[1] "The presence of quackery in this District lay at the foundation of the original formation of the Society.
[2] The Medical Association of the District of Columbia, an organization which performed several complementary professional functions involving setting ethical standards and procedures for disciplining members, merged with the Society in 1911.
[3] In 1872, Mary Spackman graduated from the medical department at Howard University and applied for a licence to practice medicine but was refused because she was a woman, she then applied again with a fellow graduate Mary Almera Parsons, but both were rejected.
[4] In 1875, Mary Almera Parsons appealed to the Federal Government and petitioned congress to amend the charter and allow women to obtain licences to practice medicine, and on the 3rd March 1875 the bill was approved.
Dr. Parsons applied for membership annually in the three years following the amendment's passage, and was voted down each time.