Official Notes
ESTABLISH NATIONAL COMMISSION ON CHRONIC ILLNESS
A National Commission on Chronic Illness was formally launched May 20 at a luncheon meeting in Chicago, at which time Mr. Leonard W. Mayo, Cleveland, vice president of Western Reserve University, was installed as chairman of the commission. The speaker at the luncheon was Dr. Leonard A. Scheele, Surgeon General of the U. S. Public Health Service, whose subject was "The Turning Point in Our Care of the Chronically Ill."The commission is an outgrowth of the Joint Committee on Chronic Disease, set up in 1946 through the cooperative efforts of the American Hospital Association, the American Medical Association, the American Public Welfare Association and the American Public Health Association. In May 1948 the National Health Assembly, held in Washington, D. C., recommended that the Joint Committee on Chronic Disease be expanded to a national commission, with increased membership, backing and responsibilities.