American Medical Biographies/Potter, Samuel Otway Lewis
Potter, Samuel Otway Lewis (1846–1914)
S. O. L. Potter, of San Francisco, produced quiz-compends of anatomy and materia medica that were of great use to a generation of medical students. The son of the Rev. Samuel George and Elizabeth Magill Potter, he was born in Cushendum, County Antrim, Ireland, September 18, 1846. He had a private education in England, beginning the study of medicine at the age of fourteen, and coming to America at seventeen to serve in the United States Army, first in the volunteers, and later, after the Civil War, in the regular army. From 1872 to 1882 he was in the engineer department of the army. In 1878 he graduated from the Homeopathic Medical College of Missouri, St. Louis; he got an A. M. from the University of Chicago two years later, and in 1882 graduated in medicine from the Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia. After a year as assistant surgeon, U. S. Army, settling in San Francisco, Dr. Potter became professor of the practice of medicine in Cooper Medical College, filling the chair from 1886 to 1893. From 1898 to 1902 he was major and brigade surgeon, U. S. V., with service in the Philippines. At one time he was president of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, San Francisco. In the year 1891 he became a member of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
Some of his writings are: The Quiz Compends, already referred to, the seventh edition being published in 1905; "Analytical and Topical Index to Reports of Chief of Engineers, 1866 to 1879," 1880; "Index of Comparative Therapeutics," 1879; "Handbook of Materia Medica, Pharmacy and Therapeutics," 10th ed., 1905; "Speech and Its Defects," 1882.
He died in St. Luke's Hospital, San Francisco, April 21, 1914.