The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Parker, Willard

PARKER, Willard, American surgeon: b. Hillsborough, N. H., 2 Sept. 1800; d. New York, 25 April 1884. He was graduated from Harvard in 1826, studied medicine and took his degree there in 1830, when he accepted a professorship in the Berkshire Medical College, Pittsfield, Mass. In 1836 he accepted the chair of surgery in the Cincinnati Medical College, but removed in 1839 to New York, where he had been appointed professor of surgery in the College of Physicians and Surgeons, which position he held for 30 years. He established a large practice in New York and as a surgeon he took high rank, making many advances in methods as well as important discoveries. He established the first college clinic in the United States at the College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1840; organized the New York Pathological Society in 1843; the New York Academy of Medicine in 1847, of which he was president for many years after 1856. From 1865 he was president of the State Inebriate Asylum at Binghamton, where his conduct of the management was very successful. He was consulting physician at the leading New York hospitals and connected with many medical organizations.