Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 1.djvu/206

 BOWLING

BOWLING

face, and was a ready, pleasing and for- cible speaker, and, as the writer well remembers, always held the attention of his hearers when he addressed them on a medical or other subject.

He was for a number of years surgeon to the Marine Hospital, as well as to the General Public Hospital and presi- dent of the Canadian Medical Associa- tion in 1877.

His wife was a Miss Main of Glasgow, with whom he became intimate while a student there. She died in 1877, leaving no children. A. B. A.

Bowling, William K. (1S0S-1885).

When Dr. Bowling, medical editor, was asked how old -he was, he said, "When the Third Napoleon, Emperor of the French, Marshal McMahon, Charles Dickens, Salmon P. Chase, Robert E. Lee, Andrew Johnson, and Jefferson Davis came into the world, and when the American slave trade terminated by a provision of the Con- stitution of the United States, I came — born when giant men came, and when a giant sin and outrage died." This event occurred in the Northern Neck of Virginia, in the county of Westmore- land, the native county of George Wash- ington. Tradition and history repre- sent his ancestors as planters, and, while remarkable for kindness and generosity, none of them filled any con- spicuous place in church or state.

In 1810 his father moved to North Kentucky, where William Bowling — the fifth of ten children, and middle brother of seven — was educated private- ly by excellent tutors, and among them three authors of books. He says: "Like Clay and Drake, I was dropped down in the wilderness of Kentucky, and left to fight the battle of life as best I could without education, family influence or patronage. To three vagabond au- thors, whom my father fed for my bene- fit, and a public library of five hundred volumes, which I devoured before I was fourteen, I owe the foundation of all I am or hope to be. I attended one

course of lectures in the Medical College of Ohio, and practised five years, and attended another course at the Medical Department of Cincinnati College, known as Drake's School, and graduated. Drake was my medical idol, and his memory is yet. I was used to the society of authors. I had slept with them, roamed the wild forests with them, raved and ranted with them, and felt almost as big at eighteen as any of them, and they felt as big as all out-doors. One was a poet, William P. S. Blair, brother of the cele- brated Francis P. Blair, of Kendall and Jackson memory. Lyman Martin, after- wards my medical preceptor, a scholar from Connecticut, spent many hours at my father's with these men, but he never raved or ranted. God bless him! He was everything to me, taught me, and be- lieved in me."

Bowling received his medical degrees in the spring of 1836, and as a practition- er from 1S36 to 1S50 gained a great eminence in Logan County, Kentucky, near the Tennessee line, and became widely known in both states. During this time he had always under his tuition a number of office students, who spread his reputation as an original teacher of medicine far and wide. In 1S48 he was offered the chair of theory and practice in the Memphis Medical Insti- tute, the pioneer medical school of Tennessee. This offer he declined.

In 1850 he removed to Nashville, hoping by his presence to stimulate physicians of eminence, to whom he had vainly written, to take part in aiding Dr. J. B. Lindsley in founding a medical school. The latter brought his plans to Bowl- ing who at once declared that he would venture largely of means and labor in connection with the "Old University," and would not invest a cent in a private enterprise. Dr. Lindsley and his as- sociates accepted his views, gave him the chair of theory and practice, and made him their mouthpiece in communi- cating with the board of trustees, by which the faculty was commissioned on October 11. ls:,l