EDWARD MORTIMER PATERSON, M.D.

EDWARD MORTIMER PATERSON, M.D., of Oakland, was born in Pictou county, Nova Scotia, July 17, 1844, a son of ________ and Maud Jane (Simonds) Paterson, both natives of that province, the father of Scotch and the mother of English descent. The latter, born in 1823, is living in Quincy, Massachusetts, in 1891. The father, by occupation a farmer, died March 18, 1860, at the age of forty-seven of the treatment of pneumonia, leaving ten children, nine of whom are still living, -the oldest, George, was born April 13, 1843, being a resident of this city. Grandmother Paterson, by birth a Miss Olding, of England, lived to the age of sixty-nine, and the other three grandparents were about eighty at death.

E.M. Paterson, the subject of this sketch, was kept steadily at school until April, 1859, being originally designed by his pious father for the ministry of the Presbyterian church. The career of a minister not proving attractive to him, he was taken out of school nearly a year before the death of his father, and placed with a relative named Scott Fraser, a farmer and owner of a fulling-mill and saw-mill. The early death of his father had an important influence on his career. Returning to his home he again went to school for a short time, when he went before the Board of Examiners and obtained a first-class certificate to teach in the county, but without being entitled to first-class pay, by reason of his youth and inexperience as a teacher. He took charge of a district school in Piedmont Valley in his native country for six months, and then attended the academy at New Glasgow for two terms, boarding with Dr. George Murray, a relative. Here he began to dip into medical works and thus his life career began to assume definite shape. After another term at school-teaching at River John, he procured a set of standard elementary medical works, and devoted a winter to the study of Gray’s Anatomy, Carpenter’s Physiology, Fownes’ Chemistry, Mackintosh’s Practice of Medicine, Neill & Smith’s Compend, the Household Physician, of Ira Warren, of the family of the founder of the Warren Museum, of the medical department of Harvard and the constant use of Dunglison’s Medical dictionary. By close application and much enthusiasm for his chosen profession he made very considerable progress in six months, becoming pretty thoroughly acquainted with every bone, muscle, nerve and artery, as well as the derivation and meaning of medical terms. He also learned to make experiments in dissection of animals for the more exact location of the different parts. His knowledge and skill became so well known that his services were sometimes used by old physicians in operating under their supervision, and he was often called to visit the sick, so that he virtually began to practice at the age of nineteen years. From that time to the present he has endeavored to keep abreast of the advances and discoveries in medical science. While still engaged in school-teaching he took every opportunity to become acquainted with physicians to study their methods of treatment, comparing these with the teachings of the books, watching the results in cases of actual patients, and always adding to his collection of medical works to the full extent of his resources. He taught school at Wallace, Cumberland county, two and one-half years, and at Maitland in Hants county, Nova Scotia, three years. While thus engaged at Maitland he boarded with Dr. S.D. Brown, having access to his excellent medical library, and in the winter months attended medical lectures in Harvard University, providing a substitute teacher for his school. He entered Harvard in the winter of 1867-8 and was graduated from its medical department, March 8, 1871. Some few months after graduation he settled at Liverpool, Nova Scotia, and had succeeded in building up quite a practice, when the failure of the two principal banks in the “panic of 1873” prostrated the business and chief industries of the town and the adjoining territory. He then moved to Haverhill, Massachusetts, where he took charge of the practice of Dr. H. Whittemore, and was there married, December 2, 1873, to Maud Safford Appleton, born in Hamilton, Massachusetts, July 31, 1855, a daughter of Calvin and Abbie K. (Pearce) Appleton, both living, in 1891, in Haverhill. The father was then the American consular agent to the western counties of Nova Scotia. The Appleton ancestry of Mrs. Paterson were of the well-known American family of that name; and the Pearce family has also been long established in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Her grandfather, Edward Hermann Pearce, was an owner of merchant vessels, some of which were captured by French privateers about 1809, and his heirs still have an unsettled claim against the Untied States for the losses thus sustained.

Dr. Paterson’s practice in Haverhill was again doomed to suffer from the financial pressure of 1873. The Bridge Company of Haverhill failed for some $3,000,000, involving other enterprises and indirectly the great local industry of shoemaking, which is the financial life of that section. Bidding goodbye to Haverhill and Bradford in January, 1874, Dr. Paterson moved to New Brunswick and settled at St. Mary’s, opposite Fredericton, in both of which he gradually built up a very satisfactory practice, there remaining until April, 1885. While there he became a member of the New Brunswick Medical Society, of the Canadian Medical Association and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He came to California in 1885, settling in this city November 26, and engaging in general practice, which has grown to be fully equal to his exceptional powers of endurance. He is a member of the Alameda County Medical Association, of which he was the president in 1887, and the Medical Society of the State of California. He aided in organizing and establishing the Oakland General Hospital and is a member of its Board of Directors. He is physician to the St. Andrew and St. George societies and to the Scottish Clans. He is also a royal Arch Mason and a member of some other fraternal organizations.

Dr. and Mrs. Paterson are the parents of six children: Frank Herbert, born March 16, 1875; Leda Alice Marion, April 7, 1876; Emil DuBois Reymond (“Rey”), February 12, 1879; Arthur Ernest Hermann, December 18, 1880; Janet Land DeVere, November 7, 1882; and Pearl, born in Oakland April 7, 1888.