Full text of "1785-1909. Daniel Drake and his followers; historical and biographical sketches"

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1785 — 1909

DANIEL DRAKE AND HIS
FOLLO^^^ERS

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES

OTTO JUETTNER, A. M., M. D.

Author of '■'■Modern Physio -therapy''
Editor of '■'■Songs of the University of Cincinnati''

Fellow of the American Academy of Medicine, the American Association for the Advance-
ment of Science, the Ohio Historical Society, the Association of American Medical
Editors, the American Electro-therapeutic Association, the American Physio-
therapeutic Association, the Royal Society of Medicine (England),
the Royal Microscopical Society, the Royal Anthropological In-
stitute of Great Britain and Ireland, the London Roentgen
Society, the Society of Arts (London), the German
Roentgen Society, the Societe' de Radiologic et
Eleftrologie ( Paris ) , etc. , etc. , etc.

'The world is moved by men of uneasy sou/." —hawthurki

HARVEY PUBLISHING COMPANY

CINCINNATI

FOREWORD
1131816

7^ HIS book contains the story of some of the great architects of yester-
day, who laid the foundation of and helped to build the stately
edifice of Western medicine. A few years ago I picked up Mans-
field's "Memoirs of Daniel Drake," and was completely fascinated by the
character and the life work of Drake. Posterity has done nothing for this
great man. He seems to be entirely forgotten. To hold up the mirror
of the past to the present generation was the motive which primarily sug-
gested the writing of this book. Incidentally I felt that even a modest
attempt to preserve some of the unwritten professional records of the past,
and m this way arouse additional interest in the medical history of this
country, would be a sufficiently worthy motive to justify the appearance
of a new book and apologize for any shortcomings of the latter. The
life work of Drake and the immediate and remote efifects of his labors on the
evolution of medical practice and education in this part of the country are
not unworthy of being placed beside those of the immortal Rush. The latter
was not a greater man in the East than Drake was in the West. We are
no longer in the stage of transition from primitive conditions of existence
to more settled modes of life. The time has come when the people of the
Middle West can retrospectively contemplate the records of their past, and
experience the thrill of inspiration which must be communicated to their
inner consciousness by the knowledge of a history, a tradition, a raison d'etre,
distinctly Western in character and inseparable from Western people and
Western soil. Therein lies Drake's claim to the gratitude of posterity
because he was one of the great standard bearers of civilization in this
Western country.

The present volume includes the records of those who continued the
work left by Drake. Among these followers of Drake were some whose
labors form a part of medical history, while others might be charitably
interred in the grave of oblivion. Yet their records, collectively, add an
interesting page to the history of American medicine, not without significant
lessons to the present and future. These lessons might prove a source
of solace to some, while there is hardly any one who can not discern some
meaning in and derive some instruction from the story of the eternal mutation
of things, as exemplified in the happenings of a hundred years in and near
the old town which Daniel Drake loved so much and so lovallv.

For valuable assistance in obtaining material, I am indebted to Mr. Albert
H. Morrill, of Cincinnati, a great-grandson of Daniel Drake, and to many
members of the profession, particularly Dr. Frederick P. Henry, Honorary
Librarian of the College of Physicians (Philadelphia) ; Dr. A. G. Drury, Dr.
P. S. Conner, Dr. Wm. H. Taylor, Dr. Edwin Landy, Dr. H. W. Felter, Dr.
S. R. Geiser, Dr. R. C. Stockton Reed, Dr. E. S. McKee, Dr. H. Dieckmeyer
and Dr. Thos. C. Minor, of Cincinnati. Acknowledgments are due Mr. P.
Alfred Marchand, of the Cincinnati Hospital Library, and Misses Laura
Smith and K. W. Sherwood, of the Cincinnati Public Library, for their
courtesy and never- failing readiness to help in research work; also the Hon.
M. F. Wilson for valuable aid in securing material. I regret my inability
to mention all those who are entitled to some expression of my gratitude in
return for assistance rendered and encouragement given. That some attempts
were made to impede the progress of the work, was not altogether unex-
pected. Some of the persons, things, events and situations of the recent past
have not sufficiently receded into the mist of the distant past to have entirely
lost the glow of life or to have assumed the placid garb of historical dis-
interestedness.

In the preparation of "Daniel Drake and his Followers" much assistance
was given by some of the older physicians in the way of oral information.
The gathering of the portraits involved a good deal of labor, but was made
interesting and pleasant by the uniform courtesy and willingness with which
people in all parts of the country aided the author in this arduous and time-
robbing task. Many of the portraits are rarities of the greatest historical
value. The following bibliographic references represent the sources whence
the contents of this book were largely drawn :

1 — Medical journals, especially those published since 1822 in Cincinnati,
Lexington and Louisville.

2 — The writings of Daniel Drake.

3 — The writings of Samuel D. Gross, especially his "Autobiography."

4— Cist's "Cincinnati." 1841. 1851. 1859.

5 — Ford's "Cincinnati." 1881.

6— Nelson's "Cincinnati." 1896.

7 — •"Centennial History of Cincinnati," by C. T. Greve, a work upon
which too much praise can not be bestowed. It is a veritable mine of informa-
tion. It contains a valuable chapter on "Medical Cincinnati " by Dr. A. I.
Carson.

8 — Controversial pamphlets written at various times by different indi-
viduals, especially D. Drake, A. Goldsmith, J. C. Cross, J. F. Henry, J. L.
Vattier, M. B. Wright, G. Blackman, J. A. Thacker, etc., etc

9 — The transactions of various State Societies.

10 — Annual Catalogues and Announcements of medical schools.

11 — Annual Reports of Colleges, Hospitals and other public iiistitutions.

12 — Books of medical biography, by Williams, Atkinson, Gross, Stone,
and others.

13 — Mumford's "Medicine in America."

14 — Biographical sketches written by M. B. Wright, T. C. Minor, A. G.
Drury and others. These sketches have appeared in different journals at
various times.

15 — The "Index IMedicus" and the "Index Catalogue of the Surgeon
General's Office," two monumental works which do not seem to be known
and appreciated by the profession, as they deserve to be.

16 — Writings of Edward D. Mansfield, especially his "Personal Rem-
iniscences" and "Memoirs of D. Drake."

17 — Howe's Historical Recollections of Ohio.

18 — Archives of the Ohio Historical Society.

19 — Archives of the Cincinnati Hospital Library.

20 — The Mussey Collection of Medical Books (Cincinnati Public Li-
brary).

21 — Felter's Llistory of the Cincinnati Eclectic Medical Institute.

22 — King's History of Homeopathy.

23 — Archives of the Philadelphia College of Physicians.

24 — Archives of the C)hio State Medical Society.

25 — Wilder's History of Medicine.

26 — Archives of the German Literary Club, Cincinnati.

27 — "Der Deutsche Pionier" (monthly), Cincinnati.

' 28 — Files of daily papers, published in Cincinnati, especially from 1800
to 1850.

29 — Transactions of the Alumnal Associations of the Ohio and Miami
Medical Colleges, Cincinnati,

30— Medical Directories.

Otto Juettner.

Cincinnati, Ohio.

On the Ninetieth Birthday of the

Medical College of Ohio, January 19 1909.

CHAPTER I.

DANIEL DRAKE'S CHILDHOOD.

Childhood shows the man,

As morning shows the day. — Milton.

THE story of the early advancement of medical learning and practice on
our Eastern seaboard is interwoven with the names and labors of quite
a few sturdy pioneers and men of genius. Benjamin Rush, one of the
signers of the Declaration of Independence, a leader of men, and one of the
greatest medical teachers the world has ever seen ; Elijuh H. Smith, a medical
philosopher and humanitarian of rare attainments ; David Hosack, a surgical
genius and scholarly exponent of surgical science; Jacob Bigelow, that versatile
educator and scientist; Nathan Smith, whom S. D. Gross calls the best all-
around American physician of his time, and many other men of similar caliber,
were blazing the paths of progress on behalf of medical science and of medical
men in New England and throughout the Eastern parts of our country. The
labors of these men were performed under comparatively favorable conditions.
The East, socially and educationally, had already achieved a relatively high
degree of development at that time. The opportunities for study and for the
acquisition of an academic education were plentiful and quite equal to the
European standard. Thus the early Eastern physicians, at least those who
took a leading part in the development of American medicine, were educated
men and not pioneers or self-made men in the crude sense of the term. In the
West, however, where every foot of ground was wrested from the embrace of
primitive nature and the banner of civilization was planted and reared by the
hardened hands and stout hearts of heroic pioneers amid a vast empire of bar-
barism, conditions were decidedly more crude and rugged, and the men repre-
senting the advance guard of civilization were pioneers in name and in fact.
The men who had come to the West to seek fortune and happiness on its virgin
soil, disputing the problem of the survival of the fittest with the wily and bel-
ligerent red man, did not bring with them a degree from Harvard or from the
University of Pennsylvania or from one of the great seats of learning in the
mother countries of Europe. They had nothing but the sweat of their brow
and the products of brawn and brain to depend on. It does not seem strange,
therefore, that the men who developed any particular line of human activity
in the early history of our country were fewer in number in the wild
West than they were in the more refined East. Yet, there were men of over-
towering genius among these Western pioneers. Genius seems to thrive on

crude soil quite as well, if not better, than on the culture-beds of civilization.
Genius is an elementary force of nature, and is instinctively at war with the
controlling and refining hand of convention and tradition.

In the medical history of the West one colossal figure looms up in the very
foreground. It is of such gigantic proportions that all else appears accidental
and merely like a part of the stage-setting. Even when viewed through the
aisles of time at a distance of many decades it appears. as large and distinct
as it did when it first emerged in the center of the stage of events. It is the
figure of him who was the Father of Western Medicine, one of the greatest
physicians America has produced, a patriot of the truest blue, a nobleman by
nature, a scholar by ceaseless toil, the peer of any of the Eastern pioneers in
medicine, the bearer of one of the most distinguished names in the intellectual
history of our country — Daniel Drake.

A recent writer, in an accurate and very readable sketch of this wonderful
man, very aptly likens him to another example of Western genius, Abraham
Lincoln. Like the great Chief Executive, Drake began life as the son of an
uncultured, hard-working settler who could not give his son even ordinary
advantages of training and education. Yet, both these poor farmer boys rose
from their humble surroundings to positions of distinction and honor and
became great in dififerent spheres of activity. Dani-el Drake was born on a
farm near the present town of Plainfield, Essex County, New Jersey, October
20, 1785. When he was two and a-half years old, his parents joined a party
of New Jersey farmers who were seeking new homes in the Western country.
This was about the time when the first settlers were invading the vast and
unknown territory West of the AUeghenies and were building the first log-
cabins at what is now Marietta, Ohio. It was fully two years before a solitary
block house had arisen on the site of Cincinnati. Daniel Drake's father, Isaac
Drake, with his wife and children, located in the wilds of Kentucky, twelve
miles southwest of the present town of Maysville, and about seventy-five miles
from Lexington. The name of the new settlement was Mayslick. Here it
was where Daniel Drake grew up in the bosom of nature, the child of simple
and pure-minded countryfolk.

The year of Drake's birth will ever remain memorable in the annals of
American medicine. It was the birthyear of three other Americans who
became leaders in their respective departments of medical science. William
Beaumont, the great physiologist, whose name is inseparably connected with
the case of Alexis St. Martin, was born in 1785 in Lebanon, Conn. He was
the first American who seriously concerned himself about physiological prob-
lems, and has not inappropriately been called the Father of American Physi-
ology. Another great American that first saw the light of day in 1785 was
Benjamin Winslow Dudley, whose achievements in genito-urinary surgery
under primitive conditions of practice, have hardly been surpassed, even in
our advanced day. His marvelous record as a lithotoniist will always remain
a source of pride to the profession of this country. He was a Virginian by

birth, but spent nearly all of his professional life in Lexington, Ky., as pro-
fessor of surgery in the Medical Department of Transylvania University. He
was fourteen years the junior of his great neighbor, Ephraim MacDowell, of
Danville, Ky., whose name will for all times be linked with an act of scientific
heroism never surpassed in the history of medicine. Still another famous
product of the year 1785 was Valentine Mott, that prince among the early
American surgeons, who, in 1818, ligated the innominate artery, and, as a
result of this bold stroke, rose to one of the highest ranks among the sur-
geons of his time. Thus we see that the year 1785 was particularly fertile
in the production of eminent medical talent in this country. Benjamin Rush,
who had not as yet reached the zenith of his fame, was in 1785, at the age
of 40, teaching chemistry in the University of Pennsylvania. P. S. Physick,
John Hunter's favorite American pupil, generally referred to as the Patriarch
of American Surgery, graduated from the academic department of the Uni-
versity of Pennsylvania in 1785. It seems that the whole decade was a
fruitful one for American medicine. John Eberle, one of the founders of
Jefferson Medical College, and afterwards a distitiguished teacher of practice
in the Medical College of Ohio, was born two years after Daniel Drake. The
following year (1788) saw the birth of William Gibson, that eminent American
physician who was a marvel of versatility and was conspicuous on this account
among his confreres on both sides of the Atlantic.

Daniel Drake's people were among the poorest of the poor. When Isaac
Drake and those who depended on him, arrived in the thick forest where he
expected to wrest a home and an existence out of the clenched hands of the
wilderness, his fortune consisted of just one dollar, which was at that time
the price of a bushel of corn. Edward D. Mansfield, who was a cousin of
Daniel Drake's wife and for many years an honored citizen of Cincinnati,
wrote, in 1854, two years after Drake's death, a very readable biography of
Drake. In referring to those primitive days in the Kentucky forests where
young Daniel spent his childhood, Mansfield states that the first residence of
the family was in a "covered pen," built for sheep, on the ground of its owner.
The smallness of his estate may be gathered from the fact, that when a com-
pany of emigrants — five families — purchased a tract of fourteen hundred acres
of land, to be divided among them, according to their respective payments, his
share was only thirty-eight acres, which he subsequently increased to fifty.
There he resided six years, till in the autumn of 1794, he purchased another '
farm of two hundred acres, to the neighborhood of which he removed. The
new farm was an unbroken forest which had to be cleared, and the log cabin
built. (Mansfield.)

Of those early pioneer times in Kentucky, Drake has left a written record
so inimitably beautiful and characteristic that I may be permitted to quote from
it. In his declining years, from 1840 to shortly before his death, Drake, who
was then living in Louisville and teaching at the Louisville Medical Institute,
loved to dwell on the memories of the distant past, and in his reminiscential

.mood penned many letters to his children. In these letters he pictures the
conditions under which his childhood was spent, the hardships of early pioneer
times in Kentucky, the struggles for existence, the habits and customs of the
simple, God-fearing people in whose midst he grew up, their sorrows and
innocent pleasures. Charles D. Drake, a distinguished member of the bar in
Missouri, gathered these letters written by his father, Dr. Drake, and pub-
lished them in 1<S70 under the title : "Pioneer Life in Kentucky. A series
of reminiscential letters from Daniel Drake, M.D., of Cincinnati, to his chil-
dren." These letters, written in quaint and naive style, full of pathos and
humor, are well worth perusal.

Drake informs us that he was the second child of his parents, the first one, a
daughter, having died in infancy. His father was operating a gristmill and
doing a little farming near Plainfield, N. J. The Drakes were not doing very
well and thought of moving to Virginia, but changed their minds in favor of
Kentucky, where a colony of Baptists, who originally hailed from New Jersey,
had settled and was prospering. About that time many farmers from Virginia
and Maryland were moving into Kentucky which, since its first settlement, in
1778, was attracting more attention than any other part of the Western
country. Old Mr. Drake decided to begin life over again, and, with all the
earthly belongings of the family crowded into one two-horse Jersey wagon,
which also accommodated the family, started out for his new home in Ken-
tucky. The family consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Drake, young Daniel, then two
years and seven months old, his little sister, who was an infant at the breast,
and an unmarried sister of Mrs. Drake. The wagon was hauled by two horses
over the steep and rugged Allegheny mountains and thoughout an overland
journey of nearly four hundred miles. The remaining portion of the trip
was by boat. Among other New Jersey emigrants who came West at the
time when the Drakes settled in Kentucky, were a number of people whose
names became prominently identified with the history of Cincinnati, particu-
larly John S. Gano, who settled in Columbia, now a suburb of Cincinnati, and
Dr. Wm. Goforth, Gano's brother-in-law, who eventually became Daniel
Drake's preceptor.

Daniel Drake's ancestors had been illiterate farmers, to fortune and to
fame unknown, but they were industrious, honest, temperate and pious. To
spring from such ancestry, as he often remarked, is high descent in the sight
of heaven, if not in the estimation of man. Both his grandfathers had lived
in the very midst of the battle scenes of the Colonies' struggle for freedom.
Daniel's father and mother were typical countryfolk, of the plain, good old-
fashioned Baptist type. Drake speaks of his father as a man of inflexible
righteousness, industrious, rather progressive, not without business ability,
and devoted to his family. The references to his mother are touching in the
extreme. Drake speaks of her tenderness and sweet disposition, the merry
twinkle in her eye, her unceasing care for her family. He humorously em-
phasizes the fact that he inherited two traits from his exemplary mother :

the ease with which he could shed tears and the irresistible desire to fall asleep
in church.

