Alameda County
Biographies
W. L. BROWN, M.D.
A venerable and honored resident of Oakland, and for many years the leading physician and surgeon of the Pacific coast, W. L. Brown, M.D., is a typical representative of the brave pioneer settlers of California. For more than four decades he was actively employed as a medical practitioner, thirty years of the time being located in San Francisco. His long and varied experience, his knowledge and skill, his untiring devotion to his patients, his great success in diagnosing and treating diseases of a complicated nature, and his readiness to freely impart the results of his patient study, make him, in very truth, the Nestor of the medical profession. Although he has already enjoyed more than four score and ten years of life, he bears the burden of time very lightly, being hale and hearty as a man a quarter of a century younger, and has a bright promise of rounding out a full century of earthly life. From early manhood a close student of everything pertaining to his profession, and the possessor of a most retentive memory, Dr. Brown has a wonderful knowledge of medicine and surgery, and can readily quote from all the leading medical works used as authority by the profession. A son of Dr. Isaac Brown, W. L. Brown was born May 5, 1810, in Strykersville, N.Y.
A native of New Jersey, Isaac Brown took up the study of medicine in early manhood, and became a physician of skill and renown. Locating in New York state, he was there engaged in the practice of his chosen profession during his long and useful life. Of his union with Ann Schilling, a native of New York state, a large family of children were born, and of these W. L. Brown, the subject of this sketch, was the seventh son.
Having laid a substantial foundation for his future education in the public schools of New York, W. L. Brown began reading medicine with his father. In 1849, having previously attended medical lectures in Cleveland and Chicago, he was graduated from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in Cleveland, an afterward engaged in the practice of his profession in that city, and later in Chicago, Ill. Dr. Brown subsequently enlisted in the United States army, and was made hospital steward at Jefferson Barracks, Mo., and while there, in 1856 was ordered by Gen. Winfield Scott to come with General Hancock to California. Arriving at Fort Presidio, he was very soon promoted, and sent first to Fort Yuma, and then to Fort Mojave, where he served under General Armsted until honorably discharged from the service, at the expiration of his term of enlistment.
Removing then to Los Angeles, Dr. Brown was stricken with typhoid fever, and taken to the Sisters' Hospital, where he would have died if the attending physician had not used the doctor's own prescription in treating him. On leaving the hospital, he practiced medicine for awhile in San Francisco, and then went to Portland, Ore., where he was a practicing physician and was also an instructor in medicine for upwards of eighteen years, some of the most prominent physician and surgeons of the present day being among his pupils. In 1892 Dr. Brown returned to San Francisco, and after practicing there for a year removed to Oakland, where he has since lived retired from active duties. Although he does not practice, his counsel and advice are often sought by the best physicians in this section of the county, and he never refuses consultation.
Dr. Brown has attended lectures in Cooper Medical College, in San Francisco, Cal., in Washington (state), in Chicago, Cleveland and other cities, and in each has heard speakers of celebrity. While living in Portland, Ore., he was appointed medical examiner for that city by the Washington Life Insurance Company.
Dr. Brown married Maria Furlong, by whom he has had two children, namely: George W., of Oakland; and Charles, who died in early life.
Transcribed
6-11-16 Marilyn
R. Pankey.
ญญญญSource: History
of the State of California & Biographical Record of Coast Counties,
California by Prof. J. M. Guinn, A. M., Page 1210. The Chapman Publishing
Co., Chicago, 1904.
ฉ 2016 Marilyn R. Pankey.
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