COMMITTEE ON MEDICAL RESEARCH 99 



tee normally met every two weeks, with occasional meetings at weekly 

 intervals or even more frequently when there was need. After the cessation 

 of hostilities the Committee met infrequently until the meeting of January 

 20, 1947, which was adjourned sine die. 



Antecedent Committees Concerned with Medical Problems 



Health and Medical Committee. A Health and Medical Committee had 

 been formed on September 19, 1940, under the Council of National Defense, 

 to "co-ordinate health and medical activities affecting national defense." 

 Two months later the Committee was transferred to the Federal Security 

 Agency when the Administrator became coordinator of health, medical 

 welfare, and related activities. The Committee concerned itself with the 

 broader aspects of medical care as the roll of its subcommittees indicates: 

 dentistry, medical education, hospitals, industrial medicine, Negro health, 

 nursing. It formulated plans for the Ofl5ce of Procurement and Assignment 

 of Physicians and Nurses and made various recommendations for changes 

 in medical school curricula, internships and residencies, deferment of medi- 

 cal students and enrollment of nurses. Although it lay within the province 

 of the Health and Medical Committee to enter into contracts with educa- 

 tional and research institutions for studies and experimental investigations, 

 the Committee decided to leave problems of medical research to the Na- 

 tional Research Council. The Committee had made one contract with the 

 National Academy of Sciences under which the Division of Medical Sci- 

 ences of the National Research Council had initiated work in the field of 

 aviation medicine. 



Division of Medical Sciences, National Research Council. In May 1940, 

 the Surgeon General of the Army requested advice from the Chairman of 

 the Division of Medical Sciences on certain medical problems. In re- 

 sponse to this request two committees were promptly formed to advise the 

 Surgeons General in the field of transfusions and chemotherapy. As these 

 committees met during the succeeding year and as further requests for 

 occasional and continuing advice were received from the Services, addi- 

 tional groups were created. At the time the CMR was formed there were 

 eight major committees and thirty-three subcommittees on military med- 

 icine. 



These committees had performed important services for the Surgeons 

 General. They made numerous recommendations regarding therapeutic 

 procedures, particularly in chemotherapy and in venereal and tropical dis- 

 eases. They assisted in revising the standards for physical examination of 

 recruits (MR 1-9). They co-operated with the American Medical Associ- 

 ation in preparing a roster of medical graduates and supplied an evalua- 

 tion of specialists to the Surgeons General. To the Red Cross they gave 



