Celebrating a Centennial of Medical Change…
and Looking Into the Next Century

From out of saddlebags to surgery with gamma rays and heart transplants, medicine has come a long way in the last 100 years. And the Harris County Medical Society has been at the forefront of those changes.

Medicine in early 1900s

When the Harris County Medical Society was established in 1903, Houston was a thriving area of approximately 65,000 people; however, medicine was still a frontier practice.

“Doctors carried all the drugs with them on horseback,” said Kenneth L. Mattox, M.D., president of Harris County Medical Society. “Many drugs were not invented, so most diseases were treated with the same bad tasting medicines.”

Yellow fever, small pox, malaria, tuberculosis, typhoid, and the lack of public health standards for clean water and public sanitation were all challenges faced by Harris County physicians. In the summer of 1903, a group of doctors met to discuss how to handle a yellow fever epidemic threatening the area. Out of that meeting, the Harris County Medical Society was formed to bring uniformity to medical practices by promoting the highest standards in medical practice, while improving the health of the community through education and advocacy.

The Medical Society held its first formal meeting on Oct. 12, 1903, to discuss the yellow fever quarantine, which was in effect throughout much of Texas. St. Joseph’s Infirmary, a five-room converted cottage on Franklin Street with one ward and two beds, was the only hospital in Houston. In 1905, with support from the Medical Society, St. Joseph’s expanded and soon added a training school for nurses.

Early Education

Four medical schools existed in Texas in 1909. However, a national commission determined that only The University of Texas Department of Medicine in Galveston, now known as The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, was fit to continue the work of training doctors. Seeing a real need for standards for education, training and licensing of Texas doctors, the Medical Society helped establish the Texas State Board of Medical Examiners in 1907.

“In the 1900s, there were no medical standards or laws controlling the practice of medicine,” said Mattox. “Doctors went to medical school right after high school.”

As physicians learned more about the transmission of diseases, the Medical Society pushed for more public health laws and for all children to be taught health in schools. It also worked to give area physicians access to the latest scientific and medical advances by incorporated the Houston Academy of Medicine to establish a medical library in 1915.

“Tuberculosis was one of the deadliest health threats to the community,” said William H. Fleming III, M.D., former president of Harris County Medical Society. “So, the Medical Society partnered with the Houston Anti-Tuberculosis League to establish the 20-bed Houston Tuberculosis Hospital in 1917.”

After the World War I, the Medical Society and Texas Medical Association advocated for the formation of the Texas State Board of Health and the Medical Practice Act that set higher standards for public health and Texas doctors.

TMC Developed

In 1925, Hermann Hospital opened its doors in a wooded area that would later be known as the Texas Medical Center. In 1943, a special bond election was held to buy a piece of Hermann Park from the city to build the Texas Medical Center.

“The Medical Society advocated strongly for the TMC campaign,” said Fleming. “In November of 1945, the Texas Medical Center was officially chartered by the state.”

Baylor College of Medicine, known at the time as Baylor University College of Medicine, was the first medical school in Houston. It originally opened its doors in 1943 in the Sears Roebuck store and warehouse on Buffalo Drive, and then four years later moved to the TMC campus.

To better serve area physicians, the Houston Academy of Medicine Library merged with the Baylor College of Medicine Library and moved to the heart of the Texas Medical Center, establishing the Houston Academy of Medicine-Texas Medical Center Library in 1949. Within five years, the HAM-TMC Library moved to the Jesse H. Jones Library Building. It is has grown to be the largest medical library in the southwest and serves health professionals in Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas.

“The Texas Medical Center’s reputation continued to attract the best and the brightest,” said Mattox. “In 1971, The University of Texas Medical School at Houston, opened its doors with 325 students.”

Public Health

Public health remained a top priority of the Medical Society. When the Gulf Coast Poison Control Center was in trouble, it took the center over to ensure that the public would have a place to call for help.

“By the early 1950s, polio had killed and crippled thousands of people of all ages,” said Mattox. “The Medical Society took a leadership role in establishing respiratory and polio centers that eventually became rehabilitation centers.”

The Medical Society led the Victory Over Polio Campaign in 1962. It worked with civic and community groups to set up more than 200 immunization stations throughout the county to dole out sugar cubes with the life-saving Sabin oral vaccine.

“Of the 1.3 million residents of Harris County, 97 percent were immunized,” said Mattox. “The public showed its appreciation by tossing quarters into ice cream cartons, donating over $125,000.”

Continuing its role as a leader in public health education, the Medical Society sponsored the Houston Health Fair in 1962. More than 130,000 people came to learn about health from the free exhibits. The following year, it partnered with the American Red Cross to provide free first-aid classes to inform the public how to handle everyday emergencies.

