Samuel Jason Mixter / [by G.W. Brewster, E.P. Richardson].

  • Brewster, G. W. (George William)
Date:
[1927]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Samuel Jason Mixter / [by G.W. Brewster, E.P. Richardson]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ROY MOODIE COLLECTION. Reprint from SURGERY, GYNECOLOGY AND OBSTETRICS November, 1927, pages 714-716 SAMUEL JASON MIXTER By G. W. W. BREWSTER, M.D., F.A.C.S., and E. P. RICHARDSON, M.D., F.A.C.S. Boston, Massachusetts THE passing years add to the list of the illustrious dead. We who are living pay homage to the great men of the past who made meritorious con¬ tributions to the progress of the world and who to the last carried on by example or precept in order to leave undone nothing that might help the causes they so nobly espoused. To such Samuel J. Mixter belonged. It is nearly thirty years since I first went to Boston to visit clinics and to learn from the Fellows of the splendid Boston school of surgery, always sane, sound, and solid, free from illusions or extreme views, in verity, the truth-tellers. As I went into the reception room of the old Massachusetts General Hospital to learn what would be presented at that day’s clinics, there came with buoyant step and pleasant smile, Samuel J. Mixter. He recognized at once that I was a diffident young man from the West, and kindly asked what he could do. He took me under his wing, introduced me to the staff of the hospital and into the various operating rooms, and made me feel at home. In the many years that have passed since that day I have never failed to appreciate his warm interest, not only in surgery but in the surgeon as an individual as well. This personal tribute to Dr. Mixter I make as an introduction to the memorial written by two of his colleagues and adopted by the Boston Surgical Society. W. J. Mayo. Samuel Jason Mixter was born in Hardwick, Massachusetts, on the tenth of May, 1855. His father, William Mixter, and his mother, Mary Ruggles Mixter, were both of old New England stock. He died after a brief illness of pneumonia at Grand Junction, Tennessee, on January 19, 1926. His boyhood was chiefly spent at Hardwick and at school in Amherst, Mas¬ sachusetts. He entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where his natural tastes led him to specialize in physics, and later, after graduation, to undertake the study of medicine, a course in which he received little parental encouragement. He graduated from the Harvard Medical School in 1879, com¬ pleting his course as West Surgical House Officer at the Massachusetts General Hospital in the same year. In 1879 as well, on August 12, came the fortunate event of his life, his marriage to Wilhelmina Galloupe.