Willard Parker (surgeon)

Willard Parker
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Willard Parker (September 2, 1800 in Lyndeborough, New Hampshire – April 25, 1884 in New York City) was a surgeon of the United States, for many years a professor at the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons and other schools.

Willard Parker was born in 1800 in North Lyndeborough, New Hampshire, to tavern owner Jonathan Parker and his wife, Hannah Clark, daughter of Lyndeborough potter and Revolutionary War veteran Major Peter Clark.

An ancestor came from England in 1644 and settled at Chelmsford, Massachusetts, to which place his family returned when Willard was five years old. He taught in the district schools to obtain means to enter Harvard College, where he graduated in 1826. He then opened a school in Charlestown with the intention of studying for the ministry, but subsequently decided to adopt the profession of medicine. He became the private pupil of John C. Warren, the professor of surgery in Harvard, and attended medical lectures in Boston. He received the degree of M.D. from Harvard in 1830.

He was at once appointed professor of anatomy in the Vermont Medical College, and in the same year accepted the chair of anatomy in the Berkshire Medical College, and in 1833 also that of surgery. In 1836 he was appointed professor of surgery in the Cincinnati Medical College, and afterward spent some time in the hospitals of Paris and London. In 1839 he became professor of surgery in the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons, which post he resigned after a service of 30 years, but accepted that of professor of clinical surgery.

In the spring of 1840, appreciating the want of practical demonstration in teaching surgery, and the difficulty in securing cases for illustration in colleges that were unconnected with hospitals, he visited with his students two or three of the city dispensaries, selected interesting cases, and had them taken to the College of Physicians and Surgeons, where the anatomical theatre offered superior advantages for making diagnoses and performing operations before the class. This was the first college clinic in the United States.

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