Daniel's childhood days, as already indicated, were spent in a log cabin
such as poor country people used to put up and occupy in the early pioneer
times of Kentucky. A log cabin, as the name implies, was "built of logs,
generally unhewn, with a puncheon floor below and a clapboard floor above, a
small square window without glass, a chimney of 'cats and clay,' and a
coarse roof. It consisted generally of one apartment, which served as sitting-
room, dining-room, and kitchen. Here the family lived in peace and content-
ment in a little world of their own, their only enemies being the elements of
Nature or perhaps the restless redskins that were receding before the advance
of civilization." Drake often tenderly referred to the sweet and pure family
life in that log cabin where everybody was poor and yet happy. They knew
nothing of the hate and envy, the troubles and tribulations of society, the
miserable smallness and perfidy of man in the larger towns and cities. And
the center of the happy family in that coarse log cabin was that personification
of goodness and sweetness, Daniel's mother, the thought of whom seemed to
grow in inspiration to the son as the years rolled on. Drake's example shows
the early and lasting eiTect of the association with a good mother on the char-
acter of a boy. Granting that heredity and environment make or break
character, it is an undeniable fact that the early maternal influence represents
the lion's share of what we include in environment, because of its early, deep,
and, therefore, lasting effect. That beautiful spirit of chivalry towards women
and, for that matter, towards men even if they were enemies, which was so
characteristic of Drake throughout his whole life, was the work of a good
mother. It seems that a boy who has the good fortune of having been reared
by the tender hand of a good mother, should always be a good man, if only
to pay back that early incurred debt of gratitude to the memory of her who
gave him life and character.

Daniel received his first schooling at the hands of itinerant schoolmasters,
who would establish themselves in a conveniently-located log cabin and teach
the children of the nearby settlers the elements of reading and writing, with a
little arithmetic thrown in. These schoolmasters were by no means pedagogues
by vocation. They were tramps whose peripatetic tendencies would awaken
whenever the first balmy breezes of Spring made it comfortable to roam
through the country. Sometimes a preacher without a flock would appear
among the settlers, remain for an indefinite period and divide his time between
administering spiritual advice to the grown people and teaching the young
folks how to read and write. Young Daniel must have been an apt scholar,
because at the age of seven he was a pretty fair reader. When he was nine
years old, his father moved to a larger place, and, being too poor to hire a
laborer and not being very robust himself, the father had to depend on the
assistance which the son might be able to render. Young Daniel was a strong
boy and only too glad to help his father. Instead of continuing his lessons he

had to take a hand in clearing the forest and preparing a place for the new
cabin. Thus the next two years were given to hard labor, sharing his father's
work and troubles in every particular. After two years Daniel was able to
resume his studies under the guidance of an itinerant instructor who hailed
from Maryland and opened a regular school in the Mayslick district. We have
seen that Drake's early years were spent in close communion with Nature.
To his young and imaginative mind every little spot in the landscape was
invested with peculiar beauty and meaning, the song of every little bird in
the forest had its own melodious language. What to an ordinary observer
was barren and unattractive, was to him a source of inefit'able interest and
delight, says S. D. Gross. "In the Spring and Summer the surface of the earth
was carpeted with richest verdure and strewn with myriads of wild flowers,
whose balmy fragrance seemed to ascend like sw^eet-scented incense to the
throne of the Almighty, while their gay raiment in its variety of color, and
rendered brighter and more radiant by the rays of the morning sun, delighted
the clear eye and unspoilt heart of the lad. The ancient elms and poplars
and other mighty denizens of the woodland had donned their richest garb,
while amid their majestic silence thousands of winged songsters were stirring
the heart with their tuneful lays." The impressions thus made on the boy's
mind during the formative period of his life, i. e., his early adolescence, were
the elements out of which the mind of the future man was constructed. Drake
was an eminent naturalist and became a great physician because of that fact.
He learned to love Nature early in life and tried to understand the things which
in the days of his childhood he had learnt to love. This is what made Drake a
student of Nature, and gave him such power as a man of affairs in the building
up of the great W^est. With a keen and open eye and a heart full of love
for the beautiful things that abound in Nature's vast domain, he coupled an
inquiring mind that was not satisfied to wonder and marvel, but that approached
the problems and mysteries of the air, the soil, and the water with a desire
and a determination to solve the riddles and to know the truth. Thus we see
how the foundation to Drake's subsequent career of greatness was laid. His
greatest work outside of his strictly medical achievements was undoubtedly
that remarkable book about Cincinnati ("Picture of Cincinnati") which he
published when he was hardly thirty years of age. It was the logical evolution
of the elements of knowledge and discerning power which were brought out
in his early training as a country lad in old Kentucky.

A brother of Drake's father, Cornelius Drake, had settled near the place
where the Drakes were living. He was a tavern-keeper and conducted a general
store. He was a prosperous business man, and in 1796 sent his son John, a
young man probably six years older than Daniel, to Dr. Wm. Goforth, who
was practicing medicine in Washington, Ky. Young John Drake remained
with Dr. Goforth three years, continuing his studies at the University of
Pennsylvania. John Drake was a good student and always spent his vacation
on his father's place. Daniel, his cousin, who was then about twelve or thir-

teen years old, became greatly interested in the books of his cousin John and
made up his mind to become a doctor. With that zeal and determination which
was characteristic of him, he set about to make up for the defects in his edu-
cation. He devoted every spare moment to study, mostly by reading books
that — in some manner or other — he managed to secure. His father favored the
idea of Daniel becoming a doctor, and encouraged him in every imaginable
way. It was intended that John Drake should locate in Mayslick, and that
Daniel should study under him. Unfortunately for the plan, John Drake
died about the time of his graduation. His death was directly instrumental
in bringing Daniel Drake to Cincinnati. Had John Drake lived, Daniel would
have become a country doctor in Kentucky, and Cincinnati would have lost the
pioneer work of its most distinguished citizen.

The early training of a mastermind like Drake's is of peculiar interest.
It would seem that all the circumstances surrovmding the lad during the first
fifteen years of his life were unfavorable to anything but the most ordinary
development of his mental powers. In spite of this the boy laid the founda-
tion of a most extraordinary intellectual superstructure. Drake, in the full
maturity of his mental prowess, was not what is ordinarily called a "bright
man."' To use such an expression in connection with Drake's intellect would
be trivial and commonplace ; I am almost tempted to say sacrilegious. Drake
was a genius of the first magnitude and ranks with Humboldt and Agassiz.
Yet his early advantages were meager in the extreme. But he had that God-
given determination to work and win. When we think of the carefully system-
atized courses of study that are nowadays mapped out for the college boys
who are to be the doctors and scientists of the future, and then consider the
motley mixture of books that constituted old Isaac Drake's library and gave
to young Daniel all his preliminary education, we are forced to acknowledge
the supremacy of the will in the struggle with Destiny. Young Drake believed
in his own predestination as a superior man. His life shows that confidence
and implicit belief in self is an invincible power which in man's fight against
Fate itself spells Victory. This should be an inspiration to many a poor boy
who is facing the world with no assets except his willingness to work and his
determination to win. Drake's example should encourage every struggling
beginner in medicine, and banish the evil spirits of faintness and despair from
the youthful heart.

Isaac Drake's library was neither large nor select. It consisted of a family
Bible, Rippon's Hymns, Watts' Hymns for Children, the Pilgrim's Progress,
an old Romance of the days of Knight Errantry, primers, with a plate repre-
senting John Rogers at the stake, spelling books, an arithmetic, and an almanac
for the new year. As he grew up, he met with Guthrie's Grammar of
Geography, Entick's Dictionary, Scott's Lessons, Aesop's Fables, the Life of
Franklin, and Lord Chesterfield's Letters to his Son, the latter of which he
greatly prized. Once in awhile a number of the Palladium, a newspaper pub-
lished at Washington, Ky., fell into the boy's hands, always affording him
much gratification. 23

Thus it will be seen, says S. D. Gross in his beautiful eulogy of Drake,
that his Alma Mater was the forest, his teacher Nature, his classmates birds,
squirrels and wild flowers. Until the commencement of his sixteenth year,
when he left home to study medicine, he had never been beyond the confines
of the settlement at Mayslick, and it was not until his twentieth year, when
he went to Philadelphia to attend lectures, that he saw a large city. The
"Queen of the West," as Cincinnati was afterwards styled, was then a mere
hamlet, with hardly a few thousand inhabitants. Kentucky, at that early day,
had but one University, and although it was hardly fifty miles from his doors
(Lexington), his father was too poor to send him thither.

If Daniel Drake's mental education has been meager and frag-mentary,
his heart, the legacy of a good ancestry, had acquired the culture that was so
characteristic of the mature man. S. D. Gross, who even in Drake's life-
time looked upon Drake as one of the greatest men in America, tells us that
at no time in his long and eventful life did his sweet, childlike, warm tempera-
ment show itself so beautifully as on the occasion of his visit to the old log
cabin, almost fifty years after he had left it to go to Cincinnati to study medi-
cine. 'Tt was to this spot that the boy, now in the evening of his full and
perfect manhood, turns his longing eye, anxious once more to behold the home
of his early childhood. He stands before the lone and primitive cabin of his
father in which used to dwell all that were near and dear to him. The latch-
string is off the door; the hearth no longer emits its accustomed light and
heat; weeds and briars grow around and obstruct the entrance; no familiar
voices are heard to greet and welcome the stranger; all is still and silent as
the grave in God's acre close by. The birds no longer salute him with their
merry music; the squirrel, whose gambols he was wont to watch with such
peculiar fondness when a boy, is no longer there; even the tall and weather-
beaten elm no longer greets him. All around is silence and desolation. Upon
the 'door-cheeks' of the cabin he discovers the initials of his own name, which
he had inscribed there with his rude penknife fifty years before! — silent wit-
nesses of the past, reluctant to be effaced by time. As he looked around and
surveyed the changes which half the century had wrought in the landscape
before him, a feeling of awe and melancholy, unutterable and indescribable,
seized his soul, and the sage of three-score years, the medical philosopher, the
acknowledged head of his profession in the great valley of the Mississippi,
was instantly transmuted into a boy of fifteen. Every feeling was unmanned,
and tears, warm and burning, gushed from the fountains of his soul. The
whole scene of his childhood was vividly before him; the manly form of his
father, the meek and gentle features of his mother, the light and sportive
figures of his brothers and sisters, stood forth in bold relief, and painfully
reminded him of the vanity and instability of all earthly things. Of the whole
family group, eight in number, which was wont to assemble around the bright
and burning hearth, he alone remained to visit that tenantless and desolate
home of his childhood."

CHAPTER II.

DRAKE AS A MEDICAL STUDENT.

DANIEL DRAKE was predestined for the medical profession by his
father. The latter, we are told by those who knew him, was "a
gentleman by nature and a Christian from convictions produced by a
simple and unaffected study of the Word of God. His poverty he regretted,
his ignorance he deplored. His natural instincts were to knowledge, refine-
ment, and honorable influences in the affairs of the world. In consulting the
tradition of the family, he found no higher condition than his own, as their
lot in past times; but he had formed a conception of something more elevated,
and resolved on its attainment, — not for himself and mother, nor for all his
children, for either would have been impossible; but for some member of the
family. He would make a beginning ; he would set his face towards the land
of promise, although, like Moses, he himself should never enter it." He had
never had the advantages of a genteel education, but he was determined that
his Dan, as he affectionately called his son, should have them. Daniel was
fifteen years old when his father decided that he was old enough to begin his
medical studies in earnest.

In referring to the times when the Drakes settled in Kentucky, I men-
tioned the name of Dr. Wm. Goforth as having been one of the party who
arrived in Kentucky with the Drake family. He also hailed from New Jersey
and settled in Washington, Ky., where he remained until the year 1799, when
he joined other members of his family who were living in Columbia, near
Cincinnati. In 1800 he removed to Cincinnati. Isaac Drake made the ac-
quaintance of Dr. Goforth in 1788 during their long and tedious voyage down
the Ohio River. Drake, Sr., while he found fault with some weak points in
Dr. Goforth's character, admired his knowledge, and believed him to be a
great physician. Half jokingly, half in earnest, he told Dr. Goforth that
Daniel, then not quite three years old, should some day become a doctor, and
that Dr. Goforth should be his teacher. It was probably in consequence of
this early promise that the son often went by the sobriquet of "Dr. Drake"
long before he knew anything about medicine. His father courageously per-
severed in his cherished plan, and went to Cincinnati for the express purpose
of seeing Dr. Goforth and arranging the terms of apprenticeship for Daniel.

When the day arrived for Daniel to take his leave, his relatives and neigh-
bors gathered at "Uncle Isaacs" to bid Daniel Godspeed. The neighbors all
liked Daniel and did not begrudge him his luck to be a doctor, a real gentle-

man and lead a life of ease, elegance and gentility. This was their idea of a
doctor's life. The young maidens wept and old ladies were not sparing in
their good advice to Daniel. They cautioned him against being too proud.
Uncle Cornelius, who had some knowledge of the world, spoke of the bad
young men that were rather plentiful in "Cin," as they called Cincinnati in those
days. All wished Daniel success and amid the good wishes of his friends and
neighbors he set out on horseback for Fort Washington on the 16th of De-
cember, 1800, accompanied by his father and a neighbor. As he was slowly
riding away, he looked back and caught the last greetings and words of encour-
agement that came out of the heart and from the lips of his good mother.
Two days later the party arrived in Cincinnati, and Daniel presented himself
at the house of Dr. Goforth, his preceptor. The arrangement which Isaac
Drake had made with Dr. Goforth, was that Daniel should live in his pre-
ceptor's family, and that he should remain with him four years, at the end of
which he was to be transmuted into a doctor. It was also agreed between the
parties that he should be sent to school two quarters, that he might learn the
Latin language, which, up to that time, he had wholly neglected. For his
services and board, the preceptor was to receive $400, a tolerably large sum,
considering the limited resources of Daniel's father.

Dr. Goforth was the most prominent physician in Cincinnati, and, being
socially well connected, was one of the foremost citizens. He was a unique
character, dignified, aristocratic, a typical gentleman of colonial times. Con-
sidering all this, he must have been strangely at variance with the crude and
primitive conditions that characterized the early pioneer times in the Western
country at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Daniel Drake always
retained a lively and grateful recollection of his preceptor, and has given us
such a masterful sketch of him that I could not do any better than to repro-
duce the greater portion of it :

Dr. William Goforth, under whom Daniel Drake now began his appren-
ticeship as a medical student, was born in New York in 1766. His preparatory
education was what may be called tolerably good. His private preceptor was
Dr. Joseph Young, of that city, a physician of some eminence, who, in the
year 1800, published a small volume on the universal dififusion of electricity,
and its agency in astronomy, physiology and therapeutics, speculations which
his pupil cherished throughout life. But young Goforth also enjoyed the
more substantial teachings of that distinguished anatomist and surgeon. Dr.
Charles McKnight, then a public lecturer in New York. In their midst, how-
ever, A. D. 1787-88, he and the other students of the forming school of that
city, were dispersed by a mob, raised against the cultivation of anatomy. He
at once resolved to accompany his brother-in-law, Gen. John S. Gano, into
the West; and on the 10th of June, 1788, landed at Maysville, Ky., then
called Limestone. Settling in Washington, four miles from the river, then
in population the second town of Kentucky, he soon acquired great popularity,
and had the chief business of the county for eleven years. Fond of change,

he determined then to leave it; and in 1799 reached Columbia, where his
father, Judge Goforth, one of the earliest and most distinguished pioneers of
Ohio, resided. In the Spring of the next year, 1800, he removed to Cincin-
nati, and occupied the Peach-Grove House vacated by Dr. Allison's removal
to the country. Bringing with him a high reputation, having an influential
family connection, and being the successor of Dr. Allison, he immediately
acquired an extensive practice. But without these advantages he would have
gotten business, for, on the whole, he had the most winning manners of any
physician in the tow^n and the most of them. They were all his own, for in
deportment he was quite an original. The painstaking and respectful courtesy
with which he treated the poorest and humblest people of the village, seemed
to secure their gratitude ; and the more especially as he dressed with precision,
and never left his house in the morning till his hair was powdered by an
itinerant barber, John Arthurs, and his gold-headed cane was grasped by his
gloved hand. His kindness of heart was as much a part of his nature, as
hair-powder was of his costume ; and what might not be given through benev-
olence, could always be extracted by flattery, coupled with professions of
friendship, the sincerity of which he never questioned. In conversation he
was precise yet fluent, and abounded in anecdotes which he told in a way that
others could not imitate. He took a warm interest in the politics of what was
then the Northwest Territory, being at all times the advocate of popular rights.
His devotion to Masonry, a cherished institution of the village, was such that
he always embellished his signature with some of its emblems. His hand-
writing was peculiar but so remarkably plain that his poor patients felt flattered
to think that he should have taken so much pains in writing for them. In this
part of his character many of us might find a useful example.

Dr. Goforth is usually credited with being the first one in the West who
practiced vaccination. Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse, of Boston, received cow-
pock from England in 1800. The following year Dr. Goforth obtained a
supply of it and began to use it. Daniel Drake w^as the first one who sub-
mitted to vaccination in Cincinnati.

At the time Dr. Goforth was educated in New York, the w^ritings of
Dr. Cullen had not superseded those of Boerhaave, into whose system he had
been inducted. Yet the captivating volume of Brown had fallen into his hands,
and he was so far a Brunonian as to cherish an exceeding hostility to the
copious depleting practice of Dr. Rush, which came into vogue in the beginning
of the last century. In fact, he would neither buy nor read the writings of that
eminent man. Yet his practice was not that of Brown ; though it included
stimulants and excluded evacuants, in many cases, in which others might have
reversed those terms. In looking back to its results, Drake said, that in all,
except the most acute forms of disease, Goforth's success was creditable to
his sagacity and tact.

