Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 2.djvu/277

PARKER continued his work unceasingly and without rest, to which his early death, February 6, 1896, is generally attributed. He was then in his forty-second year.

H. F. Annals of Ophthalmology and Otology, 1896. vol. V.

Parker, Willard (1800-1884).

Willard Parker, a prominent New York surgeon, was born in Francistown, Hilsborough County, New York, in 1800, of Puritan stock.

The boy worked on his father's farm and with his own earnings paid his way at and graduated from Harvard in 1826, studying medicine in Boston and shortly after taking his M. D. from Cambridge College with a thesis on "Nervous Respiration." Only a few weeks after he was appointed lecturer on anatomy in the College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York. As an operator and lecturer he was always successful. "If you were to select a specialty" asked his friend, Dr. Francis, "what would you choose?" He answered, "Medical treatment and diagnosis as associated with surgical cases, but what I regard as beautiful in its results and satisfactory in its issues, is the cutting down for and ligating arteries." He tied the subclavian artery five times, once performing the operation within the scaleni muscles, also taking the precaution to apply a ligature to the common carotid and right vertebral arteries for the first time in this country.

There are two operations which Dr. Parker may partly be said to have originated, cystotomy, for irritable bladder, first done at the Bellevue Hospital, New York, in 1850, and the operation for perityphlitic abscess, in 1864. Parker was not aware that Mr. Hancock, of London, had done the same operation successfully in 1848. It is curious that Parker's reasoning in favor of the operation was exactly the same as Hancock's.

One of Parker's special claims to public esteem was his untiring work for public hygiene and temperance. When Valentine Mott died in 1865, he became president of the New York State Inebriate Asylimi.

He resigned active practice and lecturing in 1870, and was made emeritus professor of surgery. Princeton College gave him her LL. D. that same year.

He did not write much, except articles to the medical journals, and these included: "Cases of Extensive Encephaloid Degeneration of Kidneys in Children;" "Some Rare Forms of Dislocation;" "Trephining the Cranium and Ligature of the Carotid in Epilepsy and Cure;" "Practical Remarks on Concussion of the Nerves;" "Ligature of Subclavian Artery for Axillary and Sub- clavian Aneurysm;" "Ligature of the Subclavian Inside the Scalenus together with Common Carotid and Vertebral Arteries for Subclavian Aneurysm."

On the establishment of St. Luke's, the Roosevelt and the Mt. Sinai Hospitals he became one of the consulting surgeons and was for many years a most active member of the Pathological Society and of the Medical and Surgical Society.

He may be said to have died in harness, for although prevented by physical suffering during the last two years of his life from working, he was frequently consulted by old patients and professional friends. He could not be called a learned man, but he was what some learned men never become, a wise one. He was not a master in the use of instruments of precision, but he often comprehended the significance of symptoms and their prognostic value more correctly than his younger confreres.

Distinguished Living New York Surgeons.

Dr. S. W. Francis, N. Y., 1866.

Boston Med. and Surg. Gen., 1884, ex.

Med. News, Phila., 1884, xliv.

Med. Rec, N. York, 1884. xxv.

Med. and Surg. Reporter, Phila., 1865, xiii.

N. York Med. Jour., 1884, xxxix.

Tr. Am. Surg. Assoc., 1884, Phila., 1885.

Tr. Med. Soc, N. York, Syracuse, 1885.

There is a portrait in the Surg-gen. lib., Washington, D. C.

Parker, William W. (1824-1899).

At Port Royal, Caroline County, Virginia, on May 5, 1824, William Parker