Abstract
In 1932 the Bohemian paediatrician Emil Flusser published a book in which he argued that war was the result of a psychic epidemic, and that its prevention was a task for the medical profession. Einstein supported Flusser by writing a foreword to the work. The burning of the book in 1933 by the Nazis was followed by that of the author and his family in 1942. Both events help to explain the total oblivion which has befallen this early proposal for a medical peace movement.