IN MEMORIAM. 
FORDYCE BARKER, M.D., LLD. 
BV 
JAMES R. CHADWICK, M.D., 
BOSTON. 
REPRINT FROM VOL. XVI. 
transactions. 
1891. tttar— 
'fan^ [Reprinted from the Transactions of the American Gynecological Society, 
September, 1891.] 
IN MEMORIAM. 
FORDYCE BARKER, M.D., LL.D. 
By James R. Chadwick, M.D., 
Boston. 
Our Society is called upon this year to lament the loss of 
three of its founders, foremost among whom in the interest he 
testified to this Society and in the affections of its Fellows is 
unquestionably its first president, the subject of this sketch. 
Fordyce Barker, born at Wilton, Maine, on May 2, 1818, 
was the second son of Dr. John Barker, who served in the 
War of 1812, and Phoebe Abbott Barker. He died at his 
residence, 24 East Thirty-eighth Street, Hew York, on May 
30, 1891, after several years of failing powers. His ancestor 
came to this country in 1640, and settled at Rowley, Massa- 
chusetts; the family subsequently moved to Maine, where 
Fordyce was born, while Maine was still a province of Mas- 
sachusetts. He prepared for college under the tuition of the 
Rev. Charles Freeman, of Limerick, Maine, and entered 
Bowdoin College in 1833, graduating in 1837, in the same 
class as Governor John A. Andrew. One of his surviving 
classmates writes me that he was then “ a kind, courteous, 
and gentlemanly person, and esteemed a jolly good fellow. 
During his college course he was not distinguished as a 
scholar, nor was he a great reader of books, nor did he mani- 
fest a fondness for literature or science for the love of them. 2 
IN MEMORIAM. 
He appeared impatient of study, and the attainment of knowl- 
edge by the slow and laborious steps necessary to others he 
did not reach. His perceptions were quick, and his acquire- 
ments were made apparently intuitively and at a glance. His 
prevailing characteristic was his fondness for society.” This 
picture of the youth will be recognized as fitting the grown 
man, but hardly presages the eminence among the great of 
the land to which he ultimately attained. I remember his 
coming to my house in Boston, en route to New York, on the 
night after he had entertained his classmates at dinner iu 
Brunswick, Me., on June 24, 1887, on the fiftieth anniver- 
sary of their graduation. He told me that there had been 
twelve members present of sixty who had been connected with 
the class, and that twenty-two had been reported living, a 
truly remarkable longevity even for classes of that early date. 
From 1838 to 1840 Fordyce Barker was studying medi- 
cine in Boston, in the office of Dr. Henry I. Bowditch, and 
in the U. S. Marine Hospital in the neighboring town of 
Chelsea with Dr. Charles H. Stedman, the first resident phy- 
sician of that institution. An episode of those days, that 
manifests the unfailing kindness of Dr. Barker’s heart, has 
been related to me by Dr. C. E. Stedman, a son of the above. 
One day, when Dr. Barker was witnessing the operations at 
the Massachusetts General Hospital, the surgeon operating 
did some specially cruel thing to a patient (this was before 
the days of anaesthesia). Dr. Barker, unable to retain his 
indignation, muttered “d—d old brute” loud enough to be 
heard by the operator. Whereupon the surgeon wrote a 
letter to Dr. Stedman, complaining of the base conduct of his 
student. The next day Dr. Stedman entered the Dispensary 
of the Hospital, where Barker was occupied, and said gravely, 
“ Mister Barker, here is a letter demanding your serious con- 
sideration,” handing him the note. He was confounded by 
the manner of his preceptor and by the signature of the letter; 
but, looking up to the retreating figure, he saw, as he said, 
“the laugh curling up behind the doctor’s ears,” and felt that FORDVCE BARKER. 
3 
he Avas not to be seArerely puuished. In fact he never heard 
of it again. 
Barker was greatly endeared to Dr. Stedman by his high 
spirits and his musical tastes, so that a firm friendship was 
formed between master and pupil, which Avas actively main- 
tained until the death of the former, in 1866. 
In 1841 Dr. Barker took his medical degree at Bowdoin 
Medical College; immediately after which, having inherited 
a tendency to pulmonary disease, he established himself in 
Norwich, Conn., by the advice of Dr. Bowditch. His success 
in practice was immediate and phenomenal considering his 
youth, but his interests were not confined to his profession. 
During the Harrison campaign he engaged in politics and 
stumped the State in the interest of the Whig party, making 
a speech in a different town every night for three months, as 
I remember his telling me. When at Bowdoin he had been 
a member of the college band, and played several instruments. 
He had also a very sweet tenor voice, which led to his often 
singing in the church of Bishop Clark, now of Rhode Island, 
when the latter was rector in Boston. He also composed a 
number of melodies and a Fast-day anthem. 
