Sir William Bowman, 1st Baronet

Sir William Bowman, Bt
Sir William Bowman, 1st Baronet
Born	20 July 1816 Nantwich, Cheshire, England
Died	29 March 1892(1892-03-29) (aged 75) Holmbury St Mary, Surrey
Nationality	English
Fields	Surgeon Histologist Anatomist
Known for	Microscopes
Notable awards	Royal Medal (1842)

Sir William Bowman, 1st Baronet (20 July 1816 – 29 March 1892) was an English surgeon, histologist and anatomist. He is best known for his research using microscopes to study various human organs, though during his lifetime he pursued a successful career as an ophthalmologist.

Born in Nantwich, Cheshire, England, third son of a banker & amateur botanist/geologist, Bowman attended Hazelwood School near Birmingham from 1826. A childhood accident involving gunpowder is supposed to have interested him in medicine, and he was apprenticed to surgeon Joseph Hodgson at Birmingham General Hospital in 1832. He left Birmingham in 1837 to further his training as a surgeon and attended King's College London, where he served as a prosector under Robert Bentley Todd, a Professor of physiology.

His earliest notable work was on the structure of striated muscle, for which he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1841. At the young age of 25, he identified what then became known as the Bowman's capsule, a key component of the nephron. He presented his findings in 1842 in his paper "On the Structure and Use of the Malpighian Bodies of the Kidney" 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, 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: