Physician
Centurion, 1919–1948
Born 24 March 1874 in Roselle, New Jersey
Died 29 July 1948 in Black Point, Connecticut
Buried Fairview Cemetery
, Westfield, New Jersey
Proposed by Walter B. James and Robert W. de Forest
Elected 1 November 1919 at age forty-five
Century Memorial
James Alexander Miller. [Born] 1874. Physician
“The qualities which go to make up character and personality are the basic essentials in the making of a true physician.” So Dr. Miller concluded his essay on “The Doctor Himself,” his last message to his profession. This was indeed, the key to his own distinguished career—a career which recalls the words of another great Centurion, Hans Zinsser, “it is a rare blending of learning and humility, incisiveness of intellect and sensitiveness of spirit, which occasionally comes together in an individual who chooses the calling of Medicine; and then we have the great physician.”
Miller’s life was devoted to the fight against tuberculosis, both curative and preventive, and in every aspect of that great campaign he was on the battle line or in the post of command. He was a pioneer in recognizing the close relationship between poverty and tuberculosis and no less a pioneer in organizing prevention on this basis. The chief seat in nation-wide organized activities was his: President of the National Tuberculosis Association and the New York Tuberculosis Association, President of the American College of Physicians. In public health the Milbank Memorial Fund had the benefit of his wise counsels for 26 years, as a member of its technical board. As President of the New York Academy of Medicine, as teacher, as leader in civic affairs, he was pre-eminent.
Jim Miller’s ordinary posture was one of dignity. Those who thought him aloof perhaps derived the feeling from his impressive size. Yet he was a gracious host, an outgiving friend, who could in rare moments temper seriousness with levity.
Of commanding stature, of genial personality, of embracing intellect, of sterling character, he led the battle, and made it a crusade, against an ancient enemy of mankind—led it in the modern terms of a rising standard of living—with a success that the statistics eloquently declare.
Source: Henry Allen Moe Papers, Mss.B.M722. Reproduced by permission of American Philosophical Society Library & Museum, Philadelphia
Henry Allen Moe
Henry Allen Moe Papers, 1948 Memorials
