Sacramento
County
Biographies
ALEXANDER BUTLER NIXON,
M.D.
(1820-1889)
Dr. Alexander Butler Nixon came overland to California, via that slow trek wherein the vicissitudes of danger, suffering and death were harbored, and arrived at Coloma, August 10, 1849. A temporary void in his whereabouts and activities then appears, but no doubt like so many contemporaries, his time was occupied in mining with hopes of accumulating a quick fortune. Ere long, however, he returned to Hamilton, Ohio, for his family. No reminiscences are extant whereby details might be gathered, but in the discussion of cholera before the Sacramento Society for Medical Improvement, August 19, 1884, Dr. Nixon commented: “In 1849 was in Independence, Missouri, saw a case there which so frightened the emigrants that they started out on the plain and kept ahead of the disease. I returned home and there saw some more cases. In '52 when on the plains saw the first case on the Platte. Almost all of these cases proved fatal. The disease followed the migrant across the plains, subsiding at the Rocky Mountains, to break out again near the head waters of the Humboldt river, a distance of several hundred miles intervening.”
In view of the fact some amanuenses have stated the Doctor arrived in California in '49, and others it was '52, his statement before the Society while helpful is not fully conclusive. The conclusiveness, however, was his election to the California Pioneer Association (an Association embracing all residents and arrivals prior to January 1, 1849, with a second class for United States citizens extending to January 1, 1850) on March 30, 1861. A history of Butler County, Ohio,¹ states he 'began the practice of his profession in Hamilton, and continued there until the Spring of 1849, when he emigrated to California.' After crossing the plains for the second time, in 1852, Dr. Nixon settled in Sacramento, on Tenth street, opposite the Public Square, to practice his profession.
Dr. Nixon was born in Butler county, Ohio, March 1, 1820, of English, Irish and Welsh parentage; was educated in the common schools and at Miami University and Ohio Medical College at Cincinnati, graduating in 1846. After graduation Dr. Nixon practiced at Hamilton to the time he left for California. On September 15, 1845 he married Margaret G. Bigham of Hamilton, Ohio, the eldest daughter of George R. Bigham. Three sons---William, Louie and Alex---and two daughters---Georgina (Mrs. N. G. Wilson) and Margaret---were born to this union. Margaret died December 26, 1860 of diphtheria, aged five months. 'In 1856 he built the house in which he has since resided, on M street, between Ninth and Tenth, one of the oldest and most substantial private residences in the country.'² Mrs. Nixon died in February, 1880, and in November, 1883, Dr. Nixon married Mrs. Anna E. Wisewell, of Illinois. Following the Doctor's demise his widow took her degree of M.D. from Cooper Medical College, in December, 1892.
Dr. Nixon helped to organize the Sacramento Medical Society, April 30, 1855, and he and local confreres were of great assistance in organizing the California State Medical Society, March 12, 1856. The Doctor traveled this delicate and difficult period of societies, gave energy to sustain them, and reluctantly 'sat in' at dissolution of one after another. But, on March 17, 1868, it was his privilege and honor to be one of twelve doctors establishing the present Sacramento Society for Medical Improvement---in consecutive years the oldest medical society in California.
Dr. Nixon regularly attended monthly meetings of his medical group, served as Secretary and President, 'and remained until death, a consistent and honorable member.'³ He was not an ardent talker at meetings, leaning rather to the side of a quiet listener. When a discussant he spoke briefly, knowingly, and in a gentlemanly tenor.
The Doctor was an active member of the State Medical Society, served as Secretary and President from 1875-1876. In the re-organization of the State Medical Society Dr. Nixon took active part. He was chosen one of the Recording Secretaries, and Chairman of the Committee of Arrangements at the first annual meeting, held in Sacramento, October 11, 1871. In an address of welcome he sought the discharge of duty 'to ourselves as professional men and to the communities with whom we reside,' and pursued a strict compliance with the code of ethics, which 'should be rigidly and firmly enforced, as by so doing we not only protect honorable men, but we thus protect the community with whom we reside from quackery and empiricism.'
