Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 1.djvu/144

This page needs to be proofread.

BAKER 4

Syracuse. No one had done much before this and when his efforts had gained some measure of success he re- tired from the Senate to a damaged practice. In 185S he had a second attack of paralysis following one two years previously and on November 4 he died, leaving his wife, his daughter and four sons a small competence and a big record of skill and time most faith- fully used. D. W. Tr. Med. Soc. State of N. York, 1860.

Baker, Alvah H. (1806-1865).

Born in Chester County, Pennsylvania, on November 3, 1806. In 1820 he came with his family to Plattsville, and at the age of eighteen opened a school to obtain means to study medicine. While teaching he went on studying medicine, and in 1830-31, attended lec- tures at Jefferson Medical College, Phila- delphia, and in 1833 removed to West Alexandria, Preeble County, Ohio, where he remained about three years, and afterward went to Eaton, Ohio, where he practised until his removal to Cin- cinnati, Ohio, in 1846. He was one of the founders of the "Cincinnati College of Medicine and Surgery.

In January, I860, Dr. Baker issued the first number of the " Cincinnati Medical and Surgical News." This Journal was published for three years.

He died in Cincinnati, July 30, 1865. A. G. D.

Bard, Samuel (1742-1821).

Samuel Bard was born in Philadelphia on the first of April, 1742. His grand- father had been driven to this country by the memorable revocation of the edict of Nantes, and, settling in Bur- lington, New Jersey, became one of the judges of the supreme court of that province. His father was John Bard, afterwards a physician of New York, and memorable for being the first person who performed a dissection and taught anatomy by demonstration on this side of the Atlantic. His mother was a Miss Valleau, a niece of Dr. Kearsly of Phila- delphia, and likewise a descendant of


BARD

the Protestant refugees. At the time of Dr. Bard's birth his father was practising in Philadelphia; but at the urgent solicitation of Dr. Franklin, he shortly after removed with his family to New York. Dr. Bard received the rudiments of education in New York, at a grammar school; and at the age of fourteen years entered King's College under the private pupilage of Dr. Cut- ting. While at college he gave some attention to the study of medicine and afterwards regularly devoted himself to the profession under his father. About this time he imbided his taste for botany from Miss Jane Colden, daughter of the then lieutenant-governor of the province. She instructed him during his occasional visits to the family and he repaid her attentions by drawing and colouring plants and flowers for her. In the fall of 1760 he sailed for Europe; but being captured by a French privateer he was taken to Bayonne, and confined six months in the castle. Upon his release in the spring of 1761 he immediately pro- ceeded to London. He was now, at the recommendation of Dr. Fothergill, received into St. Thomas' Hospital as the assistant of Dr. Russell, and continued in that capacity until his departure for Edinburgh. He graduated in 1765, after having defended and published an inaugural essay " de viribus opii," and left Edinburgh loaded with honour, in consequence of having obtained the prize offered by Dr. Hope for the best Herbarium of the indigenous vegetables of Scotland.

In 1765 he returned to his native country, and commenced practice in New York in connection with his father. The degraded state of the profession in consequence of the extensive prevalence of quackery, the inconveniences and expense of a journey to Europe, and the recent accessions of talent and respecta- bility to the medical corps, determined a number of public-spirited gentlemen of Philadelphia to establish a school for medical instruction. Under Shippen, Morgan, and Kuhn, a college was organ-