No salaries are paid to anyone except the secretary, doctors, and
employees who give full time to club or medical duties. The directors,
most of whom are business men, donate their time unstintedly at the
numerous meetings. The association is extremely democratic, the
membership including rich and poor alike, with equal benefits and
privileges. Profits that may accrue to the society are used for
improvements in buildings and increased facilities for members.

Officials of this and other medical co-operatives here assert that
almost from the beginning their work has been bitterly opposed and
obstructed by doctors affiliated with the county medical society and
other members of the American Medical Association. The club doctors
are still refused membership in this association because of their group-
medicine practice. This opposition, club officials declare, has forced
them to import most of their medical staffs from abroad, some members
of which are graduates of the best foreign medical colleges.

Dr. Jose Luis Avellanal, of Tampa, and a son of the pioneer
medical director of Centro Espanol, speaking of the opposition of the
A. M. A. toward the co-operative medical groups, related:

"By 1904 the physicians of Tampa, Hillsborough County and all
of Florida had grouped themselves into an effort to boycott and not
render any medical services to the organizations engaged in socialized
medicine . . . . . In fact, so bitter was the fight that my father was