San Francisco County
Biographies
CHARLES
A. CLINTON, M.D.
CHARLES A. CLINTON,
M.D., whose principal office is in the Phelan building, San Francisco, has been
a resident of this State for the past eighteen years and has practiced medicine
with remarkable success since 1881. A short sketch of the Doctor’s career
would seem to prove that real merit is the most reliable condition of success,
and that the "lucky doctor of the Mission," as one of the leading San
Francisco papers once termed him, owes the most of his luck to pluck.
The Doctor was born
in Kildare, Ireland, in 1850; he commenced the study of medicine as an
apothecary’s apprentice in 1864. After having spent nearly five years in
this business, he came to America in 1868; was employed in the wholesale drug
house of Biroth, Blocki
& Co., Chicago; within one year was promoted to the position of
foreman. On the dissolution of the firm in 1870 he went to New Orleans and
opened a drug store; sold out one year later to take charge of the large drug
house of Captain Dyer, Yazoo city, Mississippi; left on account of malaria and
arrived in San Francisco in December, 1872; opened a drug store, but soon after
accepted a position as Assistant Secretary of the Board of Education and
Secretary of the City Board of Examination. He held these positions for
years, then resumed medical studies, and in 1881 received the degree of Doctor
of Medicine from the University of California.
Very early in his
professional career the Doctor had the good fortune to be called on to perform
a number of difficult surgical operations, in which his marked success had at
once, the effect of gaining for him public confidence and a very lucrative
practice. It is, however, in the treatment of epilepsy, or falling
sickness, that Dr. Clinton has won for himself a more than national
reputation. His unprecedented success in the cure of this dreadful disease
has secured for him fame, fortune and many patients in Europe and other remote
parts of the globe. He has in numerous instances effected
cures where the most noted practitioners and medical institutions of the great
cities of the Old World had signally failed. Dr. Clinton’s ability was
publicly recognized by the late Governor Bartlett, by whom he was appointed a
member of the Board of Health. On retiring from this office in July, 1889,
the citizens in mass meeting assembled for the purpose, presented the Doctor
with an elaborate and beautifully mounted address, congratulating him upon the
successful issue of the numerous reforms introduced by him, and thanking him
for the able, faithful and unselfish manner in which he discharged the arduous
and often disagreeable duties of his office. Few men have overcome
difficulties with such apparent ease as Dr. Clinton, and as he is still in the
prime of life and health, it is very safe to prophesy that the world will yet
hear much more of him.
Transcribed
by 8-2-06 Marilyn R. Pankey.
Source: "The Bay of San
Francisco," Vol. 2, Page 435, Lewis
Publishing Co, 1892.
©
2006 Marilyn R. Pankey.