Doc Holliday was a person.
John Henry `` Doc '' Holliday ( August 14 , 1851 -- November 8 , 1887 ) was an American gambler , gunfighter , and dentist , and a good friend of Wyatt Earp . He set up practice in Atlanta , Georgia , but he was soon diagnosed with tuberculosis , the same disease that had claimed his mother when he was 15 , having acquired it while tending to her needs while she was still in the contagious phase of the illness .