American Medical Biographies/Browne, John Mills
Browne, John Mills (1831–1894)
This surgeon-general of the Navy was born in Hinsdale, New Hampshire, May 30, 1831, and after graduating at the Harvard Medical School in 1852 entered the navy as assistant surgeon. From 1853 to 1858 he served on the Pacific coast, and was then promoted to the rank of surgeon and assigned to the United States ship Kearsarge. He was an eye-witness of the famous battle between the Kearsarge and the Alabama off the coast of France July 17, 1864. At the close of the war Browne was put in charge of Mare Island Naval Hospital near San Francisco. In 1878 he was commissioned medical director and transferred to Washington. Browne represented the medical department of the United States Navy at the International Congresses of 1881 in London and of 1884 in Copenhagen. He was appointed surgeon-general of the Navy in 1888 and reappointed in 1892, but retired in 1893 and died in Washington December 7 of the following year.