TEXAS SURGEON

A doctor's account of a long life (he is now past eighty) satisfying in its hard won achievements parallels the advance of medicine from the turn of the century on and patterns ""the long shaping process"" which made him a surgeon and a Texan, certainly in spirit. Canadian born, Atkinson took his first job at ll, on an iceboat, a couple of years later went to Boston determined to get work and an education. While driving a dray, securing lowly jobs in mental hospitals, he also helped support his family and saved money to get his medical schooling - ultimately achieved at the University of Louisville. His early years of general practice took him to Texas, to Oklahoma, and finally he settled permanently in San Antonio where he specialized increasingly in ophthalmology and contributed tangibly to this field.... Hopefully hanging out its shingle for the Horse and Buggy Doctor, etc. practice, this too is a plainspoken record of pioneering medicine which today no longer holds the same attraction for a general audience. Local and limited.