From the very beginning, the Red Cross has been closely linked, with doctors and with all whose task it is to heal, the finest of vocations.

The Red Cross was in fact created a hundred years ago to provide against deficiencies in the Army Medical Services. This was an essentially medical factor which has continued to exist in every facet of Red Cross work, even when this work has exceeded its bounds and extended not only to the various victims of conflicts, but also in time of peace to life's victims—the sick.

Both the Red Cross and doctors have the same aim: to struggle against suffering and death. There can therefore never be too close co-operation between them. Without doctors the Red Cross would be nothing. The Red Cross, for its part, has obtained bases for doctors rendering their action possible in time of war and which are precisely contained in the Geneva Conventions.

The cease-fire agreement which has taken place in the Yemen after two years of fierce fighting has not ended the activity of the International Committee of the Red Cross, whose representatives, on the Republican as well as on the Royalist side, still face important tasks. These consist chiefly in giving medical aid to the victims of the war and assistance to prisoners held by both parties to the conflict.

At the foot of the rocks, worn smooth by the desert winds and burning to the touch, the surgeons of the ICRC field hospital at Uqhd in the Yemen are consulting each other about a wounded case. The X-ray apparatus has just broken down and it will not be possible to operate. How many days will pass before the news reaches Geneva and how many weeks before spare parts are received ?

In order to follow up the wish expressed by the International Red Cross at its Centenary Conference in 1963, the International Committee of the Red Cross recently convened a meeting of legal experts and specialists in civil defence. The opening session took place in Geneva on October 27, 1964.

We give below two articles, both concerning the same subject. The first is a general survey by the Head of the Agency, Mr. E. L. Jaquet. Readers are aware that the Swiss Government, on the occasion of the Centenary of the Red Cross, decided to donate to the ICRC a new building to house the Agency, for, indeed, this service is today in a building which is not suitable for the protection of irreplaceable records against the effects of light, fire, humidity and dust.

Two National Red Cross Societies have wished to demonstrate their appreciation of Mr. Léopold Boissier, who recently resigned his office as President of the ICRC, by conferring their highest awards on him. The citation accompanying that of the Irish Red Cross mentions the exceptional services rendered by Mr. Boissier to mankind and to the Red Cross during the grave international crises of the past few years.

Mr. Juan José Gómez de Rueda y Abril, on his return from Mexico, where he passed several months during which he took part in the highly effective activities of the National Red Cross, presented a report on November 5, 1964 at an ICRC's plenary session. He described the problems facing a National Society in a country which is fully expanding, the urgent tasks it is required to undertake and its need to continue and strengthen the bonds with the Geneva institution.