Medical Refugees and the Modernisation of British Medicine, 1930-1960

This paper reappraises the position of medical refugees in Britain between the 1930s and 1950s. Advocates of reforming British medicine in terms of its knowledge base and social provision emerged as strongly supportive of the medical refugees. By way of contrast, an elite in the British Medical Association attempted to exercise a controlling regime through the Home Office Advisory Committee. The effects of these divisions are gauged by reconstructing the complete spectrum of refugees as a total population. Applying this methodology of population reconstruction provides a corrective to the notion of a cohesive 'medical establishment' exercising rigid and discriminatory controls.