Our History

Chicago Medical Society is Founded

Driven by public health threads like Cholera, Malaria, Typhoid and Pneumonia, a group of local doctors, led by Dr. Levi Boone, founds the Chicago Medical Society to improve medical standards, fight quackery, and promote public health.

Early Public Health Engagement

CMS appointed Dr. Nathan Davis as chair of a committee investigating Chicago’s dire sanitation. His blunt warnings about overcrowding, filthy streets, and disease risks urged reform long before municipal infrastructure caught up.

Physician Authority Advocacy

Doctor's are empowered to post quarantine warnings on homes of smallpox victims.

Reduction of Serious Disease

Thanks to the continuing efforts of groups like CMS, Chicago had no serious cholera epidemics after 1866. By 1890, all of Northern Illinois was malaria-free.

Medical Advocacy & Industrialization 

As Chicago industrialized, workplace hazards multiplied. CMS members, such as Dr. William Axford, brought emerging concerns about infection from packinghouse injuries into society discussions, highlighting physician engagement with industrial health risks long before regulatory structures matured.

Food Packing and Preparation Regulation

Dr. William Axford may have been the first prominent doctor to address the dangers of infection caused by cuts from knives that had been contaminated by diseased cattle. At about the same time, the Board of Health began inspecting "manufacturies’’ as well as packinghouses, and found some of the worst conditions in the near West Side garment industry.

These important events lead to legislation being passed to require inspections and minimum health requirements.

Flexner Report Published

The landmark Flexner Report reoriented medical education nationwide; CMS members in Chicago saw this as a long–needed overhaul, helping push substandard medical schools toward higher training requirements.

Influenza Pandemic Response

During the devastating influenza pandemic, CMS helped organize care for the needy families of servicemen and arranged free physicals for school children, stepping into service during one of the city’s worst health crises.

Medical Infrastructure Advocacy

Post-World War II, CMS shifted toward civic health infrastructure, pressing the City of Chicago to expand its ambulance fleet to better serve a growing population.

CMS Offers on AIDS

The topic was repeated again in 1993.

Honored for Public Health Impact

CMS was honored at its annual convention by the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis for its tireless efforts to immunize Chicagoans and avert a polio epidemic—a testament to the society’s continuing public health impact.

Sandra Olson became CMS’ first woman president

At the 50th annual clinical conference at the Sheraton-Chicago Hotel, history was made when Sandra Olson became CMS’ first woman president, heading the largest county medical society in the United States with more than 10,000 members.