John Barker (medical writer)

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John Barker, M.D. (1708–1748) was an English medical writer and physician. He trained at St. Thomas's Hospital in London and at Wadham College, Oxford, earning his B.A. in 1731, M.A. and B.M. in 1737, and D.M. in 1743. Barker practiced medicine for about ten years in Salisbury. In 1746 he became a member of the College of Physicians and moved to London to work as physician at Westminster Hospital. The next year he resigned to serve as physician to his king’s army in the Low Countries. He died soon after and was buried in St. Stephen’s Church, Ipswich, where a tablet commemorates him.

While in Salisbury he published in 1742 An Inquiry into the Nature, Cause, and Cure of the Epidemic Fever of that and the two preceding years. In it he argued against bleeding as a treatment, which led to a response from another Salisbury physician, Mr. Hele, and Barker replied with A Defence of a late Treatise &c. (1743). He also published in 1748 a volume titled An Essay on the Agreement between Ancient and Modern Physicians, or a Comparison between the Practice of Hippocrates, Galen, Sydenham, and Boerhaave.