In 1942 and 1945, the Unitarian Service Committee, along with Commissions in Nimes, France and the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, organized and conducted studies on malnutrition in France and Italy. Out of these projects grew the idea of the medical missions, as suggested by Dr. Maurice B. Visscher, in order to exchange information and to further international relationships. In 1946, the USC sent medical missions to both Poland and Czechoslovakia in cooperation with the United Nations, then establishing the USC Medical Projects Department in 1947 under the direction of Dr. Edwin Kohn. In the following years, medical missions were sent to Austria under the direction of the World Health Organization, as well as Greece, Italy, Germany, Poland, Finland, and Austria. Medical missions continued well into the 1960s to countries such as Japan, Germany, Colombia, Israel, Iran, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Turkey.
