Fordyce's early education was under the tutelage of his parents until eleven years of age, then began his classical training under his uncle John Abbott, at China, Maine.

[1] Owing to signs of incipient tuberculosis he left Maine, riding on horseback to Norwich, Connecticut, where he finally settled.

He spent the winter of 1844 and 1845 in Paris, graduating there in 1845 and returning to Norwich the same year, taking the position of lecturer on obstetrics at Bowdoin in 1845 and 1846.

In 1856 he to make annual summer trips to Europe, which, with a single exception, were repeated up to the time of his death.

(See list by Doctor W. T. Lusk, "Transactions of New York Academy of Medicine," 1891, Second Series, volume viii, page 300.

His principal work was his book Puerperal Diseases, Clinical Lectures delivered at Bellevue Hospital, New York, 1874.

His contact with social life is attested by his club memberships such as the University, the Century and the Union, all of New York City.