Dr. Edma Abouchdid at the International Sterility Congress

In Society

We spoke in a previous issue of the International Sterility Congress held at Naples, in Italy, between May 18 and 28 last, and we promised the readers at the time to speak at length of this congress, for the particular benefit to which the magazine "The Woman's Voice" attaches great importance.

The importance of the International Sterility Congress: This year's international sterility congress was only the second of its kind, held under the supervision and organization of the International Sterility Association, whose founding goes back no more than five years. Yet despite the youth of the institution, 1,300 doctors, men and women, from 52 countries attended the congress.

The efforts of the delegates were bent in earnest upon studying the causes of sterility and attempting to overcome one of the chief causes of family unhappiness — I mean the absence of a child...

It was in the Royal Palace at Naples that the International Sterility Congress met — a sumptuous palace containing every mark of pomp and splendor. It has twelve salons, each salon with its own magnificent decorative character, where the brocade-lined walls harmonize with the chairs, the color of the paint, and the vases, all of which stirred admiration and wonder.

Then there were the organization and the scientific spirit that accompanied the congress: all the lectures and papers were translated, as they were delivered, into English, French, German, Spanish, and Italian, so that all might set forth the latest they had attained toward uncovering the secrets of this grave scientific riddle.

The female's problems and the male's problems:
The congress was divided into two sessions: in the first session were examined the causes of sterility in woman, and in the second the causes of sterility in man. The new theories and views met in heated scientific discussions that threw revealing lights upon secrets which until lately had been wrapped in obscurity; the findings were laid open so that people might profit by them if possible, and every subject came fully explored in its moral, functional, and psychological aspects.

Dr. Edma Abouchdid: Since Dr. Edma Abouchdid has been the Lebanese secretary to the congress since 1952, the floor was given to her at the farewell party to speak and to introduce her country to this scientific elect drawn from the leading figures of the earth. Ten doctors from Lebanon took part in the congress, among them Drs. Mohammad Khaled, Youssef Attiyeh, Serhal, Bikhazi, Khaled Idriss, Abdouche, and Sharab. And among them, all eyes were turned toward Dr. Abouchdid...

In the presence of His Holiness the Pope: The delegates visited the Vatican, and the heads of the delegations were presented to the Pope, who spoke to each doctor, man and woman, about his own country. His Holiness said to Dr. Abouchdid, the representative of Lebanon: "My thoughts turn in prayer to your dear country." During the visit His Holiness delivered an important address in which he blessed the work of the congress and the doctors' humane intentions, but he forbade artificial insemination absolutely, and appealed to the delegates not to take it up in their meeting, for it is a devilish game which the revealed religions do not permit and do not bless...

The congress forgoes discussion of artificial insemination: Despite the importance of this subject at the heart of the congress's program, the doctors one and all bowed to the Pope's wish and gave up taking artificial insemination under discussion, contenting themselves with the precise scientific studies and experiments that have traced the development of the concept of "sterility" in recent years, and with putting forward the positive recommendations calculated to do away with the unhappiness caused by the absence of a child in the family — over and above the psychological complexes to which husband and wife fall victim to no purpose...