Cleave’s
Biographical Cyclopædia of
Homœopathic Physicians and Surgeons
By Egbert Cleave
Presented by Sylvain Cazalet
ONES,
STEPHEN D., M. D., of Indianapolis, Ind., was born in Montgomery county,
O., on December 1st, 1824. He is of Welsh descent. His ancestors, some
generations back, emigrated to America, and settled in Nantucket, Mass.
Subsequently they removed to North Carolina, and from thence to
Montgomery county, near Dayton, O. He was reared to agricultural
pursuits, and acquired most of his education at a common country school,
his nearest approximation to collegiate honors and experiences depending
upon a year’s training in a village academy. After leaving this
institution, he became a teacher, and labored in that capacity for two
years. In 1845, he entered the office of John Hall, M. D., as a student
of medicine, and devoted three years to preparation for his profession.
He attended three full courses of lectures at the American Medical
Institute, which subsequently merged into the Eclectic Medical
Institute, of Cincinnati, O., and graduated in March, 1849. Returning to
Dayton, he entered into partnership with his preceptor, who died of
cholera in the following July, just at the close of that fearful
epidemic which spread over the country at that time. In 1855, he went to
Granville, O., and took charge of the water cure and infirmary at that
place-an institution devoted specially to the treatment of diseases of
females. He remained here four years, and then removed to Wabash, Ind.,
where he erected the Rural Home Hygienic Institute. He continued here
four years, during which period he and his partner, Dr. Woodbury,
published the Western
Health Journal,
devoted to “hygienic, mental and physical culture, and to the
restoration and development of the whole man.” This journal gained
quite a wide popularity in the West, and received many flattering
notices from the press generally. The Indianapolis
Daily Gazette
gave to him a highly complimentary notice, in which, speaking of his
excellence as a physician and as a man, it says : “Dr. S. D.
Jones is a moral, honorable and upright man, as well as benevolent,
generous, and kind. He may be ranked among the very foremost in his
profession, and we can, without any reservation, commend him to the
confidence of those among whom he may reside.”About the year 1854, he
began to investigate homœopathy, and soon became convinced of its
superiority over all other systems of practice, and he has ever since
been an able and zealous advocate and defender of the same. In 1864, he
removed to Richmond, Ind., where he was engaged in the active duties of
his profession until 1870, when for the purpose of educating a semimute
daughter at the State Institution for the Education of the Deaf and
Dumb, he removed to Indianapolis. For fifteen years he has given special
attention, and a large portion of his time, to the treatment of diseases
of females, and his efforts have been crowned with that success which
attends on native talent, matured and developed by severe application
and extensive experience. Dr. Jones is a member of the American
Institute of Homœopathy. He has been married twenty-three years. It is
the voluntary testimony of one who has known him long and intimately
that “his individualising characteristic is modesty -a quality so
pronounced in his make-up, as often to subject him to painful
embarrassment, and but for the importunate intervention of friends,
would have deprived the public of any sketch of his life. He is capable
of achieving great results in the furtherance of the faith he
professes… Through the influence and example of such men as Dr. Jones,
conjoined with reading, I have-though an eclectic-come to look upon
homœopathy as that system which is destined to soon replace all other
schools in the higher circles of society.”Source
: Cleave’s Biographical Cyclopædia of Homœopathic Physicians and
Surgeons By Egbert Cleave