GA-25-004 The Georgia Medical Society

Marker text: The Georgia Medical Society

The first Medical Society in Georgia, sixth oldest in America, was organized June 28, 1804, and continues to be active in Savannah today. Dr. Noble Wimberly Jones, first President, was the son of a member of General Oglethorpe`s first settlers of 1733.

Dr. Samuel Roberio Nunez, first practicing physician, arrived July 10, 1733, with the second expedition to the new colony. He arrived in time to treat successfully a raging epidemic of dysentery.

In 1740, the first clinic for the poor opened at nearby Bethesda under Dr. John Hunter and Reverend George Whitefield, who previously had founded America`s oldest orphanage there.

The Georgia Medical Society adopted the state`s first Code of Medical Ethics, achieved a program of systematic vaccination against smallpox, carried out health surveys of Savannah and surrounding counties, founded a Medical Library, formed the first systematic anti-malarial effort begun in the United States, and conducted extensive studies of Savannah`s major epidemic diseases ­ malaria, yellow fever, and smallpox.

Dedicated by the Georgia Medical Society, December 1983