Sir William Bowman, 1st Baronet (20 July 1816 – 29 March 1892) was an English surgeon,

histologist Histology, also known as microscopic anatomy or microanatomy, is the branch of biology which studies the microscopic anatomy of biological tissues. Histology is the microscopic counterpart to gross anatomy, which looks at larger structures vis ...

and

anatomist Anatomy () is the branch of biology concerned with the study of the structure of organisms and their parts. Anatomy is a branch of natural science that deals with the structural organization of living things. It is an old science, having its ...

. He is best known for his research using

microscope A microscope () is a laboratory instrument used to examine objects that are too small to be seen by the naked eye. Microscopy is the science of investigating small objects and structures using a microscope. Microscopic means being invisibl ...

s to study various human organs, though during his lifetime he pursued a successful career as an

ophthalmologist Ophthalmology ( ) is a surgery, surgical subspecialty within medicine that deals with the diagnosis and treatment of eye disorders. An ophthalmologist is a physician who undergoes subspecialty training in medical and surgical eye care. Followin ...

Life

Born in

Nantwich Nantwich ( ) is a market town and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East in Cheshire, England. It has among the highest concentrations of listed buildings in England, with notably good examples of Tudor and Georgian architecture. ...

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a ceremonial and historic county in North West England, bordered by Wales to the west, Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east, and Staffordshire and Shropshire to the south. Cheshire's county t ...

, third son of a banker and amateur botanist/geologist, Bowman attended

Hazelwood School Hazelwood School is a private preparatory school located in Limpsfield, Surrey. The school was established in 1890 as a boarding school for boys aged 8–13 by Ruth and Edward Baily. Baily bought the land from the Titsey Place estate a ...

near

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...

from 1826.Hale-White, W. (1935) "Sir William Bowman", pp. 177–188; in ''Great Doctors of the Nineteenth Century'', Edward Arnold & Co A childhood accident involving gunpowder is supposed to have interested him in medicine, and he was apprenticed to surgeon

Joseph Hodgson Joseph Hodgson (1788–1869) was a British physician and a well-known Religious Society of Friends, Quaker. He was born in Penrith, Cumbria, Penrith, Cumberland, the son of a Birmingham merchant and educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham, ...

Birmingham General Hospital Birmingham General Hospital was a teaching hospital in Birmingham, England, founded in 1779 and closed in the mid-1990s. History Summer Lane In 1765, a committee for a proposed hospital, formed by John Ash and supported by Sir Lister ...

in 1832. He left Birmingham in 1837 to further his training as a surgeon and attended

King's College London King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public research university located in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of King George IV and the Duke of Wellington. In 1836, King's ...

, where he served as a

prosector A prosector is a person with the special task of preparing a dissection for demonstration, usually in medical schools or hospitals. Many important anatomists began their careers as prosectors working for lecturers and demonstrators in anatomy and p ...

under

Robert Bentley Todd Robert Bentley Todd (9 April 1809 – 30 January 1860) was an Irish-born physician who is best known for describing the condition postictal paralysis in his Lumleian Lectures in 1849 now known as Todd's palsy. Early life The son of physicia ...

, a Professor of

physiology Physiology (; ) is the scientific study of functions and mechanisms in a living system. As a sub-discipline of biology, physiology focuses on how organisms, organ systems, individual organs, cells, and biomolecules carry out the chemical ...

. His earliest notable work was on the structure of striated

muscle Skeletal muscles (commonly referred to as muscles) are organs of the vertebrate muscular system and typically are attached by tendons to bones of a skeleton. The muscle cells of skeletal muscles are much longer than in the other types of muscl ...

, for which he was elected a Fellow of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

in 1841. At the young age of 25, he identified what then became known as the

Bowman's capsule Bowman's capsule (or the Bowman capsule, capsula glomeruli, or glomerular capsule) is a cup-like sac at the beginning of the tubular component of a nephron in the mammalian kidney that performs the first step in the filtration of blood to form ur ...

, a key component of the

nephron The nephron is the minute or microscopic structural and functional unit of the kidney. It is composed of a renal corpuscle and a renal tubule. The renal corpuscle consists of a tuft of capillaries called a glomerulus and a cup-shaped structure ca ...

. He presented his findings in 1842 in his paper "''On the Structure and Use of the Malpighian Bodies of the

Kidney The kidneys are two reddish-brown bean-shaped organs found in vertebrates. They are located on the left and right in the retroperitoneal space, and in adult humans are about in length. They receive blood from the paired renal arteries; blood ...

''" to the Royal Society and was awarded the Royal Medal. His collaboration with Todd led to the publication of the five-volume "''Physiological Anatomy and Physiology of Man''" (1843–1856) and "''Cyclopaedia of Anatomy and Physiology''" (1852), which detailed their research on microscopy and

histology Histology, also known as microscopic anatomy or microanatomy, is the branch of biology which studies the microscopic anatomy of biological tissues. Histology is the microscopic counterpart to gross anatomy, which looks at larger structures vis ...

