A Chronology of State Medicine, Public Health, Welfare and Related ...

defined role in
1943 Cont - 1944
1943 cont group schemes; that periodically the schools should be independently inspected;
and that responsibility for each training school should be taken out of the hands of the matron
and given to a separate director or principal. The last of these recommendations was not
acceptable to the majority of the profession. See 1949.
The Committee on the Curriculum and Examinations in Secondary Schools (chairman,
Sir Cyril Norwood, 1875-1956, educationalist, headmaster of Harrow School) endorsed a
tripartite system of grammar, technical and secondary modern schools, and the transfer from
primary schools to secondary schools at the age of 11 years. See 1944.
A White Paper "Educational Reconstruction", Cmd.6458, proposed the provision of
nursery schools; the immediate raising of school leaving age to 15 and later to 16; free
secondary education for all; and the introduction of compulsory part-time education up to the
age of 18 for those already at work. See 1944.
The Sub-Committee of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Department of Health
for Scotland on Infant Mortality in Scotland (chairman, Sir John Boyd Orr) found that infant
mortality in Scotland was forty per cent worse than in England and analysed possible causes.
The Scottish Council for Health Education formed. See 1964.
The Medical Research Council established a Department for Research in Industrial
Medicine at the London Hospital under the directorship of D Hunter (1898-1978, physician).
The Committee on Social and Preventive Medicine of the Royal College of Physicians
of London recommended that every medical school should establish a department of social
and preventive medicine headed by a professor who should be medically qualified, have had
some clinical experience and research training, and be familiar with public health activities.
See 1953.
JA Ryle (1889-1950, regius professor of medicine at Cambridge, formerly physician at
Guy's Hospital and author of "The Natural History of Disease", 1936) appointed professor of
social medicine at Oxford University. See 1948.
Marjory Warren set out in the British Medical Journal (2, 822-823) the need for special
geriatric units in general hospitals and for the development of a specialty of geriatric
medicine.
The use of mass radiography for detecting people with pulmonary tuberculosis began
in Lancashire.
Maintenance allowance for some tuberculous patients introduced.
Age Concern, Scotland, founded.
Nuffield Foundation founded.
First electronic computer built for use in breaking enemy codes.
1944 Education Act (7&8 Geo.VI, c.31), (Butler's Act) followed many of the
recommendations of the Norwood Committee and the White Paper (see 1943); elementary
schools to be replaced by infant and junior schools for primary education; secondary
education to be provided free for all children in grammar, technical or secondary modern
schools, selection for which was to be by an examination taken at age 11 (the "eleven-plus
exam."); school leaving age to be raised to 15 years (implemented in 1947) and later to 16
(implemented in 1973); and free school milk, subsidised meals and free medical and dental
inspections to be provided for all children in state schools. The act made it a duty of local
education authorities to ascertain all handicapped children in their area, and enabled the