Thorough study in the leading medical centers of America and of Europe has well qualified Dr. Harvey S. McKay for successful practice and he has won particular prominence in the field of surgery, being identified as surgeon with several of the leading hospitals of St. Louis, while his private practice is extensive and important. Dr. McKay is numbered among Missouri’s native sons, his birth occurring in Troy, Lincoln county, October 1, 1878. His father, Dr. Solomon R. McKay, also a native of Missouri, is of Scotch descent. He is well known as a physician and surgeon, having long practiced following his graduation from the St. Louis Medical College in 1876. In politics he is a republican and for sixteen years was postmaster of Troy, Missouri, being very prominent as a party worker and at all times loyal to every cause or interest which he espouses. The same spirit of unfaltering devotion to the interests of the country was manifest by his father, Dr. Samuel H. McKay, who served with the Union army during the Civil war and who as a physician and surgeon became widely known as a representative and valued member of the profession. The mother of Dr. Harvey S. McKay was in her maindenhood Julia Alexandre, a native of Missouri and of French and Irish descent. Her father, Ignatius Alexandre, was a native of France, while her mother, Mary (Dougherty) Alexandre, was born in Ireland, coming to America about 1840 and settling at Old Mines, Missouri. She lived to the advanced age of ninety-eight years, passing away in June, 1920. To Dr. and Mrs. Solomon R. McKay were born eight children, five sons and three daughters.
The eldest of this family, Harvey S. McKay, whose name introduces this review, was educated in the public schools of Troy and in Buchanan College at that place and having determined to follow in the professional footsteps of his father and his grandfather, he began his medical education in the St. Louis University, from which he was graduated with the class of 1901. He later spent two years abroad in study in Berlin and Tubingen, Germany, and in Paris, France, doing post-graduate work. Thus qualified for most important professional duties he returned to St. Louis in 1903 and entered upon private practice, specializing in surgery, in which he has continued. He is surgeon in chief at St. Anthony’s Hospital of St. Louis, consulting surgeon at St. John’s and the Alexian Brothers Hospitals and associate professor of surgery in the St. Louis University. He is recognized as a man of pronounced ability in this field. He possesses comprehensive knowledge of anatomy and the component parts of the human body, combined with the utmost skill in performing the delicate work that devolves upon the man who wields the knife in the attempt to do away with disease and restore normal health conditions. Dr. McKay improves every opportunity that will promote his knowledge and his skill and to this end holds membership in the St. Louis Medical Society, the Missouri State Medical Association and the American Medical Association, and is also a fellow of the American College of Surgeons, a member of the Western Surgical Society, the St. Louis Association of Surgeons and the Southern Medical & Surgical Society. His name is widely known to the profession throughout the country because of his interesting and valuable contributions to the leading medical journals.
On the 28th of November, 1908, Dr. McKay was married in St. Louis, in St. Margaret’s Roman Catholic church, to Miss Florence M. Newell, a native of this city and a daughter of James P. Newell, recent public administrator and representative of a prominent old St. Louis family. Her mother is Mrs. Ids (Rotty) Newell. Dr. and Mrs. McKay have two children: Mary Jane, born in St. Louis, November 18, 1909 and Newell R., born April 26, 1910.
During the World war Dr. McKay was a physician and member of the thirteenth ward draft board and was contract surgeon to the Students Army Training Corps. He has always given his entire time and attention to his professional interests since preparing for the practice of medicine and surgery and is most conscientious in the discharge of his professional duties. He is a popular member of the University Club and the Sunset Hill Country Club.