, relating minute anatomical observations to physiological functions. Their extensive use of the microscopes revolutionized the study of anatomy and physiology. Apart from the Bowman's capsule, other anatomical structures named after him include: *

Bowman's glands Olfactory glands, also known as Bowman's glands, are a type of nasal gland situated in the olfactory mucosa, beneath the olfactory epithelium, in the lamina propria, a connective tissue also containing fibroblasts, blood vessels and bundles of fi ...

— in the

olfactory mucosa The olfactory mucosa is located in the upper region of the nasal cavity and is made up of the olfactory epithelium and the underlying lamina propria, connective tissue containing fibroblasts, blood vessels, Bowman's glands and bundles of fine ax ...

Bowman's membrane The Bowman layer (Bowman's membrane, anterior limiting lamina, anterior elastic lamina) is a smooth, acellular, nonregenerating layer, located between the superficial epithelium and the stroma in the cornea of the eye. It is composed of strong, ...

— the ''anterior limiting membrane'' in the

cornea The cornea is the transparent front part of the eye that covers the iris, pupil, and anterior chamber. Along with the anterior chamber and lens, the cornea refracts light, accounting for approximately two-thirds of the eye's total optical power ...

After completing his surgical training in 1844, Bowman practised as an

at the Royal London Ophthalmic Hospital (later known as

Moorfields Eye Hospital Moorfields Eye Hospital is a specialist NHS eye hospital in Finsbury in the London Borough of Islington in London, England run by Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. Together with the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, which is adjacent ...

). He was an early user of the

ophthalmoscope Ophthalmoscopy, also called funduscopy, is a test that allows a health professional to see inside the fundus of the eye and other structures using an ophthalmoscope (or funduscope). It is done as part of an eye examination and may be done as part ...

invented by

Hermann von Helmholtz Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz (31 August 1821 – 8 September 1894) was a German physicist and physician who made significant contributions in several scientific fields, particularly hydrodynamic stability. The Helmholtz Association, ...

in 1851. Between 1848 and 1855, he also taught at King's College. In 1880, he founded the 'Ophthalmological Society', which later became the

Royal College of Ophthalmologists The Royal College of Ophthalmologists, founded in 1988, is an independent professional body and one of the Medical Royal Colleges. They set the standards and examinations for medical doctors aiming to become ophthalmologists, and provide surgical ...

. In 1870 he commissioned

Arts and Crafts A handicraft, sometimes more precisely expressed as artisanal handicraft or handmade, is any of a wide variety of types of work where useful and decorative objects are made completely by one’s hand or by using only simple, non-automated re ...

architect

Philip Webb Philip Speakman Webb (12 January 1831 – 17 April 1915) was a British architect and designer sometimes called the Father of Arts and Crafts Architecture. His use of vernacular architecture demonstrated his commitment to "the art of common ...

to rebuild

Joldwynds Joldwynds is a modernist style house in Holmbury St Mary, Surrey, England, designed by architect Oliver Hill for Wilfred Greene, 1st Baron Greene. Completed in 1932,Powers (2005), pp. 138–139. it is a Grade II listed building. It replaced an ...

, Bowman's house in

Holmbury St Mary Holmbury St Mary is a village in Surrey, England centered on shallow upper slopes of the Greensand Ridge. Its developed area is a clustered town southwest of Dorking and southeast of Guildford. Most of the village is in the borough of Guildfor ...

, Surrey. It was completed in 1874. In 1884,

Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until Death and state funeral of Queen Victoria, her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 21 ...

created him as a

baronet A baronet ( or ; abbreviated Bart or Bt) or the female equivalent, a baronetess (, , or ; abbreviation Btss), is the holder of a baronetcy, a hereditary title awarded by the British Crown. The title of baronet is mentioned as early as the 14th ...

. He died at Joldwynds on 29 March 1892, and is buried in the neighbouring churchyard of Holmbury St. Mary. A memorial to him lies within

St James's Church, Piccadilly St James's Church, Piccadilly, also known as St James's Church, Westminster, and St James-in-the-Fields, is an Anglican church on Piccadilly in the centre of London, United Kingdom. The church was designed and built by Sir Christopher Wren. T ...

Family

On 28 Dec. 1842, he married Harriet, fifth daughter of Thomas Paget of Leicester, by whom he had seven children. She died at Joldwynds on 25 October 1900. He was succeeded in the title by his eldest son, Sir Paget Bowman.

Publications by Sir William Bowman

* , full download available at Google Book Search. * , full download available at Google Book Search.

References

;Attribution

Sources

* * * * * * * * * * *

External links

* Heath, Parker
Sir William Bowman
''Bull Med Libr Assoc.'' 1936 May; 24(4): 205–208. Scanned pages of the original article, at PubMed Central. * Thomas, K.B
The manuscripts of Sir William Bowman
''Med Hist.'' 1966 July; 10(3): 245–256. PDF article at PubMed Central. {{DEFAULTSORT:Bowman, William 1816 births 1892 deaths People from Nantwich English anatomists British ophthalmologists 19th-century English medical doctors Alumni of King's College London Academics of King's College London Baronets in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom Fellows of the Royal Society Fellows of the Royal College of Surgeons Royal Medal winners Histologists