| Description | Records of the Medical Committee, 1891-1954; Medical Board, 1863-1921; Medical Training Home Committee, 1900-1907; Medical Committee sub-committees, 1900-1942; Medical Mission Home Committee, 1930-1941; Medical Commission and its sub-committee, 1935-1938. Including minutes of the Medical Committee, 1891-1954, précis books, 1898-1950, medical examination registers, 1863-1898; committee papers. |
| Administrative History | The Medical Committee was established to promote the Medical Mission Auxiliary Fund and as a body with whom the General Committee might confer respecting the Society's medical missions. The Executive functions of the Medical Committee mean that it dealt with a broad range of policy, strategy and operational issues, including liaising with other CMS Departments, receiving reports and making decisions on all aspects of 'Home' and 'Overseas' work including sanctioning the recommendations of the department's sub-committees, receiving reports of the Medical Training Home Committee, approving staff appointments, formally adopting the 'Review of the Year' prior to the MMA Annual Meeting.
Much of the business of Medical Committee meetings comprised discussing and agreeing action arising from incoming correspondence and papers received since the last Committee meeting. Summaries of the correspondence and papers selected for presentation to the Committee were prepared for each meeting in the form of printed (mimeographed typescript from February 1902) précis sheets with each item of correspondence numbered in a continuous number sequence for the year and listed in order of date of receipt, giving the name of the sender, date written, date received, a summary of the contents and a brief note of business arising (proposals for action). Précis were circulated to members of the Medical Committee as detailed agenda papers. File copies of the précis sheets were kept in 'Medical Department Precis' books with the papers pasted in on the left hand page and, on the facing page, a record of resolutions and recommendations with a note of action taken. Although primarily based on the précis of incoming correspondence and papers, the volumes functioned as a working record of Medical Committee agendas, resolutions and action and include occasional items for which there was no related incoming correspondence.
The Medical Committee also regularly set aside time at meetings for interviews with medical missionaries on furlough, regional medical advisers, CMS staff and others. Records of these interviews were originally pasted into the précis books but can be found in the minute books from the 1950s. |