Milton Anthony1
Male, #45845, (7 Aug 1789 - 19 Sep 1839)
| Parent | James Anthony1 (18 Dec 1752 - 1827) | |
| Parent | Nancy Ann Tate1 (1754 - 1834) | |
Milton Anthony|b. 7 Aug 1789\nd. 19 Sep 1839|p45845.htm|James Anthony|b. 18 Dec 1752\nd. 1827|p45843.htm|Nancy Ann Tate|b. 1754\nd. 1834|p45844.htm|Joseph Anthony Sr.|b. 2 May 1713\nd. 23 Nov 1785|p10012.htm|Elizabeth Clarke|b. 15 Feb 1720\nd. 1813|p10013.htm||||||| | ||
| Birth* | 7 Aug 1789 | He was born on 7 Aug 1789 at Henry Co., Virginia.1 |
| He was the son of James Anthony and Nancy Ann Tate.1 | ||
| Death* | 19 Sep 1839 | He died at Augusta, Richmond Co., Georgia, on 19 Sep 1839.1 |
| Biography* | ANTONY, MILTON. Physician, educator. Born Henry County, Va., 7 August 1789; died Augusta, Ga., 19 September 1839. Son of James and Ann Tate Antony. Married Nancy Godwin, 1809. Children: Sarah Ann, Laura M., Edwin L., Lavonsia A., Julia A., Milton (died young), Susan A., Milton Jr., Richard, James A., and John W Education: University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine [1808-9?]. When Milton Antony was quite young the family moved to Washington, Wilkes County, Ga., and there he grew to young manhood. His formal schooling was limited. At the age of sixteen he was apprenticed to Dr. Joel Abbott of Monticello in Jasper County, Ga. When nineteen he attended a year's course of medical lectures at the University of Pennsylvania, but apparently as a result of financial stringency he was unable to complete the second year and receive the M.D. degree. He returned to Georgia and married, and after living for a brief time in New Orleans, he had settled in Augusta by the spring of 1819. There in Richmond County he spent the rest of his active and productive life. Able and ambitious for himself, his family, and for Georgia, Antony's greatest strength lay in his organizational ability and the ease with which he cut through political bureaucracy. In 1822 he was one of the chief organizers of the Richmond County Medical Society; three years later he waged a successful campaign to have the legislature create a state board of medical examiners. Antony was the board's first president. By 1826 he was giving rudimentary medical instruction to a number of aspiring physicians at the City Hospital of Augusta. There he was joined by Joseph A. Eve, a graduate of the Medical College of South Carolina in 1828. This same school awarded Antony the M.D. degree ad eundem in 1825. In conjunction with a number of other physicians in Augusta, Antony applied to the Georgia legislature for a charter to create the Medical Academy of Georgia. The request was granted in 1828, and classes at the academy commenced in 1829. The school was given the right to operate a one-year course, at the conclusion of which a bachelor of medicine degree was to be awarded. The academy ordered an expanded term of over six months for its students when a four-month term was in vogue at virtually all other medical schools in the country. Hardly had the school officially opened than Antony and the board of the college applied to the state for an extension of powers, the right to offer a two-year course, and authority to confer the M.D. degree. In 1829 the legislature authorized the creation of the Medical Institute of the State of Georgia with the power to grant the doctorate. A second year of lectures was approved, and the faculty was to be doubled in size to six professors. However, owing to financial considerations, the school could not expand fully into its new curriculum for several years. The state and the city of Augusta were asked to support this promising experiment in medical education. Grants and subsidies were requested to strengthen the academic program and to construct a suitable building. Antony and his colleagues were successful on all fronts. In addition, the name of the institute was changed to the Medical College of Georgia. The academic year 1832-33 marks, in the words of Paul Fitzsimmons Eve, the school's first course offered "as a college." The money appropriated, the powers granted to the Medical College, and the enthusiastic cooperation of the Academy of Richmond County as well as of the city fathers, not only meant academic success but resulted in the construction by Charles Cluskey of MCG's first home. This building, with its massive Doric columns, was completed by 1836 and is looked upon by many as being one of the best examples of Greek Revival architecture in the South. In all of these developments Antony was the unquestioned leader, and there seems no reason to doubt that he was also instrumental in sending Louis A. Dugas to Europe in 1834 to secure an adequate library and museum for the faculty and student body of MCG. In May 1835 MCG, certainly with Antony's approval if not actually at his instigation, sent a circular letter to the other medical schools in the country calling for reform of American medical education and presaging the creation of a nationwide medical association. The letter fell on deaf ears. Antony and his school were ahead of the times. Not content with his academic and organizational feats, Antony proved to be the most important person in the move to create an effective and long-lasting medical journal in Augusta. The first issue of the Southern Medical and Surgical Journal appeared in 1836, and the magazine was a success from the start. In its pages were reprinted some of the most useful articles that had appeared on medical subjects all over the world. It also acted as a stage from which the professors at MCG-and elsewhere in the South--could demonstrate their original research. Crawford W Long, for instance, first published his claim to pre-eminence in ether anesthesia in SMSJ's pages. Antony was editor or coeditor of the Augusta journal until his death. Then after several years of silence SMSJ was revived and remained, throughout the antebellum period, the South's most consistent and respected medical publication. Antony's publications, upon such diverse topics as "On Physical Examinations," "The Causes of Abortions," "Medical Electricity," "Maternal Impressions," and others, are to be found primarily in SMSJ. At MCG, Antony held the position of professor of the institutes and practice of medicine and of midwifery and diseases of women and children. Although he was primarily a general practitioner, he was adept at surgery. In 1821, for instance, he performed an operation where he excised two ribs and removed a section of a gangrenous lung. This daring operation was reported in the Philadelphia Journal of Medical and Physical Sciences in 1823, and was reprinted by Dr. George Foy in Ireland in 1893. Antony was struck down in 1839 during the yellow-fever epidemic that plagued Augusta. He had been tending the sick and dying since the disease had appeared in town. Antony is Georgia's most important medical pioneer. He found a promising situation in Augusta and took advantage of it to create the state's first medical college and one of the South's best medical journals. His accomplishments on the state level are significant as well. Suspicious of herb doctors and quacks, he felt that proper formal education and the licensing of practitioners would stamp out the medical superstitions that were so prominent during his day. Antony moved easily and with considerable confidence in the chambers of the state capitol-just as he did in Augusta's city hall. He inspired confidence in those with whom he dealt and had high standards of medical education. Antony triumphed over the obstacles that stood in his path and affected the state dramatically as a result of his achievements. (Names referenced above: Milton Anthony Milton Anthony).1 |
| Last Edited | 20 Aug 2002 |
Citations
- Kenneth Coleman and Charles Stephen Gurr, Dictionary of Georgia Biography University of Georgia Press, 1983.
Vol. I, pages 32-34.