CHAPTER XXXVI 

 FRANK BILLINGS, M.D., Sc.D. 



PRESIDENT OF THE NATIONAL TUBERCULOSIS ASSOCIATION FROM 1 907 TO 1908 



DR. FRANK BILLINGS succeeded Dr. Hermann M. Biggs 

 as the third president of the National Tuberculosis Asso- 

 ciation (1907-1908). 



He was born April 2, 1854, at Highland, Iowa County, Wiscon- 

 sin, the son of Henry M. and Anne Bray Billings. He graduated 

 from the medical department of the Northwestern University in 

 1 88 1, and obtained the degree of M.S. in 1890. He served as 

 intern in the Cook County Hospital from 1881 to 1882, and 

 studied in Vienna, London, and Paris from 1885 to 1886. Dr. 

 Billings obtained the title of Doctor of Science from Harvard in 



Beginning as a humble demonstrator of anatomy, by his un- 

 tiring energy, intense application, and hard study, Dr. Billings 

 rose in a relatively short time to be professor of medicine and dean 

 of Rush Medical College in Chicago. He served as attending and 

 consulting physician to many of the most important hospitals of 

 that city. He was Shattuck lecturer in Boston in 1902, and Lane 

 medical lecturer at the Leland Stanford University in 1915. Al- 

 though a general medical consultant, his interest in tuberculosis, 

 in its social as well as its medical aspects, has always been intense. 



From 1906 to 1912 Dr. Billings was president of the Illinois 

 State Board of Charities. He is a member of the medical societies 

 of his State and city, and was president of the Chicago Medical 

 Society in 1891. The American medical profession at large made 

 him president of the Association of American Physicians and of 

 the American Medical Association. In cooperation with Drs. 

 Henry B. Favill, Arnold C. Klebs, Theodore B. Sachs, and others, 

 he was instrumental in calling into life the Chicago Tuberculosis 

 Institute. As one of the most active members of the National 



330 



