Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 1.djvu/367

 DOUGLASS

DO WELL

botanist and was said to have a collection of more than eleven hundred plants, all found near Boston.

In Douglass' "Account of the Miliary Fever and Sore Throat," published in 1735-6, it appears that he had been in the habit of using mercurials in his practice for some time and that as early as 1721 he used calomel in the treatment of small- pox. We learn that Douglass had great success in the treatment of the "throat distemper" by the use of "well dulcified mercury, especially when joined with camphor."

He was a warm advocate and sup- porter of Gov. Belcher's administra- tion, which ceased in 1741.

His propensity for writing was consid- erable, but he was not true to his princi- ples, and veered about, as in the small- pox controversy, for when Gov. Shirley came in Douglass failed to applaud the same politics that found favor under Bel- cher. He was sarcastic and disagreeable in his remarks about his contemporaries and a caviller at the established order of things. In 1749 he published the first volume of his historical and political summary, embracing an account of all the American colonies. The second vol- ume was not published until after his death. He published observations made by him respecting the variation of the needle of the compass, and also remarks on the differences of time in various parts of the world. He died suddenly October 23, 1752. So far as is known he was never married.

In his "Practical Essay Concerning the Small-pox," London, 1730, Dr. Douglass says (p. 63): "How mean or rash soever the beginning of inoculating the small- pox may have been, if many years prac- tised by old women only, and neglected by the sons of art in Turkey; if in another part of the world a person of no literature, and of habitual rashness, from a third hand hearing of an overcredulous person, first attempted it indifferently on all who

would pay for it without regard to age, sex, constitution, other circumstances and cautions, which tryals of such conse-

quence require, as it is one of the incon- veniences of human life that all the world over, ignorance, assurance and rashness pushes on some to attempt without fear or discretion what would make the most exquisite artist tremble to touch; never- theless — if in the event by repeated ex- periments it prove useful, it ought to be embraced." W. L. B.

Amer. Med. Biog., 1828. James Thacher. A Brief Memoir, by Timothy L. Jennison, M. D.

Elliot's Biog. Diet, of the First Settlers of N. E., 1809.

Hist, of Harvard Med. School, T. F. Harring- ton.

Med. Com. Mass. Med. Soc, 1836, vol. v, p. 195.

The Abuses and Scandals of Some Late Pamphlets in Favor of Inoculation of the Small-pox Modestly obviated and Inocula- tion furthur considered in a Letter to Alex- ander Sandilande. M. D. and F. R. S. in Lon- don (by William Douglass, M. D.), 1722.

Dowell, Greensville (1S22-1881).

Greensville Dowell, a noted surgeon of Texas, was the son of James and Frances Dalton Dowell, and born in Albemarle County, Virginia, on September 1, 1S22. As a lad he went to the local schools and afterwards attended medical lectures at the University of Louisville and took his M. D. from Jefferson Medical College in 1846. Up to 1852 he practised at Como, Mississippi and finally settled in Galves- ton. He did a considerable amount of successful surgery, and enjoyed, perhaps, as much reputation as an operator as any of his professional contemporaries in this section. Original, bold and resourceful, with more opportunity and training, his achievements in surgery might have been brilliant. He devised several surgical op- erations, among them one for hernia, and invented a number of surgical instru- ments. The first medical periodical ever published in the state, the "Galves- ton Medical Journal" (1866-1870), was established and edited by Dowell. He was the author of two books on med- ical subjects, one on yellow fever, the other on hernia. While not included among the classics on these subjects, it is