Fond of schemes and novelties, in the spring of the year 180;). at a great
expense, he dug up, at Bigbone Lick, in Kentucky, and brought away the

largest, most diversified, and remarkable mass of huge fossil bones that was
ever disinterred at one time or place in the United States ; the whole of which
he put into the possession of that swindling Englishman, Thomas Ashe, alias
Arville, who sold them in Europe and embezzled the proceeds.

Dr. Goforth was the special patron of all who, in the olden times, were
engaged in searching for the precious metals in the surrounding wilderness.
They brought their specimens of pyrites and blends to him, and generally con-
trived to quarter themselves on his family, while he got the requisite analysis
made by some black- or silversmith. In these researches Blennerism or the
turning of the forked stick, held by its prongs, was regarded as a reliable
means of discovering the precious metals not less than water. There was also
in the village a man by the name of Hall, who possessed a glass through which
he could see many thousand feet into the earth.

The clarification of ginseng and its shipment to China was, at the beginning
of the last century, a popular scheme, in which Dr. Goforth eagerly partici-
pated; but realized by it much less than those who have since extracted from
that root an infallible cure for tubercular consumption. This failure, however,
did not cast him down ; for about the time it occurred, the genuine East India
Columbo root was supposed to be discovered in our surrounding woods; and
he immediately lent a hand to the preparation of that article for the market.
It turned out, however, to be the Frasera verticillata, long known to the bot-
anists of those days, and essentially distinct from the oriental bitter.

While these various projects were keeping the Doctor's imagination in a
state of high and pleasurable excitement, he became enamored with the Mad
River country, to which in the very infancy of its settlement he had paid a
winter visit. Beyond where Urbana has been since built, was the Indian vil-
lage of Mechacheck, at which he arrived at night expecting to find inhabitants.
He found none, and being without the means of kindling a fire and unable to
travel back in the dark, he came near perishing from the cold. Subsequently
he made another visit in the month of June and took Drake with him. It
required five days to reach King's Creek, a few miles beyond the present
Urbana, which then had but one house and Springfield another. The natural
scenery after passing the village of Dayton was of such exquisite beauty that
Dr. Goforth was quite determined to spend the rest of his days there.

The time at length arrived when young Cincinnati was to lose the most
popular and peculiar physician who had appeared in the ranks of her infant
profession, or perhaps ever belonged to it, and the motives and manner of
the separation were in keeping with his general character. The French Revo-
lution of 1789 had exiled many educated and accomplished men and women,
several of whom found their way into the new settlements of the West. The
Doctor's political sympathies were with the Revolutionists, but some of the
exiles reached the town of Washington, Ky., where he resided, and their
manners and suflferings triumphed over his repugnance to aristocracy, till
pictures of the beauty and elegance of French society began to fill his imagina-

tion. Thus impressed he came to Cincinnati, where ^Masonry soon made him
acquainted with an exiled lawyer of Paris, who resided on the corner of Walnut
and Third Streets, where the Masonic Temple now stands. This gentleman,
M. Mennesier, planted a large vineyard, and carried on a bakery in the lower-
story of his house while the upper was the lodge of Nova Caesarea Harmony
No. 2. The Doctor's association with this member of the beau monde, of
course, raised his admiration for Gallic politeness still higher; and just at the
time when he began, in feeling, to prefer French to Anglo-American society,
President Jefiferson purchased Louisiana from Bonaparte, first consul of the
Republique Frangaise. The enchanting prairies of Mad River were now for-
g"Otten, and he began to prepare for a Southern migration. Early in the Spring-

William Goforth.

of 1807, he departed in a flatboat for the coasts and bayous of the lower
Mississippi, where he was soon appointed a parish judge, and subsequently
elected by the Creoles of Attacapas to represent them in forming the first
Constitution of the State of Louisiana ; soon after which he removed to New
Orleans. During the invasion of that city by the British, he acted as surgeon
to one of the regiments of Louisiana Volunteers. By this time his taste for
French manners had been satisfied, and he determined to return to the city
which he had left in opposition to the wishes of all his friends and patients.
On the first of May, 1816, he left New Orleans, with his family, on a
keel boat ; and on the 28th of the next December, after a voyage of eight
months, he reached our landing. He immediately re-acquired business; but
in the following spring he perished from hepatitis, contracted by his summer
sojourn on the river. (Drake.)

Under this popular, eccentric but well-meaning medical gentleman, Daniel
Drake served his apprenticeship in medicine. His duties were to read Dr.
Goforth's medical books, to compound medicines under his preceptor's direc-
tions and to run errands for the Doctor. He had to deliver medicines and

informs us in a delightful description of his early student days (given before
the Medical Library Association in 1852, only a few months before his death)
that 'in delivering medicines to his preceptor's patients he often had to cover
considerable distances, even as far West as the present corner of Sixth and
Vine Streets. This was, at that time, outside of the town proper.

Daniel Drake began his studies four days after he left home. "My first
assigned duties," he narrates, "were to read Quincy's dispensatory and grind
quicksilver into unguentum mercuriale ; the latter of which, from previous
practice on a Kentucky handmill, I found much the easier of the two. But
few of you have seen the genuine, old doctor's shop of the last century, or
regaled your olfactory nerves in the mingled odors which, like incense to the
God of Physic, rose from brown paper bundles, bottles stopped with worm-
eaten corks, and open jars of ointment, not a whit behind those of the apoth-
ecary in the days of Solomon ; yet such a place is very well for a student.
However idle, he will be always absorbing a little medicine; especiallv if he
sleeps beneath the greasy counter. It was my allotted task to commit to memory
Chesselden on the bones, and Innes on the muscles, without specimens of the
former or plates of the latter; and afterwards to meander the currents of the
humoral pathology of Boerhaave and Vansweiten ; without having studied the
chemistry of Chaptal, the physiology of Haller or the materia medica of
Cullen."

While thus busily engaged, he often wrote to his parents, telling them of
his progress and prospects. From his letters it would appear that he seriously
thought of returning home after finishing his course of study. With a happy
anticipation he looked forward to the time when he could again live in the
old home, practicing his profession and comforting his parents in their old
age. His life, while in Cincinnati, was exemplary in' every respect.

Through Dr. Stites, a bright young physician, who came from New York
to Cincinnati, and in 1802 became Dr. Goforth's partner, Drake became ac-
quainted with the writings of Benjamin Rush, whom his preceptor, Dr. Go-
forth, heartily despised. Drake studied the forbidden books and indirectly
won Dr. Goforth over to the new teachings of Rush. Dr. Goforth thought
so much of his talented pupil that in 1804, when Drake was hardly nineteen
years of age, he made him a full-fledged partner. Drake now assumed his
share in the hardships and responsibilities of practice. That the practice of
medicine in those early days in Cincinnati was not an unalloyed boon, would
appear from Drake's graphic description of the hardships of practice in those
early times :

"Every physician was then a country practitioner, and often rode twelve
or fifteen miles on bridle paths to some isolated cabin. Occasional rides of
twenty and even thirty miles were performed on horseback, on roads which
no kind of carriage could travel over. I recollect that my preceptor started
early, in a freezing night, to visit a patient eleven miles in the country. The
road was rough, the night dark, and the horse brought for him not (as he

thought) gentle; whereupon he (Usmounted after he got out of the village,
and, putting the bridle into the hands of the .messenger, reached his patient
before day on foot. The ordinary charge was twenty-five cents a mile, one-
half being deducted, and the other being paid in provender for his horse, or
produce for his family. These pioneers, moreover, were their own bleeders
and cuppers, and practiced dentistry, not less, certainly, than physic, charged a
quarter of a dollar for extracting a tooth, with an understood deduction if
two or more were drawn at the same time. In plugging teeth, tinfoil was
used instead of gold leaf, and had the advantage of not showing so con-
spicuously. Still, further, for the first twelve or fifteen years, every physician
was his own apothecary, and ordered little importations of cheap and inferior
medicines by the dry goods merchants once a year, taking care to move in the
matter long before they were needed. Mr. James Ferguson, a volunteer in
Harmar's campaign, began mercantile business near the corner of Third and
Sycamore Streets in 1792. The only road to Philadelphia was then through
Lexington, Danville and Crab Orchard to Cumberland Gap, nearly south,
across the broadest part of Kentucky ; then northeast, through Abington,
Staunton and Winchester, Virginia, by Baltimore, to the city which supplied
us with medicines, not less than every other article of merchandise. From
twenty-five to thirty days was the required time of transportation from Phil-
adelphia to Brownsville, and as much more by the river to Cincinnati. Thus,
from four to five months was required for the importation of a medicine,
which, at this time, being ordered by telegraph and sent by express, may be
received in two days, or a sixtieth part of the time. Thus science has length-
ened seconds into minutes. The prices at which these medicines were sold,
differed widely from those of the present day. Thus an emetic, a Dover's
powder, a dose of Glauber's salt, or a night draught of Paregoric and
Antimonial Wine, haiistus anodymis, as it was learnedly called, was put up
at twenty-five cents, a vermifuge or blister at fifty, and an ounce of Peruvian
bark at seventy-five for pale and a dollar for the best red or yellow. On
the other hand personal services were valued very low. For bleeding, twenty-
five cents ; for sitting up all night, a dollar, and for a visit, from twenty-five
to fifty cents, according to the circumstances or character of the patient."

"Many articles in common use then, have in half a century been super-
seded or fallen more or less into neglect. I can recollect Balsam of Sulphur,
Balsam of Peru, Balsam Tolu, Glauber's Salt, Flowers of Benzoin, Fluxham's
Tincture, Spermaceti (for internal use), Melampodium, Flowers of Zinc,
Ammoniaret of Copper, Dragon's Blood, Elemi, Gamboge, Bitter Apple, Xux
Vomica, and Red, Pale and Yellow Bark. On the other hand, we have
gained since that day, the various Salts of Quinine and Morphine, Strychnine,
Creosote, Iodine and its preparations. Hydrocyanic Acid, Ergot, Collodion,
Sulphate of Magnesia and Chloroform."

"Indeed, in half a century our materia medica has undergone a decided
change, partly by the discovery of new articles, and partly by the extract'on
of the active principles of the old." 21

There were several reasons that prompted young Drake to take a rather
gloomy view of his early impressions as a practitioner of medicine. The
total unfitness of the average physician for a business-like management of
his affairs seems to have been as true in the early medical annals of Cincin-
nati as it is to-day. A good physician is hardly ever a good business man.
Another fact seems to have been as familiar to the physicians of early Cin-
cinnati, as it is to the doctors of to-day. I suppose it is a familiar phenomenon
the world over. The doctor is an angel of mercy when he appears at the
bedside of his patient, ready and anxious to relieve suffering and dispute
every inch of ground in the battle with death. After the patient has recov-
ered, the doctor, with bill in hand for services rendered, is quickly meta-
morphosed into a demon incarnate. Patients who owe health and life to
the skill and loyalty of the physician, seem to suffer from a sudden loss of
memory. All obligations, all debts of gratitude are forgotten. The doctor
can live on the breezes of heaven and the dew of the earth. Drake, in a
letter to his father in 1804, three months after he had become Dr. Goforth's
partner, speaks of the rapid increase in their business. They enter from $3
to $6 on their books every day, but it is doubtful whether 25 per cent of
this will ever be collected. He continues as follows :

"The Doctor trusts every one who comes, as usual. I can get but a small
share in the management of our accounts, or they would be conducted more
to our advantage. I have not had three dollars in money since I came down,
but I hope it will be different with me after a while. An execution against
the doctor, for the medicine he got three years since, was issued a few days
ago, and must be levied and returned before the next general court, which
commences the first of September. This execution has thrown us all topsy-
turvy. The doctor has given his accounts, (up to the time our partnership
commenced), which amount to eight or nine hundred dollars, to the con-
stable for collection. He has done nothing yet, though he has had them
nearly two months."

After giving some other details, he adds: 'T am heartily sick and tired
of living in the midst of so much difficulty and embarrassment; and almost
wish sometimes I had never engaged in partnership with him, for his medicine
is so nearly gone that we can scarcely make out to practice, even by buying
all we are able to buy. In addition to this, it gives me great unhappiness to
see him in such deplorable situation. I get but little time to study nowadays,
for I have to act the part of both physician and student, and likewise assist
him every day in settling his accounts." In another letter to his father
Drake complains bitterly about his lack of funds being in the way of his
progress. He wants to buy books, and has no money to do it with. Yet he
is determined not to borrow any money.

In his letters to his parents he frequently refers to the prominent people
he has met and to the many acts of kindness extended to him by some of
them. Dr. Goforth was a very popular man among the best people in the

town, and introduced his young, bright and gentlemanly associate to every-
body. In this way Drake became acquainted with such people as Judge John
Cleves Symmes, the patentee and proprietor of the Miami Valley; Lieutenant
(afterwards General and President) Wm. H. Harrison, who had married the
daughter of Judge Symmes; Mr. (afterwards General) Findley, Receiver of
Public Moneys; General Gano, long Clerk of the Courts; Mr. (afterwards
Judge) Burnet; Arthur St. Clair, Ethan Stone, Nicholas Longworth, etc.,
members of the bar ; Drs. Allison, Burnet, Sellmann, physicians ; the Rev.
Messrs. Wallace and Kemper, Presbyterian clergymen ; Colonel John S. Wal-
lace, Major Ziegler; Messrs. Baum, Dugan, Stanley, Hunt, Wade, Kilgour,
Spencer, Symmes, Yeatman, Griffin and others. Many of these were highly
cultured gentlemicn, who had had the advantages of an Eastern education
and European travel. All of them were wide-awake, public-spirited citizens
and the intellectual, political and financial leaders in this part of the country.
That Drake began at an early age to take an interest in public affairs is evident
from the many references in these letters to political questions and events.
He was an enthusiastic admirer of Thomas Jefferson, who was in 1804 elected
President for the second time.

His profession, of course, occupied the lion's share of his time and interest.
The writings of Benjamin Rush had affected him mightily, and aroused in
him the desire to go to Philadelphia and attend the lectures of the great men
who were members of the faculty there, the versatile Rush, the renowned
anatomist Wistar, the learned chemist Woodhouse, the distinguished nat-
uralist Barton, and Dr. Physick, who enjoyed a national reputation as a
surgeon. He stated his wishes to his friend Goforth, who rather favored the
plan. Dr. Goforth gave him some money as also did his father, Isaac Drake,
and a friend, a Mr. Taylor, who thoroughly approved of the young man's
ambition and offered to help him.

Dr. Goforth, in the Summer of 1805, presented young Drake with a
diploma, setting forth the young man's zeal and ability in the various branches
of medical practice. The diploma and its duplicate are shown in the accom-
panying illustrations, which were made from the still existing originals. Dr.
Goforth signed the diploma as "Surgeon General of the First Division of the
Ohio Militia," a position which he really held, although the responsibility of
the task was by no means as great as the full-sounding title would lead us to
believe. This diploma was the first ever conferred on a Cincinnati student
and the first issued west of the Alleghenies on any student of medicine.
Drake held this diploma in high esteem and practiced by its authority. The
granting of it was prompted by Dr. Goforth's great confidence in Drake's
ability and splendid character. Equipped with his diploma and lots of enthu-
siasm, but painfully little money, Drake started for Philadelphia, arriving
there November 9, 1805 after an irksome and tedious journey. His trip to
and stay in Philadelphia were of incalculable benefit to him. He practiced
strictest economy, attended lectures, studied hard, gave but little time to

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amusement and diversion and after about five months returned to Cincin-
nati (April, 1806). He had seen the world and had gathered new and diversi-
fied impressions in many respects. He was a mature man when he returned
to the ofifice of Dr. Go forth. The latter was contemplating a trip to New
Orleans and did not conceal the fact that he might remain in the .South, if
things suited him. Drake did not care to practice in Cincinnati without
Goforth and went to Mayslick where his aging parents received him with
open arms. He remained in the old home until April, 1807, practicing his
profession. He soon realized that he would not be able to bury his enthusiasm
and ambition in the little Kentucky village. Dr. Goforth wrote him to come
to Cincinnati and take charge of his ofifice during his absence. Drake could
not resist the invitation. He told his parents to prepare to follow him to
Cincinnati, and, having received their promise, he returned to Cincinnati,
accompanied by his younger brother Benjamin, whom he placed in the care
of a private tutor. Benjamin was a talented young man, who made rapid
progress and within a few years rose to a position of honor and influence in
the community. He became a successful lawyer and gained a reputation as
an original and accomplished litterateur.

Dr. Drake at once began the practice of medicine, and soon acquired the
patronage of the best families in the town. His prominence as a physician
was soon equaled by the high place which his indefatigable work in the
interests of Cincinnati gained for him. In 1807 he began a career of un-
paralleled productiveness as a public-spirited citizen. Cincinnati, during her
120 years of her existence, may have honored other men more. She may
have attempted to immortalize some of her sons by erecting monuments to
them or inscribing their names on memorial tablets on the walls of public
buildings. Cincinnati may boast of her Wm. H. Harrison, her William Lytle,
her Buchanan Read, her Charles McMicken, Reuben Springer and others.
The most liberal of all her benefactors, the most brilliant of her gifted
sons, the one really great man she has produced, was, without condition or
reserve, the young man who. in 1807, took his place among her people and
worked for the greater honor and glory of Cincinnati, as no one has ever
done before him or after. H there are really patriots in Cincinnati, they
should not allow the blemish of ingratitude to any longer mar the record of
their proud city. The history of Cincinnati does not ofifer a brighter page
than that which records the achievements of Daniel Drake.

