The History of Medications for Women by M.J. O'Dowd;

Author:M.J. O'Dowd;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781000161533
Publisher: CRC Press (Unlimited)
Published: 2020-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

SAMUEL BARD (1742–1821): A BIOGRAPHY

Samuel Bard was born in Philadelphia and four years later his family moved to New York City. Bard entered King’s College where he pursued classical studies. His decision to embark on a career in medicine meant that he had to choose between the two great centers of learning of the era, Leiden and Edinburgh. He decided on the latter and departed from New York in September 1761. England and France were at war at the time and Bard’s vessel was captured on the high seas by a French privateer. Bard was held as a prisoner of war at a castle in Bayonne but was released after Benjamin Franklin, who was residing in London at the time, intervened on the young New Yorker’s behalf.

In London Samuel Bard became assistant to Alexander Russell at St Thomas’ Hospital. Some six months later he moved to Edinburgh where William Cullen and his colleagues were among the world’s foremost medical teachers. Bard graduated from Edinburgh in 1765 after defending his thesis, De Viribus Opii. On leaving Edinburgh he returned to New York where he entered medical practice with his father John Bard, who was the first in the New World to report a case of extra-uterine pregnancy, and a close friend of both Benjamin Franklin and George Washington.

Influenced by his memories of the Edinburgh medical teaching system Samuel Bard decided to open a medical school and with Jones, Middleton, Tennent and Clossy, he founded the Medical School of Kings College, and the New York Hospital (Findley, 1939). Bard was the first professor of physic and later held the chairs of materia medica and midwifery. Medical degrees were first conferred by the New York School of Medicine in 1769. King’s College became Columbia College and Bard became professor of chemistry and natural philosophy in the new school. In 1792 he became dean of the Medical School of Columbia College and finally president of the College of Physicians and Surgeons in the University of the State of New York. He retired from his practice to his estate at Hyde Park in 1799 and wrote his Compendium of the Theory and Practice of Midwifery. The first edition was aimed at improving the practice of midwives but subsequent editions were to serve as an introduction to the study of midwifery for medical students and young medical practitioners. The first printing was incorrecdy dated 1807 — the text was first published in 1808. The Compendium was reprinted several times, subsequent editions appearing in 1812, 1814, 1817 and 1819. Samuel Bard died on May 25 1821, aged 79, within 24 hours of the death of his wife of 56 years (Thorns, 1933).

Figure 4 Frontispiece of the Pharmacopoeia Edinburgensis (1817)

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