DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Dr. Arthur Carroll Scott, Senior. Now, some names get carved into a town's identity so deep you stop noticing them — they're just part of the landscape, like a river or a courthouse square.
Scott and White Hospital in Temple, Texas, is one of those names. But there was a flesh-and-blood man behind that first word, and his story is worth slowin' down for. Arthur Carroll Scott was born in Gainesville, Texas, in 1865.
He went east for his education, graduated from Bellevue Medical College in 1886, and then won himself an internship at the Western Pennsylvania Hospital. That is not a shabby start for a young man. But he came back to Texas — back to Gainesville — and in 1889 he married Maud M.
Sherwood and set up a private medical practice. Then came a turning point. In 1892, Dr.
Scott was appointed Chief Surgeon of the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Hospital in Temple. That appointment pulled him down to Bell County, and Bell County is where his story would take root. Three years in, 1895, he hired a man named Dr.
Raleigh R. White, Jr. Two years after that, 1897, the two of them formalized things and became partners.
And then in 1904 — here's where it gets interesting — they founded the Temple Sanitarium. They directed that institution jointly for over a decade, right up until Dr. White's death in 1917.
Grief has a way of changin' the shape of a thing. After Dr. White was gone, Dr.
Scott built a new partnership — this time with Dr. G. V.
Brindley, Senior, and Dr. M. W.
Sherwood. And in 1922, the hospital got a new name: Scott and White Hospital. Two names, side by side, one of them honoring a partner who hadn't lived to see it.
Now, Dr. Scott was a surgeon by specialty, but he didn't stop at surgery. He became an internationally respected authority in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer.
That is not a local reputation — that is the world takin' notice. And in 1933, Scott and White received accreditation from the American College of Surgeons as a cancer treatment center. The earliest in Texas.
Not one of the earliest — the earliest. Dr. Scott stayed active in medical and community organizations throughout his life.
He died in 1940. And the institution he co-founded kept right on growing — into a multi-specialty health system renowned across the Southwest. A man born in Gainesville, trained in New York and Pennsylvania, and buried in Texas history.
The name on the hospital was never just a name.
What the marker says
(1865-1940) Born in Gainesville, Texas, Arthur C. Scott graduated from Bellevue Medical College in 1886 and won an internship at the Western Pennsylvania Hospital. Returning to Gainesville, he married Maud M. Sherwood in 1889 and began a private medical practice. In 1892 Dr. Scott was appointed Chief Surgeon of the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Hospital in Temple. In 1895 he hired Dr. Raleigh R. White, Jr., and they formed a private partnership in 1897. In 1904 they founded the Temple Sanitarium which they directed jointly until Dr. White's death in 1917. Subsequently, Dr. Scott established a partnership with Dr. G.V. Brindley, Sr., and Dr. M.W. Sherwood and changed the name of the hospital to Scott and White Hospital in 1922. A specialist in surgery, Dr. Scott became an internationally respected authority in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. Scott and White received accreditation from the American College of Surgeons as a cancer treatment center in 1933, the earliest in Texas. Dr. Scott was active in many medical and community organizations. The institution he co-founded became a multi-specialty health system renowned in the Southwest. He died in 1940. (1997)