Biographical Sketches
SETH D. BOWKER, M. D.
A skilled physician and an eminent scholar of Kansas City, is numbered among the native sons of the Empire state, being born in Pitcher, Cortland county, New York, February 10, 1830. While it is true that some men inherit greatness and “others have greatness thrust upon them,” the larger number of citizens win their prominence entirely through their own efforts, and are architects of their own fortune. Such a one is Dr. Bowker, and he has built nobly and broadly. Neither has he yet reached the zenith of his career, for a man of his progressive spirit is continually advancing, and judged by the past the future still has many honors in store for him.
The Bowker family came from Canada to the United States. The grandfather, Frank Bowker, a Canadian by birth, emigrated to New York in colonial days, and, when unable longer to withstand the British oppression the colonists attempted to secure independence, he joined the ranks of the Revolutionary heroes. His son, Comfort Bowker, the father of our subject, was born in Granville, New York, in 1805, and was by occupation a farmer and speculator. He died in 1882, at the age of 77 years. The mother of our subject bore the maiden name of Eunice Brooks, and was a daughter of Samuel Brooks, a native of New England, who was also a soldier of the Revolution. Mrs. Bowker died in 1843, at the age of 42 years. Of the family there are now 5 surviving members, namely: Simeon, who is living retired in Odebolt, Iowa; Mrs. Sarah Huntington, of McGrawville, New York; Philander, a contractor and builder at Watertown, New York; Harmon, who is living retired in Indianapolis, Indiana; and the Doctor.
Our subject was reared in Chenango county, New York, to which place his parents removed during his early boyhood. When very young he began to earn his own living, and in this way he earned the money with which to educate himself. After completing a common school course he entered Dennison University, of Granville, Ohio, in 1852, and was graduated in that institution in 1857 with the degree of Master of Arts. He then entered the work of the ministry as a preacher of the Baptist church, and to that service devoted his energies from 1857 until 1867. In the latter year he came to Kansas City and entered the Kansas City Medical College, at which he was graduated in March, 1871. Immediately afterward he began practice here, but in a short time removed to Colorado, where he prosecuted his profession for 10 years. Since 1880 he has been a permanent resident of Kansas City and an able representative of the medical fraternity.
Dr. Bowker organized the Kansas City Hospital College of Medicine. He drew around it a professorship of great ability and the college attained a high standing. Its charter was afterward changed and it is now known as the Kansas City Homeopathic Medical College. The character of the original college was non-ethical, and conferred degrees of the allopathic, the homeopathic and eclectic systems of medicine; and, although the state board of health at first refused to recognize the graduates of the school, a decree of the supreme court of Missouri compelled them to issue certificates of graduation and license to practice. Dr. Bowker has won a most enviable success in his chosen calling and makes a specialty of surgery and gynecology. He is a man of broad culture and liberal education, not only in the line of his profession but in the field of literature and science, and is a finished Latin, Greek and Hebrew scholar. As a specimen of his pungent style of public address we may quote from his discourse to the graduating class of Kansas City Hospital Medical College in March, 1883:
“If you do you work well you will be rewarded with the grateful affection of your patients, and a cheerful and liberal remuneration for your services. Perhaps it will prove true that you will have greater facilities and more frequent calls than other men to demonstrate your willingness to labor without pay; yet this is not the object for which you have chosen the medical profession. Honesty requires you to state fully at the outset that you pretend to undertake nothing but a business enterprise by which, in common with other professions, you hope to provide for yourselves and those dependent upon you. Any flourish of words, such as we often hear on occasions like this, such as we often hear on occasions like this, that would lead the people to believe that you have been endowed by Heaven with the grace of giving to them your unrequited life toil is the cheapest sort of quackery and deception. The people of this age are not to be hoodwinked into the belief that in choosing this as a calling you have thereby constituted yourself into a benevolent society. With all your skill in hiding your true motives, they will mark you as a heartless pretender. If the time ever comes when you do not enjoy the confidence and a reasonable share of the patronage of the people, you better conclude that they have discovered in you one of 2 hindrances to success; either a lack of knowledge needed in your profession, or a prostitution of your powers to base purposes. The very common remark that a well-educated and honest and active physician will often suffer starvation for lack of business, while the “ignorant pretender” may enjoy the confidence and patronage of the people, no longer bears even the semblance of truth. The people will employ the man who curses them without regard to name or outward appearance.”
“We send you forth with no shackles upon your consciences or your intellects. We bind you in no chains or iron-clad oaths with which to hinder your grasp of every possible phase of truth. We bid you in the name of God and all that is honest to be on the alert for all facts that will increase your powers over disease and render you a blessing to mankind; and we entreat you to 'quit you like men' in breaking away from every alliance to 'incorporated monopolies' which come to you in 'sheeps clothing.”
“Your enemies will traduce you and cry 'Great is Diana of the Ephesians,' and charge you with imposing upon the credulity of the 'dear people.' Not because you, forsooth, know less than they do, but because it makes all the difference in the world 'whose ox is gored.' They will tax their fiendish skill to brand you with opprobrium. They will call you quacks, irregulars. They will try to divert the attention of the people to the finely wrought distinction between similia similibus curantur and contraria contraries curantur. They will do a thirdrate practice, and, to atone for their lack of a foothold among the people, will obtain a cheap notoriety by falsely declaring that they have the prestige of a university in full blast, and in all its appointments, when not a dozen lectures have been delivered outside of the meagerly equipped medical department.”
During the war Dr. Bowker served as chaplain of the 124th Ohio volunteer infantry, under Colonel O. H. Payne, the son of Hon. H. B. Payne, afterward senator from Cleveland one year. From 1880 to 1888 Dr. Bowker was United States pension surgeon in Kansas City, during which period he examined 10,000 soldiers. For 30 years the Doctor has been a Master Mason, and he is a member of the Order of Knights and Ladies of Honor, also of the Order of the Eastern Star and of the Grand Army of the Republic.
In 1849 the Doctor was united in marriage with Miss Judelia Wood, of Norwich, New York. To them were born 10 children, but only 4 are now living, namely: Mrs. Emma Wood, of Kansas City; Mrs. Agnes M. Clark, of Denver, Colorado; Mrs. Eunice I. Gray, of Kansas City; and Mrs. Nellie M. Clark, of Sunshine, Colorado.
This page was last updated August 2, 2006.