John B. Walker

One of the most important experiences of Dr. John Baldwin Walker’s long and active career came during the World War when he was no longer a young man. He volunteered his services to the army, was finally sent abroad and became commander of a Base Hospital in France. He received the D.S.M. for his distinguished and successful work there and for his great services as a consultant in this country during the demobilization period. In preparation for his work as a surgeon, after his graduation from the Harvard Medical School and a two-years house surgeonship at the Boston City Hospital, he spent three years abroad, studying chiefly in Vienna and in London. As a result of this experience he was one of the first surgeons to introduce the plating of fractures in this country, a skill that served him well in France. He taught and lectured as well as practiced and for twenty-eight years was Professor of Clinical Surgery at the College of Physicians and Surgeons. After his return from the war he never resumed his active practice but was a consultant at a number of hospitals. His interests, which were chiefly in philanthropies and church work—he was a vestryman of Trinity Church—kept him busily occupied. In his earlier days he was an habitué of the Club, where his quiet and unassuming manners, a capacity for listening, and his love of comradeship brought him a wide circle of friends.

Geoffrey Parsons
1942 Century Memorials