[Health promotion from the 20th to the 21th century. The Valais Ligue for fighting tuberculosis--a visionary model started in 1951].

At the beginning of the twentieth century, tuberculosis was really a plague. Many people had been mobilised to successfully fight against this infectious disease. Valais, a Swiss alpine canton developped then an original concept of health promotion by involving all the health partners including a specialised hospital under the auspices of the local Health Departement. Such a model named then Ligue pulmonaire contre la tuberculose, celebrates his 60th anniversary. Its present name is Valais Health Promotion, i.e., a proactive health network very unique in Switzerland. It assumes many tasks of public health in clinical as well as in preventive medicine. These two components strongly facilitate the insertion of this organisation into the reality of this population to fulfil many challenging tasks with efficacy.