1903: Orville and Wilbur Wright make first successful airplane flight
1904-14: AMA member William Crawford Gorgas, MD, heads yellow fever control making possible building of the Panama Canal
1906: Pure Food and Drug Act passes
1912: HMS Titanic goes down with 1,513 lives lost
1914-18: World War I
1918-19: Influenza pandemic kills more people worldwide than died during World War I
1922: Insulin introduced as treatment for diabetes
1923: Frederick Grant Banting, MD, and Professor John James Richard Macleod recieve Nobel prize for discovery of insulin
1927: Gaston Leon Ramon develops active immunization against tetanus; and later diphtheria
1928: Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin
1929: Stock Market crashes, launching the Great Depression
1932: Gerhard Domagk discovers the antibacterial effects of prontosil, the first of sulfa drugs
1935: Social Security Act is approved
1938: Congress adopts Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act
1939: World War II begins
1901
AMA reorganizes, creating the House of Delegates
1906
AMA Council on Medical Education inspects 160 medical schools and classifies them into three groups: A=acceptable; B=doubtful; and C=unacceptable
1910
The Flexner report, 'Medical Education in the United States and Canada', funded by the Carnegie Foundation and supported by the AMA, is published and facilities new standards for medical schools. The report cites many diploma mills
1912
The Federation of State Medical Boards is established, accepting AMA's rating of medical schools as authoritative
1913
AMA establishes a Propaganda Department to gather and disseminate information concerning health fraud and quackery
1914
AMA Council on Medical Education sets standards for hospital internship programs and publishes first list of approved hospitals offering such programs
1922
Woman's Auxiliary to the AMA is organized to assist the AMA in the advancement of medicine and public health
1923
AMA adopts standards for medical specialty training
1924
Morris Fishbein begins 25-year tenure as editor of JAMA and Hygeia
1927
AMA Council on Medical Education and Hospitals publishes first list of hospitals approved for residency training
1934
Official recognition of medical specialty boards begins through collaborative efforts of the AMA Council on Medical Education and the Advisory Board of Medical Specialties (and later by its successor, the American Board of Medical Specialties)
1937
AMA asks county medical societies to share the burden of caring for poor patients
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