Document EmB6zY6gBp9oQQX0VBNZRxRM0

February 23, 1971 Kim Cram6r, M.D., Ph.D. ' _ Department of Hygiene University of Gteborg ' Fack - 3.400 33 Gteborg 33, Sweden 7~ > Dear Cram4r: I thank you very much Indeed for your letter of February 3, and Its enclosures. 1 am especially glad to have the reprint which you sent, for X am not at all sure that X have the other copy sent earlier. 1*11 look carefully when I go back to Cincinnati. It is unlikely, however, that X have it. Despite the fact that many papers have passed my desk and that some of these have been deposited somewhere in my office, and despite my absence from it on several occasions, I manage to keep fairly well aware what X have andvhere it is. I have learned, however, that it is wise to give over most of the documentary material (not quite all of it) to the library of the laboratory, where it will be filed in an orderly manner, and that may be where this paper landed without my having seen it. There is one feature of your reprint which makes me sorry to have it. I cannot, in good faith, have your Amsterdam report published in the Archives of Environmental Health. The reprint is a much better document^which has already been published. I shall have to cite the reference, and make very little of it otherwise, for those are my instructions from the Chief Editor. Xf I had not known any better, X would have sent your report in for publication, and it would have contributed to the wider knowledge of our physicians, many of whoa fail to see any but American Journals. Hwever, X am sympathetic with the policies of the Editorial Board. There is much too much material to be read in the many journals which include the outpourings of the writers on many subjects. So much so that one has to make a concentrated effort now and then to peruse the abstracts and get together the articles which seem most likely to be useful. Otherwise, one would do nothing but pore over the medical and scientific literature of the world endlessly, we undertook years ago to assemble a truly competent group in our library to do comprehensive abstracting. Perhaps you saw our library and bibliographic setup when you visited the Laboratory. In ay view, it is one of the very beat features of the Kettering laboratory. Our Mrs. Campbell is a gem, and several members of her staff are also highly knowledgeable. It is too bad, however, that X am unable to reproduce the discussions of the Amsterdam Conference in the Archives, and it brings me to recognize more than ever that the International Association needs more money to supply its needs in the matter of its own publications. We shall never have a truly potent voice in the international arena of Occupational Medicine until such a sounding board is available and is developed into a strong force. The business of a group (always variable in composition and concept) meeting in some corner of the earth every third year, without Interim intercommunication's fatal to any sort of unity. And always a few loud voices dominate the scene. Truhaut, in my view, is not the Kim Cramr, M.D., Ph.D. February 25, 1971 Page 2 proper vehicle for assembling the concepts and ideas of truly dedicated physicians in the field of occupational medicine. I speak, bluntly, and in a sense, meanly, but X am concerned with no man's distinction in this field, actually, but with the development of a proper attitude, on the part of physicians toward the people - the very human and individually Impotent (and ignorant) men who do the work of industry. I don't know how this is in your country, but in ours, the job is done badly for the most part, and only a small proportion of our physicians have the social awareness which makes it possible for them to guide industrial organisations in the performance of their duty to their employees and their communities. However, I had not intended to write a book on this subject and X will desist. I hope very soon to have all of the publishable material of the Conference in the hands of the Chief Editor and only a little later in print. I hope further, by that means to have made it possible for the Conference, through its publications, and through its references to publications elsewhere, to exert the appropriate influence in our field. Sincerely your3, RAK:wb Dictated but not read Robert A. Kehoe, M.D. Professor Emeritus of Occupational ifedlclne tte 0009018