Yolo-Contra Costa County CA Archives Biographies.....Kier, Henry M. 1847 - 
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Author: Tom Gregory (1913)

HENRY M. KIER, M. D.

    The science of therapeutics has no disciple more loyal to the profession,
more conversant with its possibilities or more eager to keep pace with its
development than Dr. Kier of Yolo county, a skilled practitioner whose extended
experience has brought to him the ever-increasing prestige associated with
accuracy in diagnosis and success in the treatment of disease. His researches
into the mysteries of materia medica, commenced while he was yet at the
threshold of life's activities, have been continued with enlarged appreciation
and growing results up to the present time. In these studies he has availed
himself of every opportunity for the acquisition of knowledge. The best medical
literature of the age has been consulted. The great leaders in medicine and
surgery have been sought. The centers of medical research, both in this country
and abroad, have been visited in an eager effort to keep pace with the modern
development of the science. Extensive travels have been entered upon with a view
to the broadening of his professional knowledge. Nor has this desire for
increased medical information been the mere selfish hope of personal
attainments. On the other hand, he has continued to be an earnest student of the
profession, an eager disciple of the greatest physicians and surgeons in the
world, solely that he might use the knowledge thus acquired for the benefit of
the patients under his charge. A lofty spirit of altruism has guided his
professional labors. Devotion to humanity has been the ennobling principle of
his existence. A sense of duty to others, and particularly to those now or in
the future to be under his professional charge, causes him to study every
development in the science and adopt into his own practice every modernism whose
value has been proved by the most exhaustive tests.

    It was but natural that Dr. Kier should enter upon the profession of
medicine as a life occupation, for from his earliest recollections he was taught
to regard the science with deep interest and to believe that a profound,
comprehensive knowledge of its varied departments represented the highest phase
of human attainments. It was his father, Dr. J. S. Kier, who unconsciously
impressed him with the greatness of the profession and whose own
self-sacrificing devotion to the work inspired the son to emulation. During the
early portion of the nineteenth century, when medical colleges offered fewer
opportunities than those of the present day, J. S. Kier, a native of Armstrong
county, Pa., and the recipient of a classical education in the Western Reserve
College, aquired an exceptionally broad knowledge of materia medica and became
one of the most renowned physicians of his native county. After the Cincinnati
Medical College had conferred the degree of M. D. upon him he spent some years
in professional work in Armstrong county, but his growing reputation led to his
removal to Pittsburg, where he became one of the leading men of his profession
of that period. About the year 1865 he became a pioneer of Detroit, Mich., where
he purchased property, established a home and built up a practice that formed
the highest tribute to his professional skill and enviable reputation. Until his
death in 1889 he continued to be an active practitioner, deeply interested in
all developments in the science, quick to avail himself of modern advancement in
therapeutics and grasping with all the enthusiasm of younger years the
presentation of new principles for the treatment of disease. In the hopes and
aspirations of his professional career he had the wise counsel and active
co-operation of his wife, Martha J. (McBride) Kier, who was born in Westmoreland
county, Pa., and died in Detroit in 1909 at the age of eighty-one years.

    The splendid qualifications of the parents, descending as an inheritance to
their three sons, brought to each a fair degree of success in his chosen sphere
of activity. Dr. William F. Kier became a prosperous physician of St. Louis,
Mo., and James A. entered into business enterprises in Detroit, Mich. The eldest
of the three, Dr. Henry M. Kier, was born at Leechburg, Armstrong county, Pa.,
August 31, 1847, and received a public-school education in Pennsylvania. After
the removal of the family to Detroit in 1865 he attended the schools there for
two years. In 1867 he matriculated in the medical department of the University
of Michigan at Ann Arbor and continued in that institution until 1869, when he
was graduated with the degree of M. D. Upon returning to Detroit he became
associated with his father in professional work. However, he soon found that his
professional knowledge was incomplete and unsatisfactory. With the high ideals
which he entertained of the calling he was satisfied with nothing less than the
best. Under these circumstances he determined to continue his collegiate studies
beyond their previous limits. Choosing St. Louis as the center of his advanced
studies, he forthwith entered the St. Louis Medical College and took a thorough
post-graduate course under the distinguished professor of obstetrics and
gynecology then connected with the institution, while at the same time he gained
practical experience in the profession by laboring among the patients of the
Sisters' Hospital. In 1874 the college conferred the degree of M. D. upon him.
He chose California as the field for his future professional career, selecting
San Francisco as his probable location. However, having formed the acquaintance
of Dr. Edward Gordon, of Knight's Landng, Cal., a graduate of the St. Louis
Medical College and a young man of professional promise, Dr. Kier naturally
visited him on his arrival in the west. He was immediately impressed with the
greatness of the county and its future possibilities and he therefore joined his
friend as a practitioner at Knight's Landing. Six months later Dr. Gordon
removed to Dixon, but Dr. Kier continued at the same location until 1880, when
he went to Europe for the purpose of carrying forward special studies under some
of the master surgeons of the world. For two years he studied in the medical
department of the University of Vienna and then for nine months he had the
further advantage of a special course in the University of Berlin, after which
he spent four months in the city of London and studied the principles of
therapeutics as explained by some of the leading physicians of Great Britain.
Upon his return to Yolo county in 1884 he engaged in practice at Woodland and in
this city he has built up an enviable reputation for medical skill. Few
physicians in the west have enjoyed more extended advantages than he and his
years of close study and research have enabled him to make a success of his
chosen work. Identifying himself with the local progress of the profession, he
has entered into active membership with the Yolo County Medical Society. The
California State and American Medical Associations also have the benefit of his
intelligent cooperation. Aside from his professional activities, he has found
leisure only for identification with Masonry, whose principles of philanthropy
and brotherhood always have appealed to him as an agency in the forward march of
humanity. As early as 1875 he was made a Mason in Grafton Lodge, F. & A. M., at
Knight's Landing, and he still retains his membership in that lodge, being one
of the very few survivors of its leading workers of early days. Since becoming
one of its members he has risen in the order until now lie is a thirty-third
degree Mason in the United States jurisdiction of the Scottish Bite.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from

HISTORY OF YOLO COUNTY CALIFORNIA
WITH
Biographical Sketches
OF
The Leading Men and Women of the County Who Have Been Identified With Its Growth
and Development From the Early Days to the Present

HISTORY BY
TOM GREGORY
AND OTHER WELL KNOWN WRITERS
ILLUSTRATED COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME

HISTORIC RECORD COMPANY
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA [1913]


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