Bayard Taylor Holmes

Bayard Taylor Holmes (July 29, 1852 –1924) was an American physician, educator, and politician based in Chicago, Illinois.

Holmes became a medical profession in Chicago during the 1880s. He served as a surgeon at the Cook County Hospital and a senior professor of surgery at the Chicago's College of Physicians and Surgeons (which later became the University of Illinois College of Medicine). Holmes was an early proponent and researcher in the field of the bacteriology. He was influential in shaping the direction of the College of Physicians and Surgeons. Throughout his career, more traditional figures in the medical field considered Holmes to be a radical.

Holmes was also involved in politics, having socialist views and running as the People's Party nominee for mayor of Chicago in 1895.

Holmes changed his career direction after his son became afflicted with "dementia praecox", a condition today known as schizophrenia. Holmes at first retired in 1908 to care for his son full time, but soon dedicated himself to research in search of a cure. He ultimately formulated an incorrect theory that the condition was the result of toxins (likely histamine) released by overgrown of bacteria within intestinal blockages. Based on this misbelief, he developed a therapy for schizophrenia that involved an abdominal surgical incision into the intestines, followed by daily colonic irrigations. He first trialed this treatment on his own son in 1916. His son died only four days into the treatment. Undeterred, Holmes continued to try this treatment. He claimed positive results, and purged records of his son's treatment. He established a reputation as a top authority on "Dementia praecox". Several recent retrospectives have taken a highly negative view towards his work related to that condition.

Early life, education, and career Holmes was born in North Hero, Vermont in 1852. Holmes' early life was spent on farms in rural Vermont, and as a pioneer in Minnesota. He would not enter the field of medicine until later in his life. In 1871, Holmes moved to Chicago, in the state of Illinois. He was nineteen years old when he arrived in Chicago.

During his early work in bacteriology, Holmes partnered with Christian Fenger (a surgeon and pathologist) to study the likelihood of atmospheric infections being contracted from falling germs contracted during medical operations. This work proved important. He soon was asked to teach the first course ever given on bacteriology at a medical school in Chicago During his retirement, Holmes worked on research and writings about the condition his son suffered.

Undeterred by his son's death, Holmes continued to treat 22 more patients with his therapy. He claim to have had several "good successes", and only two fatalities in treating the condition. In reality, his efforts were failures and harmed many patients.

Politics

Political philosophy By the 1890s, Holmes began to develop a personal social and economic philosophy inspired by Christianity-centered altruism, as well as the works of Karl Marx and Henry George.

A report in the Lincoln Evening News about the same lecture opined ,

1895 mayoral campaign

In 1895, Holmes was the Populist (People's Party) nominee for mayor of Chicago.

Holmes' campaign was sharply defeated, and he never again ran for public office.

Retirement and later activities Holmes retired from active practice in approximately 1919, five years prior to his death. Holmes' health began suffering around the time that he retired.

In August 1923, Holmes wrote a letter to the editor of the Fairhope Courier urging against the proposition of removing the Marietta Johnson School of Organic Education from the town of Fairhope, Alabama (where he and his wife owned a winter vacation home). After several months of declining health, Holmes died on April 11, 1924 at the winter vacation home he and his wife owned in Fairhope, Alabama. Holmes was buried at the Fairhope Cemetery the following day, in accordance with a request he had made during his final illness. Prior to his burial, a very small service had been held at his Fairhope residence, during which his wife and several friends read tributes they had written about him, and the hymn "Only Remembered by What We Have Done" was performed. The service also included a reading of a work that had been written many years earlier by Holmes, which described as being sort of "creed". At Holmes' burial, several verses of the hymn "The Day is Sinking in the West" was performed by his grave. In a 1981 profile published in the journal Proceedings of the Institute of Medicine of Chicago, William Kaye Beatty described him as "a forgotten man".

Bonner's 1952 retrospective of Holmes painted a positive view of Holmes, writing Scholarly, gentle, humane, and charitable, this remarkable physician's life combined the virtue of Christian service with a self-sacrificing idealism.

Selected works by Holmes Empyema. A Lecture delivered at the Post-Graduate Medical School, Chicago, January 24, 1891. JAMA. 1891;XVI(14):476–482. doi:10.1001/jama.1891.02410660008002 The Surgery of the Head (1903) The Surgery of the Abdomen (1904) The friends of the insane, The soul of medical education, and other essays, 1911 The insanity of youth, and other essays, 1915 The Relation of Cecal Stasis to Dementia Precox. William Wood, 1916 Medical history of Chicago: the condition of medical thought, medical practice and hospital service after the Great Fire and before the World's Fair, 1871-1893. Medical Life 34 (6), 1927

Electoral history