Anna Pierce Hobbs Bixby

American doctor and scientist (c.1810 - c.1870) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Anna Pierce Hobbs Bixby, sometimes spelled Bigsby, born Anna Pierce (c. 1810 – c. 1870), was a midwife, frontier doctor, dentist, herbologist, and scientist in southern Illinois.^[2]

Born

Anna Pierce

1808 or 1812

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania or Tennessee

Died1869 or 1873 (aged 61-65)

Rock Creek, Hardin County, Illinois

OthernamesAnna Bixby, Anna Bigsby, Anna Pierce Hobbs Bigsby, Anna Hobbs

OccupationsMidwife, frontier doctor, dentist, herbologist, scientist

Quick facts Born, Died ...

Anna Pierce Hobbs Bixby
Born	Anna Pierce 1808 or 1812 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania or Tennessee
Died	1869 or 1873 (aged 61-65) Rock Creek, Hardin County, Illinois
Other names	Anna Bixby, Anna Bigsby, Anna Pierce Hobbs Bigsby, Anna Hobbs
Occupations	Midwife, frontier doctor, dentist, herbologist, scientist
Spouse(s)	Isaac Hobbs (first husband), Eson Bixby (second husband)
Medical career
Research	Milk sickness

Bixby discovered that white snakeroot (Ageratina altissima) contains a toxin. When cattle consume the plant, their meat and milk become contaminated and cause the sometimes fatal condition of milk sickness. One of the most notable and tragic cases of the "milk sickness" was that of Nancy Hanks Lincoln, the mother of Abraham Lincoln, who died at 34 years old in 1818.

Early life

Bixby was the daughter of farmers, who had moved from Philadelphia and in 1828 settled in southeastern Illinois, close to what would become the village of Rock Creek. After finishing school, she traveled to Philadelphia to train in midwifery and dentistry, but on her return to Illinois she became the first physician in Hardin County and consequently, a general practitioner for her community. Bixby may also have been the first female doctor in the state of Illinois. Others claimed she was a midwife from Tennessee, married to her first husband, Isaac Hobbs.

Research on milk sickness

She did thorough research of milk sickness, which was causing a good deal of fatality among both people and calves, including Anna's mother and sister-in-law.^[3]^[4]^[5]^[6]^[7]^[8]^[9] Noting the seasonal nature of the disease and the fact that sheep and goat milk were not affected, she reasoned that the cause must be a poisonous herb. However, she was unable to determine the precise cause until she was shown the White Snakeroot by a medicine woman of the Shawnee tribe.

Experiments on a calf confirmed the toxic effect of Snakeroot. However, despite her efforts, it was not until 1928 (55 years after her death) that research confirming her discovery was published.

Eson Bixby and his criminal activities

After Isaac Hobbs died, Anna Pierce Hobbs married her second husband, Eson Bixby, who turned out to be a notorious outlaw around the region of Cave-In-Rock, on the Ohio River.^[1]

Death

Bixby died in Rock Creek, Hardin County, Illinois.

Legacy

According to local legend, Bixby left a treasure trove concealed in a cave named after her. The treasure is supposedly buried in Rock Creek, Hardin County, Illinois, and has never been found. A historical marker has been mounted in Bixby's honor in Cave-in-Rock, Illinois, near her home. Also, in southern Illinois, the Anna Bixby Women's Center in Harrisburg, Illinois, gives shelter and services to area abused women and children.

