Lonnie Cecil Clyburn, Unlawfully Practicing Medicine

     ©  Kathy Duncan, 2025

When Lewis H. Kelley, aka Lonnie Cecil Clyburn, claimed in 1912 that he attended the medical school of the University of "John" Hopkins in Baltimore, Maryland, it would have taken the officials of Red River County several weeks or months to verify his claim, given that they would have written to Johns Hopkins and then waited for Hopkins to search their records and respond. 

Six months later, Red River County had its answer and charged L. Clyburn with unlawfully practicing medicine. L. Clyburn and his sureties each lost $250 over this.

In 1893, Johns Hopkins University of Medicine was the first U.S. university to require prerequisites: a bachelor's degree with coursework in biology, chemistry, and physics; and a reading proficiency in French and German, which were the languages of science at the time. 

Today, it's easy enough to research the students of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine through the university catalogs. Each catalog contains lists of officers, regents, faculty, and students. The students are listed by their year: fourth year, third year, second year, and first year. Therefore, it is possible to identify someone who only attended for one year. The catalogs are available for 1893 through 2008 and are easy to search by using the find button on your computer. You can search them yourself here.

Two names do not appear in the Johns Hopkins University of Medicine catalogs: Lewis H. Kelley and Lonnie Cecil Clyburn. 

Surely, a graduate of Johns Hopkins would not make the mistake of stating that he had attended "John Hopkins." 

None of this, however, deterred Lewis H. Kelley, aka Lonnie Cecil Clyburn. On 26 March 1914, he took his copy of the 1912 document from Red River County and filed it in Llano County, where, no doubt, he planned to practice medicine. 

As usual, I have attached documents to Family Search.