Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 1.djvu/368

 DOWNER

DRAKE

conceded that they contain many valu- able truths. To him is accorded priority in directing attention to the momentous fact that yellow fever is transmitted by mosquitoes (1S76) five years before Dr. Finlay enunciated his theory on that sub- ject. He was the first to perform the operation which Hahn, of Berlin, named nephrorrhaphy. Dowell fixed the kid- ney by a tape suture in 1S74 ("Annals of Surgery," vol. xii, p. 87), seven years be- fore Hahn introduced it to the profession.

He married, in June, 1849, Sarah Zelinda, daughter of John H. White, of Como, Mississippi, and when she died, leaving him two sons and one daughter, he wedded in 1S68 Mrs. Laura Baker Hutchinson, of Galveston, who was very beautiful.

On the night of the wedding the boys resolved to give them a charivari, but the doctor considered the mock seranade an insult. He seized a club and rushed out to disperse the crowd and in the melee sustained a severe fracture of the right arm.

For two years he was professor of anatomy in the Soule' University, also lecturer on surgery when that institution became the Texas Medical College. In 1S63 he became a surgeon in the Con- federate Army and was also on the staff of the Galveston General Hospital. He died on June 9, 1SS1. J. F. Y. P.

Tr. Am. Med. Assoc, Phila., vol. xxxiii,

Downer, Eliphalet (1744-1806).

Eliphalet Downer, widely known as the "Fighting Surgeon," was the son of Joseph and Mary Sawyer Downer, of Norwich, Connecticut, and a descendant of Robert Downer, who settled in Xew- bury, Massachusetts about the year 1650. Eliphalet was a native of Roxbury, Massachusetts, but at the time of the Revolution owned a house on Washing- ton Street, Brookline (still standing) near the famous Punch Bowl Tavern. Drake (History of Roxbury, p. 348) speaks of Downer as a " skillful surgeon.

In December, 1775 Downer was sur-

geon to one of the regiments under Gen. Putnam at Charlestown while the militia were fortifying Lechmere Point. Soon after the evacuation of Boston by the British he enlisted as surgeon to one of the first privateers fitted out in New England. It is said that he worked one of the guns on board the sloop " Yankee ■ when two sloops loaded with rum and sugar were captured. Later on he was on board the "Alliance" when she was captured at sea after fighting seven and a half hours and losing both her masts. He was severely wounded by grape-shot, receiving a compound fracture of the left arm, and was thrown into Portsea Prison, near Portsmouth, England. He made his escape by tunnelling and succeeded in reaching France. On two other occasions he was captured by the British and was imprisoned in Dartmoor and Forten Prisons but managed to effect his escape. His family, a wife and four children, had a hard time to get the means of subsistence during the three years he was away from home, all this time it is said his wife received but one letter from him. On July 9, 1779 Downer was commissioned chief surgeon to the Penobscot expedition, with which he served three months, losing all his surgical instruments, so the Massachusetts Legislature appropriated the sum of fifteen dollars to reimburse him. This was the last of his services on sea or land in the cause of freedom.

At the close of the Revolutionary

war he resumed practice in Brookline

and was said to have a large and lucrative

one. He died in Brookline, April 4, 1906

W. L. B.

Memoirs of Major-general Heath, 1798,

Boston.

The Downers of America, by David R.

Downer, Newark, 1900.

Medical Men of the Revolution, J. M. Toner,

1876, Philadelphia.

Drake, Daniel (17S5-1S52).

In a letter dated Louisville, December 15, 1847, Daniel Drake says: "My father, Isaac, was the youngest son of Nathaniel Drake and Dorothy Retna;