CLARKE, Dr. James Frederic - 1912 Bio (1864-1942)

CLARKE, WADSWORTH, SAMPSON, CLAPP

Posted By: Debbie Nash - Volunteer (email)
Date: 3/11/2005 at 17:33:34

From the “History of Jefferson County, Iowa” – 1912, Volume II
Pages 430-433

JAMES FREDERIC CLARKE, M. D.

“Dr. James Frederic CLARKE is one of Fairfield’s native sons, born February 23, 1864. His parents were Dr. Charles Shipman and Sarah Louisa (WADSWORTH) CLARKE. The father was born in Marietta, Ohio, December 15, 1814, and the mother’s birth occurred in Pittsfield, Vermont, November 28, 1815. They were married in Frederickstown, Ohio, October 7, 1834, and subsequently became residents of Maysville, Kentucky, where they remained four years. They then came to Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, in 1843. Dr. Charles CLARKE was a graduate of the medical school of Cincinnati, Ohio. He was a careful student, a dignostician of unusual ability, generous to a fault, and he had the respect and esteem of all who knew him. While in Mt. Pleasant he was appointed by Governor Grimes as a member of a commission to study the insane hospitals of the country and to establish Iowa’s first institution of that character.

The horseback-riding and hard night-and-day professional work of a large practice in a sparsely settled country, undermined the Doctor’s health. He was compelled to give up active practice and this was only possible by leaving the community. For this reason he moved to Fairfield, in 1852, where he and his wife spent their remaining days. Dr. Charles CLARKE’s life’s labors were ended in death, March 4, 1882. Mrs. CLARKE survived him until November 29, 1905, when she also passed away in Fairfield.

They were both actively interested in the welfare and progress of the community. Although Dr. CLARKE was too old to enter the army at the time of the Civil war, he gave freely of his means and Mrs. CLARKE gave all her time and labors, to aid in the equipment of the soldiers. Both were active workers in the public library – the first of such institutions in Iowa – and for all other public institutions. Both were members of the Universalist church, thoroughly believing in universal salvation. Dr. CLARKE left the republican party at the time of the Greeley independent movement and thereafter usually voted with the democracy. The democratic party made him, on one occasion, its candidate for the state legislature.

Unto Dr. CLARKE and his wife were born five children: Emma Wadsworth, now living in Fairfield; Charles Ansyl, who after serving thirty years in the United States navy, is now a retired lieutenant commander, living in California; George Danforth, who succeeded his father in the drug business, in Fairfield, where he died in 1902; Mary the wife of J. W. SAMPSON of Weldon, Iowa; and James Frederic.

James Frederic CLARKE has always made Fairfield his home, save during the periods spent in acquiring his education. After attending the public schools he was for three years a student in Parsons College. During this time he was one of the founders of the first Agassiz Society in Iowa – a scientific organization which flourished for years and had branches all over the state. These Agassiz clubs finally united in a state organization and Mr. CLARKE was elected the first president of this “Iowa Assembly of Agassiz Association.”

From Parsons College Dr. CLARKE went to the Iowa State University, where he graduated on the honor roll in the class of 1886 with the degree B. S., his graduating thesis being a study of Indian corn. He next entered the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and was there given the degree of M. D., after a three years’ course of study and again was on the honor roll for scholarship in 1889. The same year he received his Master’s Degree from the University of Iowa for work in physiology.

After graduating in medicine, Dr. CLARKE entered the competitive examination for the position of resident physician in the Philadelphia Hospital. Being successful in this, he served two years in this venerable institution of seventeen hundred beds, acquiring a broad practical experience in medicine and surgery. For a time he was chief resident physician and while here, he published a study of the mercurial tremors of felt-hat makers.

Returning to Fairfield Dr. CLARKE began the practice of his profession and after a few years work, he spent one further year in post-graduate study in Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, and in the University of Goettingen, Germany.

Dr. CLARKE has always taken an active interest in medical and scientific societies. He has been a member of the American Society of Microscopists, the American Public Health Association, the Philadelphia Pathological Society and aside from all the local medical societies he belongs to the American Medical Association, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and is a fellow of the Iowa Academy of Sciences. He has sometime served as president of the Des Moines Valley Medical Association and of the Southeastern Iowa Medical Association and as first vice president of the Iowa State Medical Society.

