"Children
are the most precious treasure a community can possess,
for
in them are the promise and guarantee of future."
Who was Professor Forel?
" Professor August Forel was a
world-renowned psychiatrist, entomologist, anatomist, social reformer and
peace-worker. He has been described as 'one of the last representatives of a
generation of encyclopaedists, of open and curious minds, who took interest in
almost all human activities.'
He was born on the first of September 1848 in the small
town of Morge, on the shores of Lake Geneva in Switzerland...He studied medicine
in Zurich and quickly showed an interest in the human brain and psychiatry. ..
His life is truly impressive. He founded at least
twenty new and innovative institutions, made innumerable discoveries, and
inventions in many different fields...and published over 1,200 books, scientific
publications and newspaper articles on almost every imaginable subject.
In whatever field he took interest, he distinguished
himself as a true pioneer. He was in the vanguard, and a standard-bearer, of the
temperance, world peace, women's rights, and social, penal, political and
educational reform movements. His activities in these and other fields earned
him the acclaim of his biographers as 'the strongest and purest voice of the
world's conscience', a 'defender of humanity', a 'servant of humanity', a 'great
citizen of the universal brotherhood, rare specimen of the human race', an
'ethical genius', not only a 'glory to his Swiss fatherland', but even more so 'decus
humani generis', and an 'unassuming apostle of a better future' for our
distracted and troubled world. In honour of his achievements, his portrait and
symbols of his life-work appear on the one-thousand franc banknote of
Switzerland."
The above is a brief biography of Prof. August Forel,
excerpted with the permission of the author Dr. John Paul Vader, from his book;
"For the Good of Mankind, John Paul Vader 1984,
George Ronald, Oxford.
