1 No One Knows for whom he is Actually Working! The indirect role played by the Rockefeller Foundation in the Shift from Poor Law Medical Relief to the National Health Service in England, through the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (1913-1948) 1 Emilio Quevedo V. “History is a song that can be sung in multiple parts.” Introduction Fernand Braudel. This paper seeks to analyse the transition process from the Poor Law medical relief system to the creation of the National Health Service in Great Britain and this shift’s influence on public’s health. It focuses on the analysis of the mutual relationships between British and North-American public health dur- ing the first half of the twentieth century and stresses the indirect role played by the Rockefeller Foundation in that process. The paper concentrates, on one hand, on three important junctures in the history of these relationships: the role of the Rockefeller Foundation in the creation of the London School of Hygiene in 1923, its amalgamation with the old London School of Tropical Medicine, and the subsequent emergence of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in 1924. On the other hand, the paper analyses the impact these three events had on the birth of the British National Health Service, emphasising the role some of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine’s teachers and graduates played in designing, organising, and launching of the National Health Service. Many other scholars have written about the history of the Lon- don School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and about the history of the Brit- ish National Health Service. 2 The goal of this paper is to build upon, not to re- 1 This paper reviews the results of two related research projects: “The Mutual Relationships Between British and North-American Public Health” and “The Impact of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in the Designing, Planning and Launching of the British National Health Service, 1924-1950”. The first one was developed at the University of Ox- ford Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine with the sponsor of a Wellcome Trust Travel Grant. The second one was conducted at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medi- cine with the sponsor of a Research Grant awarded to the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine by the Wellcome Trust. Both were possible because of the author’s sab- batical leave from the National University of Colombia, from September, 2001 to August, 2002. 2 For the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, see among others: Wilkinson, Lise, and Anne Hardy: Prevention and Cure. The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. A 20th Century Quest for Global Public Health, 1 st ed. (London, 2001); A. May: The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, 1899-1999, (London, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, 1999); Roy M. Acheson and Penelope Poole: “The Lon-