# American Medical Biographies/Hawkes, Micajah Collins

​Hawkes, Micajah Collins (1785–1863).
The student of American medical history will find hardly another physician who so completely occupied the attention of medical circles throughout the nation as did Dr. Hawkes from 1821 to 1826, for during those five years the case of Lowell versus Faxon and Hawkes was the one which attracted universal interest in medical literature and at the meetings of the state medical societies.
Micajah Collins Hawkes, the son of Matthew and Ruth Collins Hawkes, was born in Lynn, ​Massachusetts, July 16, 1785, was brought up as a Quaker, and remained a member of that sect until he was dismissed for marrying "outside of the Meeting." He worked on his father's farm until he was of age, then studied at Phillips Exeter Academy, and was graduated the oldest in the class of 1808, having as classmates, Edward Everett, John Godfrey Palfrey, John Adams Dix, Jared Sparks and William Willis, men famous in American history.
Soon after graduating he studied medicine with Dr. William Ingalls (q. v.), of Boston, and was about ready to begin practice when the War of 1812 began. He enlisted as surgeon's mate on a privateer and was captured but soon released. Directly afterward he was appointed surgeon to the U. S. Sloop of War Hornet, Captain James Lawrence, and was present at the defeat of the British Brig Peacock, off Demerara, February 24, 1913. As the Peacock was sinking a sailor brought off to Dr. Hawkes a medical chest which may still be seen at Eastport, Maine. The Hornet, having on board the many wounded and the ressued survivors of the Peacock, made for New York and arrived there safely, but during the voyage Dr. Hawkes met with an accident which made him slightly lame for life.
Directly after these events he resumed his studies in Boston, and was asked to go out as surgeon to the Chesapeake, but declined the urgent and flattering invitation of Captain Lawrence because the crew were untrained and unfit to fight. History tells us all too sadly of the defeat of the Chesapeake, of the death of the lamented Lawrence in the fight with the Shannon off Boston Light, June 1, 1813, and testified to the good judgment of Dr. Hawkes.
Dr. Hawkes obtained his medical degree at Brown University in 1814, practised in Boston, and August 6, 1815, married Sally Wheeler of Salem, Massachusetts. About a year later, leading physicians of Boston were asked to send to Eastport, Maine, some young physician to take the practice of Dr. Barstow, and Dr. Hawkes was chosen for the position. He opened his office in that town June 17, 1817, soon became well known as a careful physician, and by some good operations obtained control of nearly all the surgical cases occurring for years in that region. He was also at one time contract surgeon to the garrison, and later on, collector of the port, and of the district of Passamaquoddy, and then without warning, and at a time when his prospects seemed most cheerful, he was made the actual defendant in a suit for malpractice which over-shadowed him for five long years, but from which he emerged victorious after three trials before the courts of Maine.
The circumstances of this remarkable case were these: Charles Lowell of Lubec, Maine, fell from a spirited horse, which then rolled back on him. He was taken home and Dr. John Faxon of the village was called, but as he had no experience with fractures, Dr. Hawkes was sent for, and after riding several miles on horseback and being rowed the rest of the way, he arrived and diagnosed a dislocation of the femur and fracture of the acetabulum. After reducing the dislocation, as he assured himself by the satisfactory motion of the leg, he put the patient to bed, tied both feet together with bandages, and went home.
He called again in a few days, found everything progressing well and said he should not come unless sent for. The patient, without permission, left his bed on the fourteenth day, walked 150 rods, had a relapse, the leg assumed an unnatural position and remained for life rather longer than the other. Dr. Hawkes was called in again, but being delayed by urgent obstetrical emergencies, did not arrive until the next day, when he found affairs as stated, said that they were due to the neglect of the patient, that he could do nothing more and retired from the case.
Mr. Lowell soon started for Boston, and then, without informing any of the surgeons what had been done for him, he consulted first, Dr. John Collins Warren (q. v.), who diagnosed a dislocation into the ischiatic notch and advised a reduction, which was attempted, but in vain, with the assistance of the staff of the Massachusetts General Hospital, and in the presence of many physicians. Mr. Lowell then consulted Dr. Ingalls and a "natural bone setter" with no better results. All of these consultants were then informed of the trap which Lowell had set for them so that they might be compelled to testify against Dr. Hawkes.
Litigation then ensued in the case of Lowell versus Faxon and Hawkes. Dr. Faxon having really nothing to do with the affair, the defence rested wholly with Dr. Hawkes, who put up a stiff fight. The first trial resulted in a verdict against Dr. Hawkes for $1900, the second terminated in a disagreement of the jury, and after a third and prolonged trial, the court advised the defendants to pay their own costs and the case was thrown out of court.
​The plaintiff afterward practised law in the West, and in Ellsworth, Maine, for several years, and having so directed in his will, immediately after his death in 1858, a post mortem examination was made, revealing a dislocation downward and forward with neoplastic tissue, forming an adventitious socket for the head of the femur.
The history of this case would not be complete were it not mentioned here, that the trunk, head and legs were buried at Ellsworth, whilst the bones of the pelvis remain preserved in the Warren Anatomical Museum in Boston. This instance, moreover, of a post mortem examination after a malpractice suit, is one of only two, so far unearthed, in American medical history.
After the ending of his law suit in 1826, Dr. Hawkes resumed the quiet current of his practice and worked hard to regain the money spent in defending his good name. People liked and respected him, his practice flourished, he wrote one or two medical papers for publication, and drove about with his good old horse "Ridgeway" hitched into the shafts of a chaise, which was decorated on both sides with a picture of the good Samaritan of the New Testament. A similar picture in flamboyant colors likewise adorned the façade of his hospitable mansion in Eastport. He wore his hair in a cue to the end of his days, and had an intense dislike for birds, and in order to prevent robins from robbing his cherry trees of their fruit, he tied to the branches shining balls of tinsel to frighten them away. The visitor to Eastport of today should not fail to look in at the old homestead of Dr. Hawkes, and note the handsome mahogany wainscoting of one or two of the living rooms, whilst a careful study of the various pamphlets by Mr. Lowell and the celebrated "Open Letter" of Dr. John Collins Warren to Chief Justice Isaac Parker will well repay the student of American medical history.