Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 2.djvu/273

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PARKER


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PARKER


member of the Philadelphia College Med- ical Society (president in 1869), and a member of numerous other medical societies. From 1886 to the time of his death he was professor of general descrip- tive and surgical anatomy and clinical surgery in the Medico-Chirurgical College of Philadelphia, an institution which he helped to found. He published numer- ous papers on clinical and surgical subjects.

After the death of the Siamese twins he obtained their bodies, and made an examination under the auspices of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Philadelphia, and proved that the band could not safely have been cut, except in their childhood.

During the later years of his Ufe Dr. Pancoast suffered greatly from ill-health, and after his resignation in 1874 of his chair of anatomy in the Jefferson Medical College, he gradually withdrew from the active duties of his profession. In May, 1877, the formal opening of the Jefferson College Hospital was, at the request of the trustees, inaugurated by him in an eloquent address, and this was his last oflScial act in the school with which he was connected for more than forty years. At the time of his death Dr. Pancoast was the only survivor of the celebrated faculty of 1841 in the Jefferson Medical College.

He died on the fifth of January, 1897.

C. R. B.

Med. Mirror, St. Louis, 1890, i, (port.). J. Am. Med. Ass., Chicago, 1897, xxviii. Med. Rec.N.Y.. 1897, li. Tr. Am. Surg. Ass., Phila., 1897, xi.

Parker, Daniel McNeU (1822-1907).

Daniel McNeil Parker, of English and Scottish descent, was born at Windsor, Nova Scotia, April 28, 1822, and died at Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, November 4, 1907. His practice, of half a century, was at Halifax, Nova Scotia.

He had his general education at the Col- legiate School, Windsor, and the Academy at Horton, Nova Scotia. In the late thirties he became an indentured student in medicine to Dr. William Bruce Almon,


and in 1841 went to the medical school of Edinburgh University, in 1845 gradu- ating M. D. from the University and also as L. R. C. S. (Edinburgh), taking a gold medal in surgery, the title of his thesis being "The Mechanism and Man- agement of Parturition." He also held the D. C. L. of Acadia College, Wolfville.

Dr. Parker was a member of the Medi- cal Society of Nova Scotia, and its presi- dent in 1857 and 1877; a member of the Canadian Medical Association, and in 1870 its second president. He was con- sulting surgeon at the Provincial and City Hospital, and, later, the Victoria General Hospital, Halifax; as a public- spirited citizen, he was identified with and a co-worker in most of the educational and philanthropic work of the city.

Upon his return to Nova Scotia after graduation, he settled down to practice in HaUfax, where he soon had a good reputation. In 1891 he gave up practice in Halifax, in order that he might acquaint himself at first hand with the new Listerian surgery, then in its earlier development in full use at Edinburgh. The next two years were devoted to study and research at Edinburgh and Paris. Upon his return to HaUfax in 1873, he limited his practice to that of a consultant in medicine and surgery, and in this he was highly successful. In 1895, after haK a century of successful work, he retired.

Dr. Parker travelled considerably on both sides of the Atlantic and thus happened to be in position to witness several notable events, such as Dr. Chalmers leading out the Free Church Ministers in 1843, the bombardment of Fort Sumter in 1861, and the terrors of the Commune in Paris in 1871.

Though always very busy. Dr. Parker found time to deliver many addresses on professional subjects and to write some special papers. "Three Cases of Rup- tured Perineum and Sphincter Ani Cured by Operation" ("Edinburgh Medical Journal," 1857, p. 448) ; "Fatal Cases Re- sulting from the Habit of Arsenic Eating" ("Edinburgh Medical Journal," 1864, p.