McDowell
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MacGOWAN
comparison. I remember to have once
heard him say at a commencement in his
college: "That by the grace of God and
the permission of the Pope, I expect to
lecture here for the next twenty years to
come."
The late Dr. I\lontroso A. Fallen, who at that time attended the St. Louis Medi- cal College, went to hear one of these valedictories.
^McDowell slowly sauntered down the aisle of the amphitheatre with a violin and bow in his hand. Seeing so many students sitting side-ways he command- ingly said: "Gentlemen, I pray you, gentlemen, sit straight and face the mus- ic." After scraping off a few tunes he verj- gravely laid down his violin and bow and said: "Gentlemen, we have now been together for five long months and we have passed many pleasant and de- lightful moments together, and doubtless some sad and perplexing ones, and now the saddest of all sad words are to be uttered, namely, Tarewell.' We have floated in an atmosphere of physiology, we have waded knee-deep, nay, neck-deep into a sea of theory and practice, we have wandered into the tortuous maze and confusing labyrinth of anatomy; we have wearily culled amidst pungent odors and savored the queer elements of materia medica. W'e have patiently plodded in the crucible of chemicals. Yes, gentle- men, filled with that weariness at times which could have made us sleep sweetly, or snore profoundly upon a bed of flint, and now% gentlemen, farewell. Here we have made the furrow and sowed the seeds. In after years one of your number will come back to the City of St. Louis, with the snow of many winters upon his hair, walking not on two legs, but on three, as Sphinx has it, and as he wanders here and there upon the throughfares of this great city, suddenly, gentlemen, it will occur to him to ask about Dr. McDowell. Then he will hail and ask one of the eager passersby: 'Where is Dr. McDowell,' he will say: 'What Dr. McDowell.' 'Why, Dr. McDowell, the surgeon.' He will tell
him, gentlemen, that Dr. McDowell lies
hurried out at Bellefontaine. Slowly
and painfully he will wend his way thith-
er: there he will find amidst rank weeds
and seeding grass a simple marble slab
inscribed, 'J. N. McDowell, Surgeon.'
As he stands there contemplating the rare
virtues and eccentricities of this old man,
suddenly, gentlemen, the spirit of Dr.
McDowell will arise upon ethereal wings
and bless him. Yes, thrice bless him.
Then it will take a swoop, and when it
passes this building, it will drop a parting
tear, but, gentlemen, when it gets to
Pope's College, it will expectorate."
He was a remarkable teacher. His in- fluence was profound, no student ever sat before him and listened to his lectures who remained uninstructed. The stu- dents from his college were better and more enthusiastically instructed in anat- omy than almost any college in the land. Anatomy here became almost a mania. Any college possessing such men teaching anatomy like McDowell, Hodgen, Stev- ens, and his son John McDowell, certainly was supplied with anatomical teaching material remarkable and effective. His death came on October 3, 1868. Three sons survived him, and two, Drake and John, became well known physicians.
Abridged from a paper by Dr. W. B. Outten in the Med. Fortnightly, Mar. 25, 1908.
MacGowan, Daniel Jerome (1815-1893). The parents of this medical missionary emigrated from Ulster to North America shortly after the Revolution and their son, Daniel Jerome, for fifty years did good work in China. In the course of his missionary labors be found time to write on the character, institutions, customs and history of the Chinese and of Siberia. These writings attracted the attention of the British Foreign Office and they gave him a responsible post at Wenchow to enlarge the store of historical and scien- tific knowledge which he had amassed. An expedition to North China when he was seventy-nine proved too great a la- bor and he died on July 31, 1893. Med. Rec, N. Y., 1S93, vol. xliv.