References

[1]
Magazine, Smithsonian; McCarthy, Will. "How an 1800s Midwife Solved a Poisonous Mystery". Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved 2023-07-14.
[2]
Bailey, Laurel (1996). "Dr. Anna and the Fight for the Milksick". Illinois History. Archived from the original on 2012-08-07. Retrieved 5 May 2013. Dr. Anna began to follow the grazing cattle, checking the plants they fed upon. One day while walking with the cattle through the woods, she happened to find an elderly Shawnee Indian medicine woman, who had been left behind by the tribe when they were scattered at the close of the War of 1812. Dr. Anna took the old woman into her home to care for her. After learning about the milk sickness plague and that Dr. Anna was so concerned, the elderly medicine woman took Dr. Anna into the woods and showed her the white snakeroot and told her that this was the plant causing the milk sickness. Citing
Kelly A. Cichy, Women Meet the Challenge in Southern Illinois History;
Lowell A. Dearinger, "Dr. Anna and the Milksick," Outdoor Illinois (March 1967);
Lowell A. Dearinger, "Free-Fer-Alls and Cornbread," Outdoor Illinois (October 1963);
William D. Snivelyand Louanna Furbee, "Discoverer of the Cause of Milk Sickness," Journal of the American Medical Association (June 1966)."
[3]
Tabler, Dave (16 June 2011). "The curse of Milk Sickness". Appalachian History. Archived from the original on 2013-06-03. Retrieved 2019-06-01. Dr. Anna Pierce Hobbs Bixby (1808–1869), the town physician of Rock Creek, IL for 35 years, was wrestling with the cause of milk sickness about the same time John Rowe was experimenting on his cows back in Ohio. The disease had claimed the lives of her mother and sister-in-law.
[4]
Ellison, George (2003-01-15). "White snakeroot was long a problem for settlers". Archived from the original on 2011-09-20. Retrieved 2013-05-05. Doctor Anna [ . . . ] was baffled in her field research until she happened upon an elderly Indian medicine woman known as Aunt Shawnee. When Doctor Anna described what she was looking for to Aunt Shawnee, the older woman took her into the woods and pointed to white snakeroot.
[5]
"Moments in Kentucky Legislative History". Kentucky Historical Society. Archived from the original on 2008-12-02. On February 18, 1841, the legislature offered a reward of two thousand dollars to anyone "who shall, within five years after the passage of this act" succeeds in discovering "the true cause of the disease, now known to be caused by the poisonous effects of the wild, flowering white snakeroot transmitted by the milk, butter, and flesh of cattle consuming the plant. Milk sickness had become a scourge in early Kentucky and nearby states, having claimed the lives of many settlers, including Abraham Lincoln's mother.
[6]
Marshall, C Dwight (June 1929). "Trembles". Farmers' Bulletin (1593). United States Department of Agriculture. Retrieved 2019-06-01. Too much credit, however, for proving the connection of white snakeroot with trembles should not be given to the work of recent years, for John Rowe in 1839 not only poisoned cattle and poisoned a calf from the milk of an affected cow by feeding the plant, but also got affidavits from responsible people, who were acquainted with the symptoms of trembles, declaring that his experimental animals had the disease. W. J. Vermilya, in 1859, too, poisoned sheep and horses experimentally. These experiments by Rowe and Vermilya were just as conclusive as anything done in this century, but did not receive the recognition which was their due.
[7]
McCoy, George W. (March 1909). "Milk Sickness". Milk and Its Relation to the Public Health (56). Washington, D.C.: National Institutes of Health, U.S. Hygienic Laboratory: 217–226. Retrieved 2019-06-01. In some localities the disease was so prevalent and fatal that whole communities migrated from "milk-sick" sections to parts where the disease did not occur. Almost every community in some parts of the country has a tradition about outbreaks of this disease in the earlier years of the past century. We are told by Colonel Henry Watterson (1909) that Nancy Hanks, the mother of Abraham Lincoln, died from the disease in 1818 after an illness of a week. In the words of Colonel Watterson, "The dread milk sickness stalked abroad, smiting equally human beings and cattle."
[8]
Niederhofer, Relda (April 1985). "Dr. Daniel Drake's Study of Milk Sickness". The Ohio Journal of Science (Abstract). 85 (2): 3. hdl:1811/23063.
[9]
Daniel Drake; Yandell, Lunsford Pitts, eds. (1841). "MILK SICKNESS, alias SICK STOMACH". The Western Journal of Medicine and Surgery. 3. Prentice & Weissinger: 84. In the month of July last, about twenty of the boarders, in the Hotel of Mr. Madeira, Chillicothe, Ohio, were attacked, in one, two, or three hours after breakfast, with nausea and vomiting. In some, the latter was violent, and accompanied with spasms of the stomach, and a degree of prostration, from which they did not entirely recover for three or four days. Of course, this affection was ascribed to something eaten at the table, but the only article taken by the whole, was butter; and that butter, it was ascertained had been brought from an adjoining county in which the milk sickness prevails. Many facts of this kind have been reported by the people in different parts of the West, but, generally, discredited by the profession. We beg leave to commend the whole subject to our country friends, and shall be happy to give publicity to their observations and experiments.

Anna Pierce Hobbs Bixby

Early life

Research on milk sickness

Eson Bixby and his criminal activities

Death

Legacy

References

Further reading

External links

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