CHAPTER III.

EARLY MEDICAL ANNALS OF CINCINNATI.

THE twenty-eighth day of December, 1788, is generally conceded to
have been the date of the first settlement of Cincinnati. On this
day Israel Ludlow, a surveyor in the employ of a New Jersey Land
Company, landed at a point corresponding to the foot of Sycamore Street and
known in the early times as Yeatman's Cove. He was accompanied by about
twenty persons, who proceeded to erect three or four log cabins and thus
laid the foundation of the future Queen City of the West. The land was
part of 600,000 acres lying between the two Miamis and purchased from
Congress by John Cleves Symmes, a New Jersey Congressman, who sold
parts of his "Miami Purchase" to Benjamin Stites, of Pennsylvania ; Matthias
Denman, of New Jersey, and Col. Robert Patterson and John Filson, of Lex-
ington, Ky. The present site of Cincinnati had been visited in September,
1788, by Symmes, Patterson, Filson and Denman. Denman decided to lay
out a town at a point where the old Indian warpath from the British gar-
rison at Detroit touched the Ohio River, opposite the mouth of the Licking
River. Filson, who was a surveyor by profession and a schoolmaster by
occupation, invented a fantastic name for the future town : 'L.-os-anti-ville,"
or rather "ville-anti-os-L," the town opposite the mouth of the Licking, a
polyglot mixture of questionable composition. W. H. Venable tells us that

John Filson and companions bold

A frontier village planned
In forest wild, on sloping hills,

By fair Ohio's strand.

John Filson from three languages,

With pedant skill did frame
The novel word Losantiville,

To be the new town's name.

John Filson, during this expedition, met his death at the hands of the
Indians ; at least, he was missed one day and was never found. It is sup-
posed that he was killed by the savages. He was one of the first white men
who set his foot on the soil upon which subsequently arose the city of Cin-
cinnati. He gave the site a name and was about to lay ofif the projected
town when his career came to a sudden end. To the physicians of Cincin-

nati the sad fate of John Filson is of pecuHar interest. It is not generally
known that he had been a student of medicine for over a year and was
looking hopefully into the future when he would be able to quit teaching and
surveying and settle down as a physician in Lexington. John Filson was,
therefore, the first medical man whose name is associated with the early his-
tory of Cincinnati.

Within a month after the first settlement, the survey of the town from
the river to Northern Row (now Seventh Street), and from Eastern Row
(now Broadway) to Western Row (now Central Avenue) was completed.
The population of the place consisted by this time of eleven families and
twenty-four unmarried men. To protect this little colony of pioneers against
the Indians, the Government of the United States sent an armed force from
Fort Harmar, near Marietta, Ohio, to the Miami Country (the land between
the Miamis), in August, 1789. This armed force, consisting of a battalion
under command of Major David Strong, arrived by the river, and imme-
diately laid the foundation of a military post, "Fort Washington." During
the three campaigns against the Indians (1790 under General Harmar, 1791
under General St. Clair, 1794 under General Wayne), the young village was a
military station of great importance.

Gen. Arthur St. Clair arrived at Fort Washington January 1, 1790. He
was a Scotchman by birth, a graduate of the University of Edinburgh, where
he began the study of medicine. Subsequently he continued his medical
studies in London under Hunter. A sense of adventure prompted him to
come to America, where he served w'ith distinction in the Revolutionary
War. He was an enthusiastic member of the military order of the Cincin-
nati and named the village "Cincinnati," abolishing John Filson's euphonious
but badly coined "Losantiville." Thus the village received a new name from
the hands of another man who had been a medical student.

The owners of the original town site gave away lots to settlers, who
agreed to cultivate the soil and build a house. Among the first eighty settlers
who thus became landowners in Cincinnati, was a physician. Dr. John Hole,
who can, therefore be considered the father of the local profession. He was
among the first settlers in 1789. He was a native of Virginia (born 1754)
and responded to the first call for troops, when the Colonies' struggle for
freedom began. He was commissioned surgeon's mate in the Fifth Penn-
sylvania Battalion, commanded by Col. Robert McGraw, of Carlisle, and
continued in active service until the end of the war. He fought at Bunker
Hill and was present when Washington assumed command of the army.
Dr. Hole served on the staff of General Montgomery, after whom Mont-
gomery County, Ohio, is named. He was present at the battles of Quebec
and Montmorency, afterward located in New Jersey, settled in Cincinnati
in 1789 and began to practice. He introduced cow-pox inoculation in Cin-
cinnati. That this pioneer physician had, just like his successors, his troubles
in collecting outstanding accounts, appears from an advertisement in the

"Sentinel of the Northwestern Territory," wherein he announces that he will
no longer grant indulgence to anyone owing him money. In 1797 he pur-
chased 1,440 acres of land on Silver Creek, in Washington Township,
paying for it with Revolutionary land warrants, built a cabin and removed
his family to the' new home in the wilderness. He w^as a Baptist in faith -and
was the first person immersed in Silver Creek the name of which was, in
honor of him, changed to Hole's Creek, by which it is still known.

According to the statement of Drake, Doctor Hole was not a man of
much education or social rank, but his long and varied army service would
certainly indicate that he was a competent practitioner and doubtless the
equal of his contemporaries in medical and surgical skill. His energy is
fully attested by the fact that in addition to his professional duties, which
called him over a large district, he found time to build and run sawmills and
to engage in the multiplied activities of a frontier life.

At the outset of the war of 1812 he was tendered a position on the
medical stafif of the army, which failing health compelled him to decline.
Dr. Hole died January 6, 1813.*

Two other physicians arrived in Cincinnati within the same year after
its first settlement. One was William Burnet, an older brother of Judge
David Burnet, who was for several decades an eminent lawyer and citizen
in Cincinnati. William Burnet was born in New Jersey and was a graduate
of Nassau Hall, Princeton. He was a man of fine classical learning but
not a graduate in medicine. He served throughout the Revolutionary War
as surgeon's mate and came to Cincinnati in 1789, bringing with him books
and medicines. He divided his time between Cincinnati and North Bend,
where his friend, John Cleves Symmes, resided. He founded the first Masonic
Lodge in Cincinnati, obtaining the charter from the Grand Lodge of New
Jersey. The new^ lodge was called Nova Caesarea No 2, in honor of its
New Jersey origin. Doctor Burnet returned to New Jersey within two years
after his arrival here and resided near Newark, where he died. He was a
son of Dr. William Burnet, Surgeon General of the Revolutionary Army in
the Eastern Department. When Doctor Burnet, Jr.. came West, he brought
with him Calvin Morell, a brother Mason, who also hailed from New Jersey.
Doctor Morell did not remain long, but joined the Shakers, near Lebanon,
Ohio, and eventually died there. To Dr. Peter Smith, who preached the
gospel and practiced medicine near Cincinnati from 1794 to 1804, reference
will be made elsewhere.

The first obstetric event in the young village, the birth of David Cum-
mins, after whom Cumminsville was named, suggests the name of the first
midwife, Mrs. McKnight, of whom Daniel Drake speaks with much respect.

♦According to Ralston R.Jones, of Cincinnati, who has investigated the records of those revolutionary
soldiers that are buried in Hamilton Co., Dr. John Hole died in Cincinnati in 1808. The will of a John
Hole was probated in Cincinnati Dec. 7, 1808. It is possible that there were two revolutionary soldiers by
the name of John Hole who lived in Hamilton Co. The name occurs frequently in the early annals of
Cincinnati and is variously spelled Hole, Hohl and Hoehl.

The scene of the interesting event was an humble log cabin on Vine Street
opposite the site of the present Burnet House.

Robert McClure, a Pennsylvanian, in 1792 opened up an office on Syca-
more Street, between Third and Fourth Streets, and enjoyed quite a good
practice. Drake tells us that his success was not due to his own excellence
as a physician, but the splendid attributes of his wife, who was popular with
people of all classes, and, in this way, paved the way for her husband^ "a
biographical fact which it may be well for the younger members of the
profession to treasure up." In 1801, Dr. ]\IcClure left Cincinnati and returned
to his native place, Brownsville, Pa. The Sentinel contained several
advertisements of fine bitters prepared by Dr. McClure. In another ad
the doctor asks for the return of empty bottles and for the settlement of
outstanding accounts.

John Cranmer, according to Drake's statement, was a native of Pittsburg.
Employed about the office of Dr. Bedford, a distinguished physician of that
borough, as it then was, he acquired some knowledge of the symptoms of
disease and the properties and doses of medicines ; the latter of which he
kept in a table drawer, at his residence between Main and Walnut Streets,
on the north side of Second, for some time after his emigration in 1798.
It is worthy of remark, that from this humble beginning, and without original
education, or the study of medical books, subsequently he attained a position
of considerable personal and some professional respectability ; supporting his
family by his practice and continuing to advance in reputation up to the time
of death, which occurred from cholera in 1832.

Drake mentions a Dr. John Adams, from ^Massachusetts, who remained
in Cincinnati for a short time and returned East. The physicians named
were all civilians who arrived in Cincinnati previous to 1800.

Fort Washington was erected in 1789 and demolished in 1808. The
medical officers of the troops stationed there did not confine their medical
services to the soldiers, l)ut often gave gratuitous attendance to the people
of the village and furnished medicines from the hospital chests. The sur-
geons of Fort Washington are, therefore, closely identified with the early
medical history of Cincinnati. Two of them, Richard Allison and John
Sellman, remained here, after they left the army, and rose to considerable
eminence. The surgeons of I*"ort Washington, as enumerated by Drake,
were :

Richard Allison, born near (ioshen, X. Y., in 1757, was not a graduate
but had served throughout the War of the Revolution as a surgeon's mate.
He re-entered the army and acted in the capacity of surgeon-general in the
campaigns of Gens. Harmar, St. Clair and Wayne. For a short time he
was stationed at Fort Finney, opposite the city of Louisville. In one of the
battles during St. Clair's campaign, he was greatly exposed : for he was
obliged to leave the wounded and mingle in the fight. His horse received a
bullet in the head. It remained imbedded in the skull ; and, when riding him

through the village in after times, he would jocosely remark, that his horse
had more in his head than some doctors he had known. Whenever stationed
here, he gave such assistance to the people of the yillage, as made him a
general favorite; and after his resignation many of them employed him, when
his services were no longer gratuitous. After an honorable career as an
army surgeon he retired in 1798 and built a house called Peach Grove, at
the present corner of Fourth and Lawrence Streets. In 1799 he removed
to a farm on the Little Miami, where he intended to indulge his taste for
agriculture and do a little speculating in real estate. In 1805 he returned
to the city and kept an office at the southwest corner of Fourth and Sycamore
Streets. He died in 1816, aged fifty-nine years. He was universally beloved
on account of his zeal and gentle manners. Charlotte Chambers Ludlow, a
daughter-in-law of Israel Ludlow, recalling a severe spell of illness through
which she had passed, refers to Dr. Allison in one of her letters : "Dr. Allison,
unwearied in kindness, left me but seldom. One night he had been aroused
from sleep by an impression of my sudden danger and was irresistibly
impelled at this gloomy hour to leave his bed and ride five miles in the dark
night over rough roads. By his admirable skill the dread hand of death was
happily averted." Mrs. Ludlow lived at that time in Ludlow Mansion in
Cumminsville. From all accounts. Dr. Allison must have been an exemplary
man and splendid physician. He is buried in the old Wesleyan Cemetery in
Cumminsville, where his monument, with the following inscription, can still
be seen : "He was an ornament to his profession, a liberal benefactor to the
poor and a tender parent to the orphan. In his bounty the distressed found
relief and in his generosity unfortunate merit obtained refuge. Weed his
grave clean, ye men of genius, for he w^as your kinsman ; tread lightly on his
ashes, ye men of feeling, for he was your brother."

John Sellman, born in Annapolis, Md., in 1764, came from good family
and received an excellent general education. He entered the army as a sur-
geon's mate and arrived in Ft. Washington with General Wayne in 1793. He
resigned in 1794, and took up his residence on Front Street, between Syca-
more Street and Broadway. He continued in practice until the time of his
death, in 1827. For several years he was surgeon to the Newport Barracks.
This was many years after he had resigned from the army and shows how
highly his skill was valued by the Government. He was not a graduate in
medicine, but possessed, in a high degree, a natural talent for the practice of
medicine. He took a great interest in the afifairs of the profession and was
the staunch friend of the Medical College of Ohio. The latter institution, in
1826, conferred upon him the honorary degree of Doctor of Medicine. There
is a record of an amusing trial as the result of which Susie Newton, employed
by John Sellman, was found guilty of having stolen some scientific instru-
ment from the doctor. This happened in 1798. She stated in defense that
Sir Isaac Newton was her ancestor and that a scientific turn of mind ran in
the family. She simply could not resist taking the instrument. It w^as, how-

ever, found that she had pawned the instrument and had bought one gallon
of applejack, for which offense she was fined $33, and received twenty-eight
lashes on her bare back at the public whipping-post which was located where
Fifth and Main Streets intersect.

John Carmichael came from New Jersey and was a surgeon's mate when
he arrived in Fort Washington, 1789. He remained in the service until his
resignation in 1802, steadily gaining promotion by faithful attention to duty.
After the consummation of the Louisiana Purchase, he located in the South,
became a cotton planter and acquired great wealth. He lived to an ad-
vanced age.

Joseph Phillips was born in New Jersey in 1766, came to Fort Wash-
ington in 1793 as a surgeon's mate, returned East in 1795, retired in 1802
with the rank of surgeon. He died in 1846. Drake refers to him as a physi-
cian of great skill and a gentleman of culture. He was the close friend of
Wm. H. Harrison, afterwards President of the United States.

John Eliott, a New Yorker, served throughout the War of Independence
as a surgeon's mate and re-enlisted in 1785. He came West with General
St. Clair, and was for some time stationed at Fort Washington. He was
with Wayne in the campaign of 1794-95, which conquered from the Indians
the Greenville treaty, brought peace and security to the Middle West and
turned the tide of immigration into the country of the Miamis. He located
in Dayton, Ohio, in 1802. He was a dignified and courtly gentleman, punc-
tilious in dress and in the observance of the amenities of hfe. Some insight
into his character may be gathered from the almost comical portrait drawn
by Drake, who met him in the Summer of 1804, and who speaks of him as "a
highly accomplished gentleman in a purple silk coat." This costume, better
fitted for court than cabin, must have contrasted strangely with the raccoon
cap, homespun wammus, and buckskin breeches commonly worn by his asso-
ciates and patients. He died in 1809.

Joseph Strong was a native of Connecticut (born 1769), a Yale graduate
in the arts but not a graduate in medicine. He came West with General
Wayne and saw much active service during Wayne's Indian campaign. He
returned East in 1795, located in Philadelphia, where he became the friend
of Benjamin Rush, and died in 1812. Dr. Strong was a man of much culture,
a litterateur, a poet and a high-minded devotee of medicine.

Among the officers stationed at Fort Washington was Ensign Wm. H.
Harrison, born in Virginia in 1773, who had attended medical lectures at the
Universities of Virginia and Pennsylvania. He entered the army as an officer
of the line instead of the medical staff. Drake tells us that Harrison's
medical knowledge enabled him frequently to afford relief to those who could
not, at the moment, command the services of a physician, and also inspired
him with an abiding interest in the progress of the profession. This he suc-
cessfully displayed more than twenty-five years afterwards, when a member
of the Senate of Ohio. The bill for establishing the Commercial Hospital

and Lunatic Asylum of Ohio met with much opposition, against which he ex-
erted himself with his usual, characteristic energy. Harrison afterwards was
the first President of the First Board of the Medical College of Ohio. His
record as a statesman and as a soldier (''Old Tippecanoe") is part of the
history of his country.

The physicians named were the only ones that arrived in Cincinnati before
1800. In the first year of the nineteenth century, the medical profession of
the city proper consisted of John Sellman, John Cranmer and William Go-
forth. Of the latter we have already had occasion to speak in connection with
Drake's student days.

