The Biographical Dictionary of America/Barker, Fordyce

BARKER, Fordyce, physician, was born in Wilton, Maine, May 2, 1819; son of Dr. John and Phebe (Abbot) Barker. He was graduated at Bowdoin college in 1837, and at Harvard Medical school in 1841; completed his studies in Edinburgh and Paris, and settled in practice at Norwich, Conn., in 1845. He became professor of obstetrics at Bowdoin college in 1845: of midwifery in the New York medical college in 1850; obstetrical physician in Bellevue hospital in 1852, and professor of midwifery and the diseases of women in Bellevue Medical college in 1860. He performed the first successful operation in the United States for the removal of a fibroid uterine

tumor; was president of the New York state medical society, in 1856, and the New York academy of medicine, 1878-'84. He received the degree LL.D. from Columbia in 1877; Edinburgh in 1884; Bowdoin in 1887, and Glasgow in 1888. He is the author of "Puerperal Diseases", a series of lectures (1872) which were translated into French, Italian and Spanish, and a treatise on "Seasickness" (1870). He died in New York city, May 29, 1891.