Our History
The Massachusetts Medical Society, the oldest
continuously operating medical society in the United States, was
established as a professional association of physicians by the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts in an Act of Incorporation, Chapter 15 of
the Acts of 1781, just days after the Revolutionary War’s
climactic Battle of Yorktown.
One of the key powers that the state legislature
gave the Society was the power to, in effect, license physicians. The
president and fellows of the Society were given the power to
“examine all Candidates for the Practice of Physic and Surgery
… and if upon such Examination said Candidates shall be found
skilled in their Profession, and fitted for the Practice of it, they
shall receive the Approbation of the Society.”
A written public notice in 1781 by John Warren, one
of the Society’s 14 founding members, provides an important
additional intention of the founding members.
“The design of the institution,” he
wrote, “is to promote medical and surgical knowledge, inquiries
into the animal economy & the promotion & effects of
medicine.” In time, the power to license was assumed by the
Commonwealth. Yet the missions of education and advocacy continue to
guide the Society’s activities today, more than 200 years
later.
The Public's Health
In 1842, the Massachusetts Medical Society, in concert with the American
Statistical Association and the American Academy of Arts and Science,
led the effort to establish a statewide system to collect and publish
vital statistics of the Commonwealth. In a memorial to the state
legislature calling for passage of the act, a committee established by
the Medical Society stated:
"Many of the causes of disease, as they affect
different communities engaged in a great variety of occupations, can
only be ascertained by observations on an extensive scale, far beyond
the reach of individual research. An accurate return of deaths from the
different sections of the state, for a series of years, would greatly
aid in the investigation of these causes, and would doubtless do much
towards enabling us to find means for the removal of some of them."
The result was the passage of the first state vital
statistics registration act in the United States. This act would serve
as a model for other states as they began to establish their own systems
of registration.
The Massachusetts Medical Society continued to
serve the public's interest throughout the nineteenth century. In 1861
the Medical Society petitioned the legislature to establish a State
Board of Health for the "purposes of looking after the sanitary
interests of the people." It would take eight more years before the
legislature established the State Board of Health, which later became
the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.
Medical Information
The incorporators of the Medical Society in 1781 envisioned a Society
that would "engage in the publication and distribution of journals and
periodicals to be devoted primarily to the science and practice of
medicine and to conduct educational programs." In 1812, John Collins
Warren, M.D., who later became president of the Medical Society (1832),
established The New England Journal of Medicine and Surgery
and the Collateral Branches of Science. In 1828 this journal merged
with the Medical Intelligencer (established in 1823) and became the
weekly Boston Medical and Surgical Journal. In 1914 the
Boston Medical and Surgical Journal became the official organ
of the Medical Society and began publishing the Medical Society's
proceedings. In 1921 the Medical Society purchased the Boston
Medical and Surgical Journal for one dollar.
One hundred years after its founding, the
Boston Medical and Surgical Journal's name was changed in 1928
to The New England Journal of Medicine. The Journal has become
the premier medical publication in the world, achieving a position in
medical publication that could not have been imagined by the MMS
incorporators in 1781.
In 1969, through an act of the state legislature,
the Society updated its mission to read: "The purposes of the
Massachusetts Medical Society shall be to do all things as may be
necessary and appropriate to advance medical knowledge, to develop and
maintain the highest professional and ethical standards of medical
practice and health care, and to promote medical institutions formed on
liberal principles for the health, benefit and welfare of citizens of
the commonwealth."
Patient Advocacy
Today, the Massachusetts Medical Society continues to advocate for
patients and physicians. In recent years, the Society has assumed a
leadership role in public health, health system reform, and the quality
of health care and patient safety. With membership that has grown from
70 members in 1781 to more than 18,000 members today, the Massachusetts
Medical Society continues to serve the citizens and the physician
community of Massachusetts.
|