Cincinnati, in 1800, was a town of about 750 inhabitants. "North of the
Canal," Drake tells us, "and west of Western Row, there was forest, with
here and there a cabin and a small clearing, connected with the village by a
narrow, winding road. South of where the Commercial Hospital now ad-
ministers relief annually, to three times as many people as then composed the
population of the town, there were half-cleared fields, with broad margins
of blackberry vines, and I, with other young persons, frequently gathered
that delicious fruit, at the risk of being snake bitten, where the Roman
Catholic Cathedral now sends its spire into the lower clouds. Further south,
the ancient mound, near Fifth Street, on which General Wayne planted his
sentinels seven years before, was overshadowed with trees, which, together
with itself, should have been preserved ; but its dust, like that of those who
then delighted to play on its beautiful slopes, has mingled with the remains
of the unknown race, by whom it was erected." Sixth and Vine was a
wheat field, Seventh Street was the northern limit of the town. Sixth Street

Fort Washington.

had a few scattering houses ; Fifth not many more. Between that and
Fourth, there was a pubhc square, now built over. In one corner, the north-
east, stood the Court House, with a small market place in front, which nobody-
attended. In the northwest corner was the jail; in the southwest the village
schoolhouse ; in the southeast, where a glittering spire tells the stranger that
he is approaching our city, stood the humble church of the pioneers, whose
bones lie mouldering in the center of the square, then the village cemetery.
At the corner of Front and Broadway was Griffen Yeatman's Hotel de Yille,
the most pretentious tavern in the town. The only brick house in the town,
in 1800, stood at the northwest corner of Main and Fifth Streets. From a
line fifty feet north of Third down to the river, and from Broadway to
Ludlow Street, the Government had its military post, "Fort Washington,"
with its bastions and stockades skirted by the long low sheds of the com-
missaries, quartermasters and military officials. The post-office was located
in a wooden shanty on Lawrence Street, all the mail, which arrived once a
week in a pair of saddle bags, being handled by the postmaster himself.
A single house, built by Dr. Allison, stood where the Lytle House was after-
wards erected. Doctor Allison's house, surrounded by a peach orchard and
generally known as "Peach Grove," was Doctor Goforth's residence when
Drake became his student, in 1800. In 1803 Goforth moved into rooms
which had up to. that time been occupied by the Commander of Fort Wash-
ington. To show that even in those early days Cincinnati was not altogether a
backwoods town, but was beginning to develop some of the evil, even if
necessary accoutrements of larger towns, the records tell us that the first
shrine dedicated to the worship of Venus Vulgivaga was opened in 1799 by
Mary Montague. She seems to have counted among her friends some of
the high officials of the town, who saw to it that she was not too seriously
molested. In this respect times have not changed very materially.

In 1802 a fourth member was added to the profession, John Stites, of
New York, born in 1780, who possessed a splendid literary education and
had attended medical lectures at the University of Pennsylvania without,
however, graduating. He brought with him medicines, books, especially the
writings of Rush and of his associates and pupils. Doctor Stites became a
partner of Doctor Goforth for about a year, when he removed to Kentucky,
where he died of tuberculosis in 1807.

Before the first decade of the Nineteenth Century had been completed,
two more physicians arrived in Cincinnati, both from Pennsylvania. John
Bradburn, sometimes referred to as Blackburn, (born 1778), came here with a
body of militia, which had been called into the field to ward ofif an expected
attack by the Indians. The danger passed within two weeks and Blackburn
located in Cincinnati. He came in 1805 and remained four years. He
became a scientific farmer in Kentucky in 1809, and returned to Cincinnati
in 1825, opening an office on Sycamore Street, above Third Street. He tired
of practice after two or three years, and for the rest of his life lived on a

farm in Indiana. He died about 1835. He was one of the most scholarly of
the early physicians, although he had no degree in medicine.

Samuel Ramsey (born 1781), arrived in 1808 and became Doctor Alli-
son's partner. We shall refer to him in a subsequent chapter. The first
one of the pioneer doctors to die in Cincinnati was Doctor Allison, in 1815.
He was followed one year later by Doctor Goforth.

CHAPTER IV.

1131816

DRAKE AS A PHYSICIAN AND PUBLIC MAN.

He zi'os a man, take liiiii for all in all.
I shall not look upon his like again!

Shakespeare.

DRAKE began his career as a citizen of Cincinnati by giving the com-
munity his bond of good faith. He took unto himself a wife. The
bride of his youth was Miss Harriet Sisson, niece of Col. Jared
Mansfield, Surveyor-General of the United States, residing in Cincinnati.
Colonel Mansfield had been a professor at West Point and was a scholarly

man, whose scientific attainments had been recognized by the Cnited States
Government in the form of the above mentional official position. He resided
in the house which Col. Israel Ludlow had built, the place being generally
known as Ludlow's Station (adjoining the present Spring Grove Cemetery).
The house of Colonel Mansfield is shown in the accompanying illustration.

It was known as Ludlow Mansion. This historic house was torn down in
1891, to make room for improvements of various kinds. A few days before
the work of destruction was begun, Dr. H. W. Feher, of Cincinnati, had the
old house photographed. The accompanying- illustration was made from the
photograph in Dr. Felter's possession, probably the only picture of the
house extant.

Colonel Mansfield loved the society of bright and refined young people,
and always kept an open house. Among the young men that called at the
house was Daniel Drake. He met Miss Sisson, the Colonel's niece, a naive,
warm-hearted and physically attractive child of Nature, and felt strongly
drawn to her. Was she beautiful? This is what Drake said of her when, in
1832, six years after the hand of death had made him a sorrowing widower,
he thought back over the early days of courtship :

Her modest eye of hazel hue
Disclosed, e'en to the passing view,
Truth, firmness, feeling, innocence,
Bright thoughts and deep intelligence.
Her soul was pure as Winter's snow,
And warm as Summer's sunniest glow.

When moving through the mingled crowd,

Her lofty bearing spoke her proud,

But when her kindling spirit breathed

On those she loved, on those who grieved,

Joy felt the quickened pulses leap

And sorrow e'en forgot to weep.

The shady lanes that led down to the lofty sycamores on the banks of
Mill Creek did the rest. Dr. and Mrs. Drake went to housekeeping in the
Fall of 1807 in a two-story frame house on the east side of Sycamore Street,
between Third and Fourth Streets. Drake had built up a practice of respec-
table proportions which was becoming more extensive all the time. The
world smiled upon him. The little home, in which he and his Harriet lived,
was a paradise of happiness. The young wife, possessed of much feminine
tact and an instinctive estimation of her husband's brilliant gifts, was a
splendid helpmate and companion for him. Their tastes were congenial, and
made doubly so by the strongest kind of devotion to each other. They were
lovers, even more ardent after than before their marriage. Together they
wandered along the banks of the Little Miami or through the woodland
that skirted the riorthern parts of the city (the present suburbs of Avondale
and Walnut Hills), whenever there was an opportunity to enjoy a surcease
from the drudgery of practice. He indulged his love of Nature to the
fullest extent. Everywhere he found objects of interest that furnished new
food for reflection and investigation. The topography of the country, its
meteorological and climatic conditions, its plant life and geological forma-

tions were carefully noted and studied. In 1810 Drake published a booklet
setting forth the results of his observations, under the title of "Notices of
Cincinnati, its Topography, Climate and Diseases." He continued to study
and observe, and, after five years, brought out that remarkable book about
Cincinnati, which by many is considered the greatest achievement of his
life. He was at that time thirty years of age. The full name of this book
was "Natural and Statistical View or Picture of Cincinnati and the Miami
Country, illustrated by maps. With an appendix containing observations on
the late earthquakes, the aurora horealis and southwest wind." It was the
first book written by a Cincinnatian, and even today impresses one as a
marvel of originality and thoroughness. Strangely enough, the people of
Cincinnati did not seem to realize that a prophet had arisen among them.
Many shrugged their shoulders and a few of Drake's colleagues even ridiculed
the book and its author. The worm of envy seems to have gnawed as busily
at the hearts of some physicians at that time as it does to-day. I can under-
stand the application of a law of compensation in the active rivalry of men
who try to outdo each other in physical or mental achievements. I have,
however, never been able to see Nature's positive, or even negative, inten-
tions in the activity of the small mind that hates the superior mind for no
reason in the world except because of its superiority. It seems like a satire
on the eternal fitness of things, that the small mind is nowhere as busy in
its activity, and numerically as strongly represented as in the professions,
including medicine. This is strange because the professional ideal in medicine
should be altruism, pure and simple.

Drake's "Picture of Cincinnati" excited a great deal of interest in the
East, and even on the Continent of Europe, where parts of the book were
translated for the benefit of people who contemplated emigrating to America.
The book was a tremendously effective advertisement for Cincinnati, and
Drake became a famous author through it. It is a duodecimo volume of 250
pages and is dedicated "with sentiments of true and respectful attachment"
to Colonel Mansfield. In view of the fact that this remarkable work was
written by the foremost physician and most illustrious citizen Cincinnati
has ever produced, it should always be a source of pride and inspiration to
the members of our profession. A synopsis jof Drake's "Picture of Cincin-
nati" should be properly included in any book that attempts to record the
achievements and labors of the profession of Cincinnati.

Drake's "Picture of Cincinnati" contains seven chapters and an ap-
pendix.

In the first chapter Drake gives the geography of the Ohio River, and
of the State of Ohio, particularly of its southwestern portion, a historical
account of the discovery and settlement of the Western country, a discussion
of the question of jurisdiction and right of soil, statistical tables of the popu-
lation of the Western States, with special reference to Ohio; a description,
geographic and statistical, of the Little Miami River, the comities in the

Miami Country, (Hamilton, Clermont, Warren, Butler, Preble, Montgomery,
Green, Clinton, Champaign, Miami, and Darke), a record of land titles granted
by the United States Government : prices of land, and an account of the
agricultural possibilities of the land (farm products of all kinds). A short
account of the neighboring country (Indiana territory and adjoining parts of
Kentucky) close the first chapter.

In the second chapter, Drake takes up questions of physical topography of
Cincinnati and surrounding country, position, aspect and elevation of the
soil, the geology of Southwestern Ohio, its botany with complete tables of
genera and species of trees and shrubs. He gives a complete list of plants
useful in medicine and the arts, giving scientific and popular names, the
officinal value and classification of the diiTerent plants, a calendar of the
Flora with dates of budding, blooming and ripening of fruit-bearing trees
and shrubs. In his discussion of the climate he gives details and comparative
tables of the temperature, the winds, the weather, the storms, and concludes
the chapter with an exhaustive study of the meteorological diflferences between
the interior and the Atlantic States.

In the third chapter Drake discusses what he calls the civil topogra]:)hy
of Cincinnati, giving an account of the early owners of the land, the plan
of the city, the value of property, the gradation and draining of streets, a
description of the principal buildings, an account of the facilities for fire
protection, of sources of water supply, fuel, markets, manufactures, com-
merce, vessels, exports, imports, banks, newspapers, public utilities and edi-
fices, schools, including the "Cincinnati University," incorporated ISOG, con-
sisting of one building which a storm destroyed in 1S09, libraries, churches
and religious institutions. Masonic lodge, and the state of society in general.

In. the fourth chapter Drake dilates upon the political topography of the
^liami Country, its population, historically and racially considered. He dis-
cusses the organization of the militia, the means and provisions for supporting
the poor, the organization of the municipal government, administrative and
judicial.

The fifth chapter is given to the consideration of medical questions, the
prevailing diseases, their courses, the location and character of mineral springs
near Cincinnati.

In the sixth chapter Drake gives an absorbingly interesting account of the
antiquities of southwestern Ohio, relics of prehistoric times, mounds, excava-
tions, description of a mound at Third and Main Streets and its contents, an
account of archseologic findings.

In the seventh chapter Drake discusses the possibilities of the future, the
improvements to be made, bridges, roads and canals. A prophecy concerning
the future greatness of Cincinnati and proofs supporting the claims con-
clude this chapter.

The appendix contains a chronological table and accurate description of
various earthquakes that visited Cincinnati, notably the one that happened

December IG. 1811. Following the description Drake gives a scientific expla-
nation of the ascertainable physical conditions that are connected with the
occurrence of earthquakes. In conclusion, Drake discusses the physics and
the meteorological problems of aurora borealis and the southwest wind.

The amount of information contained in the "Picture of Cincinnati" is
simply stupendous. It is a monument of Drake's indefatigable zeal and
systematic thoroughness. The "Picture of Cincinnati" has become a very
rare book. It is to be hoped that some enterprising and patriotic publisher,
or perhaps the Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio will cause this
splendid product of Drake's genius to be reprinted for the benefit of the
many who are interested in the early history of our city and the Western
country generally. Time and experience will develop in the hearts of the
American people that sense of reverential retrospection that strikes the
American traveler in Europe with such force. The record of the past is
the soil upon which patriotism grows. We should teach the younger gen-
eration to have respect for and love the achievements of the distant past.
After all, it is the morality of the past that gives us the ethics of the present.

"Die Weltgcschichte ist das Weltgcricht."

The year 1809 was one of trials and sorrows for Drake and his devoted
wife. Drake suffered an attack of what must have been pneumonia, and
barely escaped with his life. Dr. Richard Allison attended him, and, in
keeping with the medical practice of the day, bled him very liberally. This
was in the early part of the year. Shortly before he had taken sick, a little
daughter put in an appearance at the Drake home. The little one was about
one year old when she had an attack of croup and died suddenly. Drake.
for the first time in his life, experienced the meaning of intense sorrow.
His reference to the little one's death in a letter to his father is pathetic in
the extreme. To forget his grief, he spent much time under the canopy of
heaven, accompanied by her, whom he calls "the sweetest and most aiTec-
tionate of wives, and the most tender and now the most desolate of mothers."'
Drake worked hard on his "Picture of Cincinnati," which finally appeared
in 1815. It was the means of lulling his aching heart to sleep, and inci-
dently laid the foundation to his future greatness.

Mansfield, in his biographical sketch of Drake, refers to a case of nervous
(typhoid?) fever, in which Drake, in 1812, employed applications of cold
water and cured his patient. Drake had become acquainted with the writings
of Hufeland, author of the once famous "Macrobiotik." who was a great
hydro-therapeutist. Drake's case was a very severe one, and an old prac-
titioner was called to see the case with Drake in consultation. He approved
of the cold water applications, but suggested to discontinue them, because
they were not generally accepted by the profession, and might, in the event
of the patient's death, occasion much adverse criticism. Drake continued
them in s])ite of the old doctor's well-meant advice, and had the satisfac-

tion of restoring his patient. The incident throws a characteristic light on
Drake's temperament. Drake was not a moral coward. He cared nothing
about the opinions of people, as long as his mind was satisfied and his
conscience easy. How much purer the moral atmosphere of our profession
would be, if moral courage were not such a rarity. The average man will
bow to custom, tradition, convention or to the opinions of those in authority.
This holds good in social matters, in professional affairs and even in ques-
tions of science. It is, indeed, strange that in a profession whose raison
d'etre is truth itself, there should be even one who is afraid of the truth.

The First Soda Fountain (1816)

Drake, about the time when his "Picture of Cincinnati" was published,
was a very much occupied man. In addition to his practice, he was busily
engaged in his studies and in various enterprises of a commercial character.
He had saved quite a little money and invested a part of it in a house which
he was building on Third Street, near the corner of Ludlow Street, on the
site of the building still known as the Drake House. The latter is on the
lower side of Third Street, the second house from the southwest corner of
Ludlow and Third Streets. Further west from the present Drake House, is
the Mansfield House, built in 1837 by Colonel Mansfield, uncle of Mrs.
Drake.

In 1813 Drake became the owner of a drug store on Main Street, between
Second and Third Streets, which he conducted with the assistance of his
brother Benjamin. It was principally a drug store, but soon became a gen-

eral store, where even hardware and groceries were sold. In this store,
Drake, after his return from Philadelphia (1816), fitted up what might be
properly considered the first soda fountain in Cincinnati, He purchased the
apparatus in Philadelphia and introduced soda water as a beverage to the
people of Cincinnati. The accompanying illustration shows the first soda
fountain in Cincinnati. It is reproduced from an old wood-cut.

Intellectual and artistic pursuits of various kinds had at that time many
ardent devotees in the rapidly developing community. With all these various
enterprises Dr. Drake was prominently identified. In some of them he was
the central figure and moving spirit. In 1815 the Lancaster Seminary was
incorporated, and Drake became one of the trustees. It derived its name
from Joseph Lancaster, a Scotchman, who originated a peculiar educational
system known as the Lancasterian method of teaching. The principle of the
system was the training of the younger pupils by placing them under the
instruction of the more advanced students, who thus became the teachers
of the younger pupils. Drake took a great interest in and devoted much
time to the new institution. In a few years it grew into the so-called Cin-
cinnati College, whose medical department, organized by Drake in 1835,
had the most brilliant faculty that has ever been assembled in the West. Of
this we shall have occasion to speak later on. It may be of interest to know
that the first Episcopal Church in Cincinnati was founded at Drake's instiga-
tion. He called a meeting of prominent Episcopalians at his house and
organized a building committee.

Drake devoted much time and labor to the organization of a Library So-
ciety, by means of which he hoped to lay the foundation of a Public Library.
For educational purposes he started a Debating Society and also a School of
Literature and Art, in which he was assisted by the very best talent and
most prominent people of the tow^i. It is remarkable how much Drake
accomplished at this time. He did it by ceaseless toil and careful systemati-
zation of labor. Not every man who works hard accomplishes much.
Energy is often wasted by a lack of system. It was the careful division of
his time that enabled Drake to do two men's work, and yet find time to meet
unexpected requirements.

In anticipation of a long-cherished desire to go to Philadelphia and
graduate in approved fashion, he had trained his brother Benjamin in the
management of his commercial afifairs, and had induced his parents to take
up their permanent abode in Cincinnati. In October, 1815, Dr. and Mrs.
Drake set out for Philadelphia, leaving their two children in the care of
the grandparents. The Winter at Philadelphia put Drake's endurance to a
severe test. Mrs. Drake was ill most of the time, and one of the children
that had been left at home, died suddenly. Amid severe mental anguish and
the hardest kind of work he spent the Winter, and finally received the coveted
diploma. He resumed his practice in Cincinnati in May, 1816.

