Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 1.djvu/146

 BARD

Causes, and Cure, of the Angina Suffo- cativa, or Sore-throat Distemper, " as it was then called. This disease, it seems, had but lately appeared, and had committed great ravages among the children of the inhabitants. From the description Dr. Bard has given of it, there is no doubt it was a croup of a highly violent and malignant character. In this valuable treatise may be found blood-letting suggested as a remedy, although claimed in later times as a discovery.

Dr. Bard's favorite branch was mid- wifery. And perhaps no physician in this country has ever enjoyed a larger share of practice in this department or acquired a higher reputation as an accoucheur. After retiring into the country one of the first plans of useful- ness contemplated was the publication of a treatise upon this subject. His residence in the country, and the celeb- rity he had acquired as an obstetrician, afforded him frequent opportunities of witnessing the ignorance of midwives and country practitioners upon this im- portant branch and determined him to issue a treatise with plain, practical directions for the management of natural labours. In the year 1807 he published "A Compendium of the Theory and Practice of Midwifery, " intended chiefly for the use of midwives and young practitioners.

The work went through three large edi- tions in its duodecimo form; and was twice published greatly enlarged and im- proved in octavo. At the time of his death he was preparing for the press a sixth edition.

It was Dr. Bard's desire to be useful. Accordingly in the year 1S1 1 he published "A Guide for Young Shepherds," the best practical treatise then extant upon sheep breeding, the masterly performance of Chancellor Livingston not excepted.

Several fugitive essays by him are preserved in the "American Medical and Philosophical Register;" and other peri- odical journals are, I believe, enriched by bis communications. " The Transactions

3 BARKER

of the College of Physicians of Phila- delphia " contain several documents by him on the subject of "Yellow Fever. "

Among his writings should be noted:

"An Inquiry into the Nature, Cause and Cure of the Angina Suffocativa or Sore-throat Distemper, " New York, 1771.

"A Compendium of the Theory and Practice of Midwifery, " New York, 1807.

"A Discourse on Medical Education," New York, 1819.

Abridged from a biog. by Dr. Henry

Ducachet, New York, 1S21.

Am. Med. Recorder., Phila., 1S21, vol. iv,

H. W. Ducachet.

Lives of Eminent American Physicans. S. D.

Gross, Phila., 1861.

Barker, Fordyce (1S17-1891).

A native of Maine, and a graduate in Arts of Bowdoin College, his medical studies were pursued in Boston, Edin- burgh and Paris; he received his medical degree at Bowdoin where he was made professor of midwifery eight years after receiving his literary degree, holding this position until his removal to New York many years later. For more than thirty years he was a medical teacher in the city of his adoption, occupying the chair of clinical midwifery and diseases of women in Bellevue Hospital College. He had many honorary degrees, amongst them the LL. D. of Columbia College, Edin- burgh, Bowdoin College, Glasgow, and Bologna, also honorary fellowship of the Royal Med. Soc. of Athens and the Obstetrical Societies of London and Edinburgh.

Dr. Barker's most valuable contri- butions to medical knowlege, independ- ently of his teaching, were made in the New York Academy of Medicine and in the American Gynecological Society of which he was one of the founders and first president. Perhaps, however, he is most widely known here and abroad by his "Puerperal Diseases," published in 1874, which ran into many editions, and was translated into Italian and published at Milan and also translated into French and German.