“The citizens were hungry for health information,” said Fleming. “They asked us to create a permanent health exhibit. As a result, the Museum of Medical Science was established.”

From donations raised in the Victory Over Polio Campaign, a grant from the Houston Endowment and generous contributions from Harris County physicians, the Medical Society opened the Museum of Medical Science within the Museum of Natural Science in 1969. For the next 21 years, hands-on exhibits in the museum taught countless children and adults about the human body. And to further health education, the Medical Society’s Health Adventure Trailer traveled to local schools. The long waiting list and a limit of 10,000 annual visits demonstrated a need for a freestanding permanent museum.

The Medical Society led the capital campaign to turn the dream of freestanding museum into a reality. In 1996, the John P. McGovern Museum of Health & Medical Science, an interactive health and science center, opened to the public. It boasts the largest attendance of any health museum in the nation.

Emergency Services

As the city began to grow, its ambulance services had become inefficient. In 1967, the city of Houston asked the Medical Society for recommendations.

“I remember vividly in the early 1960s, when I was a med student that ambulance services were run by funeral parlors and private enterprises. Sometimes multiple ambulance groups would come to the scene and fight over the bodies,” said Mattox. “Very little care was given to people during transportation.”

After evaluating major metropolitan services across the nation, the Medical Society made numerous recommendations. One of which was to have the Houston Fire Department take over the city’s ambulance service. It also recommended standards for staffing, training, vehicle, and equipment needs. Houston adopted its recommendations. Since then, the Medical Society has continued to provide support by working closely with the Houston Fire Department, city and county health departments, and hospitals to ensure Houston has quality emergency medical services for every day emergencies and disasters.

Providing emergency and quality tertiary services requires a quality and reliable blood supply available for patients. Throughout the Medical Society’s history it has worked toward this goal. During World War II, it partnered with the Red Cross and the Harris County Civilian Defense office to create one of the first local blood banks. After the war, the blood bank was closed.

“In the early 1970s, the quality of blood and frequent shortages concerned the medical community,” said Fleming. “The community came to the Medical Society for help.”

With the cooperation of the regional blood banking community and area hospitals, the Medical Society founded the Gulf Coast Regional Blood Center in 1975. The Blood Center is responsible for providing voluntarily donated blood and blood components to patients treated in more than 200 health care institutions in a 24-county area in the Texas Gulf Coast area.

The 1970s also marked the first reported case of AIDS. AIDS quickly turned into a frightening epidemic with virtually no educational information available. The Medical Society published one of the first guides on this disease: “AIDS: A Guide for Survival” in 1987.

“It went a long way to educate, not only the public, but also the physicians of the community,” said Mattox. “The book won national awards. Fifteen editions and more than 2.5 million copies of it were printed and distributed worldwide.”

The Medical Society expanded its mission to a world stage in 1972, when an earthquake hit Managua, Nicaragua. It mobilized supplies, medicines and a team of physicians to go to Nicaragua. Since then, the Medical Society has responded to many emergency requests throughout Central America.

In the 1980s, the recession left many people jobless and without medical coverage. The Medical Society stepped in creating the Recession Distressed Program, in which thousands of Medical Society doctors provided free medical care to more than 10,000 jobless community residents. President Ronald Reagan honored the Medical Society for its program with a Point of Light Award in 1983.

Its commitment to public health has generated partnerships with groups throughout the community. For instance, the Medical Society partners with the Houston Bar Association in a program that teams up doctors and lawyers to inform local schoolchildren of the medical and legal consequences of drug and alcohol use. It partners with the local Boy Scouts to provide free camp physicals to underprivileged Boy Scouts, Bank One to distribute free bicycle safety helmets to needy children and the city of Houston to help former gang members to return to mainstream society by removing their tattoos. It also supports nursing scholarships through Harris County Medical Society Alliance.

Highest Medical Standards

In 1997, the Medical Society advocated for the Patient Protection Act, enacted by the Texas Legislature. It stands as the most comprehensive managed care reform in the nation. The act established an independent review process for patients to resolve medical questions and disputes.

“Texas was the first state to say that it’s ok to raise questions about your HMO,” said Mattox.

In 1999, the Medical Society joined forces with the Texas Medical Association, other Texas county medical societies and the American Medical Association to block the merger of two large insurance companies. The merger would have created a monopoly, allowing one company to dominate 66 percent of Houston’s commercial HMO insurance market.

From the beginning, with a membership of 65 physicians to more than 9,000 today, the Medical Society has created a legacy of service and caring. And it has promoted the highest standards of ethical medical practice

“As we move into the next 100 years, we face many challenges from trauma care access to insurance payment reform to the growing number of uninsured,” said Mattox. “Solutions come when informed people work together. The Harris County Medical Society stands ready to meet these medical challenges and others that confront our patients and physicians over the next century.”