1631-1691

English Physician, Anatomist, and Physiologist

The son of a country gentleman, Lower was born on the family estate in Tremeer, Cornwall. From 1643 to 1649 he attended Westminster School of St. Peter's College, London, the most celebrated British preparatory school of the era. There he won the praise of the headmaster, Richard Busby, who sent him to Christ Church College, Oxford University, in 1649. Lower received his B.A. in 1653, his M.A. in 1655, and both his B.Med. and D.Med. in 1665, all from Oxford.

At Oxford he studied chemistry under Peter Stahl and became the protégé and later the assistant of Thomas Willis (1621-1675), who was then renowned as the greatest medical scientist in England. Lower was part of an informal group of researchers known as the "Oxford physiologists." Among his scientific collaborators at Oxford, besides Willis, were Ralph Bathurst (1620-1704), Robert Boyle (1627-1691), Robert...