Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 1.djvu/315

 COTTING

COWLING

Dr. Corss wa3 well equipped for the practice of medicine. His ancestry, his early training, his educational ad- vantages and scholarly attainments all had their influence in moulding the physi- cian. He was particularly interested in scientific studies, especially in the geology of the county in which he lived, and was popular as a lecturer. Although a busy man and actively engaged in stren- uous labors, he found time to prepare papers for his County Medical Society, for the Lehigh Valley Society, and for the Wyoming Historical and Geological Society, all of which have been published in the various transactions of these bodies and elsewhere. He died in Kingston, Pennsylvania, on April 1, 1908.

E. R.

Cotting, Benjamin Eddy (1812-1898).

Benjamin Eddy Cotting, surgeon, born at West Cambridge (Arlington), Mass- achusetts in 1812, was the descendant on his mother's side of a rector of Cranbrook Church, Kent, England, in 1630. He studied at Harvard and there took his A. B. in 1834; his A. M. and M. D. in 1839. This same year he had to ampu- tate a cancerous breast without anesthe- sia, and graphically relates the scene. He was present nine years later at the first public demonstration of ether as an anesthetic in the Boston General Hospital.

He was president of the Massachusetts Medical Society; honorary member of the Connecticut and of the New Hamp- shire Medical Societies; member of the Boston Obstetrical Society, and corre- sponding member of the Medical Society of Athens, Greece, and of the Academy de Quiriti, Rome, Italy.

His writings included:

"Simple Apparatus for Fracture of the Thigh," 1861.

"Disease, a Part of the Plan of Crea- tion," 1865.

"Historical Sketch of the Obstetrical Society of Boston. Biographical Sketches of Deceased Members," 1881.

"A Murderer's Dying Confession dis-

proved by Surgical and Anatomical Facts," 1889.

Boston M. and Surg. J., 1897, vol. cxxxvi. (A bit of professional reminiscence.)

Cowling, Richard Oswald (1839-1881).

A native of Georgetown, South Caro- lina, of English descent, Richard Oswald Cowling was born on April 8, 1S39 and entered Trinity College, Hartford, Con- necticut, in 1858 and graduated there, being made adjunct to the professor of mathematics even in his sophomore year.

On returning home from an European trip in 1S62, his inclination was for civil engineering, in which line he did some very good work; but he gave that up and began to study law. While con- valescing from typhoid fever, he chanced to read Watson's "Practice of Physic," which so impressed him that he decided to take up medicine, so in 1864 entered the University of Louisville with Dr. George Bayless, professor of surgery, as his preceptor. After attending one course of lectures there, he graduated at the Jefferson School, Philadelphia, in 1866. In the autumn of 1S68 he was made demonstrator of anatomy in the University of Louisville, and a few years later, adjunct to the chair of surgery. He there discharged his duties so well that the next session he was elected to the chair of surgical pathology and operative surgery. In 1879 he was made professor of the science and art of surgery, and this position he held until his death.

He was the founder of the " Louisville Medical News," a weekly journal, the first number of which appeared on New Year's day, 1S76. This journal was soon in the front rank of the best medical periodicals. Dr. Cowling contributed many valuable articles on surgery to the medical jour- nals, but the only sustained scientific work which he published, was a little volume entitled "Aphorisms in Fractures."

There was nothing small about Dr. Cowling, he was a big man in every sense of the word, in person, mind and heart.