MC DOWELL 741 MACGILL College, as he called it, owing to the fact that the late Charles A. Pope (q. v.) was dean, that he was sure to say something rich in cHmax, ridicule and comparison. Dr. W. B. Outten said : "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. Montrose A. Pallen (q. v.), who at that time attended the St. Louis Med- ical College, went to hear one of his valedic- tories. McDowell, tall and with bushy gray hair brushed back on his forehead, slowly sauntered down' the aisle of the amphitheatre with a violin and bow in his hand. Seeing so many students sitting sideways, he command- ingly said in his penetrating, high-pitched voice: "Gentlemen, I pray you, gentlemen, sit straight and face the music." After scraping off a few tunes he very 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 delightful moments together, and doubtless some sad and perplexing ones, and now the saddest of all sad words are to be uttered, namely, 'Fare- well.' 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. We have patiently plodded in the crucible of chemicals. Yes, gentlemen, 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, walk- ing not on two legs, but on three, as Sphinx has it, and as he wanders here and there upon the thoroughfares 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. Mc- Dowell?' 'Why, Dr. McDowell, the surgeon.' He will tell him, gentlemen, that Dr. Mc- Dowell lies buried out at Bellefontaine. Slowly and painfully he will wend his way thither; there he will find amidst rank weeds and seed- ing grass a simple marble slab inscribed, 'J. N. McDowell, Surgeon.' As he stands there con- templating 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, gentle- men, when it gets to Pope's College, it will expectorate." McDowell loved to make speeches and the boys on the street would shout to hiin to give therft a talk. Nothing loath, he would mount the steps of the courthouse and soon gather a crowd. He was a remarkable teacher. His influence was profound ; no student ever sat before him and listened to his lectures who remained un- instructed. The students from his college were better and more enthusiastically instructed in anatomy than almost any college in the land. Anatomy here became almost a mania. His death came on October 3, 1868. Three sons survived him, and two, Drake and John, became physicians. Dr. W. B. Outten in the Med. Fortnightly, Mar. 25, 1908. Daniel Drake and His Followers, O. Juettner, 1909. Portrait. Information from Mr. W. L. Atwood. McDowell, Waiiam Adair (1795-1853) William Adair McDowell, early advocate of the curability of tuberculosis, was born in Mer- cer County, Virginia, March 21, 1795, son of Samuel McDowell and Anna Irvine. He was a student at Washington (now Washington and Lee) University 1814-1815. In 1816 he entered the University of Pennsylvania, taking an M. D. in 1818, with a thesis on "Suspended Animation," and practising medicine with his uncle Ephraim (q. v.). He practised at New- castle, Virginia ; Danville, Kentucky ; Evans- ville, Indiana; and at Louisville, Kentucky. His work, "A Demonstration of the Cura- bility of Pulmonary Consumption . . .," 269 pages, Louisville, 1843, was reviewed by L. P. Yandell (q. v.), answered by McDowell in a treatise of three pages (1844) ; Yandell made a rejoinder, to which McDowell replied in a pamphlet (1844). In the war of 1812 he served as a private; in his maturer years he entered the United States Marine Hospital Service. In 1819 he married Maria Hawkins, daughter of Matthew Harvey. He died at Louisville, December 10, 1853. Information from Dr. Ewing Jordan. MacgiU, William D. (1802-1833) William D. Macgill was born in Maryland in 1802; graduated in medicine at the Uni- versity of Maryland in 1823, and moved to Hagerstown, Maryland, where he practised all his life. He was the first American surgeon
