American Medical Biographies/Brown, Frederic Tilden
Brown, Frederic Tilden (1853–1910)
F. Tilden Brown was a general surgeon and voluminous writer on surgical topics, who early became active in the genito-urinary field where through his skill as well as the invention of delicate instruments, he became one of the conspicuous landmarks in his specialty.
He was born in New York October 7, 1853, the son of David Tilden Brown (q.v) and Cornelia Wells Clapp. He graduated at Harvard University in 1877 and received his M. D. at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, in 1880. In that year he was house surgeon at Mt. Sinai Hospital, New York. He was professor of genito-urinary diseases at the University and Bellevue Hospital Medical College, and attending surgeon to Bellevue Hospital and consulting surgeon to the Presbyterian, Nassau and Mineola Hospitals.
Brown's lamp-bearing cystoscope secured a closer approximation of lamp and lens and hence better visual properties than any earlier instrument (see Annals of Surgery, 1902, vol. xxxv, 642–643).
Numerous papers are listed in the General Index to the Annals of Surgery from 1885– 1889. He wrote: "The Metro-urethrotome" (N. Y. 1897); "A Case of Cystitis. Pyelonephritis due to Colon-bacillus Infection" (N. Y. 1895).
Dr. William Nye Swift wrote of Dr. Brown: "He was a member of the Natural History and Fine Arts Societies, captain of the Rifle Club and rowed in several victorious club crews. . . . He was a tremendous worker and overwork had undoubtedly much to do with breaking down his health. . . . Perhaps the price he paid for his work was not too high—he accomplished so much." (Report vii of the Harvard Class of 1877.)
Dr. Brown married Mary Crosby Renwick. Their two children were Frederic Rhinelander Brown and Margaret Renwick Strieker.
He died suddenly at Bethel, Maine, May 7, 1910.