been called upon to act in connection with civil war. Political prisoners arrested in the case of internal disorders in Hungary, Ireland, Posnania, Lithuania, the Ukraine and Montenegro have at various times been visited by representatives of the committee.
The refugee problem has also been one of the committee's principal preoccupations of recent years, when wars and revolu tions have raised it in an acute form. The international committee
pointed out at an early date the necessity of providing permanent homes for the thousands of Russian refugees who poured out of Russia into neighbouring countries. It was necessary that they should be transported to regions in which they could establish themselves without disturbing the balance of the economic life of the countries receiving them. The committee made representa tions on this subject to the League of Nations and a high com missariat was formed to handle the matter. In Europe and the Near East the executive work incurred was largely handled by the delegates of the committee ; in particular direct assistance was rendered by the committee to Greek refugees from Asia Minor, to war victims in Anatolia and to Syrian refugees.
As regards the general problem of relief, the international committee gave its support from the outset to a plan conceived by Senator Ciraolo and supported by the League of Nations, for the constitution of an international federation for the mutual relief of disaster stricken populations. This organization—the International Relief union (Union Internationale de Secours)— is to be entrusted with organizing and co-ordinating general relief on an adequate scale for peoples suffering under disasters of an exceptional character. The statutes of the union, to which a num ber of Governments have already given their adhesion, provide that the International Red Cross committee and the League of Red Cross societies shall assume responsibility for the permanent central services of the union.
An important contribution to the technical documentation available regarding relief problems has been made by the founda tion in 1923 of a review entitled Materiaux pour l'etude des cal amites, which is published by the Geneva Geographical Society under the joint auspices of the international committee and the League of Red Cross societies.
The international committee has been frequently called upon to collaborate with the technical services of the League of Nations and the International Labour office. It has followed with great interest the question of medical personnel, which is so closely connected with the whole history and work of the Red Cross. It has also established close co-operative relations with the Inter national Council of Nurses and with the world conferences called at regular intervals by that council.