When Richard ThorneThorne Thorne, Richardas LGB Medical Officer;LGB Medical Officer Thorne, the fourth LGB Medical Officer, gained the agreement of his French and Austro-Hungarian counterparts to the first International Sanitary ConventionThorne Thorne, Richardat International Sanitary Conferences;International Sanitary Conferences in Paris in May 1892, it represented a major step forward in collaboration in the management of infectious disease. Focused on controlling cholera, and the first set of mutually agreed rules to emerge from over 40 years of discussion, the Convention was a personal triumph for Thorne Thorne and established the LGB’s Medical Department as the authoritative voice of public health within British government. This chapter examines the development of the international discussion on infectious disease control in the second half of the nineteenth century. In considering the cholera crises which dominated European public health in the period it explores the increasing politicisation of the debate, the impact of the underlying commercial and colonial interests of the participating nations including Britain, the growing influence of the Medical Department and the unique role played by its staff, both in representing Britain’s interests over many decades and in securing the accords of the 1890s.