California Medical Association.

Corporate History

The California Medical Association has its roots in the American Medical Association, founded in 1846, and in the California State Medical Society, which was founded in 1856 by members of the Sacramento Medical Society and the San Francisco County Medico-Chirurgical Society. From the beginning, this first state medical society reflected polarities between the northern and southern sections of the state, and feuding among --and sometimes within --various city and county medical societies. Within a few years personal animosities and petty squabbles had reduced the California State Medical Society to an organization that existed on paper only. Although officers were elected as late as 1860, factional differences around the issues of the Civil War ensured that the California State Medical Society simply did not exist between 1860 and 1870.

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