The following year witnessed the beginning of a financial stringency
that caused much hardship and depression in all parts of the country. Drake
became involved in a most disastrous manner. His store on Main Street
passed out of his hands, and \vas managed by his father and brother, under
the firm name of Isaac Drake & Co. He had to save every penny in order
not to lose the house which he had started to build as a home for himself
and his little family. For economic reasons he moved into an old-fashioned
log cabin situated on the slope of the northern hills. The location of this
cabin was near the present Milton Street, between Broadway and Sycamore.
It was a typical country home, aw^ay from the noise and excitement of the
town, which at that time extended northward not farther than the present
Eighth Street. Drake called his country home semi-ironically "]\lount Pov-
erty."

In 1817 a new epoch started in the life of Daniel Drake. He was only
thirtv-two years of age. The people of Cincinnati respected him on account
of his great energy and learning. He was a successful practitioner, en-
joying a practice that yielded him an annual income of approximately seven
thousand dollars. His "Picture of Cincinnati" had made him famous
throughout the country. The second chapter of it, containing a thoroughly
learned account of the medical botany of the Miami Country, had attracted
universal attention among the profession. It was this reputation as a med-
ical botanist that opened up new paths of labor for him, and made it possible
for him to begin that career which was so admirably adapted to his peculiar
temperament, the career of a medical teacher.

It seems appropriate in connection with Doctor Drake's services to the
community as a progressive and public-spirited citizen, to point to the part
he took in designing and executing various public improvements. The canal
system of the Middle West was suggested and outlined by him in his "Pic-
ture of Cincinnati." He traced canal routes from Lake Erie to the Alle-
gheny River, between the Maumee and Great Miami, between the Chicago
and Illinois Rivers, between the Wisconsin and Fox Rivers, between the
Cuyahoga and Muskingum Rivers, from the Great Miami to Cincinnati, from
Maumee Bay to Cincinnati. Many of these routes were projected by 1825,
when the introduction of the steam car revealed new possibilities in the
interests of civilization. Again, it was Drake whose fertile brain evolved
the plan of connecting Cincinnati and Charleston, the Middle West and the
South, by a direct line of railroad. While his plans fell through at the time,
mainly on account of the attitude of the Kentucky Legislature, it can not be
denied that he gave the first impetus to the building of the Southern Railway.

Drake was interested in all questions pertaining to the good of his fellow-
man, his home town, the State. In 1851, when the slavery problem was
already worrying the people of the North, or, for that matter, patriotic
Americans everywhere, he published a number of letters which were ad-
dressed to the distinguished Dr. John Collins Warren, of Boston, who had

presided over a meeting' held in Boston, at which the slavery question was
discussed in a patriotic and unbiased way. When Drake read about this
meeting, he was deeply moved. No truer patriot ever breathed than he ; no
American ever lived whose heart was so full of love for his country than
Drake's. To his country's interest he subordinated all minor considerations
of self and party. No one knew the West and South like Drake, w^ho had
traversed both in all directions for years in the preparation of his monu-
mental work on the Diseases of the Interior Valley of North America.
Every student of American history should read Drake's letters on slavery,
published in the National Intelligencer, April 3, 5 and 7, 1851. These letters
alone prove that Drake had the brain and the heart of the true statesman.
He was fair, unbiased, ready to yield a lesser point in establishing a greater
principle, not a Yankee, not a rebel, but a level-headed, big-hearted American.
It is refreshing and inspiring to ponder over the character of this remark-
able man. He was original, resourceful, full of energy, thoroughly fearless
and at all times ready to stand up and fight for what he considered right.
These traits gained for him the doubtful reputation of being "meddlesome"
and "quarrelsome.'' He was not meddlesome, but full of fiery initiative in the
interests of the public and professional weal. He was not quarrelsome, but a
courageous champion of his ideals. He was not afraid to tell the truth, to
expose what should be held up to public view, to beard the lion in his den.
Such men are never popular with the conventional mollycoddles of public
and professional life. In Drake's time, and today, the words of Robert
Burns have had and have their significance :

There's none cvcf feared that tlie truth should be lieard
But him zvhoin the truth 2^'ould indite.

CHAPTER V.

DRAKE AS A MEDICAL TEACHER.

THE man who was instrumental in starting Drake in his career as a
medical teacher, was Benjamin W. Dudley, the distinguished sur-
geon of Lexington, Kentucky, whose record as a lithotomist forms
an interesting chapter in the history of American surgery. Dudley had suc-
ceeded in establishing a medical school in Lexington, Ky., as a part of
Transylvania University, at that time a flourishing literary institution in
Lexington, and was looking around for suitable material to make up a fac-
ulty. He thought of Drake in connection with the chair of materia medica.
and early in 1817 invited him to become a professor in the Medical Depart-
ment of Transylvania University. The offer pleased Drake, who, after
mature deliberation, accepted it, and in the Fall of 1817 moved to Lexington
to assume charge of his new post, leaving his office in Cincinnati in charge
of Dr. Coleman Rogers. Thus he became one of the five members of the
first faculty of the first medical school in the West.

The history of medical education in the West begins with the founding
of the Transylvania School. Lexington had acquired the proud title of
"Athens of the West" in the early part of the last century. The town was
wide-awake, had a progressive and prosperous population of over six thou-
sand souls in 1815, two thousand less than Cincinnati, and aspired to be-
come the metropolis of the W^st. Its medical school, during the third and
fourth decades of the nineteenth century, was largely attended and ranked
with the six leading medical schools in the United States. In its palmy days
it far outclassed all the Western schools.

Drake, zealous, ambitious and scrupulously conscientious, made an ex-
cellent impression as a medical teacher in Lexington. Yet, at the end of
the session, he decided to return to Cincinnati, and resigned his post. The
session must have been too strenuous for him. There were differences of
opinion among the professors, and the monotony of teaching was repeatedlv
interrupted by fisticuff engagements and even a shooting affray, in none of
which Drake, however, was one of the principals.''' He managed to keep
out of trouble, which, considering the fiery temper of Dudley who was a
fighting Southerner, of the' revolutionary type, was by no means very easy.
Yet Drake, who had his family with him, spent a very agreeable winter in

*The story that Drake was challenged to a duel bj- Dudley and that, at the critical moment, Drake
refused to fight and Richardson took his place, was invented by Alban Goldsmith, Drake's bitter enemy.
It is true that Richardson in the duel was shot in the thigh and would have bled to death if Dudley, his
antagonist, had not at once ligated his femoral artery. Richardson and Dudley afterward were good friends.
Drake, however, had nothing to do with the affair mentioned.

Lexington. His health had improved materially. Why he resigned is not
very clear. He must have been impressed with the fact that Lexington had
no future as a medical center, compared to Cincinnati. Li May, 1818, he
w^as back in his old home.

The lion had tasted blood. Drake had experienced the sensation of
teaching and lecturing. The idea of continuing this work in Cincinnati pur-
sued him night and day. That he thought of giving young men a chance to
study under him, and in this way qualify themselves for the practice of med-
icine, appears from the advertisement which was printed in the Western Spy,
July 9, 1817, three months before Drake moved to Lexington. In 1817 he
shared offices with Dr. Coleman Rogers, and the following card was pub-
lished :

"Drs. Drake and Rogers having connected themselves in the practice of the various
branches of their profession, including operative surgery, may be consulted by persons,
either from town or country, at their residence, on Ludlow and Fifth Streets, or at
their common shop, lately occupied by the former. The arrangements they have made
for the accommodation and instruction of medical students will enable them to receive
any number that may apply."

After Drake's return from Lexington a systematic course of instruction
for medical students was planned by Drake and Rogers. They interested
the Rev. Elijah Slack, president of the Lancaster School, in their plan, and
issued the following card in the public prints :

"The undersigned beg leave to inform those young men of the Western Country,
who are desirous of studying medicine, that they have made the following preparations
and arrangements for the instruction of private students:

1 — They have collected an extensive medical, 'Surgical, and philosophical library,
which includes all the journals of medicine and the physical sciences hitherto pub-
lished or now issuing in the United States, wnth some of the principal magazines of
Europe.

2 — Doctor Drake will, every Spring and Summer, deliver a course of lectures on
botany ; and every Winter another on materia medica and the practice of physic ; the
latter course to be preceded by a series of lectures on physiology, and illustrated with
specimens of our native medicines.

3 — Doctor Rogers will in the Winter season deliver a course on the principles
and practice of surgery, illustrated with operations and anatomical demonstrations.

4 — ^Doctor Slack will, during the same session, deliver a course on theoretical and
practical chemistry, embracing pharmacy and the analysis of animal and vegetable
substances.

5— Doctors Rogers and Drake will in conjunction deliver annually a series of
demonstrative obstetrical lectures.

G — They will be able to afford to all who study with them frequent opportunities
of seeing clinical practice, both in physic and surgery. The price of tuition, including
all the lectures, will be fifty dollars a year. Should any young gentlemen wish to
attend the lectures without becoming private pupils, they will be admitted to all courses
for forty dollars."

D. DRAKE, M. D.
C. ROGERS, M. D;.

May 27, 1818. E. SLACK. A. M.

On November 10. 1818, the first lecture was delivered. The session
closed March 10, 1819. Things evidently did not suit Drake, because on
April IT, 1819, he announced that "he had dissolved his partnership, but
would continue the practice of physic, surgery, etc., that he was prepared
to receive any number of students and would instruct them in all branches
of the profession."

From the foregoing it is plain that Daniel Drake, Coleman Rogers and
Rev. Elijah Slack were the first medical teachers in Cincinnati.

Coleman Rogers was a Virginian by birth, having been born in Culpepper
County of that State, March 6, 1781. The boy was about six years old when
his father settled at Bryant's Station, Fayette County, Kentucky, a few miles
from Lexington. Mr. Rogers, Sr., had eleven boys and one girl. Coleman

Coleman Rogers

was the seventh among the boys, and in his mature years accounted the
smallest one in the family. He weighed nearly 200 pounds and was six
feet and two inches tall. In his childhood he was puny and ill-nourished and
was not expected to live. He got his meager early education at a country
school. In 1802 he went to Lexington to become the apprentice of Dr.
Samuel Brown, and remained there one year, when he made up his mind to
go to Philadelphia and take a regular course in medicine. He rode to Phil-
adelphia on horseback in twenty-three days. He became the pupil of Dr.
Charles Caldwell, then a rising physician in the eastern metropolis, and some
years subsequently a distinguished member of the medical faculty in Tran-
sylvania University, Lexington, Ky. Rogers attended lectures at the Uni-
versity of Pennsylvania, and remained in Philadelphia for eighteen months.
He was too poor to be able to pay the expenses incidental to graduation, and
left for his Kentucky home without the coveted diploma. He practiced at
Danville, Ky., entering into a partnership with Ephraim MacDowell, who
was already enjoying a vast reputation as an accomplished surgeon. In

1810 Rogers returned to Fayette County and remained there until 1816,
when he went to Philadelphia for the second time and finally took his degree.
About this time Benjamin W. Dudley was organizing the Medical Depart-
ment of Transylvania University, and wanted Rogers to be the Professor
of Anatomy. Rogers did not accept the offered position, but moved to Cin-
cinnati, where he became the partner of Daniel Drake. He was to be vice-
president of the Medical College of Ohio and professor of surgery. He
could not, however, agree with Drake. His erstwhile preceptor, Samuel
Brown, was to be a member of the faculty, but likewise declined to take any
part. In 1821 Rogers moved to Newport, Ky. After two years he left for
Louisville, where he remained for the rest of his life. He was surgeon to
the Marine Hospital, and, in 183?, in conjunction with Alban G. Smith,
afterwards professor of surgery in the Medical College of Ohio, and Har-
rison Powell, founded the Louisville Medical Listitute. When the school, in
1837, was reorganized, he dropped out entirely. Coleman Rogers was an
accomplished surgeon and able anatomist. He was very successful in prac-
tice, leaving quite a large estate to his numerous children. He died in 1855,
at the age of seventy-four years. Strangely enough, in 181!) he refused to
be a professor in the institution which Drake founded, while the latter, in
1839, became a professor in the medical school which Rogers helped to or-
ganize. Rogers was four years older than Drake, took his degree at Phila-
delphia about the time Drake graduated there, and died three years later
than Drake. He was a handsome and very stately and reserved gentleman,
Cjuite the opposite in temperament to the mercurial Drake.

The third one in the trinity of medical teachers in 1818 was Elijah Slack,
not a physician, but a Presbyterian minister, who was well versed in chem-
istry and was fond of teaching. He was a native of Bucks County, Penn-
sylvania, where he was born November (i. 1784. In 1810 he graduated at
Princeton, took charge of an academy at Trenton, N. J., and eventually
became professor of the natural sciences in Princeton College. For a number
of years he was vice-president of this institution. In 1817 he took charge
of the newly-founded Lancaster Seminary in Cincinnati, and in 1820, when
it was merged into the Cincinnati College, became president of the latter
institution. He joined Drake and Rogers in their first course of lectures,
and became professor of chemistry when the Medical College of Ohio was
founded. During the first decade of its existence he was very much in evi-
dence in the affairs of the college, as we shall have occasion to observe. He
was given credit for being an honest, painstaking man, whose character was
above reproach. He was inclined to be meddlesome, which is said to be a
trait not infrequently found in gentlemen who wear the cloth. In person
he was short and dumpy. "In his lectures and demonstrations he was scrup-
ulously conscientious, but owing to his pedantic, deliberate and tiresome way
of proceeding, did not appear to advantage in either the lecture room or the
laboratory. He was too diffuse in his lectures, and his attcmi)ts to clear

often obscured the subject. He was lacking in dexterity, and, for this
reason, his experiments often failed." He had absolutely no sense of humor
and through his awkwardness was constantly causing hilarity which, of
course, he could not account for. In those days a pig's bladder occupied a
prominent place in a chemist's outfit, taking the place of the modern rubber

Elijah Slack.

bag, gas tank and receptacle for various purposes. On one occasion he was
lecturing before a mixed class of ladies and gentlemen and endeavored to
show the chemical composition of water. Reaching out for the pig's bladder,
which was to serve as the receptacle, he remarked : "I shall now fill my
bladder and proceed to make water." This remark threw the assembly into
hysterics. Mr. Slack could not account for the commotion.

In spite of all his peculiarities, Mr. Slack was a very useful man. He pos-
sessed a splendid general education and was a teacher by profession. Being a
Presbyterian minister, he commanded the respect and confidence of some of
the foremost people in the town. In his own way he was progressive and even
enthusiastic in acquitting himself of the duties of his chair. He had a very
creditable laboratory, and was always on the alert for new things in the chem-
ical line. He was public-spirited and became one of the founders of the His-
torical and Philosophical Society of Ohio. He served as the first president of
the Cincinnati Medical Society, which was organized in 1819. He remained
with the Medical College of Ohio for eleven years. In 1837 he moved to
Brownsville, Tenn., and opened a high school for girls, which he successfully
conducted until 1844, when he returned to Cincinnati. He taught private
classes, embracing chemistry, physics and other natural sciences in his cur-
riculum. When the Ohio College of Dental Surgery was founded. Slack was
appointed professor of chemistry. In 1851, when the Cincinnati College of
Medicine and Surgery was organized by Drs. A. H. Baker and B. S. Lawson,
Mr. Slack, then a venerable septuagenarian with a wealth of flowing white

hair, appeared ag-ain before a medical class as a lecturer on chemistry. He died
in Cincinnati, May 29, 1866. The name of Slack Street perpetuates the
memory of this pioneer teacher. While he was connected with the Ohio Col-
lege, he evinced a considerable degree of medico-political talent. He could
always be found with the winning side, which ordinarily meant that he was
opposed to Drake.

The year 1818 was a memorable one in the history of American medicine.
During that year one of the most distinguished American physicians died
(Caspar Wistar, the famous anatomist of the University of Pennsylvania, born
1761), while another great American physician was born (Henry Jacob
Bigelow, "autocrat of New England surgery," famous son of a distinguished
father). Drake devoted the greater part of the year 1818 to paving the way
for the establishment of the Medical College of Ohio. The people of Cin-
cinnati, then a growing town of 10,000 inhabitants, were rather favorable to
the project. The physicians of the town did not take very kindly to Drake's
scheme. Some of them feared the competition of the young doctors which
the new institution might turn out. Others were jealous of Drake, who, while
only thirty-three years of age, was by far the most prominent medical man
in the community. Intrigues of various kinds were resorted to, to frustrate
the establishment of the college. Drake, hopeful and undismayed, personally
appealed to the Ohio Legislature, and asked for the passage of a law author-
izing the establishment of a medical college in Cincinnati. On January 19,
1819, the Legislature passed an Act (Ohio Laws, Vol. 17, p. 37), the wording
of which was as follows :

Whereas, society at large is deeply interested in the promotion of medical and sur-
gical knowledge ; and, whereas, the students of medicine in the State of Ohio are so
distant from any well regulated college as to labour under serious disadvantages in the
prosecution of their studies ; therefore,

Section ]. Be is enacted, by the General Assembly of the State of Ohio, that there
shall be established, in Cincinnati, a college for instruction in physic, surgery, and the
auxiliary sciences, under the style and title of "The Medical College of Ohio."

