My Genealogy Hound

DR. R. STANSBURY SUTTON, Pittsburgh, was born at Indiana, Pa., July 8, 1841. His father, James Sutton, was one of the most prominent business-men in that place, engaging in the manufacture of paper, and being interested in mercantile and banking enterprises. His mother, Sarah Stansbury, was the daughter of Dr. Stansbury, a surgeon on duty under Gen. William Henry Harrison at the siege of Fort Meigs. She was educated at Steubenville Seminary, Ohio, and was engaged in teaching at the time of her marriage. Dr. Sutton received his academic education at the excellent school then presided over by the present Judge Silas M. Clark, of Pennsylvania, and at the Tuscarora Academy in Juniata county, Pa., and entered the freshman class of Jefferson College, Cannonsburg, in 1859. He was graduated in 1862, and at once entered upon the study of medicine, as the private pupil of Dr. D. Hayes Agnew, of Philadelphia. He also attended lectures at the University of Pennsylvania, and was graduated from that institution with the degree of doctor of medicine in 1865. From that year until the fall of 1866 he was resident physician of Blockley hospital, and a private teacher of anatomy in Philadelphia.

In November, 1866, he located in practice at Pittsburgh, and continued there until 1881, when he went to Europe, remaining nearly two years, pursuing special studies in Vienna, Berlin, Edinburgh and London. Upon his return he resumed his practice in Pittsburgh and Allegheny, where he is recognized as a leading practitioner. He pays special attention to the building up of invalid women by medical and surgical treatment, and during the past five years has maintained his own private hospital in Allegheny, where he is achieving most excellent results. In 1879 Dr. Sutton was appointed a lecturer on the diseases of women in Rush Medical College, Chicago, and delivered two courses of lecturers in 1880 and 1881, resigning to go abroad. In 1880 he was elected to the chair of operative surgery in the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Baltimore, but declined. In 1884, and again in 1888, he was elected to the chair of diseases of women in the medical department of Wooster (Ohio) University, but declined each time. Upon the organization of Pittsburgh Medical College, he was offered the chair of diseases, of women, but also declined that honor. Dr. Sutton received the degree of LL. D. from Wooster University in 1885. He has been a contributor to various medical journals, and more than a dozen books pertaining to the diseases of women. He was for many years a member of the Allegheny County Medical society, and of the state and national societies, serving as president of the American Academy of Medicine in 1887. He is an honorary member of the medical societies of Ohio and California; is a fellow of the American Gynecological society and British Gynecological society; member of the British Medical association; fellow of the New York Medico-Legal society; associate-fellow of the Philadelphia Obstetrical society; founder of the Pittsburgh Obstetrical and Gynecological society, and is its president (1889).

Dr. Sutton’s career in his profession has proven him to be possessed of executive ability above the average, as well as of surgical skill of the first order. His private hospital is a monument to both. On the one hand its government is carried on with military precision, while on the other hand its statistics stand unchallenged, being in this particular line of work equal to those of any other institution in this country. In the first five years of its existence it passed through a struggle only to be expected in a center where it was an innovation on all former precedent. But six years of work have proven that through this institution over five hundred years have been added to human life in tumor operations alone, and the mortality in those operations in this institution is the lowest that has ever been obtained in this community, and promises to be still lower. Singular as it may seem, it is Dr. Sutton’s personal testimony that his institution owes its early patronage to other counties and other states. During his earlier efforts to extend his services as an operator to poor women, he was aided by Henry Phipps, Jr., and John Walker, who frequently sent money to pay for the care and nursing of these women. In his specialty Dr. Sutton is accounted a pioneer in this community, and during the last five years his efforts have stimulated a number of young practitioners to qualify themselves for future usefulness in this branch. This has been one of the results of the founding of the obstetrical society and his private hospital, and there is reason to hope that it will not be long before a woman’s hospital will be another outcome of his labors, and thus give him and others an institution in which to do their charity work.

Dr. Sutton was married, in 1867, to Josephine, daughter of Hon. James McCullough, of Cannonsburg, and they have two children: Stansbury, a student in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at Boston, and Miss Eliza.