History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century/4/David S. Fairchild
DR. D. S. FAIRCHILD
DAVID S. FAIRCHILD was born in Fairfield, Vermont, September 16, 1847. He attended the academies of Franklin and Barre, after which he studied medicine in the University of Michigan, and Albany, New York. Going west after graduation, he was appointed physician to the Iowa Agricultural College and in 1870 was elected professor of physiology and comparative anatomy which position he held until 1893. He then resigned to accept the position of surgeon for the Chicago & Northwestern Railway; later he was made district surgeon, and in 1897 was appointed special examining surgeon for the Milwaukee Railway. In 1882 he was elected professor of histology and pathology in the Iowa College of Physicians and Surgeons in Des Moines, and in 1885 was transferred to the chair of pathology and diseases of the nervous system; in 1886 he was given the chair of theory and practice. He served two years as president of the college. Dr. Fairchild has always taken an active interest in medical organizations, serving as an officer of the District Medical Society, in 1895 as president of the State Medical Society, and has also been president of the Western Surgical and Gynecological Association. He was a delegate to the International Medical Congress in 1876; assisted in the organization of the Iowa Academy of Sciences, and was chairman of the committee appointed by the State Medical Society to prepare a history of medicine in Iowa.