For seventeen years Dr. Orion Smith Miller has engaged in the practice of osteopathy in St. Louis and throughout the intervening period has enjoyed an extensive patronage which is at once an indication of the skill and ability that he displays and of the success which he is attaining in his chosen field. St. Louis numbers him among her native sons, his birth having here occurred October 7, 1865. His ancestral line is traced back to Pennsylvania and in the family mingled traits of English, Irish and Dutch blood, although representatives of the name have long resided on this side the Atlantic. The doctor’s father, Isaac Newton Miller, was born in Louisville, Kentucky, and about 1841 became a resident of St. Louis, where he joined Daniel Catlin in the tobacco manufacturing business, with which he was connected until January, 1899, when he retired from active life, spending his remaining days in the enjoyment of well earned rest. He married Annie Elvira Smith, who was born in Indiana and came with her parents to St. Louis in 1845. The death of Mr. Miller occurred June 18, 1908, when he had reached the age of seventy-two years and ten months. To him and his wife were born five children, four of whom are living: D. C., a capitalist of Tulsa, Oklahoma; Bessie, the widow of John R. Scott, formerly connected with the Carnegie Steel Company of Cleveland; and I. B., an engineer of St. Louis.
The other member of the family is Dr. Miller, who after pursuing his public school education until he had completed the third year work in the high school, started out in the business world in connection with the tobacco industry, occupying nearly every position in his father’s office and factory through a period of four years. Recognizing the need of more advanced education in order to attain the position toward which his laudable ambition pointed, he became a student in Smith’s Academy, which he attended for two years, then matriculated in Grear’s Commercial School of St. Louis. Subsequently he again took up office work, becoming an expert accountant and continuing in that profession for a few years, after which he joined his father and brother, D. C. Miller, in the ownership and conduct of an ice and cold storage business, which they conducted for three years and then sold. It was in 1901 that Dr. Miller took up the study of medicine, thus bringing about the long cherished desire to prepare for a professional career. In 1902, however, he discontinued his medical studies in order to become a student in the American School of Osteopathy at Kirksville, Missouri, from which he was graduated in June, 1904, making an excellent standing in physiology, anatomy, surgery and other branches in a class that numbered one hundred and seventy-three students.
At once opening an office in St. Louis Dr. Miller has throughout the intervening period continued in practice in this city and his position is one of pronounced leadership among the osteopaths here. He is a constant student of his profession, keeping in touch with the latest scientific researches and discoveries, while his own experience is constantly bringing to him knowledge of value and worth in the performance of his daily professional duty. He has been honored with the presidency of the St. Louis Osteopathy Association and has presented various valuable papers before its meetings. In his practice he has specialized in proctology and orificial surgery and his efforts in this direction have been most valuable and resultant. He has also displayed marked ability in treating dangerous fevers, diphtheria and other maladies, which formerly were supposed to yield only to the influence of powerful drugs. His practice is now of a most extensive and important character and his success is constantly growing. He has also manifested sound business judgment in making investments in manufacturing enterprises, which add materially to his annual income.
On the 19th of August, 1888, in St. Louis, Dr. Miller was married to Miss Maude Cash, a daughter of James Green and Isabella Cash of this city, both now deceased. Dr. and Mrs. Miller are parents of a daughter and son: Lucile and Dick Cash. The religious faith of the family is indicated in their membership in the Fourth Christian church. Dr. Miller is also identified with the Masonic fraternity, the Elks and the Iota Tau Sigma, a Greek letter fraternity in the profession, of which he was one of the organizers and the second president. It has now become a national body with a large membership. Dr. Miller finds his recreation in athletics and outdoor sports and is constantly advocating such as a means to health. He is a believer in the old adage that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure and he is always endorsing plans of life that sustain normal conditions. To his patients, however, upon whom disease has laid a hand he is a most helpful minister, his perfect understanding of anatomy and the component parts of the human body with the most scientific methods of adjustment resulting in normalcy, constituting him one of the ablest members of the osteopathic profession in St. Louis.