Heritage Snapshot: Part 125

In 1959, the Pathology Building, constructed on the Loma Linda campus of the College of Medical Evangelists in 1936, was named Newton G. Evans Hall. It is now the home of the Loma Linda University Center for Health Promotion. Newton G. Evans was born on June 1, 1874 in Hamilton, Missouri. He attended public schools in Hamilton for three years as a classmate of future businessman J. C. Penney. In 1891 he became one of the original 73 students at Union College in Lincoln, Nebraska, and graduated four years later in 1895 at age 21. Later that year he began studying medicine for three years in the first class at the American Medical Missionary College (AMMC) in Battle Creek, Michigan. His formal study of medicine was completed at Cornell University in New York City in 1900. Dr. Evans then became one of four selected to be interns at Bellevue Hospital. Instead, he returned to Battle Creek and taught pathology and histology at AMMC. Between 1905 and 1908 Dr. Evans engaged in private medical and surgical practice in Murray, Kentucky. From 1908 to 1911 he was a professor of pathology at the University of Tennessee College of Medicine in Nashville. In the fall of 1913 Dr. Evans taught Special Pathology to the senior class at Loma Linda. In August 1914 the fledgling CME elected Dr. Evans, now the Medical Superintendent of the Madison Sanitarium in Madison, Tennessee, to be its new president. He served as president of CME from 1914 to 1927. As a devoted student of medicine himself, Dr. Evans achieved considerable distinction as an outstanding teacher. He had an unusual ability to determine what students did not know and then teach them what they needed to learn. His teaching ability at CME was surpassed only by his interest in obtaining and maintaining an adequate faculty. Motivated by a sound sense of objective truth, he is credited for advancing CME’s scientific standing with the AMA from its initial Grade C to Grade A. Because of the help and inspiration they received from this godly man of science, many of his former students eventually carried heavy responsibilities. He had a steadying influence during troubled times. As an idealist, however, he constantly envisioned higher standards of excellence for both himself and his associates. On February 28, 1923, the CME Constituency voted to look with favor on placing the institution on an industrial basis following President Evans’ presentation detailing a report originated by the dean of the Engineering College of the University of Cincinnati. Dr. Evans reported potential advantages, both to the institution and to its students. The concept had been accepted by other colleges and resulted in an association of schools using the idea. The "Cooperative Plan of Medical Education,” a work-study program, allowed medical students during their first two years in Loma Linda to study every other month and work every other month. Half of each class worked while the other half studied. Then, they traded places. Each student had a replacement in the other half of the class. Together they held down one full-time job. Student physicians received both practical experience and a living wage in hospitals and laboratories throughout Southern California. The Cooperative Plan proved popular with the students although it placed high demands on CME’s teaching staff. Soon after the close of World War I, some of the younger physicians at CME proposed that the College organize a Seventh-day Adventist-staffed, stand-by military hospital as a gesture of cooperation with United States government. Percy T. Magan, MD, Dean of the School of Medicine, so liked the idea that he negotiated with officers of the Ninth Corps Area of the United States Army in San Francisco to establish the 47th General Hospital of the United States Army Medical Corps. CME officially organized the hospital in 1926 when President Newton G. Evans, MD, became its commanding officer and assumed the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the Reserves. The establishment of a new school of medicine at the University of Southern California in 1928 restored a two-school arrangement at the Los Angeles County Hospital. Dr. Evans resigned his presidency of the College of Medical Evangelists and his chairmanship of the Department of Pathology and became the full-time chief pathologist at the Los Angeles County Hospital, a position he held until his retirement in 1944. Newton G. Evans, MD, maintained his appointment on the CME faculty and his reputation as a superb teacher. The School continued to receive his expertise, especially appreciated by interns and residents. His early morning review of autopsy findings from the previous day became known as Dr. Evans' "organ recital." Dr. Evans’ standing in the scientific community was displayed by Board certification with the American Board of Pathology and his membership in a variety of organizations. He was a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and the American Association for the Advancement of Science; a member of the Los Angeles Pathological Society; President (1929) of the Los Angeles Cancer Society; and President (1936) of the American Association of Pathologists and Bacteriologists. He also held membership with the American Society of Clinical Pathologists and the Los Angeles Academy of Medicine. His interest in libraries resulted in his appointment to the Board of Counselors for the Library of the Surgeon General’s Office. He was known to be humble, modest, and genuinely sincere. He had been an early contributor to a number of important advances in medicine. At his memorial service at Paulson Hall on December 23, 1945, CME President Walter E. Macpherson, MD, paid tribute: “I am sure that he was one of the most unselfish men whom any of us has ever known. We shall always respect him for his complete honesty and for his scientific attainments. We shall continue to be uplifted by our knowledge of his spiritual balance and shall be stabilized by the influence of his sturdy integrity.