By Jaime Pankowsky, MD, FACS
In 1853, a group of Austin physicians took the initiative
for organizing the first Texas Medical Association. San Antonio doctors joined
eagerly and one of them, Dr. George Cupples, was elected as one of the
officers. The purpose was to unify their voices and actions to promote better
care and health for the people of Texas. Dr. Cupples, along with other Bexar
physicians, organized the Bexar County Medical Society that same year, the
first of its kind in Texas.
Dr. Cupples was to enjoy a long and beneficial professional
career in San Antonio. Besides being one of the founders and early presidents
of the Bexar County Medical Society, Dr. Cupples was instrumental and very
active in convincing the city fathers to create a Committee of Health for the
city. At that time, San Antonio suffered a number of severe epidemics which
caused hundreds of fatalities: smallpox, measles, cholera and dysentery. The
Committee of Health (which later on evolved into the Health Department) was
charged with the task of improving the hygienic conditions in the streets and
eating places, water purification, and most important at that time, vaccination
against smallpox in schoolchildren. Dr. Cupples practiced in San Antonio for
many years, spanning the better part of the 19th Century. There is a
street in the west part of San Antonio that is named after him.
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