The broad field of medicine offers a wonderful opportunity since science has brought to light so many truths and such broad knowledge that the profession has become highly specialized. Concentrating his efforts upon obstetrics and gynecology, Dr. Randall Solon Tilles has gained a position of prominence in his chosen field. He was born at Fort Smith, Arkansas, March 8, 1883, and is a son of David Tilles, a native of that state and of German descent, the family being founded in America by Solomon Titles, who came to the new world in 1855 and originally settled at Little Rock, Arkansas, where he engaged in the manufacture of cigars. He was a Confederate veteran of the Civil war. The father is now a retired merchant of Fort Smith, Arkansas. He married Carrie Erb, who was born at Little Rock, Arkansas, and is also of German lineage, her people having come to the new world in the ’50s, the progenitor of the family on this side of the Atlantic being Adolphus Erb, who engaged in mercantile business here. To Mr. and Mrs. David Tilles have been born three children: Randall S.; Roy Erb, a manufacturer of New York city; and Clio, the wife of D. E. Levy, of New York city.
Dr. Tilles obtained a public school education in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and prepared for his professional career in the Washington University of St. Louis, from which he was graduated in 1908 with the M. D. degree. He afterward spent one year as interne in the City Hospital, after which he went abroad, devoting two years to post-graduate study in Germany and England, benefiting by instruction and association with some of the eminent representatives of the medical and surgical profession on that side of the Atlantic.
In 1911 he returned to his native land and entered upon practice in St. Louis, where he has since specialized in obstetrics and gynecology, having developed a high measure of skill in these particular lines. He is obstetrician to the Jewish Hospital and associate gynecologist to the Home for Chronic Invalids in St. Louis. He is also gynecologist to the Jewish Hospital Dispensary of St. Louis and instructor in gynecology in the St. Louis University. His writings have made him well known, for he is a contributor to leading medical journals on the subject in which he specializes and is the author of a work embracing care for expectant motherhood. He belongs to the St. Louis Medical Society and the Missouri State Medical Association.
In St. Louis, June 8, 1914, Dr. Tilles was married to Miss Edith Drey, a native of St. Louis and a daughter of Adolph and Lizzie Drey. They now have one child, Edith, born November 4, 1917, in St. Louis. Dr. Tilles votes with the democratic party and fraternally is a Mason. He also belongs to the City Club and to the Triple A Club. During the World war he entered the service in 1918 as captain of the Medical Corps and after two months’ training at Fort Oglethorpe was transferred to Base Hospital at Camp Jackson, Columbia, South Carolina, there becoming chief of the surgical service and remaining as such until honorably discharged July 7, 1919, with the rank of major.