The Medical Research Council and treatments for tuberculosis before streptomycin

Despite being set up in 1913 using a fund specifically earmarked for tuberculosis, the Medical Research Committee (renamed the Medical Research Council [MRC] in 1919) prioritised other areas of medical research. From 1920, the MRC did have three subcommittees concerned with tuberculosis: the Tuberculin Committee, the Bacteriology Committee and the Occupational Phthisis (pulmonary tuberculosis) Committee (AS MacNalty, a medical officer in the Ministry of Health, was the secretary of all of them). However, none of these committees was primarily concerned with investigating the effects of the treatments in vogue in the 1920s and 1930s – sanatorium treatment, tuberculin, sanocrysin and artificial pneumothorax. The Council did provide some financial assistance to physicians researching treatments in institutional settings, but did little itself to evaluate the effects of these treatments.