Nathan Bozeman, Famous Physician

Nathan Bozeman
M.D.L.L.D.
March 26, 1825 - Dec 16, 1905

Dr. Nathan Bozeman and his first wife, Mary Frances Lamar (1825-1861), are buried in the Lakeside Terrace section of Rose Hill Cemetery. Neither died in Georgia, though. Mary Frances Lamar Bozeman died in New Orleans, and Dr. Nathan Bozeman died in New York.

Here is a funeral notice for Dr. Bozeman:

The Macon Daily Telegraph, Georgia
19 December 1905

FAMOUS PHYSICIAN BURIED HERE TODAY

FUNERAL SERVICES OF DR. NATHAN BOZEMAN TAKE PLACE THIS MORNING.

On account of failure to make connection in Atlanta, the body of Dr. Nathan Bozeman, late of New York, did not arrive in this city until an early hour this morning.

The funeral services will take place this morning at 11 o'clock at the residence of Mrs. William Lee Ellis, 298 College street, Rev. William Bohler Walker officiating. The pall bearers will be the following members of the medical profession in this city: Drs. H. J. Williams, H. McHatton, W. J. Little, Thomas Hall, K. P. Moore and W. R. Winchester.

The interment will be in Rose Hill cemetery.

Dr. Bozeman was one of the famous physicians in America. He was born in Butler county, Alabama, March 26, 1825. He came of a long line of Scotch and Dutch ancestry extending far back into the colonial days of Maryland and the Carolinas. Both grandfathers were farmers and served with the colonists in the revolutionary war. And not only in that war, but in the pioneer exploration of the great Northwest, they were distinguished.

Dr. Bozeman's mother was Harriette Knott.

In January 1846 he entered the office of Dr. James A. Kelly, a county practitioner of Coosa county, Ala. In March, 1847, he entered the office of Dr. F. D. Gross, the professor of surgery in the University of Louisville, Ky. Having thus received the benefit of leading practitioners and colleges of his time in their course of instruction, he was able in March, 1848, to obtain his degree of Doctor if Medicine upon the delivery of a thesis upon the subject of Carcinoma. In the years subsequent he showed a genius for original investigation, and it is claimed for him that in May, 1849, he administered chloroform to Prof. Henry Miller's first case of ovariotomy, believed to be the first operation of the kind in the United States in which this anaesthetic agent had been employed. This claim is made in a communication to the Telegraph by his son, Dr. N. G. Bozeman, of New York city. It is also claimed for him that he was the inventor of the button suture. He was associated in the practice with that eminent surgeon the late Dr. Marion Sims, and subsequently he went to Europe and before the faculties of the great colleges and the surgeons of Paris, Berlin, and Vienna, he demonstrated his expertness in female surgery. He was during his life connected with some of the most important American hospitals devoted to the treatment of the diseases of women. It was a remarkable evidence of his devotion to his profession that late in life he acquired a practical knowledge of both the German and the French languages.

In October, 1852, he married Fannie M., daughter of the late Benjamin G. Lamar, of Georgia, by whom he had four children. In February, 1867, he married Mrs. Aurelia L. Ralston, also since deceased, the daughter of the late Judge Henry G. Lamar, of this state. A son and a grandson survive him the former, Dr. Nathan G. Bozeman, a practicing physician in New York city, the latter, Joseph D. Rylander at present residing in Dadeville, Ala.

Bozeman Family Plot
Dr. Nathan Bozeman is memorialized by the tall obelisk.