On September 14, 1844, Dr. Barker was married at Har- 
risburg, Pa., to Miss Elizabeth Lee Dwight, a native of 
Springfield, Mass., and on October 1st sailed with his young 
wife from New York for Havre, France, to carry out the plan 
formulated for him bv Dr. Bowditch, of obtaining a degree 
from the Paris University. 
During the following winter Dr. Barker attended the Paris 
hospitals most assiduously, incidentally winning the life-long 
friendships of many of his distinguished teachers, Baron 
Dubois, Trousseau, Sir Joseph Olitfe, Chomel, and others. 
While travelling in the summer of 1845, before he had been 
able to complete his examinations for a degree, he was sud- 
denly summoned home by the illness of a near relative. He 
subsequently, however, received the degree through the 
friendly offices of Trousseau and his other friends in the 4 
IN ME MORI AM. 
Faculty. His practice soon exceeded the limits of the town 
of Norwich, and his growing, fame led him to be elected Pro- 
fessor of Obstetrics in the Bowdoin Medical College, which 
he held but one year, as the interruptions to his practice 
proved too disadvantageous. His address on “ Some Forms 
of Disease of the Cervix Uteri,” as President of the Connec- 
ticut Medical Society, delivered in May, 1848, attracted wide 
attention, and caused him to be invited soon after, by Prof. 
C. F. Gilman and Dr. Willard Parker, to enter the Faculty 
of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New York. 
His removal to New York was, however, postponed until 
March, 1850; soon after which, together with Drs. Horace 
Green, Abraham L. Cox, and R. Ogden Doremus, he became 
one of the incorporators of the New York Medical College, 
located on East Thirteenth Street, filling the chair of obstetrics. 
It was while lecturing in this school that he strained his voice 
and ever after labored under the disadvantage of having only 
a hoarse whisper at his command, due to partial paralysis of 
one of the vocal cords. This misfortune would have turned 
any man of less determination from a public career, but he 
persevered in his lecturing and public speaking to the end of 
his life, always making himself heard, and causing his audi- 
tors to forget the imperfections of his voice by the charm of 
his eloquence and the purity of his diction. 
In 1854 he was appointed Obstetric Physician to Bellevue 
Hospital ; and in 1861, togethor with Drs. Isaac E. Taylor, 
James R. Wood, Lewis A. Sayre, George T. Elliott, Alex- 
ander A. Mott, and Benjamin McCready, all on the staff of 
the Bellevue Hospital, he obtained a charter for the “ Belle- 
vue Hospital Medical College,” and invited Drs. Frank H. 
Hamilton, Austin Flint, Austin Flint, Jr., and R. Ogden 
Horemus, to join with them in the establishment of the col- 
lege. In this Faculty Dr. Barker filled the chair of Obstet- 
rics and Diseases of Women until his death, although for the 
past few years he had been unable to lecture, owing to physical 
weakness. FORDYCE BARKER. 
5 
From his advent in New York Dr. Barker secured the 
confidence not only of the leading families but of his medical 
confreres, so that he was consulted by patients from all parts 
of the country. Though his fame was widest as an obstetri- 
cian, his knowledge in all branches of medicine was extensive 
and accurate, and he never ceased to practise as a general 
physician. He had a sanguine disposition, a genial manner, 
and impressive presence, so that he inspired confidence 
wherever he went. Ilis intuitions were so quick and so sure, 
his capacity for acquiring knowledge without labor so great, 
his fertility of resource so unbounded, that he never failed to 
instil into his patient that most important of all therapeutic 
measures—hope. Wisdom he had to a higher degree than any 
man I ever knew; and common sense; and tact, which may 
be defined as “ applied wisdom”—wisdom exercised in social 
life. 
One of his numerous letters to me, which I have been re- 
perusing, recalls so striking an instance of his sagacity and 
ingenuity that I will venture to relate the case which called 
it forth. In 1879 I was consulted by a lady from New Bed- 
ford, aged thirty-three years, who had had a dead-born child 
four years before, and since that time four miscarriages. She 
was very anxious to have a living child. I found her to be 
perfectly healthy in every respect, except for a retroversion 
and a laceration of the perineum through the sphincter. I 
corrected the misplacement, and she immediately conceived, 
and miscarried again at the usual period. I then restored 
the perineum, and the same result followed. Finding no 
further morbid condition, and being at the end of my 
resources, I sent her to Dr. Barker for an opinion, which he 
rendered as follows : u I can find no local cause for her 
repeated miscarriages. The uterus is not atrophied, and there 
is very trivial displacement. My conviction is that the cause, 
is be sought in a constitutional perversion of nerve-force after 
conception—that is, that conception is not followed by 
increased activity of the generative functions, but by iu- 6 
IN MEMORI AM. 
creased activity of the nutritive and assimilative functions 
and marked increase of the arterial tension. What think you 
of this view ? ” The view struck me as fanciful, which I did 
not hesitate to express, with the freedom of intimacy, as 
follows : “ Your conclusion was such as I expected from your 
genius and imagination.” Acting upon his theory, however, 
he prescribed a strict milk diet and frequent bleedings (the 
woman was quite stout and florid) during the critical period. 
