This article (based on published writings of the researchers plus unpublished data and reports in recently opened archives) examines why Alfred Binet's concept of multifaceted intelligence requiring lengthy and varied testing continued and flourished in the 1920s and 1930s in the laboratories of Henri Pieron, Henri Laugier and other French psychologists and psychotechnicians. While the Americans and British evolved theories and practices of intelligence measurement reducible to a single number, most French psychologists used a much more subtle and complex understanding of the phenomenon. This hindered mass applications of intelligence tests which did not occur in France until the end of the Second World War. The Terman version of Binet's test did not re‐enter France until 1950.

The adequacy and safety of blood transfusion in sub-Saharan Africa is the subject of much concern, yet there have been very few studies of its history. An overview of that record finds that transfusions were first reported in Africa (sub-Saharan and excluding South Africa) in the early 1920s, and organized transfusion practices were established before the Second World War. Blood transfusion grew rapidly after 1945, along with the construction of new hospitals and expanded health services in Africa. Significant differences existed between colonial powers in the organization of transfusion services, but these converged after independence as their use continued to grow and decentralized and hospital-based practices were adopted. It was only after the oil crisis in the mid-1970s that health spending declined and the collection, testing, and transfusion of blood began to level off. Thus, when the AIDS crisis hit transfusion services, they were already struggling to meet the needs of patients. At this time, foreign assistance as well as the World Health Organization and the League of Red Cross Societies helped respond to both the immediate problem of testing blood, and for some countries, support existed for the broader reorganization of transfusion. Overall, the history shows that transfusion was adopted widely and quickly, limited mainly by the availability of knowledgeable doctors and hospital facilities. There was less resistance than expected by Africans to receive transfusions, and the record shows a remarkable flexibility in obtaining blood. The dangers of disease transmission were recognized from an early date but were balanced against the potential lifesaving benefits of transfusion.

The history of smallpox in Africa during colonial rule is a relatively neglected subject. This is not because of ignorance or obscurity but in some ways just the opposite: it is thought that there is little more to be learned about it. To be sure, vaccination campaigns during colonial rule were one of the earliest and most extensive public health programmes that Europeans bragged about as evidence of the advantages of colonial rule: "an appreciable agent of propaganda", is how one French colonial medical officer described smallpox vaccination. 1 The mass campaigns used mostly African personnel and produced effective results. Moreover, at the end of colonial rule and beginning of independence, smallpox gained worldwide attention when the World Health Organization (WHO) launched its smallpox eradication programme. Now the colonial measures were criticized as not going far enough, and data on epidemics and prevalence were the subject of much study as measures were taken which successfully eliminated the scourge in the 1960s and early 1970s.Since then, the magisterial volume by the principal leaders of that effort, Frank Fenner, and his co-authors, has been taken as more or less the last word on the subject, not just in Africa but worldwide. This is appropriate, to a large extent. The sections on Africa in the volume, and another by one of their collaborators, Donald Hopkins, are thoroughly documented, based on a large amount of evidence, and certainly the starting point for anyone wishing to revisit the subject. 2 But these authors have a particular point of view, given their involvement in the campaign, which minimizes earlier efforts. Hence the chapters on colonial rule focus primarily on the epidemiology of smallpox, with little about attempts to prevent or respond to epidemics when they occurred. 3 This study focuses on the efforts at smallpox control and prevention from the 1920s to the end of colonial rule in West, Central and East Africa. These were by far the earliest and for a long time the largest efforts at introducing Western medicine to Africa. To the

This article examines the introduction of blood transfusion into general practice from the end of the First World War to the Second World War. Developments during most of this period were not the result of new discoveries but rather the spread of ideas and the establishment of donor organizations to secure an adequate blood supply. The identification, testing, and organization of potential donors were done in a wide variety of settings that reflected differences in political and cultural experiences. At the end of the 1930s, with war approaching, the resolution of problems with storage of blood and the discovery of new techniques for separating and storing plasma dramatically changed transfusion practice. Thus, the innovations of the Second World War were very much based on the development of broad donor organizations plus the new technical discoveries that had occurred during the interwar period.

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