Eugene Hamilton


Eugene Green Hamilton was a pioneering American OB/GYN obstetrician, writer, and medical researcher. He did some of the key writing in the effort to develop a vaccine which fought against Rh disease, a condition which would cause pregnant women's immune system to attack the fetus she is carrying as not being identical to the mother. Hamilton did some of the earliest and best writing about the search for the vaccine, long before diagnostic techniques such as ultrasound had been developed.

Biography

Hamilton was born on June 27, 1910 in White Hall, Illinois. His father was Ray Hamilton, an Illinois physician. In the early 1940s, he married Mary Jo Hickey of Minnesota. They had three children: Barbara, Eugene Jr., and John, who also became an OB/GYN.
He studied medicine at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, receiving his degree in 1941, and then worked as an OB/GYN doctor in several different hospitals, including St. Mary's Health Center. He had a private practice in St. Charles, Missouri, which he eventually passed on to his son John. Hamilton was also a Professor at Saint Louis University.
Hamilton died on June 1, 2005, of congestive heart failure, in St. Louis, leaving three children and five grandchildren: Eugene G. III, Katherine, Paul, Julie, and Eric.

Writing