Anna Pierce Hobbs Bixby

Anna Pierce Hobbs Bixby
Dr. Anna Pierce Hobbs Bixby discovered that white snakeroot (Ageratina altissima) was the cause of milk sickness from grazing cows eating the wild plant which fatally poisoned the milk consumed by frontier settlers
Born	Anna Pierce 1808 or 1812 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania or Tennessee
Died	1869 or 1873 (aged 61-65) Rock Creek, Hardin County, Illinois
Nationality	American
Occupation	midwife, frontier doctor, dentist, herbologist, scientist
Relatives	Isaac Hobbs (first husband), Eson Bixby (second husband)
Medical career
Research	milk sickness

Anna Pierce Hobbs Bixby, sometimes spelled Bigsby born Anna Pierce (1812–1873), was a midwife, frontier doctor, dentist, herbologist, and scientist in southern Illinois.

Bixby discovered that white snakeroot, (Ageratina altissima) contains a toxin. When cattle consume the plant, their meat and milk become contaminated and cause the sometimes fatal condition milk sickness. One of the most notable and tragic cases of the "milk sickness," was that of Nancy Hanks Lincoln, the mother of Abraham Lincoln, who died at 34 years old in 1818.

Anna was the daughter of farmers, who had moved from Philadelphia and in 1828 settled in southeastern Illinois, close to what would become the village of Rock Creek. After finishing school, Anna travelled to Philadelphia to train in midwifery and dentistry, but on her return to Illinois she became the first physician in Hardin County and consequently, a general practitioner for her community. Anna Bixby may also have been the first female doctor in the state of Illinois. Others claimed, she was a midwife, from Tennessee, married to her first husband, Isaac Hobbs.

She did thorough research of milk sickness, which was causing a good deal of fatality among both people and calves, including Anna's mother and sister. Noting the seasonal nature of the disease, and the fact that sheep and goat milk were not affected she reasoned that the cause must be a poisonous herb. However, she was unable to determine the precise cause until she was shown the White Snakeroot by a medicine woman of the Shawnee tribe.

Experiments on a calf confirmed the toxic effect of Snakeroot. However, despite her efforts it was not until 1928 (55 years after her death) that research confirming her discovery was published. Her position as a frontier doctor and a woman would have made it hard for her to gain respect from the medical profession of the time.