A Family of Five Generations of Texas Physicians

Abstract

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• A Family of Five Generations of Texas Physicians
• Carlos R. Hamilton Jr., MD, FACP, MACE (bio)

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W L. and Algie Denman

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The original motivation for this manuscript came in response to the interest expressed by my friends and peers when they learned that our son, Carlos Hamilton III, represented the fifth generation of physicians in our family. I believed that it was a story worth telling, but if this story was to be recorded, I knew I would need to pick up my pen and begin writing. I am fortunate to have vivid childhood memories after spending nearly two years living with my grandparents, Peyton R. Denman and Frances Wootters Denman, when my father, Carlos R. Hamilton Sr., served in the U.S. Army during World War II. Many of my remembrances of listening to my grandparents would be lost for posterity unless recorded while my memory is intact. Many of these recollections have been verified and clarified in preparing this text. This is especially true of the life of the first physician in my family line, Alexander Madison "Dr. Matt" Denman, who died more than three decades before my birth but played a critical part in this story.

The profound changes that mark the 150-year span of these generations are worthy of documentation, as those living in the present time could hardly imagine the evolution of health care. When Dr. Matt was born in 1858, the use of general anesthesia for operative procedures was only just becoming available and management and prevention of postoperative infection was still on the horizon. He created, in the 1880s, the first hospital, in which surgical services could be provided, in his home county of Angelina in East Texas. The advances that made a hospital essential [End Page 289] paved the way for the next two generations of surgeons to participate in developing techniques that completely revolutionized the profession.

Our story will refer to major advances, some of which have been recognized by the Nobel Prize in Medicine, although all had profound effects on health care around the world. Each of our generations has experienced paradigm-changing developments: safer blood transfusion; effective antiseptic techniques; radio isotopic assays that greatly advanced the accuracy of diagnoses; effective antibacterial therapy, beginning with sulfanilamide and penicillin, which improved the outlooks for patients in ways that were never before possible; accurate, non-invasive diagnostic techniques; ongoing developments in surgical procedures; and the use of less invasive treatments with superior results are among many examples. Although technology and scientific advances completely changed the practice of medicine, the humanist aspect of care remained a critical aspect of the relationship between physicians and their patients. Over these five generations, humanism has been a central feature of effective medical care and the goal of the physicians whose activities are described in this story.

Dr. Matt became the first in an extended family of five generations of physicians who served their patients in Texas for more than 150 years since the latter half of the nineteenth century. Their stories, from the first generation of Denmans to the third generation of Hamiltons, demonstrate their devotion to the humanism of their profession as well as their interaction with scientific advances, technology, and socioeconomic issues over these one and one-half centuries.

Dr. Matt was the son of Washington Lafayette "W. L." Denman, founder of the town of Lufkin in Angelina County. The son of Felix Gilbert and Nancy Hutchinson Denman, W. L. was born in Franklin County, Georgia, and came to Nacogdoches, Texas, with his uncle, William Storm Denman, in 1843. He later returned to his Georgia home, completed his education, and on April 5, 1849, married his sweetheart, Algelina Swaggerty, affectionately known as Algie. They moved to Texas permanently in 1853 and five years later, on July 31, 1858, Dr. Matt was born, the third of seven children. The family lived in the Angelina County community of Denman Springs in the heart of the Piney Woods of East Texas.¹

Little is known of the details of Dr. Matt's early life, but it is likely he had at least basic schooling. His...