Sacramento
County
Biographies
GEORGE AMOS WHITE, M.D.
(1848-1918)
George Amos White, M.D. was one of the youngest of Sacramento's physicians to graduate in medicine. He had come to California in 1864 at the suggestion of an elder brother Chapman W. White of Chico, and attended the local schools. Early acquiring an interest in medicine he studied in the office of Dr. G. L. Simmons and later continued studies in the office of Dr. H. L. Nichols. G. A. White entered Long Island Medical College, New York, and graduated in June, 1868, at the age of nineteen years and six months. He then transferred to Jefferson Medical College at Philadelphia from whence he graduated in 1869. After leaving Jefferson, Dr. White returned to California and began the practice of his profession at Davisville (now Davis). There he remained only a few months when he removed to Sacramento and became assistant to Dr. A. C. Donaldson, County Physician, who had partially retired from practice. The County Hospital was then located at the corner of Tenth and L streets, but the following year it was removed to the new building on Upper Stockton Road. There Dr. White made his residence. Owing to Dr. Donaldson's infirmities, in March, 1872, Dr. White was appointed County Physician and with the exception of one term of two years (1879-80) continuously held the position until succeeded by his son, Dr. John L. White. Thus, for approximately forty years, excepting the one short term, Dr. G. A. White was Physician and Superintendent of the County Hospital of Sacramento County! No doubt this stands as a record. It reveals a character strength and political acumen reaching the superlative, and cannot be described articulately for want of the 'knowns.' Personal influence, however, has no boundaries. Dr. White held close friendship with some of the most powerful men in Sacramento and they, in turn, could conscientiously support one of the superior surgeons of the day. The County Hospital afforded clinical opportunities for the young Doctor. He had the courage and God-given potentialities to develop into one of the greater surgeons of Northern California. Surgical judgment, if contemporary opinions might be relied upon, was seemingly innate. The son, Dr. John L. White, who succeeded the father as County Physician, became, too, a surgeon of great attainments.
Dr. G. A. White was not alone an expert and accomplished surgeon, but was gifted with fellow-understanding and honesty of purpose in professional relations. His profession, his patient as an individual, and the patient's malady, all stood foremost. He lacked, however, the temperament for writing of his surgical experiences and thus contributed little to surgical literature---a fact that prevented his becoming State and Nationally recognized. Nonetheless, Dr. White was a willing teacher and throughout years of practice 'fathered' many young men who carried forward his precepts, here and elsewhere.
In the operating room he was all intent, with, at times, a sharpness of speech, though, ordinarily, his needs and wishes were foretold through facial expressions. In the old hospital, surgery was performed in the pharmacy, with sheets being hung to cover the bottles and to allay dust. But with knowledge of Lister's asepsis and antiseptic teachings the later hospital was provided with a separate surgical unit.
Dr. G. L. Simmons at the meeting of the Sacramento Society for Medical Improvement, March 21, 1871, proposed the name of Dr. G. A. White for membership. On April 25, 1871 he was elected and became the twenty-fifth member to sign the Constitution. His maiden report to the Society, May 16, 1871, was a case of renal calculi, and his first paper, “The Pathology of Certain Nervous Affections,” was presented, February 20, 1872. The Doctor, though not constant was a regular attendant at meetings, and while he entered into discussions his remarks were brief---usually no more extensive than a short paragraph---never facetious, and never other than courteous. He was a quiet man, talked little and seemingly well pleased when not required to rise and speak during a medical meeting.
By 1901, Dr. White was beginning the use of spinal anaesthesia in surgical work at the County Hospital. Paris surgeons had first used it in 1900. The Doctor pioneered this form of anaesthesia in Sacramento and ran a series of a few hundred cases to prove its value. It is unfortunate his research was not recorded. There is no report other than mentioned in the Minutes of the Society.
Dr. White's practice continued to become heavier. Medicine was his vocation and avocation; he lived it, a constant attendant, day and night. He had a tremendously good income, though the dollar meant nothing to him. In early years he was careless of collections but later, after he had an office secretary, his statements were regularly issued. At the time of his death there were many unpaid accounts, most of which were never collected.
'In 1868 Dr. White married Miss Cora J. Smith, of Butte County, who had immigrated from that part of Missouri where the Doctor had passed his boyhood, and even during the same year that he came West.'¹ Mrs. White died in 1899. To this union there were five children; three boys (George, Garland and John) and two girls (Mattie and Cora). Garland White died in early youth, John Lysander White, M.D. was killed in an auto accident March 31, 1917, and George W. White, a veterinarian, died in 1929. Mattie Edna White, who married J. W. S. Butler July 20, 1899, died May 17, 1934, and Cora Jane (White) Williams is still living, a resident of Berkeley, California. There were but two grandchildren: Jack California and Mattie Myrtle Butler. At present there are four great-grandchildren---John Wm. Stormes Butler, Jean Cora Butler, Robert DeWolf Butler and Stephen Russell Harris---and four great-great-grandchildren, the family of John Wm. Stormes Butler, and one, the son of Robert DeWolf Butler.
Dr. G. A. White provided well for his family but his busy life, with early and late hours, of necessity placed responsibility for rearing the children upon the mother. The Doctor was a servant to his practice and little time granted the father to know his children or them to know him---a rather common lament of whomsoever has chosen the medical profession.
'The Doctor was a member of the Red Men, the United Workmen and the order of Freemasons'²; and a Knight Templar and Shriner. He was the last man, except one, who served as master of Union Lodge #58, of Sacramento, for two consecutive terms. The next man to be so honored was the grandson of Dr. White, fifty years later. In earlier years Dr. White was an ardent attender at Blue Lodge but in later years attended only irregularly.
Born in Howard County, Missouri, December 20, 1848, Dr. White came to California at the early age of sixteen years, to join an elder brother then living in the Sacramento Valley (Chico). From 1869, up to two or three years before death called, he continuously practiced his profession. 'He had been incapacitated practically since June, two years ago (1916), when he went East (Mayo Clinic) for treatment. Several months ago he was critically ill in a hospital in San Francisco, but recovered sufficiently to return to Sacramento, where he had been under treatment ever since.'³ At 11:10 A.M., March 2, 1918, this Sacramento surgeon of whom the local doctors stated 'had done more surgical work than any other now in the State,'4 cast aside his lancet and took up a “Rendezvous with Death.”
__________
1 History of Sacramento County, by W. Davis, p. 450.
2 History of Sacramento County, by W. Davis, p. 450.
3 Sacramento Bee, March 2, 1918, p. 1, col. 4.
4 Ibid.
Transcribed
4-17-17 Marilyn
R. Pankey.
Source: “Memories,
Men and Medicine A History of Medicine In Sacramento, California by J. Roy
Jones, M.D., Pages 438-442. Publ. Sacramento Society for
Medical Improvement, 1950.
Golden Nugget Library's
Sacramento County