John Goodrich Clark, 1867-1927 / by Charles C. Norris.

  • Norris, Charles C. (Charles Camblos), 1876-1961
Date:
[1927]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: John Goodrich Clark, 1867-1927 / by Charles C. Norris. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    2 SURGERY, GYNECOLOGY AND OBSTETRICS largely for his great success in practice. An outstanding feature in his work was his personal interest in his patients. The real welfare of each person coming under his care invariably took precedence of everything else. No patient, however poor, but upon whom he would willingly expend as much time and effort as upon the most important. This attitude doubtless accounted for the universal re¬ spect and love borne him by his patients. Dr. Clark was not only a great surgeon but also a scientist in the best sense of this much abused term, and nothing interested him more than sound research work. He was a man of fertile imagination and could always suggest practical methods of attacking a difficult problem. His reasoning was sound and his de¬ ductions singularly free from error. He contributed largely to the literature of his specialty and was one of the first to advocate a radical operation for cancer of the cervix. In developing this operation, he was influenced by the improved results which had been secured by the Halsted operation for cancer of the breast. Despite the many calls upon his time incident to his teaching and large private practice, he averaged two major papers a year for the last two decades. Although frequently urged to do so, he steadfastly refused to write a textbook, not so much because of the drudgery entailed as that the work necessarily was largely a repetition of what had previously been written and also due to the fact that he felt that there were already so many excellent books available. In 1909, he edited the American edition of Winter and Ruge’s Gynecological Diagnosis and later consented to collaborate with the writer in the monograph on Radium in Gyne¬ cology. He was one of the pioneers in the employment of radium for gynecological lesions and was an accepted authority upon this subject. Dr. Clark was a teacher of unsurpassed ability and possessed the happy faculty of imparting knowledge easily and in an unforgettable manner. His mind was a storehouse not only of scientific facts but of epigrams and anecdotes which were always appropriate and enabled him to emphasize the points which he wished to stress. As a result, his teaching was always interesting and never dragged. He was not a believer in the ordinary didactic lecture. He was one of the first, if not the first, to utilize plastine or artist’s clay for demonstrating operative technique and as a modeler and blackboard artist he had few equals. During the World War, Dr. Clark was a member of the National Defense Council to which he gave unreservedly his time and energy. He was a member of numerous medical societies and a past president of the American Gynecological Society, American Gynecological Club, and American College of Surgeons, of which organization he was one of the founders and a member of the Board of Regents since 1924. For years he served upon the editorial staff of its official journal. To his assistants. Dr. Clark was the ideal Chief, generous, kindly, helpful, and stimulating. His advice was invariably excellent and was always at the disposal
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