[1][2] Politicians opposed to the creation of a state medical society suspected that doctors sought to create a monopoly and increase their income.
[2][3] Physicians assured the governor of Connecticut that a medical society with a licensing board would benefit citizens by providing protection from quack doctors and uneducated practitioners.
[1] The charter granted the Society the authority to appoint an examining committee to issue medical licenses.
The state legislature later overruled this part of the charter amid the Popular Health Movement of the 1830s–1850s and increasing pressure from practitioners of alternative medicine, particularly from followers of Samuel Thompson.
[1] The Society continued to grant licenses until the Medical Practice Act was passed 1893 and the State of Connecticut took on the responsibility.
[5] In 1797, Elisha Perkins, a founding member of the society, was expelled for patenting and marketing a metallic tractor he claimed could cure multiple diseases.
[8][4][5] While the medical establishment mostly denounced the invention, its popularity grew, with George Washington purchasing a pair of Perkins Tractors.
In 1824, the state legislature passed a charter incorporating the Hartford Retreat for the Insane, which opened to its first patient on April 1 of that year.
[15][16] The Society opposed mandatory protective neck guards for youth hockey, calling for further research on their effectiveness.
[18] Speaking on Connecticut's plan to legalize recreational marijuana, the CSMS stated “The rush towards legalization of recreational marijuana ignores how profit-driven corporations hooked generations of Americans on cigarettes and opioids, killing millions and straining public resources.
Connecticut has an obligation to protect the health and welfare of its citizens and rushing to legalize a potentially unsafe drug abdicates this responsibility.”[19]