Robert Cowie (1842–1874) was a British physician and author.

Life

He was born in 1842 at

Lerwick Lerwick (; non, Leirvik; nrn, Larvik) is the main town and port of the Shetland archipelago, Scotland. Shetland's only burgh, Lerwick had a population of about 7,000 residents in 2010. Centred off the north coast of the Scottish mainland ...

, the capital of the Shetland Islands, where both his father and uncle were well-known medical practitioners. He was educated partly at

Aberdeen Aberdeen (; sco, Aiberdeen ; gd, Obar Dheathain ; la, Aberdonia) is a city in North East Scotland, and is the third most populous city in the country. Aberdeen is one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas (as Aberdeen City), and ...

, where he took the degree of M.A., and at Edinburgh, where he was a student of the anesthesia pioneer

James Young Simpson Sir James Young Simpson, 1st Baronet, (7 June 1811 – 6 May 1870) was a Scottish obstetrician and a significant figure in the history of medicine. He was the first physician to demonstrate the anaesthetic properties of chloroform on humans ...

. On the death of his father he took up his medical practice, and was held in high esteem, both for his professional and general character. He died suddenly of peritonitis in 1874, in his thirty-third year."Doctor Robert Isaac COWIE"
''North Isles Family History'' Cowie was an enthusiastic lover of his native islands, one proof of which was his selection of certain physical peculiarities of the Shetland people as the subject of his thesis when applying for the degree of M.D. At a later period he contributed to the International Congress at Paris an article on health and longevity, bringing out a prolongation of life beyond the average among the Shetlanders, which excited considerable notice.

Works

The interest in Cowie's thesis papers led him to prepare them for publication with much material added in the following volume. *

References

;Attribution 19th-century Scottish medical doctors People from Lerwick 1842 births 1874 deaths Deaths from peritonitis {{UK-med-bio-stub