Willard Parker and his medical library / by James P. Warbasse.
- James Peter Warbasse
- Date:
- 1907
Licence: In copyright
Credit: Willard Parker and his medical library / by James P. Warbasse. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![JAM US r. ll'ARBASSE. Jioston, and served for two years as resident officer in tlie Clielsia Marine Hospital. Soon after receiving his medical degree he was appointed pro- fessor of anatomy in the Berkshire County Medical College at Pittsfield, Mass. This was in the days of the peripatetic professor, and of didactic teaching without clinics, when some of the best medical instruction was given at the colleges in small country towns. At this school, besides Par- ker, were Alonzo Clark, Elisha Bart- lett, and Robert Watts, all of whom later became professors in the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York. In 1832 he was appointed pro- fessor of surgery in the Pittsfield school, and for four years he held both chairs, and lectured twice daily. In 1836 he was appointed professor of surgery in the Cincinnati Medical College, where he remained for three years, visiting England and France in the meantime. His case records are written carefully and neatly, and among the experiences recorded in Cincinnati, wc find the account of the surgical attentions which he rendered, in the first days of steamboat naviga- tion on the Ohio River, on the occa- sion of the blowing up of a steamboat and the loss of some forty per.sons. In 1839 he was called to the chair of surgery in the College of Physicians and Surgeons in this city, where for more than thirty years he labored with nnabating zeal as professor of the principles and practice of surgery. With James R. WcxkI. he reorganized the Almshouse at Bellevue into a hos- pital, and for many years was an at- tending surgeon. He was appointed surgeon to the New York Hospital in 1856; and upon the establishment of St. Luke’s. Roosevelt, and the Mt. Sinai hospitals, he was made a mem- ber of the surgical staffs. During this period of his activity he was the most conspicuous figure in New York medicine. I am told that he was a man of great personal mag- netism, power, and of strikingly hand- some presence. Although a surgeon he was a master of all of the depart- ments of medicine, and he was called upon as a consultant in every class of medical emergency. He was so broad a man that he never could confine him- self to any single field of practice. He was a man of great common sense, practical, and a keen observer. Al- ways self-possessed, he was the mas- ter of every situation that confronted him. Although he respected books and honored tradition, still he regard- ed experience as the greatest teacher. He was most sagacious in diagnosis. One of his great values to the com- munity was his interest in the public welfare. He devoted himself to char- ity organizations. To him and to John O. Stone the City of New York is indebted for the organization of its Health Department, which has made it one of the most efficient in the country. Busy as he was, he took time to come to Urooklyn forty years ago for Henry Ward Beecher, and deliver a course of four public lectures on hygiene at Plymouth Church. He sought the truth. His scrap- book shows clippings from addresses by Huxley at a time when the domi- nant chnrchly influence made it de- cidedly unfashionable to be interested in knowing the truth. He loved to teach. It was as a teacher that he was ])re-eminent. His lectures were full of inspiration. Many of his pupils have been and still are members of this society, and the earnest devotion which he save to his subject is felt to-day in this medical community. He aimed to lift others to the highest ideals in pro- fessional work. It is said that the surgical clinic which he established in Crosby street was the first attempt made in this country to combine the demonstration of patients with didactic teaching. In clinical teaching he was at his best. Flis friend, William H. Draper, said of him: “Here, unfettered by the re- strictions exacted by the orderly ar- rangement of didactic discourse, he could give free play to the natural working of his own mind in the diag- nosis and treatment of disease and injury. When he entered the amphi- theatre his presence seemed to fill it ; he riveted attention ; he had a mag-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22460706_0006.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
