The chapter begins with epidemics of influenza in Maine from 1758 and is introduced by a reference to Noah Webster’s A Brief History of Epidemic and Pestilential Diseases (1799). Barker discusses his and other Maine physicians’ experience from 1780–1795 with cancer, predominantly of skin, node, and breast, seldom treated with success. He details a Portland newspaper article of 1818 graphically describing the last days of a woman’s seventeen-year battle with a lip cancer and refers to a book by a Dr. William Steward of Canaan, Maine reporting forty-seven cancers extracted “without a knife.” Finally, Barker relates his 1795 experience of obtaining a tainted quarter of veal that became palatable after soaking overnight in lye (alkali). With his reading of Lavoisier’s chemistry, Barker began to treat his patients successfully with alkalis to rid them of the “septic poisons.” He recorded his experience and sent a letter to New York City, where it was read by Professor Samuel Mitchill at Columbia University. Mitchill, an editor of the first US medical journal, the Medical Repository, published Barker’s letter, the first of many to be published in that journal over the next twenty years.
