Israel Scientists Offer Proposals at U.N. Science Parley in Geneva

A world farming “intelligence report” to guide emerging nations seeking their road to modernity was advocated here today by Dr. Shmuel Hurwitz, associate professor of agronomy at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He was one of a number of Israeli speakers and rapporteurs participating in the 103-nation conference on science and technology, organized here by the United Nations to aid underdeveloped areas.

Dr. Hurwitz, speaking in Russian, which he acquired as a youth at the Technical High School of Moscow, advocated the establishment of a commission for international cooperation with the aim of collecting data about farming practices in various parts of the world, preparing a unified plan, formulating methods and appraising results. Particularly needed, he said, were data about crop practices in the developing countries. A high proportion of the representatives here are from Africa, the Middle East, Far East and Southeast Asia.

Another Israeli agronomist, Zvi Gatt, discussed methods of preserving foodstuffs for the feeding of populations during times of scarcity. He advocated the use of simple methods for teaching home economics so that people would preserve foods, Dr. Leo Picard, professor of geology at the Hebrew University, discussed as rapporteur of one session the technical nature of research systems that could be applied to ground water studies.

ISRAELI MEDICAL EXPERT REPORTS ON NEW KNOWLEDGE ABOUT CANCER

Professor Moshe Rachmilewitz, of the Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School, revealed that new knowledge about cancer and heart disease is being obtained, and will continue coming, from work in under-developed lands. Some of these researches, he said, is as important in the battle against “modern” scourges as were older experiments in the fight against tropical diseases. The research, he stated, offers an opportunity of “mapping geographical pathology” and studies in epidemiology, indicating their pathological life and location.

Israel, said Prof. Rachmilewitz, as a country with various ethnic groups from different backgrounds, has served as “an interesting study” example. Studies have shown the prevalence of certain diseases among some groups, and their rarity among others, thus “contributing to general scientific interest and stimulating basic research.”

Dr. J. Cohen, director of curative services in Israel’s Ministry of Health, discussed the need for laying the foundations for assessing mental health program requirements, with special reference to the need for vital health statistics. He advocated the need for special legislation to permit and enforce the reporting of such vital factors.

A representative of the Ivory Coast, in Africa, told the conference that his country could not benefit from “highly specialized and financially costly” experiments conducted either by countries of the Eastern bloc or in the advanced Western lands. “We have followed,” he said, “the guidance and experience of a country which has proved to us to have shown a correct way. This country is Israel. We intend to follow this way.”