The address, not one of platitudes, rather petitioned for constancy to duty and honor. It was short and carefully dictioned. Being a member of the host society and realizing past difficulties in State medical unification, he, with others, used caution to steer the ship between Scylla and Charybdis.
With two Sacramento associates Dr. Nixon formed part of the Committee on Publications for the State Medical Society in 1872-3 and later years. On April 16, 1874 he was elected First Vice-President of the State Society, and in 1879 was one of a committee for establishment of a State Hospital for Consumptives, and a State Botanical Garden.
During the Civil War Dr. Nixon acted as United States examining surgeon for the Board of Enrollment. As Commissioner of Lunacy he held office twenty-two years continuing to the time of his death. He was an ardent Republican; assisted in forming the new party, and a supporter, in 1856, of the first Republican candidate for President, John C. Fremont. In 1862 and '63 he represented Sacramento county in the California State Senate. In later years the Doctor became identified with the Prohibition movement, and in the Spring of 1884 ran against J. Q. Brown for Mayor on the Prohibition ticket. He also ran as a St. John elector in 1884.
Dr. Nixon, in 1869, was appointed Chief Surgeon of the Central Pacific Railroad Hospital in Sacramento. He supervised management in a very laudatory manner and was generally recognized as a most able surgeon. He held the position for sixteen years, retiring in 1885 owing to age and poor health.
As President of the California State Medical Society, Dr. Nixon made the final decision permitting admission of women physicians to the Society. Dr. Euthenasia S. Meade, first woman to practice medicine on the Pacific Coast, in an address in 1893, before the Women's Medical Club of the Pacific stated: 'In conclusion let me say that in 1875 there were admitted to the Medical Society of the State of California, five women graduates of medicine. The vote to elect them being submitted to roll-call, showed there was a tie, and now came the supreme moment: All eyes turned to the presiding officer, Dr. A. B. Nixon, of Sacramento, and he, in a voice a little choked with emotion (for the debate had been warm and sometimes personal), said: “And I, gentlemen, cast the needed vote to declare the ladies elected.” There followed cheering and other sounds, enough to indicate the serpent is still in Eden. “He rests from his labors but works do follow him.” '
For 37 of the 40 years Dr. Nixon made California his adopted State he had resided in Sacramento. He was an impressive personage: tall, with erect carriage, and careful of personal appearance---”always wearing a Prince Albert coat and a silk hat.”5 His influence---medically, politically and socially---had been material. But in 1885 heavier cares were lessened and in 1887, owing to poor health, all active interests were abandoned. 'His health had been failing gradually but very perceptibly. During his illness he was a daily visitor to the Capitol Park, where he could have been seen on any pleasant day on one of the settees reading, conversing with friends, or watching the children at play on the lawn. But for some months past the familiar form of the tall, military-looking but feeble old gentleman had been missed from the customary seat in the shade of one of the great pine trees, and it became known to his friends that he was forced to keep his room. Since then his death had been looked for at almost any moment.'6
The beams of life's shadows continued to narrow and shorten and at half-past four o'clock, Saturday afternoon, November 2, 1889, the book of Fate was hidden from Alexander Butler Nixon.
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1 A History and Biographical Cyclopedia of Butler County, Ohio, Western Biographical Publishing Co., Cincinnati,
1882.
2 The Sacramento Union, November 3, 1889, p. 3, col. 5.
3 Minutes of the Society, March 18, 1890, p. 208-9.
4 California State Medical Society Transactions, 1870-1874, p. 25-26.
5 Dr. A. M. Henderson.
6 Sacramento Daily Record-Union, Nov. 3, 1889, p. 3, col. 5.
Transcribed
4-21-17 Marilyn
R. Pankey.
Source: “Memories,
Men and Medicine A History of Medicine In Sacramento, California by J. Roy
Jones, M.D., Pages 449-453. Publ. Sacramento Society for
Medical Improvement, 1950.
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Sacramento County