Victor Clarence Vaughan

Doctor Victor Clarence Vaughan was born three quarters of a mile east of Mount Airy, Missouri which is southwest of Huntsville on October 27, 1851. He was the son of John Vaughan and Adeline Dameron who was daughter of Colonel William Moore Dameron, a veteran of the Black Hawk War who had came to Randolph County in 1829. In his autobiography "A Doctor's Memories" he dedicates a good portion to his growing up in Mount Airy, and his early years in Randolph County as well as a appendix on slavery. He talks about life on the farm, the stages that stopped at Mount Airy, early spiritual life, the woodlands, and Randolph County of the mid 1900s. Doctor Vaughan dedicates an entire chapter to the Civil War which he lived through. During that time his family saw their farm guarded by friendly Union regulars, Confederate guerrilla William Quantrill at their table, and unfriendly Union militia certain the Vaughans were hiding Rebels on their farm and who occupied their home under the command of a Colonel Young. They waited out the final months of the war near Hillsboro, Illinois having given charge of the farm to one of the slaves who oversaw it in their absence. While there Doctor Vaughan attended a rural school where he had his first and only fight. They returned to Mount Airy in October, 1865,

Doctor Vaughan's earliest education came from his mother who taught his the basics of reading, writing, and math. He then attended a school taught by Doctor William Watts until Doctor Watts decided to move to Fayette so his children could attend the school there. He then attended a small private school called Hazel Hill Academy in the vicinity of Mount Airy. All the while his mother continued his education at home having him read the works of such authors as Dickens. When he was 16 he attended Central College (now Central Methodist University) in Fayette, Missouri. He withdrew at the end of the first semester blaming not the school but himself. When he was 17 he enrolled at Mount Pleasant College in Huntsville and from there he graduated. While there he became an instructor in Latin. There he developed a fascination with chemistry something which he had not had the opportunity to learn about before. He graduated from Mount Pleasant College in 1872 and stayed on teaching chemistry and Latin until February, 1874. He then went to teach at Hardin College in Mexico, Missouri.

In September of 1874, Doctor Vaughan went to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor to work in the chemistry laboratory with the intention of enrolling in a post-graduate program. He was not permitted to enroll as the school did not recognize his diploma from Mount Pleasant. He then had to prove he had enough education to be worthy of trying for a Master's Degree. In June, 1875 he was awarded a Master of Science degree his thesis having been on “The Separation of Arsenic and Antimony.” He then studied to get his PhD which he received in 1875, and continued on to medical school and received his M.D. in 1876. He then began teaching at the university and was appointed assistant professor of medical chemistry in 1880. He was made professor of physiological and pathological chemistry and associate professor in therapeutics

and materia medica in 1883. In 1887 he was made professor of hygiene and physiological chemistry and director of the hygienic laboratory, Finally from 1891 to 1921 he served as Dean of the Medical School at the University of Michigan.

In 1877, he had married Dora Catherine Taylor, of Huntsville and together they had five children: Victor Clarence Vaughan Jr., John Walter Vaughan, Herbert Hunter Vaughan, Henry Frieze Vaughan, and Warren Taylor Vaughan. During the Spanish-American War he served in the 33rd Michigan Volunteers as surgeon with the rank of Major. He eventually became Division Surgeon. In 1917 he was made a colonel in the Medical Corps of the United States Army. In addition he was President of the American Medical Association from 1914 to 1915, and was the first Chairman of the Medical Division of the National Research Council.

Doctor Vaughan's studies into sanitation lead to improvements in the nation's water supplies. Early in his career he also realized many poisonings from cheese and other milk products were due to bacterial infections. His studies into Typhoid Fever lead to better treatments for it. And he came up with many procedures such as a tank for growing bacteria in order to better study bacterial infections. In his time he wrote for over 200 medical publications. Doctor Vaughan passed away on November 21, 1929 after a lengthy illness in Richmond, Virginia and is buried in Forest Hill Cemetery in Ann Arbor, Michigan.