American Medical Biographies/Cowling, Richard Oswald
Cowling, Richard Oswald (1839–1881)
A native of Georgetown, South Carolina, of English descent, Richard Oswald Cowling was born on April 8, 1839, and entered Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut, in 1858 and graduated there three years later, being made adjunct to the professor of mathematics even in his sophomore year.
On coming home from an European trip in 1862, his inclination was for civil engineering, in which line he did some very good work; but he gave that up and began to study law. While convalescing from typhoid fever, he chanced to read Watson's "Practice of Physic," which so impressed him that he decided to take up medicine, therefore in 1864 he entered the University of Louisville with Dr. George Bayless, professor of surgery, as his preceptor. After attending one course of lectures there, he graduated at the Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, in 1867. In the autumn of 1868 he was made demonstrator of anatomy in the University of Louisville, and a few years later, adjunct to the chair of surgery. He there discharged his duties so well that the next session he was elected to the chair of surgical pathology and operative surgery. In 1879 he was made professor of the science and art of surgery, and this position he held until his death.
He was the founder of the Louisville Medical News, a weekly journal, the first number of which appeared on New Year's day, 1876. This journal was soon in the front rank of the best medical periodicals. Dr. Cowling contributed many articles on surgery to the medical journals, but the only sustained scientific work which he published, was a little volume entitled "Aphorisms in Fractures."
There was nothing small about Dr. Cowling, he was a big man in every sense of the word, in person, mind and heart. He had a most attractive personality, a magnificent physique, and a figure that would attract attention anywhere.
As a lecturer, he was fluent, earnest, forcible. As a writer, brilliant, broad, witty and comprehensive. He was president of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Louisville, and chief surgeon of the L. C. & L. Railway.
Dr. Cowling married Mary, daughter of Col. Samuel B. Churchill, who with three daughters survived him when he died suddenly at Louisville on April 2, 1881, from heart complication following acute rheumatism.