ABSTRACT
McDowell was the great-grandson of a Northern Irish Protestant who emigrated to the United States. His grandfather was killed in an Indian ambush; his father was a colonel in the Revolutionary War. The cynical reception of McDowell's first report is shown by an article in the London Medical and Chirurgical Review by Dr James Johnson, who wrote ‘three cases of ovarian extirpation occurred, it would seem, some years ago in the practice of Dr McDowell of Kentucky, which were transmitted to the late John Bell and fell into the hands of Mr Lizars. Ephraim McDowell was physically strong, active, eschewed tobacco in any form, but occasionally took a nip of whisky or cherry bounce; he preferred the latter, which was whisky with macerated cherries, sugar and spices. McDowell was buried in the family burial ground some five miles from Danville, but in 1879 his remains were removed to what is now called McDowell Park, once the old Danville cemetery.
