Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/155

BOWLING wild forest 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 celebrated Francis P. Blair, of Kendall and Jackson memory. Lyman Martin, afterwards 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 believed in me."

Bowling received his medical degrees in the spring of 1836; as a practitioner from 1836 to 1850 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 1848 he was offered the chair of theory and practice in the Memphis Medical Institute, 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 Bowling who at once declared that he would give 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 associates accepted his views, gave him the chair of theory and practice, and made him their mouthpiece in communicating with the board of trustees, by which the faculty was commissioned on October 11, 1851.

In the school thus established by the energy of a college-bred youth and the wisdom of a backwoods practitioner, coupled with the assistance of a most able corps of teachers, he became at once a master spirit. Understanding the nature of the medical student with an insight 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 principally contained in this journal, where he was never negative, but definitely aggressive or defensive, concerning all things pertaining to his profession.

Many thousand copies of Dr. Bowling's "Introductories" and also of pamphlet editions of articles from the medical journal were circulated by order of the faculty. He wrote on the various epidemics of cholera "as it appeared at Nashville" from 1849 to 1873.

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 he was elected third vice-president of the American Medical Association, in 1867 first vice-president, and in 1874 president. In 1873 he was made by the medical editors of the United States president of their national association. In 1877 he was transferred from the chair of principles and practise of medicine to that of ethical medicine and malarial diseases, which he occupied during that and the succeeding session in the school which he had helped to found, and for which he had labored so long, so faithfully, and so well.

In 1879 he was tendered and occupied jointly with the present occupant the chair of theory and practice of medicine in the medical department of the University of Tennessee, and elected "emeritus" in 1884. The year following he died.

In 1837 he married Mrs. Melissa Cheatham, and had one child, a son, named Powhatan.



Boylston, Zabdiel (1679–1766)

Zabdiel Boylston, the first inoculator for smallpox in America, was the son of Thomas Boylston (sometimes written Boyson), a farmer of Muddy River (Brookline), Massachusetts. It is probable that Thomas was the son of Thomas who emigrated from London to America in the Defense and settled in Watertown in 1635. Zabdiel, the fourth child of Thomas and Mary Gardner, was born in Brookline, March 9, 1679.

He received his medical education from Dr. John Cutter, an eminent practitioner of Boston, and began practice there. Such was his industry and tact that he soon acquired a handsome fortune and a large clientage. He was especially interested in botany and zoology and made a large collection of American plants and animals.

He is known chiefly as the first person in America to inoculate for smallpox. According to his own statement ("Account of the Small-pox," 1726, p. 1) he had the diseases himself in 1702 and narrowly escaped with his life. The smallpox appeared as an epidemic in Boston in the year 1721, carrying