# American Medical Biographies/Antony, Milton

​Antony, Milton (1789–1839)
Milton Antony was born August 17, 1789, the place of his birth not being recorded, but it is known that his father when young came to Georgia and settled in Jasper County. His family must have been in limited circumstances, as the boy had no more than two and a half years schooling. At sixteen he began to study medicine with Dr. Joel Abbott, presumably at Washington, Wilkes County, Georgia.
At nineteen he went to Philadelphia for medical studies, but lacking means, was able to attend only one course, the requirements for graduation being two courses, so he returned to Georgia without a diploma. Reaching home without funds, he began his professional life with no other asset than determination and ambition, and shortly after moved to Monticello, Georgia, where he began his active professional life, within a short time building up an extensive practice. After the expiration of seven years, desiring a larger field with greater opportunity for study, he moved to New Orleans, Louisiana, staying there, however, but a short time, eventually, in 1819, settling in Augusta, Georgia. A man of broad mind and with an earnest desire for the elevation of his profession, he was active in establishing the State Board of Examiners, whose duty it was to examine and license all applicants for practice in the state. In 1828, in connection with the physicians of Augusta and a few distinguished men in the State he applied to the Legislature at Milledgeville for a charter to organize a medical academy, its object to make the academy a school to more thoroughly prepare students for the northern universities. The school was opened with three professors and a large class, not long after becoming an institute and allowed to confer the degree of bachelor of medicine.
Its success was so great that in 1833 he and his co-laborers asked the State Legislature for a charter for the Medical College of Georgia, the charter carrying with it full power to lecture, examine, and confer the degree of doctor of medicine upon its graduates. His last effort was for a higher standard of medical literature; to accomplish this he established the Southern Medical Journal, and was for several years its editor. Dr. Antony rapidly made a reputation, becoming highly esteemed and honored, and attracting the attention of the profession outside his state, and receiving the honorary M. D. from two distinguished universities. In the school which he ​established he ably filled the chair of the institutes and practice of medicine, obstetrics and diseases of women and children. As often the case with the general practitioner of long ago, he was equally skilled in the different departments of medicine and was the first gynecologist to adopt and point out the knee-chest posture in the treatment of uterine displacements. It is also to be noted that he perfected the treatment of fractures of the thigh by weight extension. His skill and boldness as a surgeon can be fully realized when it is known that in 1821 he excised the fifth and sixth ribs, and removed a portion of gangrenous lung. This remarkable piece of work is reported in the Philadelphia Journal of Medical and Physical Sciences, 1823, vol. vi.
The article was so original and bold that it was republished in 1893 by Dr. George Foy of the Royal College of Surgeons of Dublin, Ireland, in the Medical Press and Circular. Dr. Antony's contributions to medical literature, while numerous and valuable, are not obtainable.
Though the life of this distinguished man began with all the disadvantages consequent to poverty and want of education, his energy and perseverance enabled him to attain a high position in his profession and to maintain it until the fatal epidemic of yellow fever in Augusta, Georgia, in 1839, brought his life to a close. He was editor of the Southern Medical and Surgical Journal as far as its first two volumes.
At the request of his faculty, his body was buried in the college grounds and a tablet to his memory stands in the wall of the principal lecture room of the college which he founded.