BARCLAY, Robert, physician, specialist; born, St. Louis, May 8, 1857; son of David Robert Barclay (lawyer, journalist, author of Barclay's Digest, and proprietor and editor of the St. Louis Dispatch) and Mary Melinda (Shepard) Barclay, daughter of Capt. Elihu H. Shepard (soldier in four American wars, lawyer and teacher); of British and Norman ancestry on paternal side, and of Revolutionary ancestry on maternal side; attended schools of St. Louis, Mo., and Alexandria, Va.; A.B., Trinity College, Hartford, Conn., 1880, A.M., 1883; M.D., College of Physicians and Surgeons (Medical Department, Columbia University), 1883; married, Hartford, Conn., October, 1886, Minnie Genie, daughter of Thomas and Agnes (Gibson) Hamilton (both of distinguished Scottish ancestry); they have three sons: Robert Hamilton (with electrical department, Kansas City Terminal R. R. Co.), Shepard Gibson (member editorial staff, New York Sun) and McClelland (commercial artist and special marine painter, New York and Washington, D. C.). Mrs. Barclay died Dec. 22, 1908. She was especially gifted as a musician and composer, and served as musical director of the St. Louis Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution. Dr. Barclay has engaged in practice in St. Louis since October, 1885, as specialist in diseases of the ear, nose and throat; has served as chief, in his department, in St. Louis City Hospital, Missouri Pacific Railway Hospital, St. Louis Baptist Hospital, Missouri Baptist Sanitarium, St. Mary's Infirmary, South Side Dispensary, Maria Consilia Deaf and Dumb Institute, St. Philomena's Industrial School, House of the Good Shepherd, etc. Among improvements devised by him in surgical instruments, may be named a special pattern of shaft-and-handle for any instrument for operating in the depth of long narrow cavities; also an improved and shortened aural operating-speculum. Vice president St. Louis Medical Society, 1906. Contributor to medical periodicals, encyclopedias, society proceedings, etc. Chief articles: "Medical Treatment of Acute Diseases of the Middle Ear," Hare's System of Practical Therapeutics, 1892; "Closure of the Ear by Growths of Bone," in the St. Louis Medical Review of 1894; "Can You Cure Deafness Caused by Catarrh" ("A Reply"), in The Laryngoscope of 1897; "A Practical Suggestion Respecting the Removal of Foreign Bodies from the Larynx; illustrated by a Case of Cockle-burr upon the Vocal Cords," in The Medical Fortnightlv of 1905; "A Method of Radical Relief of Cases of Deafness Long Abandoned as Hopeless," Journal of Missouri State Medical Association, 1907; "Relief of Chronic Deafness by Tympanic Resection," in The Railway Surgeon, 1907; "Some Practical Problems in Ear, Nose and Throat Practice," Journal of Missouri State Medical Association, 1912; etc. Main Office and Address: 3894 Washington Boul. Supplementary Office: 3100 S. Grand Ave., cor. Arsenal St.
--from The book of St. Louisans; By Albert Nelson Marquis; 1912