James Hedenberg, M. D.
His choice of the profession of medicine led to an alienation from his father, who had decided that the son should be educated for the ministry.
He graduated from Castleton, June 16, 1852, and practiced two years at Troy, not being received into his father's home or recognized by him.
A chance announcement, in the Troy paper, of the sudden death of a young physician in Medford, led to his removal to that town, where he arrived July 4, 1854, and where he remained in the practice of medicine for over fifty years.
The venesection scar on his arm and the marks of the seton and cupping on the back of his neck, were often shown by Dr. Hedenberg as proofs of the vigorous methods of treatment of his preceptor in Troy.
Perhaps, influenced by these, at the beginning of his career, Dr. Hedenberg became interested in homoeopathy, and was one of the earliest and most prominent of its followers in this neighborhood. [p. 46]
For many years he was instructor in diseases of children at the Boston University Medical School, and served as vice-president and president of the Massachusetts Homoeopathic Medical Society.
A close student of the advances in medical affairs, and dissatisfied with the restrictions of the Homoeopathic system of medicine, in 1895 Dr. Hedenberg applied for membership in, and joined the Middlesex South District Society of the Massachusetts Medical Society.
As a physician, Dr. Hedenberg long enjoyed the friendship and the confidence of the community in which the more than fifty years of his professional life were spent. Thoroughly informed in current medical literature and in sympathy with medical progress, he kept in touch with the younger men of his profession, and was in active practice until within a few weeks of his death, at the age of seventy-four years.
Of a sensitive and retiring disposition, Dr. Hedenberg had few intimates, but these fortunate ones admired the sterling honesty, the clear intellect, the breadth of knowledge, and the almost marvellous memory of the man.
Dr. Hedenberg was a good citizen. He served for eleven years as a member of the school board of Medford; was an interested member of the Medford Historical Society, of the Ancient Order of United Workmen, and of Mt. Hermon Lodge, A. F. and A. M.
For many years he was a member of Grace Episcopal Church of Medford.
Dr. Hedenberg is survived by two daughters, Mrs. Harriet A. Ladd and Miss Katherine R. Hedenberg, both of Medford.—
