Los
Angeles County
Biographies
COLONEL JAMES A. MATTISON
Self-educated, Colonel James A.
Mattison early developed that strength of character which results from battling
with difficulties. Entering the medical
department of the United States Army, he was promoted to the rank of colonel,
which he still holds, and served with distinction in the World War. In a professional capacity he has since done
notable work in behalf of disabled veterans and for ten years has been chief
surgeon of the Pacific National Military Home at West Los Angeles.
A native of South Carolina, Colonel
Mattison was born on a farm near Honeapath, Anderson County, February
3, 1870. In summer he aided his father
in tilling the land and during the winter attended a nearby rural school. He was a pupil in the high school at
Honeapath, which was but three and a half miles distant from the home farm, and
graduated with the class of 1890. His parents
were unable to provide him with a university education and this he secured
through strenuous effort. He taught
school for a year and was thus able to pay the entrance fee at the University
of Nashville, which he attended for four years, completing the literary course. When he entered the institution he had but
forty dollars, which was soon exhausted, but by acting as secretary to the
president while school was in session and selling books for a publishing house
during vacation periods he managed to pay his way through the university. After his graduation he went from Nashville
to Lewisburg, Tennessee, where he was principal of a school for a year, and
with these earnings secured a new financial start. The next year he went to Ann Arbor, Michigan,
for the purpose of taking a medical course of four years in the State University,
meeting his expenses by acting as steward of a boarding house during the school
year and selling books during his vacations.
He was awarded the M. D. degree by the University of Michigan in 1900
and after passing a competitive examination was appointed an intern in the
university hospital, with which he was connected for a year.
Asked as to why he entered the army
instead of remaining in civil life when he could perhaps earn one hundred
thousand dollars a year as chief surgeon of some large hospital, Colonel
Mattison smilingly replied, “I guess the public calls it ‘patriotism,’ but
somehow I felt a call to this field of work and I have never regretted having
taken it up.” In 1902 he was appointed
assistant surgeon at the National Soldiers Home at Marion, Indiana. Nine years of service in various capacities
in this institution finally elevated him to governor and surgeon of Battle
Mountain Sanitarium at Hot Springs, South Dakota, and in 1911, with the rank of
colonel. Meanwhile, in 1905, he had
broadened his scientific knowledge by a year’s post-graduate work in
Europe. His work at Hot Springs,
particularly the splendid results attained from his technical surgery, soon
attracted national attention. In 1916
the American College of Surgeons conferred upon Colonel Mattison a fellowship
in that organization.
When trouble arose with Mexico in
1916, Colonel Mattison was ordered to the border, where he took charge of the
brigade hospitals. In November he
returned to the Battle Mountain Sanitarium and remained in charge of the
institution until June 8, 1917, when he was ordered to report for active
duty. He was made surgeon of the balloon
school at Fort Omaha on June 15 and was on duty there until November 16. He was then sent overseas as chief of the
surgical service of the unit selected for the Rumanian expedition. This unit was recalled while en route, due to
the collapse of Russia, and all of its members were reassigned, Colonel
Mattison going to the base hospital at Camp Cody, New Mexico. On March 17, 1918, he was transferred to the
Mayo Clinic at Rochester, Minnesota, where he remained until May 12, when he
was assigned to the surgical service at Camp Grant, Illinois. On July 29 he was promoted to commanding
officer of base hospital No. 80, with the rank of lieutenant colonel, and
ordered to prepare for overseas duty.
His unit embarked September 19 and with this organization he served
throughout the World War. They sailed
for France on the old Kaiser Wilhelm II, with five thousand soldiers aboard,
Colonel Mattison being chief surgeon of the ship. A few days out of Hoboken an epidemic of influenza
arose on the boat and one thousand soldiers contracted the disease. So skillfully did Colonel Mattison handle the
matter that he did not lose a single man. In marked contrast is another ship, loaded
with soldiers, making the trip across the Atlantic at the same time, which,
from a similar epidemic, lost four hundred fifty men and signaled to the Kaiser
Wilhelm II to loan them caskets. Under
the command of Colonel Mattison, base hospital No. 80 was operated with great
efficiency in France during the War. The
institution had two thousand patients, and just before the Armistice was
signed, when the fighting was fast and furious, the hospital received orders to
be prepared to take in two thousand men.