The treatment was strictly followed by me, with the result 
that she went to full term and was delivered of a living child. 
Acting upon the same theory, I have twice since succeeded in 
carrying women in similar conditions to full terms. 
While Dr. Barker was deservedly trusted in all branches 
of medical practice, it was in the branch of obstetrics that he 
acquired the most fame and his most lasting work. He did 
not, however, enter into the domain of surgery, transferring 
to others all cases requiring the use of the knife. While a 
frequent contributor to current medical literature, his chief 
work was The Puerperal Diseases, first published in New 
York in January, 1874, which rapidly ran through many 
editions, and was translated into French, German, Italian, 
Spanish, and Russian. His clinical portrayals of these dis- 
eases in this volume will probably never be surpassed, though 
his views of the pathology and therapeutics have been already 
largely controverted by the phenomenal advances of the germ- 
theory of disease in the last few years. 
Dr. Barker’s many-sidedness caused him to be elected to 
many hospitals and societies. He was physician to Bellevue 
Hospital, and consulting physician to the Nursery and 
Child’s Hospital, St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, Cancer Hospital, 
and the Woman’s Hospital. He was a member of the 
New York Academy of Medicine, of which he was president 
from 1879 to 1885, of the New York County Medical 
Society, of the New York Obstetrical Society, of the 
New York Pathological Society, of the New York Medical 
and Surgical Society, of the Medico-legal Society, of the FORDYCE BARKER. 
Medical Society of the State of New York, of which he was 
at one time president, and of the American Gynecological 
Society, of which he was the first president and had the 
unique distinction of reelection to a second term. He was 
Honorary Fellow of the Royal Medical Society of Athens, 
of the Obstetrical Societies of London and Edinburgh, and 
of the British Medical Association. He was a member of 
the Obstetrical Societies of Philadelphia and Louisville, Ky., 
of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, and of the Med- 
ical Society of London. Outside of medicine he was a mem- 
ber of the American Geographical and Statistical Society in 
New York, of the Academy of Design, of the American 
Bible Society, of the New York Historical Society, and of 
the Century and other Clubs. He was a communicant of 
St. Thomas’s Church (Episcopal), New York City. He re- 
ceived many honorary titles : on June 20, 1878, the degree 
of LL.D. from Columbia College; on April 17,1884, LL.D. 
from the University of Edinburgh at its tercentenary cele- 
bration; on June 24, 1887, LL.D. from Bowdoin College, 
on the fiftieth anniversary of his graduation ; on August 10, 
1888, LL.D. from Glasgow University. He was invited to 
attend the seven hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the Uni- 
versity of Bologna to receive a fifth LL.D. in 1888, but was 
unable to avail himself of the invitation. 
This Society will not need to be reminded how unanimous 
was his election to be our first president, and how pointedly 
we expressed our appreciation of his wise and conciliatory 
conduct in office by reelecting him to a second term. I may 
tell you what you may have only surmised, that the very 
existence of the Society is largely due to the enthusiastic 
manner in which he received my first proposition for its 
foundation; and the success which attended its early and 
critical years was mainly attributable to his sagacity and 
knowledge of men. Every step in our early career was sub- 
jected to a rigid criticism in his library, and the ultimate 
policy modelled upon the principles that he laid down. IN MEMORIAM: FORDYCE BARKER. 
8 
These early conferences cemented a close intimacy, despite 
the disparity of our ages, which endured unabated in fervor 
to the end of his life. For fifteen years his house has been 
my home in New York, in which, whether bidden or un- 
bidden, I have invariably been welcomed by his cordial 
smile and eager handshake, and by the grace and sweetness 
of his accomplished wife. As one of his many friends, I 
cannot let pass this opportunity of testifying to his many 
kindly offices, to his warmth of heart, and to his sacrifice of 
self for those of whom he was fond. Last, but by no means 
least in the enumeration of the qualities which made him a 
power in the land, was the exuberance of his social nature. 
He never seemed so happy or so brilliant as when extending 
to his professional brethren and to the medical and literary 
celebrities from abroad the hospitalities of his princely man- 
sion. His annual trips to Europe, extending over a period 
of more than thirty years, made him a prominent figure in 
the social life of Europe; he was on terms of intimacy with 
Dickens, Thackeray, and other literary celebrities; the hos- 
pitalities then received were repaid when any of his hosts 
visited this country. His receptions given to Sir Spencer 
Wells, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, to the American Gyne- 
cological Society, will long be remembered among the brilliant 
events of New York life during the last half-century. Lord 
Houghtou, Lord Dunraven, Sir Lyon Playfair, the Princess 
Henriette, Geheimratli von Esmarch, and many others par- 
took of his royal hospitality. 
We all of us feel that we have lost our best friend, that our 
Society has lost its most enthusiastic Fellow, its most lucid 
debater ; that the profession of New York has lost its most 
conspicuous and best-loved member.