Ephraim McDowell

Surgeon, born in Rockbridge Co, Virginia, USA. He attended medical lectures at the University of Edinburgh (1793–4) before returning to Danville, KY (1795) where he became known as the best surgeon W of Philadelphia. Often regarded as the ‘father of abdominal surgery’, he never got a medical degree. At his office in 1809, he successfully removed a 20-pound tumorous ovary without incurring peritoneal infection. His most famous patient was James K Polk, in whose pre-presidential abdomen he removed bladder stones and stitched up a hernia. He gave the ground for the Danville Episcopal Church, gave free medical service to those who could not pay, and was a founder and trustee of Centre College, Danville, KY.

Ephraim McDowell
(NSHC statue)

Ephraim McDowell (November 11, 1771 – June 25, 1830) was an American physician.

Ephraim McDowell was born in Rockbridge County, Virginia. After the family moved to Kentucky the senior McDowell participated in the drafting of the Kentucky Constitution. The young McDowell, interested in medicine, studied at the Seminary of Worley and James and attended lectures in medicine at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, from 1793 to 1794.

McDowell practiced surgery and was a pioneer in abdominal surgergy, performing the first ovariotomy in the United States in 1809. McDowell was a member of the Philadelphia Medical Society in 1817 and a founder of Centre College in Danville, Kentucky, in 1819.

In June 1830 McDowell was stricken with an acute attack of violent pain, nausea, and fever. In 1929, the state of Kentucky donated a bronze statue of McDowell to the U.S. Capitol's National Statuary Hall Collection. Dr. McDowell was the great great grandfather of General John Campbell Greenway, whose statue was placed in the National Statuary Hall Collection by the state of Arizona in 1930.