Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/349

NAME DOVVELL 327 DOWNER Dowell, Greensville (1822-1881). Greensville Dowell, noted surgeon of Texas, the son of James and Francis Dalton Dowell, was born in Albermarle County, Virginia, on September 1, 1882. As a boy he went to the local schools and afterwards attended medical lectures at the University of Louisville and took his M. D. from Jefferson Medical Col- lege in 1846. Up to 1852 he practised at Como, Mississippi, and finally settled in Galveston. 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 op- portunity and training, his achievements in surgery might have been brilliant. He devised several surgical operations, among them one for hernia, and invented a number of surgical instruments. The first medical periodical ever published in the state, the Galveston Medical Journal (1866-1870), was established and edited by Dowell. He was the author of two books on medical subjects, one on yellow fever, the other on hernia. While not included among the classics on these subjects, it is conceded that they contain many valuable truths. To him is accorded priority in directing attention to the momentous fact that yellow fever is transmitted by mosquitoes (1876), five years before Dr. Finlay enunciated his theory on that subject. He was the first to perform the operation which Hahn, of Berlin, named ne- phrorrhaphy. Dowell fixed the kidney by a tape suture in 1874, Annals of Surgery, vol. xii, p. 87, seven years before Hahn introduced it to the profession. He married, in June, 1849, Sarah Zelinda, daughter of John H. White, of Como, Missis- sippi, and after she died, having left him two sons and one daughter, he wedded, in 1868, Mrs. Laura Baker Hutchinson, of Galveston, who was very beautiful. On the night of the wedding the boys re- solved to give them a charivari, but the doctor considered the mock serenade 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 sur- gery when that institution became the Texas Medical College. In 1863 he became a surgeon in the Confederate Army and was also on the staff of the Galveston General Hospital. He died on June 9, 1881. John F. Y. Paine. Tran. Amer. Med. Assoc, Phila.. 1882, vol. xxxiii. Phys. and Siirgs. of the United States, by W. B. .•tkinson, 1878. Dowler, Bennel (1797-1879). Bennet Dowler, early American physiologist, was born in Elizabeth, Ohio County, Virginia, April 16, 1797, the son of Edward Dowler and Eleanor Riggs. He was educated in Virginia, Pennsylvania, and at the University of Mary- land, where he graduated M. D. in 1827. He settled first in Clarksburg, Virginia (now West Virginia), and held the position of post- master (1832-1836) ; in 1836 he moved to New Orleans. In March, 1845, he began a scries of physio- logical experiments on the alligator, demon- strating after decapitation and division of the cord, the power of the segments to recognize and guard against irritants applied to the cor- responding sections of the body. He made numerous experiments on human bodies im- mediately after death, regarding contractility of muscular tissue and capillary and chylous circulation. He attributed post-mortem calori- fication to the absence of the refrigeration of respiration, stating his views in a series of essays in 1843-4. He was a voluminous writer and produced about 1,100 pages on medical subjects, chiefly physiological; his writings in manuscripts make thirty folio volumes. He early defended the thesis of the vitality of the blood, and opposed the idea of specializing functions of the root of the spinal nerves. Sir Charles Bell's discovery. The June, 1859, American Medical Gazette reprinted an article by Dowler on cases of extreme longevity, and he was the author of "Tableau of the Yellow Fever of 1853." He was co-editor of the New Orleans Medi- cal and Surgical Journal, 1854-1861, and of the New Orleans Medical Record in 1866. He died in New Orleans in 1879. Phys. and Surgs. of the United States. W. B. Atkinson. 1.S78. Amer. Med. Gaz., New York-, 1859, vol. x, 534-3.^7. Appleton's Cyclop. Amer. Biog., 1887. Downer, Eliphalet (1744-1806). Eliphalet Downer, widely known as the "Fighting Surgeon," was the son of Joseph and Mary Sawj'er Downer, of Norwich, Con- necticut, and a descendant of Robert Downer, who settled in Newbury, Massachusetts, about the year 1650. Eliphalet was a native of Rox- bury, Massachusetts, but at the time of the Revolution owned a house on Washington Street, Brookline (still standing), near the fa- mous Punch Bowl Tavern. Drake (History of Roxbuiy, p. 348) speaks of Downer as a "?killful surgeon, but a hard, rough man." LTp- on the news of the Lexington fight Dr. Down- er shouldered a musket and set out for the scene of action. While harassing the rear of