[2][5] In his final year at Penn Medical, he worked as a physician at St. Luke's Hospital in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

[2] Later that year, he moved to Sumner, Washington, and took over the practice of an older doctor,[9] but was there for a short time, returning to Wellsboro in April 1894.

[12] With the outbreak of the Spanish-American War, Bacon asked for an appointment to the United States Army Medical Corps, which was granted in August 1898.

He reported for duty in Washington, D.C., and was appointed a regimental surgeon and stationed at Fort Thomas near Chickamauga, Georgia.

[15][16] In December 1898 he was transferred from Sandy Hook to Fort Grant, where he was witness to one of the last Indian uprisings in the U.S.[17][18] In 1901 he took over a small hospital in Tombstone, Arizona.

He outbid several other doctors to gain the contract to operate the hospital and care for the county's indigent population, and prisoner's from the jail.

He got so popular, the local sheriff, Del Lewis, asked him to stop treating the outlaws, but he refused, stating, "My business is to take care of the sick people.

"[18][19][20] He was an early proponent of the theories of Joseph Lister, when most doctors in Arizona still did not understand the importance of antiseptic surgery.

[2] He was a charter member of the American College of Surgeons, and served as the head of the Arizona chapter of their credentials committee for 25 years.

[25] Also in 1914, he was elected as president of the Southwest Medical and Surgical Association, which he helped organize, and served in that capacity until December 1919.

[2][26][27] He retired as the chief surgeon of the Miami Inspiration Hospital in 1938, and moved to California, settling in San Marino in 1939.