Section 2. Be it further enacted, that Samuel Brown, Coleman Rogers, Elijah Slack,
and Daniel Drake, with their associates and successors, shall constitute the faculty of
professors of said college, and, as such, are hereby created and declared the body cor-
porate and politic, in perpetual succession, with full power to acquire, hold and convey
property for the endowment of said college, contract and be contracted with, sue and be
sued, plea and be impleaded, answer and be answered unto, defend and be defended in
all courts and places, and in all matters whatsoever ; provided, that no part of the estate,
either real or personal, which said incorporation may at any time hold, shall be em-
ployed for any other purposes than those for which it is constituted. And, provided also,
that the revenues arising from the property, which the said incorporation shall be entitled
to hold, shall never exceed the sum of five thousand dollars per annum.

Section 3. Be it further enacted, that the faculty of said college may devise and
keep a common seal, which may be altered and renewed at pleasure.

Section 4. Be it further enacted, that the officers of said college shall be a presi-
dent, vice-president, register and treasurer, who shall be elected by the professors out of

their own body, once in two years, at such times, and in such manner, as they may
appoint; which officers shall hold their places until their successors are chosen.

Section 5. Be it further enacted, that two-thirds of the members of the faculty of
said college shall constitute a quorum for every kind of business, and, when thus assem-
bled, shall have full power and authority to make, ordain and resolve all by-laws, rules
and resolutions, which they may deem necessary for the good government and well being
of said college; and the same when deemed expedient, to alter, change, revoke or annul,
provided they be consistent with the laws of this State and the United States; also to
establish such additional offices and appoint such officers and servants as they may think
requisite for the interest of said college; also to create, alter or abolish all such profes-
sorships, and appoint or dismiss all such professors and lecturers, as they may see
proper, which professors or lecturers, when thus dismissed, shall cease to be members
of the corporation ; provided, that no professorship shall be created or abolished, nor any
professor or lecturer be elected or dismissed, without the concurrence of three-fourths of
the whole faculty.

Sfxtion 6. Be it further enacted, that the faculty of such college shall have power,
and are hereby authorized to confer the degree of medicine, and grant diplomas for the
same under the seal of the corporation.

Section 7. Be it further enacted, that, until the faculty of said college shall direct
it otherwise, there shall be established the following professorships : first, a professorship
of the institutes and practice of medicine; second, a professorship of anatomy; third, a
professorship of surgery ; fourth, a professorship of materia medica ; fifth, a professorship
of obstetrics and the diseases of women and children ; sixth, a professorship of chem-
istry and pharmacy.

Section 8. Be it further enacted, that, until the faculty of said college shall make a
different arrangement, the following persons shall be and are hereby appointed pro-
fessors, viz: Daniel Drake, Professor of the Institutes and Practice of Medicine; Samuel
Brown, Professor of Anatomy; Coleman Rogers, Professor of Surgery; Elijah Slack,
Professor of Chemistry and Pharmacy, and, until the said faculty shall hold an election
for officers, the following are hereby appointed, to-wit : Daniel Drake, President ; Coleman
Rogers, Vice-President, and Elijah Slack, Register and Treasurer.

Section 9. A)id be it further enacted, that this law shall be subject to such altera-
tions and amendments as any future legislature may think proper.

Under the terms of this Act, Dr. Drake was elected President, Dr. Coleman
Rogers Vice-President, and Rev. Elijah Slack Registrar and Treasurer. Dr.
Samuel Brown refused to have anything to do with the institution. Samuel
Brown was a Kentuckian and the oldest member of the faculty. He was a
well-posted man who had made a splendid record as a medical student in Edin-
burgh, where he had spent a few years under the preceptorship of the famous
John Bell. Brown was the chum and bosom friend of Ephraim McDowell,
who was his roommate in Edinburgh. Brown afterward, as a member of the
faculty of Transylvania University, became one of the most distinguished
teachers of medicine in the West. His brother was the well known James
Brown, who so ably represented our country in France.

Coleman Rogers likewise declined to serve on the faculty. These were
the difificulties that retarded the opening of the school. The first regular
course was to begin in the Fall of 1819, but had to be postponed. December
30, 1819, an amendatory Act was passed by the Legislature, at the instance of

Dr. Drake, making the creation and abolishment of a professorship and the
election or dismissal of a lecturer dependent on a two-thirds vote of the faculty.
The meaning- of this amendatory act becomes apparent in the minutes of the
first meeting of the faculty of the Medical College of Ohio, held January 14,
1S20. The minutes of this meeting, as recorded in the official record book,
which is still extant, read as follows:

Cincinnati. January 14. 1820.

A meeting was held of the faculty of the Medical College of Ohio. Present : Daniel
Drake, President, and Elijah Slack, Registrar.

The president exhibited a letter from Dr. Samuel Brown, who was appointed pro-
fessor of anatomy in the law incorporating the college, stating that he would not accept
the appointment.

He also produced several letters from Dr. Samuel Brown and others, calculated to
show the intrigue and duplicity with which he had acted towards the college, together
with a statement of the causes which have hitherto protracted its organization, which
were ordered to be filed.

He likewise exhibited an attested statement of the conduct and declarations of Dr.
Coleman Rogers, the professor of surgery, in relation to Dr. Samuel Brown, by which
it appears that Dr. Rogers approved of the course pursued by Dr. Brown towards the
college. Whereupon, it was resolved that the said Dr. Rogers had acted with defection
to the institution and is unworthy of a professorship in it, and that he be dismissed
from it.

The president also laid before the faculty several recommendatory papers in favor
of Benjamin S. Bohrer, M. D., whereupon he was elected professor of materia medica.

He also laid before the faculty a letter from the Secretary of the New York
Medical Society received in the month of September last, inviting this college to send a
delegate to Lexington in the ensuing October to meet other delegates and form a
Western convention on the subject of a National Pharmacopoeia, whereupon it was
resolved that the professor of materia medica be authorized and requested to represent
this institution in the National Convention now sitting in Washington City on the
subject expressed, and that a commission of appointment be forwarded to him. Ad-
journed.

ELIJAH SLACK, Registrar.

This meeting, held before there was even a college in existence, was the
begiiming of what John P. Foote, for many years a trustee of the college, calls
the "Thirty Years' War." (See Foote's "Schools of Cincinnati," 1.S50.) One
week after this meeting, on January 22, 1820, the first public hospital in
Cincinnati was created by an act of the Legislature, its official name being
"Commercial Hospital and Lunatic Asylum for the State of Ohio." Drake
saw the necessity of a hospital for clinical instruction and was the prime
mover in its establishment.

There were two more meetings in 1820, one on August 19, the other
November 1. The vacant chairs were filled and sundry business was trans-
acted. I propose to discuss the happenings of that first year in the life of
the College Militant, and, for that matter, the latter's subsequent career,
under a .separate head, and must confine myself at present to the part which

the father of the young institution played or was made to play. His very soul
was afire with the idea of giving Cincinnati a great school of medical learning.
His whole life from now on was a constant vivid delusion. This is what he,
in after years, called his insatiable ambition to teach and to be at the head
of a great medical school. It was the one consuming passion of his life, or
rather it was the one passion that consumed his life. If we are to believe
S. D. Gross, Drake might have lived fifteen years longer if that delusion had
not taken possession of and destroyed his very being in one lifelong con-
flagration.

The opening of the first session, November 1, 1820, saw a class of twenty-
four students assembled at No. 91 Main Street, where Isaac Drake & Co.
conducted a general store. The second floor of the building was reserved for
the college. Here Daniel Drake delivered his lectures on the Theory and Prac-
tice of Medicine, Obstetrics and • Diseases of Women and Children. On
Wednesday, April 4, 1821, at 10 a. m., a class of seven graduated. At the
public commencement, held in the hall of the Cincinnati College, on Walnut
Street, Dr. Drake delivered the following valedictory, which I beg to reproduce
from the original manuscript :

Young Gentlemen of the Graduating Class —

You have this moment received the highest honors which the Medical College of
Ohio can confer. It is the duty of him who has the happiness to be the organ of the
institution on this interesting occasion, to address you publicly before our official con-
nection is dissolved. In proceeding to do this, it would be conformable to custom to
expatiate on the means which you should employ to cherish the germs of professional
knowledge which have been implanted during your pupilage, and ripen them into future
fame and usefulness. I feel myself, however, irresistibly attracted from this natural and
beaten track. It is your fortune to receive the first honors which our school has ever
awarded, and you now appear before this respectable assembly of citizens of Ohio, as
the first fruits of her medical college— the earliest return made by the institution to that
society from which its legal existence was derived. An event so new and momentous
must excite in the minds of pupils, professors and spectators, associations of ideas, which
it would be unholy in me to dissever; and for the few moments allotted to this address I
shall follow them wheresoever they may lead nie.

On the necessity of having well-educated and skillful physicians, there can, among
an intelligent people, be no diversity of opinion. With respect to the necessity of insti-
tuting an additional school for medical instruction, a difference of opinion might occur.
Had any contrariety of this kind existed among the people of Ohio before the establish-
ment of her medical college, the consummation of its first session in the ceremonies
which we are now assembled to perform must completely reinove them. That five of you
have been for many years her practitioners, that you have seized the earliest opportunity
of enrolling yourselves as pupils of her school ; and that you have prosecuted your
studies with a zeal and emulation which indicate the measure to have been deferred
only from the want of a domestic institution, are facts equally impressive and conclu-
sive. If such of you gentlemen, as have attained the meridian of life, considered it neces-
sary thus to renew and extend your collegiate studies, how great must be the number in
Ohio and the other Western States, who will be emulous of your example. A medical
college at an eligible point in the West, was required then, as well for the benefit of a
part of the existing practitioners, as for the education of young gentlemen to succeed

them. It was this inducement which led, in ISIS, when the Western Country was destitute
of such an institution, to the projection of the Medical College of Ohio.

But can Ohio, and those sister States which will contribute pupils, support a school
for medical instruction at this early period? I refer, gentlemen, to yourselves and col-
leagues, as affording an affirmative answer to this question. Our first session, although
protracted and uncertain in its commencement ; destitute of public patronage, unknown
even to many of the students of Ohio and cotemporary with the second session of a
powerful and well-supported rival in a neighboring State, has been attended by twenty-
five regular pupils, of whom two are from Virginia, three from Kentucky and twenty of
Ohio. The Ohio pupils have been supplied by six Counties of the State, which together
contain about one-sixth of its population. This, then, would give 120 pupils as the
number that Ohio alone can furnish. But let us deduct one-half from the estimate and
suppose that after a complete organization shall be effected, she will continue to send
not less than sixty pupils annually. The school restricted to this number might be
respectable. But no such limitation need be apprehended. The attractions that would
allure the pupils of Ohio could not fail to draw others from the neighboring States. The
number which might thus be collected, may be estimated by comparing the population
of such of those States as are without medical institutions, with the population of Ohio ;
or with that of Kentucky, which furnished to the second session of her school not less
than sixty-five students. It is certain that the States of the West contain the requisite
number of pupils^ and, this being the case, nothing remains that can not be supplied, by
the enterprise of the professors and the liberality of the public. An edifice, a library,
anatomical preparations, chemical apparatus and a hospital are indispensable to its
success. These should not be the property of the professors, but of the institution ; and
must, therefore, be created and contributed by the State and by society. At present
our medical school, although not destitute, is exceedingly deficient in these important
aids, and whatever it possesses has been furnished by the professors themselves.

It is auspicious^ gentlemen, that although so imperfectly supplied, it has not by you
been deemed unworthy of notice. To your prompt attendance it will be found here-
after to be indebted for much of its prosperity. Had your patronage been withheld
until greater facilities could be offered, it might have been unavailing. For the sacrifices
you have made by enrolling yourselves as the pupils of the first session, you will be
compensated in the reflection that you will receive the honor of having drawn the atten-
tion of the community to the institution at a period when the fosterage of that com-
munity is essential to its very existence. The citizens of Cincinnati have not heretofore
been indifferent to the project, and I venture to indulge the hope that from this very
hour they will regard it with affection and approbation. For every kindness it may
receive, it will repay an hundredfold; and when the tongue which now addresses you
shall be mute; when yourselves shall rest from your labors in the cause of humanity,
and this animated assembly shall be mingled with the dust of the surrounding plain, it
will be found to constitute one of her richest mines of wealth, one of the noblest ele-
ments of her Cornu Copiae of literary fruits. To those who are thus to receive and
transmit the benefits which this institution can impart, we may look with confidence for
early and anxious manifestations of good will ; for a vigilant attention to its wants, a
sacred regard to its reputation and a determined resolution to support and protect it
against every assault. To suppose less than this, would be to impugn the common
sense, the feeling, and the liberality of the city.

Gentlemen ! During your pupilage you have been petitioners for our institution, and
your prayer has been heard. The appropriation for an infirmary for which you solicited
the Legislature, has been made. That honorable body (in this instance, I trust, faith-
fully representing the people of Ohio), has provided not only for a hospital, but also
for a lunatic asylum on such principles as will draw to its wards the lunatics of Ohio
and other States in the West. The wisdom of our General Assembly in taking the

necessary steps, at this early period, to add to the Medical College an establishment for
the study of practical medicine, must secure for them the gratitude of the friends of
science, as well as of humanity. It is agreeable to perceive that in every part of the
State, this noble act has been applauded by the most intelligent and benevolent citizens.
The slightest symptom of general harmony of feeling and unity of impulse, should be
hailed and encouraged. Hitherto the different portions of the State have maintained an
independent and imperfect life. No vital i\uid has circulated from the center to the
circumference of the body politic and carried an equal warmth and energy throughout
every organ.

We have, therefore, but few State institutions, although they are the nerves which
establish a common sympathy through society, and without which it must forever be
convulsed with opposing propensities and countervailing efforts. The acts which
authorize the Medical College and the Hospital, are honorable exceptions to the policy
heretofore pursued ; and will eventually advance the progress of reform. They must
react upon the people from whom they emanated, and generate among them that pride
and emulation which are the true sources of national harmony and strength.

The Divine maxim that a house divided against itself can not stand, may be applied
as well to the advancement as the protection of the people. Intestive dissensions and
jealousies, resemble the morbid actions of a fever which produce debility and delirium.
Society has functions to perform which require a harmonious and concerted action at
least among its principal members. In every State and in every city, composed of
emigrants, it should be the chief political object to introduce and foster this singleness
of design and unity of effort, until all shall be ready to co-operate in every project for
the common good. Before this is accomplished, it will be in vain to attempt works of
national or municipal utility. No splendid edifice can be reared by sinister and dis-
cordant architects. Attraction and combination are not less essential in the moral than
the physical world. The diamond owes its unfading luster to the particles of charcoal
of which it is composed. The stately column of granite derives its imperishable strength
and beauty from the firm and intimate union of the three materials of which Nature
has formed it. The sands of our great river have be«n drifted for ages before its waves.
Let them become consolidated into rocks, and for ages they will defy the fiercest assaults
of its current. In the whole range of national objects, there are none to which a new
State like ours can direct its attention with so much advantage as to literary and scien-
tific institutions. While our youth are sent abroad to different academies and colleges,
they must continue to return with a diversity of sentiment and manners, most unfavor-
able to the abolition of those prejudices, which, like so many atmospheres of repulsion,
keep asunder their emigrant fathers, and predispose society to disorder and distraction.
Let our sons be educated within our own State, and they will not, like ourselves, be
strangers to each other in a strange land. They must become brethren and citizens of
Ohio, they will then delight in her prosperity, and emulate each other in every work
designed to promote her interests and glory. While we depend, moreover, on the insti-
tutions of other States, but few of our young men, comparatively, can be educated. The
rich only can send their sons abroad, and these make a small portion of the whole.
But, Nature having distributed her intellectual bounties among the poor as liberally as
among the rich, it should be the object of every society to avail itself of all her gifts.
In two States of the same population, if one should educate every youth a genius, and
the other avail itself of those only who are found within the ranks of wealth and for-
tune, the march to elevated independence and power would be in ratios exceedingly
different. In the former all the talent of the country would be brought into requisition;
in the latter, that only which is awarded to a single class. In one case every portion
of the common mass would be irrigated by streams of knowledge, in the other, a part
only, and the productiveness would be proportional. The population of Ohio is greater
than that of Kentucky, but if the latter should place the opportunities for a liberal

education within the reach of all her people, but the former compel her sons to seek
such opportunities abroad, it is easy to perceive that all the talents of that State would
be put into requisition, while the greater part which Heaven might dispense to this,
would be suffered to perish like seed sown upon a barren soil. In a century the results
of such opposite systems of policy would become so deplorably conspicuous, that travelers
to the Athens, would have little difficulty in pointing out the Boeotia of the West.
The moneys saved by a State which fosters institutions of learning, and those remitted
to it by other States, amount in the course of an age to immense sums ; but these, in
reality, constitute a minor part of the benefit which such institutions produce. The great
secret of their beneficial operation is the general diffusion of learning which they efifect.
This diffusion is the true Palladium of liberty. Knowledge is power and independence.
If the rich only can acquire learning, they sooner or later effect a monopoly of the
functions of the State", and establish a dominion of intellect incompatible with the genius
and the stability of republican government.

The citizens of Ohio are then exhorted to encourage literary and scientific institu-
tions by every consideration which can address itself to their desire for wealth, their
love of personal and public consequence, and to their attachment to the principles of a
Government, which, if administered with intelligence and virtue, must forever protect
both their individual and aggregated rights.

