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ROBERT A. HANKINS, M.
D., is a native of Illinois,
born in Carlinville, June 20th,
1848. His father Dr. John W. Hankins, is a
native of New Jersey. He emigrated to Illinois,
and settled in Carlinville in 1846. He
married Elizabeth McKee, who was born in Pennsylvania. The subject of our sketch received his
education in the common schools of his native town which he attended until he
reached his eighteenth year, when he entered Blackburn
University, where he remained two
years. He at the same time took up the
studies of physiology and anatomy, as preparatory studies to entering the
profession of medicine. In 1869 he
attended a course of lectures at the Eclectic Medical College of Pennsylvania
at Philadelphia, after which he
returned home, and remained for one years pursuing his
studies, and in 1871 again attended another course of lectures in the same
college, and graduated from that institution in 1872 with the degree of M.
D. He returned to Carlinville, where he
engaged in practice, in which he still continues. In the practice of medicine Dr. Hankins has
found his true vocation and calling. As
a practitioner he has already been more than ordinarily successful for one who
is just upon the threshold of professional life. He is of studious habits. While united to a love of his profession and
moderately ambitious to succeed, it becomes only a question of the time when he
will take a prominent place with his professional brethren. On the
3d of June, 1875, he united in marriage to Miss Jennie Bell, a
native of Alabama, but who was a
resident of Carlinville at the time of her marriage. Two children, both boys, bless this
union. In politics he is a democrat.