In April, 1919, Colonel Mattison was
ordered to prepare his organization for the return to this country. Before they embarked he was accorded a
fellowship of medicine in British universities, which he attended until the
follow July, when he sailed for the United States. Upon his arrival he reported to the president
of the board of managers of National Homes for Disabled Veterans, and was
promptly reassigned to his old post as governor and surgeon of the Battle
Mountain Sanitarium, an institution for disabled veterans. In the spring of
1920 he amputated the leg of a Civil War veteran eighty-five years of age,
under a local anesthetic. This old
soldier had developed gangrene and an operation was the only means of saving
his life. He was too old to take an
internal anesthetic, so the hypodermic needle was used in its stead. Asked as to the efficiency of saving a man’s
leg midway between the knee and thigh, under a local injection, Colonel
Mattison said: “I never performed an
operation on any man that I would not be willing to have performed on me in the
same manner under similar circumstances.”
“Then you believe in applying the Golden Rule to your surgical work,”
said his interrogator. “Absolutely!” he
replied. “Any doctor who doesn’t
practice the Golden Rule in both medicine and surgery has no business in our
profession.” This statement sums up the
character of Colonel Mattison in a nutshell.
Although a regular army surgeon, he is, withal, a genuine human being,
that is, his military training, experience and rank have not made a machine of
him. He is tender-hearted, kind and
polite. His ten years of service as
governor and surgeon of Battle Mountain Sanitarium placed the institution at
the head of that class of hospitals throughout the nation, according to the
government’s own report. When he
returned from France on August 4, 1919, every soldier and civilian employee
around the sanitarium who was able to go, headed by the band and the national
colors, went down to the depot to meet him—gray haired veterans of the Civil
War, men who had not felt able to go downtown in many months, got up from their
beds, under the inspiration of the moment, and joined the procession.
During the time he was in charge of
Battle Mountain Sanitarium, Colonel Mattison performed five thousand
operations, or an average of five hundred a year. These operations covered every conceivable
phase of surgery to the medical profession and were successfully performed. The technique of his work is superb. His skill in plastic surgery was shown in an
operation performed on a Union Veteran seventy years of age. This soldier’s nose had been almost eaten
away by cancer. Opening the skin on the
underside of the man’s index finger, Colonel Mattison strapped the finger to
the patient’s nose and waited until it had grown fast. He then sawed off the finger, using the bone
of the lower joint for the bridge in the nose, pulled the skin of the finger
down on both sides and attached it to the skin of the patient’s face, to which
it soon grew fast. He made a really
handsome citizen of the old man, so much so that his patient had thoughts of
remarrying. This was a remarkable feat
in plastic surgery and enhanced Colonel Mattison’s professional reputation.
Until 1923 Colonel Mattison was
medical director of the national military home service, also a member of the
federal board of hospitalization, and from 1920 to 1923 was located at Dayton,
Ohio, the central office of the national military home service. In 1923, at his own request, he was appointed
chief surgeon of the Pacific National Military Home at West Los Angeles, and
here his achievements have also been noteworthy. He is likewise surgeon of the new general hospital
and tuberculosis unit for Disabled Veterans and was largely instrumental in
securing this institution for West Los Angeles.
The new building was ready for occupancy in September, 1932, and has
seventeen hundred fifty beds. With a
staff of forty-five physicians and surgeons, this is the largest hospital of
the kind in the United States. Due to
the efforts of Colonel Mattison a cancer clinic has been authorized at this
station and it is housed in the wing of the new building, which has an annex. The fine institution at West Los Angeles is
one of four maintained in this country and is of state and national interest to
ex-servicemen.
In New York City Colonel Mattison
was married to Miss Mary Dunham, a daughter of Judge Fred H. Dunham, of
Batavia, New York. Their children
are: James A., Jr., who is a student in
the southern branch of the University of California at Los Angeles; and Mary
Randall, who is attending a training school.
Colonel Mattison is a Rotarian, a Scottish Rite Mason and a
Shriner. In addition to his fellowship
in the American College of Surgeons, Colonel Mattison is a member of the Los
Angeles County Medical Society, the California State Medical Society and the
American Medical Association. A student
of the highest order, he has constantly sought to perfect himself in his work
in order to broaden his field of usefulness, and loves his profession for the
good that it enables him to do.
Transcribed by
V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: California of the South
Vol. IV, by John Steven McGroarty, Pages 37-42, Clarke Publ.,
Chicago, Los Angeles, Indianapolis. 1933.
© 2012 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
GOLDEN
NUGGET'S LOS ANGELES BIOGRAPIES