In 1900 Dr. CLARKE was appointed “lecturer on hygiene” in the medical and dental departments of the State University of Iowa. For the past eight years he has been lecturer on bacteriology in Parsons College, in Fairfield. He has made a special study of defective children, having discovered and relieved many cases of sporadic cretinism and, through addresses in various parts of the state, he has called wide attention to this often misunderstood condition.

In 1891 Dr. CLARKE was united in marriage to Miss Melinda E. CLAPP, a native of Ohio, then living in Lee Center, Illinois, a daughter of Sylvester CLAPP. In 1906 Dr. CLARKE was elected to represent Jefferson county in the Iowa state legislature. Though a democrat he had a majority of six hundred votes in a county which has a normal republican majority of one thousand. Jefferson county had not before sent a democrat to the legislature for forty years. Dr. CLARKE was for one term mayor of Fairfield, during which time he labored for the construction of a sewer system and other city improvements. Failing to carry his cherished plans through a factional city council, he resigned for the purpose of focusing public attention on the situation. The letter of resignation, widely published, helped in the accomplishment of the city’s advancement. He is connected with the blue lodge, chapter and Knights Templar of Masons and is a member of the Congregational church.

At the beginning of the Spanish war, Dr. CLARKE, who had long been connected with the Iowa National Guard, was commissioned major and surgeon of the Forty-ninth Iowa Volunteer Infantry and he served in this rank throughout the war, in Florida and Cuba. Most of this time he was on detached duty, in charge of the medical wards of the second division hospital of the Seventh Army Corps. Here, with at times thirteen assistants, he cared for the sick in a hospital of seven hundred beds. Knowing from experience the value of trained women nurses, Dr. CLARKE, early in the war, asked that they be employed to care for the sick soldiers in these semi-field hospitals. This attempted innovation for army hospitals met with the emphatic disapproval of the regular army corps surgeon. Disregarding army traditions, in the cause of dying soldiers, Dr. CLARKE went over the heads of his superiors and appealed through the governor of Iowa to the secretary of war. For this insubordination he was sent back to his regiment by the corps surgeon, but his object was accomplished. The governor of Iowa was allowed to send graduate women nurses to care for Iowa soldiers, the precedent was established, and soon female nurses were employed throughout the army hospitals in the field. The cause of Dr. CLARKE’s dismissal being brought to the attention of General Fitzhugh Lee, the corps commander, he was soon reinstated to his position as chief physician in the division hospital. Dr. CLARKE later established and had charge of the Convalescent Hospital at Pablo Beach, Florida.

At the present time Dr. CLARKE is witnessing the completion of a project for which he has worked for twenty years, the establishment of a hospital in Fairfield. For all these years he has agitated this subject and finally, when the Munger law made the voting of a hospital-tax possible, he as a committee of one, appointed by the physicians of the county, had sole charge of the campaign which carried at the polls, by a five-hundred-majority vote, a tax to build a hospital.

Though some time president of the local Old Settlers Association, a director in the Chautauqua Association and active generally in the public life of Fairfield, the following three things, Dr. CLARKE feels, are his only important contributions to the welfare of his fellowmen: The introduction of trained women nurses in army hospitals. – The development of many imbecile cretin-children into normal individuals. – The building of a hospital in Fairfield. Dr. CLARKE’s principal writings, other than those already mentioned are: “Huber.” A Hospital Story. Midland Magazine. “What Iowa People Eat.” New York Medical News, 1898. “The Plasmodia of Malaria.” Studies in the Philadelphia Hospital. Reports of cases of Sporadic Cretinism in the Medical Fortnightly and the Journal of the American Medical Association at various times. “A Medical History of the Forty-Nine Iowa Volunteer Infantry.” Iowa Medical Journal. “The Water Supply of Fairfield.” Fairfield Tribune. “Who are the Doctors of Medicine.” President’s Address.”

I am copying this for genealogical purposes and am not related to said individuals.