Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 1.djvu/207

 BOWLING

BOWMAN

In the school thus established by the energy of a college-bred youth and the wisdom of a backwoods practitioner, cou- pled with the assistance of a most able corps of teachers, he became at once a master spirit. Understanding doctor and medical student nature with an in- sight given to but few, he had a hold upon the class peculiar to himself.

In 1851 he founded the "Nashville Journal of Medicine and Surgery," and sustained it for a quarter of a century. His contributions to medicine are prin- cipally contained in this journal, where he was never negative, but definitely ag- gressive or defensive, concerning all things pertaining to his profession.

Many thousand copies of Dr. Bowling's "Introduetories" and also of pamphlet editions of articles from the medical jour- nal were circulated by order of the faculty.

Bowling always strenuously advocated the organization of the profession, and contributed his quantum of labor and time to local and national associations. He had avoided office. However, in 1856 lie was elected third vice-president, in 1867 first vice-president, and in ls7 I he was elected president, of the American Medical Association, and in 1873 he was made by the medical editors of the United States president of their national asso- ciation. In ls77 he was transferred From the chair of practice and principles of medicine to that of ethical medicine and malarial diseases, which he occupied during that and the succeeding session in i hi i btool which he had helped <<> found, and for which he had labored so long, so faithfully, and so well.

In 1 s 7 '. • he was tendered and occupied

jointly with the present occupant the

oi theory and practice of medicine

in the medical depart menl ol I he I oil ei

sity of Tennessee, and elected "emeri

a 1884. 'I he j ear follow ing he died.

In l\:;7 he married Mis. Melissa < Iheat- h "m, and had one child, a son, named Powhattan.

Ma ihvillej. M. and S., 1885, a. a., xx.wi. outh Pi lc. '. i bville, 1882, h I B Lindsley).

South. Pract., Nashville, 18S5, vii. Atkinson's Phys. and Surgs. of the I nited States, in which there is a portrait.

Bowman, Nathaniel (1767-1797).

This young man, a charming and inter- esting physician, was just beginning to make his name known as a man of skill among his medical brethren of Maine. when he was snatched from life in a fash- ion worthy of record, showing even in those days of simple living the wonderful uncertainty of human life.

He was born on the eighth of June, 1767, where is not known, and after re- ceiving a medical education graduated from the Harvard Medical School in 1 7*6, settled in Gorham, Maine, and married Miss Mary Johnson. He soon acquired a good practice, with the promise of being a much more brilliant man than the aver- age physician, and things went well with him up to the middle of 1797.

He called on a lady patient on the afternoon of the seventh of June of that year, and as he was having, he said, " Well, here I am perfectly well, and hap- py as I can be, for to-morrow will be my thirtieth birthday, and I shall be the only man of the family for as many genera- tions as we can remember who has ever lived to be thirty years old." The pa- tient congratulated him on his approach- ing happiness for the morrow, yet never saw him again alive, for in making his way home from ol her patients, he walked beside the new church where they were finishing a steeple, a rope broke, a beam I. II. and he was dead. 1I<- was om o on of the family who did not live to be thirty.

Mil' patienl to whom he had spoken

about his birthday died from i he i hock.

This tragic end of Dr. Bow ' life

, i:i ed a gri a1 'leal oi sympathy which

wa - fell I hen, and I doubt not, e\ en lu- day, by those who hear ol' this curious in- cident I'm the in - 1 i ime.

I lately talked with an old man and

asked him if this story were really true, and he replied, " I »h, yesl my mother told

it (o me as fat back as 1 830.

.1 A.S. ["own ih toi ol I lorham, page 108.