# Woman of the Century/Elizabeth Miller

​MILLER, Mrs. Elizabeth, physician, born on the banks of the Detroit river, near the town of Detroit, Mich., 2nd July, 1836, of Scotch parents. She was the youngest of six sisters. The pre-natal influences there received from her mother, who ELIZABETH MILLER. always had a kind word and a piece of bread and meat for the dusky woodman, infused into the child's nature a friendly regard and large sympathy for the Indian. This mother was a rigid prohibitionist, even in those far-away days, and no one ever received from her a drink stronger than coffee. Dr. Miller's heart has rebelled against the cruel wrong perpetrated upon the Indian. Any work for the betterment and uplifting of the Indian has found a ready endorsement by her. While yet quite young, her parents removed to the city of New York, where she spent her girlhood years. Those were the happiest years of her life, and still, when the family concluded to return to Detroit, she responded joyfully, so sweet was the memory of green fields, wild flowers and free birds singing their happy songs in the great forests. In her seventh year she received a fall, which injured her spine and cast a shadow over every hope and ambition of her life, and which in later years has been the cause of much suffering and disability. A few terms in a young womans' boarding-school proved to be all she could accomplish in school work. Environed with frailty and other adverse circumstances, there was little to be done but simply to wait, but in her waiting there was the planting of a better heart garden than could have been accomplished by any other process. In her seventeenth year she was so desirous of becoming educated, that she might devote her life to foreign mission work, it was in a measure decided to have her attend Albion Seminary, Mich., when she was taken quite ill and forced to yield to an apparent decree. After serious consideration and mental stniggle she resolved upon a course of home study and self-culture. For this she took as a foundation the Bible with the helps received from eminent biblical writers, such as Boardman, Tupper, Thomas a Kempis, Pollok and many others, becoming familiar with her chosen authors through their spiritually-inspiring influences, giving also attention to higher studies. At the age of twenty-two years she was married. In 1862, under the first three-year call, her husband entered the army. In 1863, in answer to a telegram, she went to Jefferson Barracks, Mo., to nurse her husband, who was seriously injured while on detached service, in charge of sick and wounded from the fields of Corinth. It was during her stay in that general hospital that Mrs. Miller began the study of medicine, which she pursued until 1866, when she attended her first course of lectures in the allopathic college in Boston, Mass. She was graduated in 1870 in the Homeopathic College, Cleveland, Ohio. Her impelling motive in obtaining a medical education was her own health. From girlhood Dr. Miller was peculiarly gifted to heal the sick, making her first and marvelous cure, when fifteen years of age, of a critical case of hernia. She reduced the displacement perfectly while waiting for the family physician, Dr. M. P. Stewart, of Detroit. It was the only case known to him reduced in that way. He pronounced it one of the most wonderful cures known to medical science. The patient is still living. The experiences and victories of Dr. Miller furnish the women of to-day another example of self-sustaining heroism not found in every walk in life, for hers has been a life of heroic endeavor. Dr. Miller is living in Muncie, Ind., surrounded by a large circle of friends and acquaintances, still engaged in professional work, both medical and literary.