ROBERT McKIBBIN, JR.

Dr. McKibbin began practice as a ship's surgeon for the Peninsula and Oriental Steamship Company. In this capacity, he was able to visit Bombay, Madras, the Malaccas, China, the Straits Settlements, and Australia. On November 24, 1856, he arrived in Honolulu where his father was in practice and decided to settle here. Soon after his son's arrival Dr. McKibbin, Sr. ceased to practice and devoted his time to managing the drug store which bore his name. In May, 1859, Dr. McKibbin was appointed personal physician to King Kamehameha IV, succeeding Dr. Rooke who had died the previous year. In 1860 he received the appointment of inspector of prostitutes, an appointment which Dr. Seth P. Ford criticized in a letter published in the "Advertiser" for October 4, 1860, on the grounds that the position should have gone to a doctor who had been practicing in Honolulu longer. Relations between the two medicos were strained due to McKibbin's attack on Dr. Baldwin of Lahaina as not being a qualified medical man and to a difference over the diagnosis of an outbreak of sickness in Wailua, Dr. McKibbin calling it varioloid and Dr. Ford chicken pox.

For a time Dr. McKibbin was port physician, resigning in January, 1869. In July of that year he received the coveted appointment as assistant physician at the Queen's Hospital at a salary of $600 a year. Later he became physician in charge and continued in this capacity until 1892. For a number of years he served as a member of the Board of Health and was also on the Board of Medical Examiners in 1882.

Dr. McKibbin performed the first skin graft done in the Islands in 1872. Dr. George Trousseau was the donor and Dr. McKibbin grafted the skin onto the leg of a patient injured in a collision.

The doctor became a naturalized subject of the Kingdom of Hawaii and was deeply interested in the affairs of his adopted country. However, he held aloof from politics, believing that in his capacity as a doctor he could serve his fellow men in greater measure than in taking part in any political movement. During and after the revolution of 1893, he was known as a Royalist but not as an active partisan.

Following his father's death, Dr. McKibbin managed the drug store until it was purchased in 1894 by the Hollister Drug Company. He was also interested in the cultivation of sugar, and, as early as 1866, was mentioned as one of the proprietors of the Kaalaea Plantation on Oahu and also served as president of the Ookala Sugar Company on Hawaii. In line with these interests he was active in the Hawaiian Agricultural Society and served on its Board of Management (1885-1886).

Dr. McKibbin died April 3, 1901, in Makawao, Maui, at the age of 70.

The doctor was a member of the original Hawaiian Medical Society (but not a signer of the charter of incorporation), the British Benevolent Society (director and treasurer), the Hawaiian Lodge No. 21, F.&A.M., and of the Pacific Club (vice president in 1900).

It is reported that Dr. McKibbin, who was somewhat stern of countenance, was called Kauka Pamalo by the Hawaiians, pamalo meaning dry or expressionless. On his death the "Hawaiian Gazette" of April 5, 1901, said of the doctor, "although blunt and sometimes brusque of manner, he was a man of generous impulses and kindness of heart." He was also characterized as a brusque Irishman with the impeccable manners of an English gentleman.

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