Notable Health Care Givers: Physicians & Nurses: “Ba...-”
educational posters for health classrooms, homeschoolers and professional offices.

Notable physicians and nurses ~

Martha Ballard, née Moore
b. 2-20-1735; Oxford, MA
d. May, 1812

Martha Ballard served as a midwife and healer from 1785 to 1812 in the Hallowell community on the Kennebec River, District of Maine. She made entries into her diary/accounting book for 27 years, recording daily events, weather, and medical practices. Her diary forms the basis of A Midwife's Tale (author Laurel Thatcher Ulrich), which is also available as a film.

FYI ~ Ballard was the great aunt of Clara Barton who is known for her Civil War work and founder of the American Red Cross.

Roger Bannister
b. 3-23-1929; Harrow, England

Neurologist Roger Bannister is best remembered “for running the first recorded mile in less than 4 minutes”, May 6, 1954.

Roger Bannister quotes ~
• “Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve. It doesn't matter whether you're a lion or a gazelle--when the sun comes up, you'd better be running.”
• “I found longer races boring. I found the mile just perfect.”
• “The man who can drive himself further once the effort gets painful is the man who will win.”

Frederick Banting
b. 11-14-1891; Alliston, Ontario, Canada
d. 2-21-1941; Dominion of Newfoundland (airplane crash)

Medical scientist, doctor and Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine (1923), Frederick Banting is best remembered as one of the main discoverers of insulin in the treatment of diabetes.

FYI - one of his first patients to take insulin was Elizabeth Hughes in 1921-22; she was the daughter of Charles Evans Hughes, a U.S. presidental candidate and Supreme Court Justice.

Dr. Christiaan Barnard
b. 11-8-1922; South Africa
d. 9-2-2001; Paphos, Cyprus

Christiaan Barnard was the cardiac surgeon who performed the world's first successful human-to-human heart transplant on December 3, 1967 in Cape Town, South Africa. The 54 year old recipient, Louis Washkansky, lived an additional 18 days with the heart of the donor Denise Ann Darvall, who was declared brain dead due to injuries suffered in a car accident.

Dr. Christiaan Barnard quotes ~
• “(It is infinitely better to transplant a heart) than to bury it so it can be devoured by worms.”
• “The prime goal is to alleviate suffering, and not to prolong life. And if your treatment does not alleviate suffering, but only prolongs life, that treatment should be stopped.”
• “Suffering isn't ennobling, recovery is.”

Josiah Bartlett
b. 11-21-1725; Amesbury, MA
d. 5-19-1795; Kingston, NH

Physician Josiah Barlett was also a statesman who served as a delegate to the Continental Congress for New Hampshire, and signatory of the Declaration of Independence. He was later Chief Justice of the New Hampshire Superior Court of Judicature and Governor of the state.

Clara Barton
b. 12-25-1821; Oxford, MA
d. 4-13-1912; Glen Echo, MD

Humanitarian Clara Barton was a teacher and nurse who is remembered for her work with wounded in the American Civil War and organizing the American Red Cross. The International Committee of the Red Cross had been established in Europe “to protect the victims of international and internal armed conflicts ... the war wounded, prisoners, refugees, civilians, and other non-combatants.” Barton could only ‘sell’ the idea of the Red Cross with the expanded vision including any great national disaster because post-Civil War Americans could not imagine the US would ever be involved in another conflict as horrendous as the Civil War.

FYI ~ Clara was the great-niece of midwife Martha Ballard.

Clara Barton quotes ~
• “I have an almost complete disregard of precedent, and a faith in the possibility of something better. It irritates me to be told how things have always been done. I defy the tyranny of precedent. I go for anything new that might improve the past.”
• “I may sometimes be willing to teach for nothing, but if paid at all, I shall never do a man's work for less than a man's pay.”

George Bass
b. 1-30-1771; Aswarby, Lincolnshire, England
d. 1803; lost at sea

Naval surgeon and botanist George Bass, who brought a small boat with him on his assignment with the HMS Reliance, used his little Tom Thumb to explore Australia.

• George Bass

Adolf Bastian
b. 6-26-1826; Bremen, Germany
d. 2-2-1905; Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago

Polymath Adolf Bastian was a medical doctor who contributed to the development of ethnography and anthropology; he also influenced Carl Jung's development of the theory of archetypes and mythologist Joseph Campbell's study of comparative religion and mythology.

Adolf Bastian quotes ~
• “What we see in history is not a transformation, a passing of one race into another, but entirely new and perfect creations, which the ever-youthful productivity of nature sends forth from the invisible realm of Hades.”