B. Farquhar Curtis

Few men have concentrated all their thought and energies on a specialty as B. Farquhar Curtis directed his to surgical work. His professional associates described him as a man whose mental interests focussed on his patients. Even when he used reluctantly to drop work for his summer vacation and cruise along the New England coast in a boat in whose navigation he took an active part, he continued to read medicine and talk medicine if anyone was available to discuss the interesting new discoveries in his specialty. This concentration possibly led to his early enforced retirement from active practice, for in the prime of life he found he was no longer able to carry on the arduous duties of a busy hospital surgeon and, to the regret of all who knew and appreciated his remarkable capacities, he had to retire to the country where he lived quietly and happily for the rest of his life, still retaining contact with his old colleagues but taking no active part in practice.

Dr. Curtis was remarkable, even among the notable group of surgeons of his day, for the breadth of his knowledge concerning his own specialty. Everything that he wrote was worked out to form an important contribution to the particular phase of the subject on which he was engaged. He was an admirable teacher of the younger men, who have become the surgeons of today, especially those who were in personal contact with him as internes in St. Luke’s Hospital, and his memory has been a constant inspiration because of the high standards which applied to everything which he did. No detail of patients’ complaints was too petty or unimportant, and his wards were filled with people who were grateful for his kindly smile and skilled manipulations. He was a surgeon whose coolness under the stress of a difficult operation was proverbial, and who played an important part in the advances which surgery was making during his professional lifetime.

Alexander Dana Noyes
1925 Century Association Yearbook