From the book God's generals put together by Robert Liardon p. 23

Regarding John Alexander Dowie...

"While in Edinburgh, Dowie became the "honorary chaplain" of the Edinburgh Infirmary. It was there that he had the unique opportunity to sit under the famous surgeons of his day, comparing their diagnoses with the Word of God. But as patients lay helplessly under chloroform, Dowie heard these surgeons lecture on their medical inadequacies. It wa then that he realized these surgeons could not heal, and that they could only resort to removing the diseased organs, hoping for a cure. He wathced many surgeries end with deadly results. As he heard from the lips of these medical professors the confession that they were only guessing in the dark, and witnessed their experiments, Dowie developed a strong antipathy to surgery and medicine.....

Many today still accuse Dowie of condemning the medical field. But I want to point out htat in his time, the medical practice was very primative. And he was one of the privileged few who saw behind the scenes. He witnessed how the physicians of his day offered great hope to patients, but confessed in private that they knew nothing. He saw poor victims paying untold amounts of money in the hope for a cure, while receiving the worst of results. He despised falsehood, so, he searched for an answer. And when he began to publicly come against their deceiving methods, his accusations proved true."