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ROBERT A. HANKINS, M. D., is a native of Illinois, born in Carlinville, June 20^th, 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.