Of medical organizations in Linn county the oldest is the Union Medical Society, founded as the Linn County Medical Society at Mt. Vernon in 1859 by Drs. Love, Ely, Ristine, Carson, and Lyon. Dormant during the war, it resumed in 1866 and ran till 1873, when its name was changed to the Iowa Union and it became a district society, taking its membership from half a dozen or more counties and centering in Linn and Johnson counties. It still meets twice a year at Cedar Rapids, occasionally at Iowa City for scientific work. Its officers now are: president, C. W. Baker, Stanwood; secretary, F. G. Murray, Cedar Rapids; treasurer, C. P. Carpenter, Cedar Rapids.

The present Linn County Society was organized in Cedar Rapids in 1903. It holds meetings twice a year and is the unit of the State and American Medical Associations. One of its members, Dr. G. E. Crawford, is the outgoing president of the Iowa State Medical Society. Its present officers are: president, Dr. A. B. Poore; secretary, Dr. H. W. Bender; treasurer, Frank S. Skinner.

There are other local organizations at Mt. Vernon and Cedar Rapids. The Practitioners' Club of the latter place meets once a month for discussion and action upon medical subjects of special interest to the members. Its officers are: Dr. H. S. Raymer, president; H. E. Pfeiffer, secretary; G. P. Carpenter, treasurer.

St. Luke's Hospital at Cedar Rapids has already been mentioned. It was founded in 1883. On its consulting staff are Drs. G. P. Carpenter, J. M. Ristine, G. R. Skinner, G. E. Crawford, A. B. Poore, and A. H. Johnson. It has an attending staff of younger men. The hospital has seventy-five beds, having recently added a new and completely appointed maternity department. Mercy Hospital, ninety beds, founded at Cedar Rapids in 1902 and housed in its spacious new building in 1904, is under the care of the Sisters of Mercy. These finely equipped institutions serve Cedar Rapids, Marion, the railroad systems and their contributing territory with facilities for the best of medical, surgical and maternity work. Few realize the large amount of free humanitarian work they accomplish every year. Together with Linn county's own excellent infirmary north of Marion they represent in a material and public way the present status of medical art, science, and humanitarianism in the county. Personally and privately these are represented by the 125 active practitioners of medicine.

It will be noted that the names of only a few of these have been mentioned and then only incidentally. The scope of this sketch does not allow adequate individual reference to the remainder. Nor is this the place to record contemporary progress. The lives of all the present members of the profession belong not to the past but to the future history of medicine in Linn county. The attached list gives the names of the practicing physicians in Linn county in 1910:

[CHAPTER XII]
The Material Growth of the County

In scarcely any locality has the material growth been so fast and substantial during the past seventy years as in Linn county. Old residents who have returned after a period of twenty-five to thirty years mention this fact, and what is true of the cities and towns is perhaps much more true of the rural districts in general.