Newton G. Evans was born on June 1, 1874, in Hamilton, Missouri. He attended public schools in Hamilton for three years as a classmate of future businessman J. C. Penney. In 1959, he became the namesake of Evans Hall at Loma Linda University.
When Newton was 10, his parents moved to St. Louis, Missouri, where his father directed a city mission. Because the environment was not conducive to rearing a young boy, his parents sent him to Battle Creek College in Battle Creek, Michigan, where he studied what in reality was early high school lessons.
In 1891, he became one of the original 73 students at Union College in Lincoln, Nebraska, and graduated four years later in 1895 at age 21. He planned to enter denominational work, but his strategy was thwarted when no suitable positions became available. Later that year he began studying medicine for three years in the first class at the American Medical Missionary College (AMMC) in Battle Creek, Michigan. His formal study of medicine was completed at Cornell University in New York City, in 1900.
Dr. Evans then became one of four selected to be interns at Bellevue Hospital. Instead, he returned to Battle Creek and taught pathology and histology at the AMMC.
Between 1905 and 1908, Dr. Evans engaged in private medical and surgical practice in Murray, Kentucky. From 1908 to 1911 he was a professor of pathology at the University of Tennessee College of Medicine in Nashville.
In the fall of 1913, Dr. Evans taught Special Pathology to the senior class at Loma Linda. He was so much appreciated that in August 1914, the fledgling College of Medical Evangelists elected Dr. Evans, now the Medical Superintendent of the Madison Sanitarium in Madison, Tennessee, to be its new president. The invitation came just as Dr. Evans prepared to build his new home on the Madison campus. He served as president of CME from 1914 to 1927.
As a devoted student of medicine himself, Dr. Evans achieved considerable distinction as an outstanding teacher. He had an unusual ability to determine what students did not know and then teach them what they needed to learn. His teaching ability at CME was surpassed only by his interest in obtaining and maintaining an adequate faculty. His visions for the future of CME, now Loma Linda University School of Medicine, were frequently beyond the imaginations of younger men. Motivated by a sound sense of objective truth, he is credited for advancing CME’s scientific standing with the American Medical Association from its initial Grade C to Grade A.
As an idealist, he constantly envisioned higher standards of excellence for both himself and his associates.
On February 28, 1923, the CME Constituency voted to look with favor on placing the institution on an industrial basis following President Evans’ presentation detailing a report originated by the dean of the Engineering College of the University of Cincinnati. Dr. Evans reported potential advantages, both to the institution and to its students. The concept had been accepted by other colleges and resulted in an association of schools using the idea.
The "Cooperative Plan of Medical Education,” a work-study program, allowed medical students during their first two years in Loma Linda to study every other month and work every other month. Half of each class worked while the other half studied. Then, they traded places. Each student had a replacement in the other half of the class. Together they held down one full-time job. Student physicians received both practical experience and a living wage in hospitals and laboratories throughout Southern California. The Cooperative Plan proved popular with the students although it placed high demand on CME’s teaching staff. On April 12, 1937, the CME Board of Trustees voted to discontinue the Cooperative Plan at the end of the 1937-1938 school year.
The establishment of a new school of medicine at the University of Southern California in 1928 restored a two-school arrangement at the Los Angeles County Hospital. Dr. Evans resigned his presidency of the College of Medical Evangelists and his chairmanship of the Department of Pathology and became the full-time chief pathologist at the Los Angeles County (General) Hospital, a position he held until his retirement in 1944.
Newton G. Evans, MD, maintained his appointment on the CME faculty and his reputation as a superb teacher. The School continued to receive his expertise, especially appreciated by interns and residents. His early morning review of autopsy findings from the previous day became known as Dr. Evans' "organ recital."
Dr. Evans’ standing in the scientific community was displayed by Board certification with the American Board of Pathology and his membership in a variety of organizations. He was a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and the American Association for the Advancement of Science; a member of the Los Angeles Pathological Society; President (1929) of the Los Angeles Cancer Society; and President (1936) of the American Association of Pathologists and Bacteriologists. His interest in libraries resulted in his appointment to the Board of Counselors for the Library of the Surgeon General’s Office.
Dr. Evans died on December 19, 1945, at the White Memorial Hospital at age 71. He was known to be humble, modest, and genuinely sincere. He had been an early contributor to a number of important advances in medicine. Among these were an understanding of the relationship between mitosis and relative degrees of malignancy, and the pathogenesis and recognition of coccidioidomycosis.
At his memorial service at Paulson Hall on December 23, 1945, CME President Walter E. Macpherson, MD, paid tribute: “I am sure that he was one of the most unselfish men whom any of us has ever known. We shall always respect him for his complete honesty and for his scientific attainments.”