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ceived the idea of preparing the work, and is a quarto containing life size plates made by a distinguished artist. It was a work of considerable importance. Later the plates and unsold copies were de- stroyed by fire.
Dr. Fisher was the first to introduce the education of the blind into this country and was connected with the Perkins Institution for the Blind, at South Bos- ton, till his death.
A committee composed of Hon. Charles Sumner, William H.Prescott, Thomas G. Cary, George N. Russell, D. Humphreys Storer, S. G. Howe, and Edward Brooks decided to erect a monument to his mem- ory at Mount Auburn, which was duly executed in white marble.
Dr. Fisher had been elected an acting physician of the Massachusetts General Hospital shortly before his death and was present at the early applications of ether in surgery at the Massachusetts General Hospital, being one of the first to use ether in child-birth.
A portrait of Dr. Fisher, painted by his brother, Alvan Fisher, is in the Boston Medical Library. W. L. B.
Com. Mass. Med. Society, vol. viii.
Sketch of the life and character of John D.
Fisher, M. D., by Walter Charming, M. D.,
Bost., March, 1850.
Private Memorial by George F. Fisher, a
nephew.
Fiske, Oliver (1762-1837).
Oliver Fiske was the son of the "well beloved" Nathan Fiske, a minister in Brookfield, where Oliver was born Sep- tember 2, 1762.
His prompt enlistment in the patriot army in 17S0, at the age of eighteen, by stimulating others to follow his example, prevented a draft from the Brookfield company of militia already paraded for that purpose. After the expiration of his term of service he returned home and continued preparation for Harvard Col- lege, which he entered in 1783. He taught school in Lincoln during the win- ter vacation of 1786-87, but procured a substitute and hastened to Worcester when Shays and his men appeared there,
FISKE
arriving in time to make the march to Petersham with Gen. Lincoln. Re- turning to college he graduated with his class (1787), and after studying medicine three years with Dr. Atherton, of Lan- caster, began practice in Worcester in 1790. He at once took a leading position and was active in forming the County Medical Society, of which he was secre- tary from 1794-1802, and librarian from 1799-1804. He was the first president of the district society, counselor of the Massachusetts Medical Society, and in 1811 delivered the annual address in Boston, his subject: "Certain Epidemics Which Prevail in the County of Wor- cester," describing the small-pox of 1796 and "spotted fever" of 1810. In 1824 Harvard honored him with her M. D.
Popular, and a scientific physician, well acquainted with natural philosophy, chemistry and physiology, Dr. Fiske, had he[devoted himself to his profession, would undoubtedly have made his mark both as practitioner and medical writer. But his profession soon became secondary to other objects. An ardent Federalist, he exerted no small influence in the party, and terse and epigrammatic articles from his pen on the questions of the day are scattered through the current literature of the time. An orator of no mean abil- ity, he was often called on. Some of these orations and political articles have been printed; more remain in manuscript. In 1798 he was town treasurer, and in 1803 special justice of the Court of Com- mon Pleas, also a member of the Ameri- can Academy of Arts and Sciences and corresponding secretary of the Linnaean Society of New England. Increasing deafness caused him to retire from active life about 1S22, and the next fifteen years were largely devoted to horticulture and agriculture.
He lived in the old Judge Jennison house on Court Hill, removed when State Street was opened, with an estate reach- ing from the Dr. Dix place to the Second Church, and extending up the hill as far as Harvard Street. He died in Boston,
