educator physician politician author
William Baldwin Fletcher was born on August 18, 1837, on a farm which has since been covered by a thickly populated section of the city of Indianapolis, Indiana. His father, Calvin Fletcher, Sr. , was a lawyer who came from Vermont to Indiana in 1821. His mother was Sarah Hill, a native of Kentucky.
After studying for a time with Louis Agassiz Fletcher attended the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York where he received the degree of Doctor of Medicine, in 1860.
Fletcher returned to Indianapolis for practise, but his plans were disrupted by the outbreak of the Civil War. After some service incident to the mobilization of Indiana troops at Camp Morton, Indianapolis, he enlisted as a musician and entered the secret service.
He was captured and sent to Libby Prison, where he spent nine months caring for the sick in the hospital. Following a bayonet wound received while trying to escape and a stay in hospital, he was exchanged and discharged.
In 1862 Fletcher again took up his practise in Indianapolis and in 1868 he took part in the organization of the Indiana Medical College. On this faculty he held various chairs for the following six years.
In 1875 Fletcher went to Europe where he spent two years in the hospitals of London, Paris, Dublin, and Glasgow. Returning home, in 1879, be was given the professorship of nervous diseases in the newly organized Central College of Physicians and Surgeons, Indianapolis.
In 1883 he was appointed superintendent of the Indiana Central Hospital for the Insane. During the five years of his incumbency of this position he introduced many reforms, including the abolition of restraint and the employment of women physicians for the women patients. Resuming private practise, he established a sanitarium for the care of nervous and mental diseases.
In 1883 Fletcher was appointed to fill a vacancy and served part of one term in the Indiana state Senate, and some years later he was instrumental in securing the passage (1889) of the law providing for the Board of State Charities.
His contributions to the Transactions of the Indiana State Medical Society include : "Human Entozoa" (1866); "Cerebral Circulation in the Insane" (1887); "Purulent Absorption as a Cause of Insanity" (1892); "The Effect of Alcohol upon the Nervous System" (1895); and "A Consideration of the Present Laws for the Commitment of the Insane in Indiana" (1901).
Fletcher also published Cholera, its Characteristics, History, Treatment, etc. (1866), and Stray Papers on Cerebral Subjects (1892).
Failing health compelled him to spend his last days in Florida and William B. Fletcher died on April 25, 1907, in Orlando, Florida. On April 27, 1907, the day of his funeral in Indianapolis, the Indianapolis Morning Star published a commemorative poem, "The Doctor, " written by James Whitcomb Riley.
William B. Fletcher was an ardent supporter of the temperance movement and advocated the establishment of a state institution for the treatment of alcohol addicts.
William B. Fletcher was a large heavy set man, brusque, and described as being "without fear or reverence. "
In 1862, William B. Fletcher married Agnes, daughter of James O’Brien of Indianapolis. They had three sons and four daughters.
James Cooley Fletcher was a Presbyterian minister and missionary with strong activities in Brazilian lands.
