Physician and surgical pioneer. Born Augusta County (now Rockbridge Co., Va.) in 1771. His family moved to Danville, Kentucky in 1784. He studied medicine with Alexander Humphreys in Staunton, Virginia, and traveled to Scotland in 1793 where he attended a series of lectures at the University of Edinburg School of Medicine. He returned to Danville in 1795 and established a successful medical practice where among those treated by McDowell was James Knox Polk. On December 25, 1809, he performed the world's first ovariotomy when he removed a cystic ovarian tumor weighing more than twenty pounds from Jane Todd Crawford. He performed the same proceedure eleven other times with the loss of only one patient. A founder of Centre College in Danville and a member of the board of trustees of that institution from 1819-1829. On December 29, 1802 Dr. McDowell married Sarah Hart Shelby a daughter of Isaac Shelby, the first governor of Kentucky. McDowell died in 1830 and is buried in McDowell Park next to the Old First Presbyterian Church in Danville. A statue of McDowell along with one of Henry Clay represent Kentucky in the National Statuary Hall in the U.S. capitol.
Physician and surgical pioneer. Born Augusta County (now Rockbridge Co., Va.) in 1771. His family moved to Danville, Kentucky in 1784. He studied medicine with Alexander Humphreys in Staunton, Virginia, and traveled to Scotland in 1793 where he attended a series of lectures at the University of Edinburg School of Medicine. He returned to Danville in 1795 and established a successful medical practice where among those treated by McDowell was James Knox Polk. On December 25, 1809, he performed the world's first ovariotomy when he removed a cystic ovarian tumor weighing more than twenty pounds from Jane Todd Crawford. He performed the same proceedure eleven other times with the loss of only one patient. A founder of Centre College in Danville and a member of the board of trustees of that institution from 1819-1829. On December 29, 1802 Dr. McDowell married Sarah Hart Shelby a daughter of Isaac Shelby, the first governor of Kentucky. McDowell died in 1830 and is buried in McDowell Park next to the Old First Presbyterian Church in Danville. A statue of McDowell along with one of Henry Clay represent Kentucky in the National Statuary Hall in the U.S. capitol.
Bio by: Steve Dunn
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