Benjamin Fordyce Barker

Benjamin Fordyce Barker (1818–1891), generally known as Fordyce Baker, was an obstetrician from Maine who was a visiting physician at Bellevue Hospital from 1855 to 1879 and a consulting physician there from 1879 to his death. Life He was born at Wilton, Maine, May 2, 1818, the son of Doctor John Barker and Phebe Abbott. His father, a practitioner at Wilton, was formerly for two years an army surgeon in the War of 1812. Fordyce's early education was under the tutelage of his parents until eleven years of age, then began his classical training under his uncle John Abbott, at China, Maine. From thence he went to Farmington, Maine, to attend the school of Professor Green; next he went to Limerick, Maine, to complete his preparation for college; this he did under the guidance of his uncle by marriage, the Reverend Charles Freeman. He entered Bowdoin College in 1833, graduating with the degree of A. B. in 1837; he then entered the Medical Department in the same University and was graduated with the degree of M. D. in 1841, previously having received an A. M. in 1840. Owing to signs of incipient tuberculosis he left Maine, riding on horseback to Norwich, Connecticut, where he finally settled. On September 14, 1843, he was married to Miss Elizabeth E. Dwight of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He spent the winter of 1844 and 1845 in Paris, graduating there in 1845 and returning to Norwich the same year, taking the position of lecturer on obstetrics at Bowdoin in 1845 and 1846. In May, 1848, he delivered the annual address before the Connecticut State Medical Society. He moved to New York in March, 1850, to take part in the organization of the New York Medical College, to which he became professor of obstetrics and diseases of women and children. In 1856 he to make annual summer trips to Europe, which, with a single exception, were repeated up to the time of his death. In 1860 he became president of the New York State Medical Society. It was about this time that Bellevue Medical College, New York City, was founded, Dr. Barker becoming one of a faculty which was brought together there at that time. First he was professor of obstetrics, then professor of clinical midwifery and diseases of children, then professor emeritus. His associates in the field of obstetrics and allied subjects were Isaac E. Taylor and George T. Elliot. He was very active in promoting the union of the library of the Medical Journal Association and that of the New York Academy of Medicine.