American Medical Biographies/Post, Martin Hayward
Post, Martin Hayward (1851–1914)
Martin Hayward Post, ophthalmologist, was born at St. Louis, Missouri, March 31, 1851, the youngest son of the eminent divine, Dr. Truman Marcellus Post, founder and for nearly forty years pastor of the First Congregational Church at St. Louis, and of Frances Henshaw Post. The subject of this sketch received the degree of Bachelor of Arts at Washington University in 1872, as honor man of his class. After a brief period of teaching in the public schools, he proceeded to study medicine at the St. Louis Medical College, where he was graduated in 1877. He was then for a time a student of general surgery with Dr. John T. Hodgen (q. v.), but later studied ophthalmology with Dr. John Green (q. v.), with whom he very shortly became associated in practice.
Some years later he studied ophthalmology under Donders at Utrecht and under Nettleship in London. Returning to St. Louis, he continued the association with Dr. John Green, and was soon known as one of the great operators and writers.
Dr. Post was a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, a member of the American Academy of Medicine, of the St. Louis Academy of Science, the American Ophthalmological Society, and the Medical Society of City Hospital Alumni. He was recording secretary of the St. Louis Medical Society in 1880 and 1881. He was once chairman of the Ophthalmological Section of the St. Louis Medical Society, and was president of the American Ophthalmological Society, at the time of his death. He was an honorary member of the Phi Beta Kappa. Dr. Post was long a member of the Board of Managers of the Missouri School for the Blind, "being appointed and reappointed by Democratic governors though himself an outspoken, Republican in politics."
In personal appearance Dr. Post was large, neither lean nor stout, of a clear and fair complexion, and with brown hair and eyes. He was rather deliberate in manner, but could, on occasion, be as swift as lightning.
He was an earnest Christian. A member of the Congregational church, he was regular in attendance, and never suffered to pass unheeded an opportunity to perform his duty as he saw it, or (in the words of Ian Maclaren) "to say a good word for Christ." And he was always stricter with himself than with any others.
The doctor was twice married: first, on May 6, 1885, to Mary Laurence Tyler, of Louisville, Kentucky, who died January 2, 1888; and on January 4, 1906, to Mary Brown Tanner, of Jacksonville, Illinois, who survived him. Martin Hayward Post, Jr., ophthalmologist of St. Louis, was his son.
The good and skilful doctor passed away in Castle Park, Michigan, his summer home, whither he had gone in search of health and rest, on the first day of September, 1914. The cause of death was angina pectoris.