THE INTERNATIONAL UNION OF CHEMISTRY

Abstract

IN 1938, the International Union of Chemistry held its thirteenth conference and tenth congress in Rome, Italy, under the presidency of Nicola Parravano, with an attendance of 3,000 or 4,000 participants and a membership of 25 nations. As a natural and inevitable result of World War II, the union has been, and still is, faced by many difficult and serious problems. The first of these and the most fundamental was whether an attempt should be made to rebuild the union along its prewar lines, or that what was left of the old union should be liquidated and an entirely new organization created. In the early part of 1945, prior to VE Day (May 8, 1945), Sir Henry Tizard, then foreign secretary of the Royal Society, called a meeting of the chairmen of the various sectional national committees of that organization to discuss the whole question of future international scientific relations, and it was ...