1905 History of Crawford County Kansas

Dr. A. C. Brook, of Opolis, is a physician of the eclectic school, and during his career in Crawford county has created for himself an unusual degree of success and obtained a high position among the medical fraternity. Dr. Brook is especially progressive and ambitious toward high attainment in his profession, and the field of his endeavor and usefulness is continually broadening.

Dr. Brook is a son of a physician and is thus almost an inheritor of his profession. He was born in Jackson county, Indiana, in 1859. His father, Dr. William Brook, born in North Carolina, came with the family when it made settlement in Jackson county, Indiana. His career as physician extended over a great many years, and he was a man of prominence and esteem wherever he lived. From Indiana he moved out to Randolph county, Missouri, in the earlier seventies, and about 1883 came to Kansas and located at Cherokee, Crawford county, whence about two years later he removed to Opolis, where he died in 1893. His wife was Elizabeth (Sharp) Brook, also a native of North Carolina, and her death, which occurred in Jasper county, Missouri, preceded that of her husband.

Dr. A. C. Brook, being a boy when he went to Missouri, received most of his early education at Rennick, in Randolph county, and during several years of residence at Moberly, Missouri, he studied pharmacy, and later conducted a drug store in that city for five years. He came to Kansas with his father in 1883. Taking up the study of medicine, he spent some time at the American Medical College in St. Louis; then attended the Kansas City Medical College at Kansas City, and from there transferred his matriculation to the Independent Medical College of Chicago, where he graduated in 1896. He is an adherent of the eclectic school of medicine, which, untrammeled by dogmas ancient or modern, to his mind embodies the best and most progressive principles of the great science of healing. His first practice was in Opolis, and he has continued his work here ever since, and with increasing and marked success. In order to broaden his sphere of usefulness in every possible way, he took a course in "suggestive therapeutics" under Dr. George C. Pitzer, of the American Medical College at St. Louis, one of the prominent authorities and teachers in that subject.

Dr. Brook is also a capable business man, and has given his energies to many affairs that concern the growth and welfare of his community. He built the Brook Hotel in Opolis, besides several other buildings, and his interest in the progress of this town has taken practical form in many ways, and his efforts for its development are unstinted and given in a most public-spirited manner.

Dr. Brook was married at Opolis in 1893 to Miss Una Odle. They have a nice home, which is made happier by three children, Leona, Elnora and Clifford Erle.