DAVID ALEXANDER HODGHEAD, M.D.

David Alexander Hodghead, M.D. was one of the able representatives of the medical profession in San Francisco for many years. He was also for a number of year’s publisher and editor of the Pacific Medical Journal, founded in 1857, the oldest and most influential journal of the medical profession on the Pacific Coast.

Doctor Hodghead was born near Abingdon, Virginia, in 1857, of old Virginia stock and of Scotch and English ancestry. His father, Dr. A. L. Hodghead, was a prominent Presbyterian minister, a leader in literary and educational affairs, and assisted in organizing the public school system of Virginia after the war.

Doctor Hodghead was educated in Virginia, graduated in 1878 from King College in Tennessee, and in the same year came to California. He taught school for several years and at the same time he carried on the study of medicine under Dr. E. W. King at Ukiah in Mendocino County. Subsequently he went East, took one course in the Starling Medical College at Columbus, Ohio, and in 1884 graduated from the Bellevue Hospital Medical College at New York. After some further post-graduate work he returned to California, practiced three years at Ukiah and Doctor King, and for two years at Oakland. About that time he purchased and became publisher of the Pacific Medical Journal, and removed to San Francisco. He carried on private practice in partnership with Dr. Winslow Anderson, who succeeded him as editor and publisher of the Pacific Medical Journal.

At one time Doctor Hodghead served a member of the State Board of Medical Examiners. A daughter of Doctor Hodghead, Lillian K. Hodghead, has been well known in San Francisco musical circles, and completed her musical education in New York. 

Transcribed by Louise Shoemaker.