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JAMES WARREN HAMILTON, M. D.
For fifteen years a practicing physician and surgeon in Mount Vernon, and since 1909 in charge of the Egyptian Hospital of that place, Dr. Hamilton takes precedence over many of his confreres in Southern Illinois by reason of his splendid ability and worthy accomplishments in the field of his profession. His high professional standing is no less important than the esteem in which he is generally held in the city which he has made his home during fifteen years of service, and his ever widening circle of well-wishing friends is indicative of the genuine worth of the man, aside from his professional capacity.
Born on April 24, 1871, in Waltonville, Illinois, and reared in that place, James Warren Hamilton is the son of Josiah A. Hamilton, a native of Ohio and the son of Orange Hamilton, also a native of the Buckeye state. Josiah A. Hamilton came to Jefferson county, Illinois, in 1836, when he was four years of age. He was born in 1832, and died in September, 1896. He passed his life in Jefferson county as a farmer, and in that business was always fairly prosperous. He married Hannah E. Boswell, the daughter of Samuel Boswell, an old pioneer settler and a native of Tennessee, who was justice of the peace in his town for forty years. Josiah A. Hamilton was a veteran of the Civil war, having served one year in Company A, of the Thirty-second Illinois Regiment. Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton reared a family of six children of the ten born to them. They are: Orange, a resident of Waltonville; Elenora, who became the wife of Daniel R. Webb and died in 1909, leaving two children, Raymond Edward and Ruby May; Lucretia, who married Leslie C. Mannen and is still living at Waltonville, Illinois; Vincent, a farmer near Sheller, as is also Charles; and James Warren, a practicing physician at Mount Vernon.
James Warren Hamilton was educated in the common school of his home town, and when he was eighteen years of age he began teaching, continuing with that work for three years. His determination to study medicine was early formed, and in 1892 he entered Barnes Medical College of St. Louis, and was graduated from that institution in 1895. Dr. Hamilton began the practice of his profession at Ina, Illinois, in April, 1895, continuing there for two years. He then located in Mount Vernon,
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in which highly prosperous city he has remained continuously since then. He has taken a number of valuable post-graduate courses in medicine and surgery, the latter being his specialty, and for the past five years has devoted his time entirely to that branch of the work. Dr. Hamilton is a member of the Jefferson County, Illinois, and Southern Illinois Medical Associations, being president of the latter named society in 1908, and is a member of the American Medical Association, in all of which he is active and prominent. He is a member of the National Association of Railway Surgeons, and is the official surgeon of the Chicago & Eastern Illinois, Louisville & Nashville and Wabash, Chester & Western. Dr. Hamilton has for some time lectured regularly before the class in Surgical Diagnosis at the Barnes Medical University of St. Louis, of which he is a graduate.
Since 1909 Dr. Hamilton has been in charge of the Egyptian Hospital, which came into existence in the summer of 1903, and until November, 1908, was conducted at 1919 College avenue. The building was a frame affair, and was partially burned in 1904. It was rebuilt, but one Sunday morning in November, 1908, a second fire, due to defective wiring, broke out, and the hospital was practically destroyed. Early in January, Drs. Hamilton and Gilmore assumed the management of the hospital, and since then it has been in their charge. On September 1, 1909, the new hospital was completed and the name changed to the Egyptian Hospital, but the training school, which was established in 1906, has retained the name of the Mount Vernon Training School for Nurses.
The new building is centrally located on North Eleventh street, one and one half blocks from the public square, and is a model of completeness from every standpoint. It is a three-story building built of brick, and is practically fire-proof. On the top floor is situated the operating room, one of the finest in the state, as is also the sterilizing room and nine large, airy rooms for patients. The halls on this, as on the other floors, are ten feet wide, making splendid apartments for convaleseents and insuring plenty of ventilation. On the second floor are situated the doctors private library, superintendent's room, obstetrical ward and a four bed ward, which is used chiefly for railway injuries. This floor is reserved as much as possible for medical cases and contains nine fine, airy rooms. The first floor, or American basement, contains the offices of Dr. J. W. Hamilton and Dr. W. H. Gilmore, with the laboratory in the front part, while the rear is given up to nurses quarters, rooms for help, dining room, and kitchen and store rooms. The entire building is heated throughout with hot water furnished by. the Citizens Gas, Electric and Heating Company, and insures a temperature of seventy-two degrees Fahrenheit on the coldest day or night. The operating room has been equipped with sufficient radiation to hold a minimum temperature of eighty-five degrees Fahrenheit. All rooms and halls are lighted with electricity, and the equipment is such that the hospital can offer the best of service at a minimum figure.
The Egyptian Hospital is distinctly a private affair, although the proprietors welcome the patients of other physicians, and they are assured the same careful attention that is given to their own private cases. The hospital library is a very complete collection and is equipped with all the standard medical journals and books on nursing, the library being at all times at the disposal of students, and members of the profession not connected with the hospital are free to make use of the library at will. The laboratory is one of the most complete of its kind in the state, and is much in demand by members of the medical fraternity in and about Mount Vernon who wish analyses at any time.
Since the hospital has been under the direct management of Dr.
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Hamilton it has handled an average of five hundred surgical operations yearly, with a mortality rate of two per cent,�a record which is unsurpassed elsewhere in the United States, attributed directly to the skill of the attendant physicians and surgeons and the conscientious and unremitting care of the combined staff of doctors and nurses. The hospital has a state charter, and its nurses training school in connection with the hospital is thoroughly modern in every respect. The training department is in charge of Miss Lena Estes as superintendent, and they have accommodations for a class of twelve. The hospital has done a deal of investigating along the lines of vaccine therapeutics, with marked success, and have specialized in the treatment of tubercular diseases.
The staff of physicians connected with the hospital are Dr. Moss Maxey, in charge of internal medicine; Dr. Wilbur Hawley Gilmore, pathologist and bacteriologist; Dr. George Tupper, specialist in diseases of eye, ear, nose and throat; and Dr. Hamilton, manager and surgeon in chief.
While the hospital is under the ownership and control of Dr. Hamilton, the policy of the institution in exceedingly liberal to the public and towards other physicians, and the unqualified success of the hospital since it came into the management and ownership of Dr. Hamilton is ample evidence of the ability of the doctor in his professional capacity, and of his enviable standing in the community as a man of splendid character and intrinsic worth.
In 1892 Dr. Hamilton was united in marriage with Cora A. Webb, daughter of Daniel R. Webb. Two children have been born to them. They are Clarence, a student in the St. Louis Medical College, and Wilma Opal, now fifteen years of age and a student in the Mount Vernon high school.