Mention of blood transfusion is to be found from the very beginning of medicine. In fact, tradition has it that Aesculapius used venous blood for therapeutic ends. Pythagoras, and later Ovid, tell of the miraculous results obtained from the practice of transfusion. There is the widely known primitive custom, still practised in Europe less than five centuries ago, which consisted of drinking the blood of one's adversary in order to acquire his virtues.

The Central Laboratory of the Netherlands Red Cross Blood Transfusion Service, the origin of which dates from 1939, is guided by a foundation in which participate the Dutch Government, the Netherlands Red Cross and the Municipality of Amsterdam.

A staff of physicians, chemists, pharmacists and biologists is charged with the leading of the different departments and laboratories. The Central Laboratory which is operating on a non-profit basis, is the medico-technical centre of the blood transfusion organization in the Netherlands.

We have the honour to inform you of the official recognition, on September 7, 1961, of the Togolese Red Cross Society by the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The activity of the ICRC in Laos. — Since the last weeks of 1960, the International Committee of the Red Cross has, in various ways, come to the aid of victims of the conflict which broke out in Laos, in particular by distributing relief and visiting detained persons.

By the terms of a letter which was received by the Federal Political Department in Berne on June 20, 1961, the Government of the Federation of Nigeria has confirmed the participation of that State in the Geneva Conventions of 1949, participation which took effect on the date of the independence of that country, namely on October 1, 1960.

Facilitated by the steps which the ICRC had been undertaking for several weeks, an exchange of French and Tunisian prisoners took place on September 10, 1961 in Bizerta. Shortly after President Bourguiba's press conference announcing this exchange, a delegate of the International Committee promptly went to the spot. Acting as an intermediary, he contributed, in co-operation with the Tunisian Red Crescent, towards the accomplishment of this humanitarian operation.

Mr. Léopold Boissier, President of the International Committee, went to Norway last month, having been recently invited by the Students' Associations of the Polytechnicum of Trondhjem and of the University of Oslo to explain to their members the work of the Red Cross and the problems facing the ICRC in the world today.