The phone rang and I answered it listening with not much patience as a strange voice questioned whether or not I was Beryl Fishbone. Did I write a blog on Norwich, CT history? Did I “have any information on Dr. Fordyce Barker? He must have made a great impact into the medical community of Norwich back in the day.” Much to my callers disappointment I readily admitted I had visited his grave in the Yantic Cemetery because it was one of the fancier ones but had no information. So my new friend sent me this from the June 2, 1891 Portland Daily Press.
Obituary. Dr. Benjamin Fordyce Barker. Physician in the United States. Died at his home in New York City, May 30, 1891, of cerebral hemorrhage, his wife surviving him aged 73 years and one son, Fordyce Barker, a banker.
Two days before his death Dr. Barker was out attending patients, and during his short illness many people who were under his care came to his office. Dr. Barker was born at Wilton, Me., on May 2, 1818. He was of English descent and the son of a physician.
In 1837 he was graduated at Bowdoin. He studied medicine with Dr. Henry I. Bowditch of Boston and with Dr. Charles H Steadman at the Chelsea Hospital Then he went to Edinburg and Paris and received the degree of M. D. at Paris in 1841. On September 14, 1843, he was married to Miss Elizabeth E. Dwight of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. At Norwich, Ct., he began the practice of his profession. In 1845, when but 27 years old, he was made professor of midwifery In Bowdoin Medical College. Of obstetrics he made a special study, and in this branch of medicine he won rare distinction. In May, 1848, he delivered the annual address before the Connecticut State Medical Society. In 1850 he was elected professor of midwifery and the diseases of women in the New York Medical College. Dr. Barker was consulting physician to Bellevue Hospital, the Nursery and Childs’ Hospital, St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, the Cancer Hospital, and surgeon to the Woman’s Hospital. In 1856 he was instrumental in introducing the hypodermic syringe into America. He was a member of many medical associations, notably the New York Academy of Medicine, of which he was president from 1878 to 1884, the New York County Medical Society, the New York Obstetrical Society, the New York Pathological Society, the New York Medical and Surgical Society, the Medical Society of the State of New York, of which he was formerly president, and the American Gynecological Society, of which he was the first president In 1876. He was also honorary fellow of the Koval Medical Society of Athens and a member of the obstetrical societies of Edinburg, London, Philadelphia aud Louisville and of the Philadelphia College of Physicians. He contributed to medical literature many lectures and papers, and was the author of a work on puerperal diseases, which was published In 1874, and was translated into Italian, French, German and Spanish. He was also the author of a treatise on seasickness.
I thought it was interesting that according to Wikipedia “Owing to signs of incipient tuberculosis he left Maine, riding on horseback to Norwich, Connecticut, where he finally settled.” Most of his work credits show him to be living in New York.
In June 1884, Ulysses S Grant first noticed a stinging throat pain while at his summer home in Long Branch, NJ. Grant’s neighbor and friend George Childs asked Dr. Jacob M. Da Costa, who was visiting Childs at the time, to examine the General’s throat. Da Costa seeing the seriousness of the condition advised Grant to consult his regular physician as soon as possible but Grant could not as his physician Dr. Fordyce Barker was in Europe at the time.
On February 19, 1885 a formal consultation between physicians on Grant’s condition would take place reviewing a biopsy by Dr. George B. Elliot confirming the cancer diagnosis as a fatal case. The doctors present were Dr. Barker, Dr Henry B. Sands and Dr. Thomas M. Markoe, who had served as a surgeon during the Civil War. They discussed the situation and concluded that Grant’s case was beyond surgery. All that was left was to keep the patient as comfortable as possible during his final months.
Dr. Barker would leave the medical team in May to make his annual pilgrimage to Europe. Grant remarked to his physician “I suppose you never expect to see me again.” To which Barker replied, “I hope I may.” The patient reading through the lines then said “You do not say ‘expect’ but ‘hope.”
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