Gentlemen, I shall return from this digression, to consecrate a parting moment to
other emotions. You have been for five months the pupils of our institution, and I
feel it my duty to bear a public testimony to the entire devotion with which you have
prosecuted your studies. As if disposed from the beginning to excuse the imperfections
of a first session, and by your attainments to impress society with a good opinion of
our infant seminary, you have laboured with unwearied diligence to supply our defects,
and I do not doubt that society will decide that you have been successful. You have
given proofs that you rightly apprehend the nature of the medical profession. It is,
indeed, a learned, liberal and difficult vocation. When you commence or resume its
duties, you will, I trust, by your example, sustain it in the possession of these exalted
attributes. You will never forget that they should enter into and regulate all the
intercourse between physicians and patients. Your chief ambition will be to deserve the
confidence of society : your greatest happiness to extend and strengthen that confidence ;
not by cunning and address, but by ability with which you discharge your official duties.
You will shrink with disgust from the intimation that you may acquire patronage by
an easier method than is here indicated: you will turn with indignation from every
proposition to commute fame into popularity. You will make science the ground work
of your reputation ; and acts of intelligence, honor and benevolence the material of the
superstructure. You will thus become shining lights of the profession : you will sit
down with the great ones of the earth : the learned will thirst after your conversation :
the rich will contribute their homage, the poor will call you blessed, and your names will
live and be held in honour.

The Commencement being over, the strife among- the professors began
with renewed vigor. Just eleven months after that memorable first Com-
mencement, which should have been and in reality was an apotheosis to
Drake's genius, the man in whose brain the Medical College of Ohio was
conceived, in whose heart it was nurtured as the unborn child is by the blood
of the mother, the man .by w^hose strong hand the young school was guided
during the days of its early childhood, that very man v^^as expelled because
two-thirds of the faculty, two men who owed their positions to Drake, willed
it so. Reference to this serio-comic affair will be made elsewhere. The

expulsion took place March 6, 1822, at the end of the second annual session
of the Medical College of Ohio. It was made possible by the intrinsic defect
in the Charter which placed the government of the school in the hands of the
teaching staff. This is at all times a hazardous arrangement. As far as the
management of a school is concerned, its professors should have a right
to suggest measures of policy, but the power to adopt and enforce them should
belong to a disinterested body of trustees or managers. To invest one or
more of the teaching force with both prerogatives and thus make him or
them the judge or judges of his or their own conduct, is wrong in principle,
and is bound to be disastrous in practice.

Mkdical Department of Transylvania Univkrsitv

Drake's expulsion horrified the people of Cincinnati. Their demand that
the wrong be righted and Drake reinstated, resulted in the adoption of a
resolution one week later to rescind the action of the previous meeting.
Drake was reinstated but promptly handed in his resignation.

The condition of Drake's mind can be better imagined than described.
All his troubles had been caused by men who wanted to get possession of
the fruits of his labor. The school was his offspring, and he contended for
it as a parent does for a child. He saw his ideal besmirched by unworthy
hands. The invitation, in 1823, to again become a member of the Transyl-
vania Faculty, came like a message of redemption. The chair of materia

medica was offered to him and he accepted the oft"er. In the Fall of 1823
he moved with his family to Lexington. He lectured there during the fol-
lowing three sessions. The Transylvania School was at that time at the
height of its glory. Its faculty comprised the most distinguished men in the
West, the total number of its medical students being nearly three hundred.
Drake built up a magnificent consultation practice in Lexington, patients
coming to him from all parts of the South and West. He had become a
national figure, universally respected on account of his great ability and his
character. Some of the nation's celebrities considered it a privilege to know
him and to do him honor. Clay, Clinton, Calhoun and others of similar
caliber showed their regard for Drake in many ways. He took many trips,
visiting different parts of the South, accompanied by his wife, who was not
in the best of health. In October, 1825, he was to endure the severest and
bitterest of human ordeals. The sweetheart of his youth, whose companion-
ship was the one great inspiration of his life, his "own beloved Harriet,"
as he affectionately called his wife, died of malignant fever. Her death
was a stunning blow to Drake. She who had been "sweetheart, wife, mother,
companion, in fact everything" to him, passed to the unknown regions
beyond. She was laid away in the old Presbyterian cemetery in Cincinnati
(now Washington Park), and years afterwards found a permanent resting-
place in Spring Grove, Cincinnati's beautiful City of the Dead. The old
Presbyterian churchyard was at the time of Mrs. Drake's death not kept
in the best of condition. Drake was struck with the desolate look of the
place and started a movement to improve its appearance by the planting of
trees and the erection of an iron fence. No wife has been more sincerely
mourned than was Mrs. Drake. Her bereaved husband always observed
the anniversary of her death by solitude, fasting, meditation and the writing
of a few memorial lines, often in poetic form. The following poem was
written by Drake in 1831, and shows the beautifully tender soul of the
man as well as his poetic talent :

Ye clouds that veil the setting sun,

Dye not your robes in red ;
Thou chaste and beauteous rising moon,

Thy mildest radiance shed.
Ye stars that gem the vault of Heaven,

Shine mellow as ye pass ;
Ye falling dews of early ev'n.

Rest calmly on this grass.
Ye fitful zephyrs as ye rise,

And win your way along,
Breathe softly out your deepest sighs,

And wail your gloomiest song.
Thou lonely, widowed bird of night.

As on this sacred stone,
Thou mayest in wandering chance to light,

Pour forth thy saddest moan.
57

Ye giddy throng who laugh and stray.

Where notes of sorrow sound,
And mock the funeral vesper-lay,

Tread not this holy ground.

For here my sainted Harriet lies,

I saw her hallowed form
Laid deep below, no more to rise.

Before the judgment morn.

Drake's colleagues in Transylvania were loth to see him go. He was
universally popular on account of his manly and honest conduct and his
ability. He was the dean of the school from 1.S25 until the time of his
departure. Dr. James C. Cross, one of his colleagues in Transylvania and
later on a professor in the Medical College of Ohio, in 1834 referred to
Drake's leaving the Lexington School as "a severe calamity and a stroke from
which the school has never recovered." Drake left Lexington in the Spring
of 1826 and returned to Cincinnati. He did all this in the interests of his
family. This is his statement. I have never been able to understand why
he should have made a move that involved a great loss and promised very
little compensation for the loss. Was it the love of dear old Cincinnati that
always brought him back, a more loyal son of the Queen City than ever?

Almost immediately after his return to Cincinnati he had a severe attack
of meningitis, which nearly cost him his life. His erstwhile colleague, Dr.
Wm. H. Richardson, of Lexington, Ky., rode eighty miles on horseback to
come to the bedside of his stricken friend, and remained in Cincinnati until
the danger was passed. Drake had hardly recovered, when he was again at
work planning and projecting. In 1827 he opened on Third Street, between
Main and Walnut Streets, the "Cincinnati Eye Infirmary" in conjunction
with Dr. Jedediah Cobb, that excellent anatomist and popular teacher, whose
splendid achievements we shall have occasion to refer to elsewhere.

A sad occurrence of the year 1828, (September 28), was the horrible
death of Miss Caroline S. Sisson, a sister-in-law of Drake. She had retired
for the night when the mosquito bar over her bed caught fire. She called
for help, but in spite of the heroic efforts of Drake, who had rushed to her
rescue, she perished in the flames. Drake's hands were badly burned.

Three years Drake spent in the faithful discharge of his duties as a
much-sought-after physician in Cincinnati, occasionally taking a hand in
matters of public interest. He took part in the temperance movement of
those days. E. D. Mansfield gives an amusing account of a large public
temperance meeting at which Drake spoke. It was in September, 1827, that a
public meeting of the citizens was called to convene at the courthouse, and con-
sider the subject of temperance. The meeting was held at three o'clock in the
afternoon. Many old citizens were present, who were quite familiar with
old whisky, and upon whose cheeks it blossomed forth in purple dyes. To
these, and indeed to the great body of people in the West, a temperance

speech was a new idea. Dr. Drake was the speaker. They hstened to him
with respectful attention, and were by no means opposed to the object. The
speech, however, was long. The doctor had arrayed a formidable column
of facts. The day was hot, and, after he had spoken about an hour without
apparently approaching the end, someone, out of regard for the doctor's
strength or by the force of habit, cried out : "Let us adjourn awhile and
take a drink." The meeting did adjourn, and McFarland's tavern being
near by, the old soakers refreshed themselves with "old rye." The meeting
again assembled, the doctor finished his speech, and all went off well. Soon
after the temperance societies began to be formed, and the excitement then
begun has continued to this day.

Drake watched with keen interest the trend of events at the college which
he had founded. He must have found it galling to see inferior men trying
to do the work which he had planned for himself. Eventually his ever-
active brain evolved a scheme that would land him in the place which he
considered his inalienable right, to-wit : that of the foremost medical teacher
in Cincinnati. Jefferson College, of Philadelphia, furnished the means to the
end. He was offered a chair at Jefferson. The offer in itself was a great
moral victory for Drake. In addition to this, his mind was made up in
reference to a new medical school which he had decided to found in Cin-
cinnati, in order to create a place for himself and to destroy the tottering
Ohio College. He had discussed his plans with one or two of the trustees
of Miami University at Oxford, Ohio, and had received encouragement.
He decided to go to Philadelphia, lecture during one session at Jefferson,
and cast about for available men to bring to Cincinnati to make up the
faculty of the Medical Department of Miami University, to be started after
his return from Philadelphia. Drake was at this time a man of more than
national reputation. Three scientific societies of prominence had elected
him a member during the year preceding his Philadelphia appointment : the
Philadelphia Academy of Natural Science, American Philosophical Society
and Royal Wernerian Society of Natural History of Edinburgh, Scotland.

Drake made a splendid record in Philadelphia. His class numbered about
one hundred students, who simply idolized their new teacher from the
West. Before the session was over, he resigned and hurried back to Cin-
cinnati, where the professors of the Medical College of Ohio were already
shaking in their boots. Drake appeared on the scene with a galaxy of
Eastern luminaries that fairly startled the people of the Miami country.
He brought with him John Eberle, a "Pennsylvania Dutchman," crude and
erratic, with tremendous ability in his work and a German accent in his
speech ; James M. Staughton, a good surgeon and a j^oung man of great
promise ; Thomas D. Mitchell, scholarly but tiresome ; John F. Henry, orig-
inally from Kentucky, who had already achieved some reputation as a wielder
of a facile ])en. Two of Drake's Eastern friends changed their minds about
going to Cincinnati. They were George McClellan, the brilliant and erratic

founder of Jefiferson Medical College, and Robley Dunglison, of medical
dictionary fame. The story of the Medical Department of Miami University
with the flourish of trumpets in the first chapter and the smoking of the
pipe of peace in the windup, Drake meekly joining in the general love-feast,
will be told elsewhere. While Drake's hopes were not realized, the Medical
College of Ohio felt the grip of his masterhand. He failed in the establish-
ment of a new school and in the intended destruction of the Ohio College,
but he did reconstruct the latter from top to bottom. This was the achieve-
ment of the memorable year 1831. That the reconstruction did not suit
Drake, was evident from his resignation at the end of the session of 1831-2,
when he again became a private citizen and practitioner.

Drake's active and fervent temperament was not adapted to the even
tenor of a simple life. This can readily be imagined. The cholera year, 1832,
kept him busy practicing his profession, and otherwise working in the in-
terests of the public good. In 1832 he began to cultivate society in the better
sense of the word than it is usually understood. He lived at Vine and
Baker Streets at that time, with two young daughters growing into woman-
hood. Here he kept open house for all those who, on account of their cul-
ture, cleverness and virtue, were eligible to sit at his fireside. Here he dis-
pensed hospitality out of a large buckeye-bowl, which was filled with some
innocent beverage and tastefully decorated with buckeye blossoms and
branches. Around this festive buckeye-bowl the intellectual elite of the city
feasted on corncakes and cornbread. Professor Stowe, a biblical scholar of
much renown ; Mrs. Stowe, who gave the world "Uncle Tom's Cabin" ;
General and Mrs. Edward King, who afterward founded the Philadelphia
School of Design; Mr. Albert Pickett, the father of the Cincinnati Public
Schools, and many other persons of similar caliber constituted Dr. Drake's
social set. He was the center and promoter of conversation, discussion and
amusement. While he was dignified to a degree, he had a merry twinkle
in his eye that suggested a fun-loving and joke-playing temperament.

The buckeye -bowl ! How many reminiscences of early pioneer days in
the Ohio Valley cluster around it! Doctor Drake loved the buckeye, the
emblem of our State. His toast, spoken at the forty-fifth anniversary of
the first settlement of Cincinnati (1833), ought to be read by every son and
daughter of the proud State of Ohio. They, too, would learn "to love the
buckeye of the West that possesses the power to permanently unite the
hemlock of the North and the palmetto of the South in the same national
arbor."

To the College of Teachers, founded in 1833, Dr. Drake gave much
time and labor. It was an aggregation of the brightest and most progressive
men that were to be found in Cincinnati at that time. It existed for many
years and contributed a large share to the intellectual development of this
part of our country. Drake's contributions to the transactions of the Col-
lege of Teachers were frequent and most valuable. He usually discussed

some phase of education. He advocated compulsory education, the teaching
of anatomy and physiology in the common schools, and many other ideas
far in advance of his time. Some of his associates in the College of Teachers
were Albert Pickett, to whom Cincinnati owes the establishment of her
public school system; Alexander Kinmont, one of the most brilliant classical
scholars in the educational history of the West ; James H. Perkins, author
of "Annals of the West," invaluable on account of their completeness and
accuracy ; Alexander McGuff ey, the famous author of school books, who
married one of Drake's daughters, and Bishop Purcell, who was a tower of
moral and mental strength in the early days of Cincinnati. It would seem
that Cincinnati, as a whole, has never since reached the level of education
and culture that was represented in an aggregation of such men as those
named, says E. D. Mansfield.

• In the early thirties the Medical College of Ohio was in a woeful condition.
The troubles and wrangles in the faculty and board of trustees were continuous,
involving the medical profession of the city and causing much feeling among the
citizens who were naturally interested in the success of their medical college. It
is but natural to assume that Drake noticed it all with ill-concealed satisfaction.
In 1835 he was approached and asked again to become a professor in the school.
Drake was ready, but on one condition: the immediate dismissal of his arch-
enemy, Dr. John Moorhead, who at this time was the professor of obstetrics
and the diseases of women and children. The bitter enmity of Drake and Moor-
head had started many years before and was a favorite topic for the goSsips of
the town. It added to the already existing disturbed condition of things, and
forms a distinct chapter in the medical history of the city.

JOHN MOORHEAD (sometimes spelled Morehead) was born in the
county of Monaghan, Ireland, in the year 1784. He was, therefore, but one year
older than Drake. He attended the University of Edinburgh, and, after
finishing his medical course, passed the examination for the medical service
in the English army. Edinburgh, at that time, attracted a good many Ameri-
cans. John Bell was the giant of the medical faculty, and very popular with
his American pupils. Ephraim McDowell, it will be remembered, was a
student under Bell. It was through the influence of his American fellow-
students at Edinburgh that Moorhead conceived the idea of going to America.
In 1820 he came to Cincinnati, where two of his brothers were living, and
decided to remain here for awhile. He met Drake and promptly took a
strong dislike to him, which was cordially reciprocated. When Drake, on
December 30, 1819, caused the Legislature to pass an amendatory act per-
taining to the appointment and dismissal of professors, he was made the
target of much abuse and vilification, mainly through the columns of the
Western Spy. The writers were anonymous. Drake had his suspicions
in regard to the identity of the writers and answered the various anonymous
communications in a letter to the editor of the IVestcni Spy. This was the

beginning of a long and bitter newspaper war, in which nearly every prom-
inent physician in the town became involved. Finally, the fight narrowed
down to Drake and Moorhead. The letters published by these two men were
long and frequent. Moorhead particularly had a happy way of saying some
very impolite things in a most courteous manner, by diluting the venom in a
superfluity of well-worded and long drawn-out sentences. One day the
men met on the river front. Moorhead was waiting for an incoming boat
when Drake happened along. ]\Ioorhead, in an undertone, said some sar-
castic things about Drake, and the good fortune of the Ohio College in

John Moorhead

having Drake at the helm. This was too much for the fiery Drake. A rough
and tumble fight followed, in which the clumsy and awkward Moorhead got
the worst of it. With his eyes blackened and his scalp laid open he was
led from the battlefield. The next scene in this serio-comic performance
was a challenge sent by Moorhead to Drake to fight a duel with pistols
"like a gentleman." Drake could not see things that way and declined the
challenge, whereupon Moorhead made up his mind that Drake was no gen-
tleman and forthwith ignored him. Shortly after, Benjamin Drake, the
doctor's brother, and Moorhead were involved in a quarrel, during which
Moorhead was severely cut.

The manner in which Drake was being discussed in the public prints by
his enemies in the profession. Aloorhead, Oliver B. Baldwin and others,
would have exasperated even a less inflammable individual. Baldwin speaks
of him as the "notorious Daniel Drake," "a common disturber of the peace,"
refers to "his ungovernable passion for brawls," says that "he is no gentle-
man," that he is "an unqualified liar," that he indulges "in vulgar wit," that
"he plagiarizes his lectures," that he is "full of arrogance, malignity and
meanness." Moorhead calls him "a calumniator,'* emphasizes his "talents of
professional insolence," his "lust of quarreling." says that "he proceeds after

the manner of a common assassin," that he is "a domineering coward," that
his character is "a combination of vices," that "he possesses rare powers of
invention." Moorhead's letters were characteristic of the man : very voluble,
verbose, circumstantial, courteous even in their malignity, full of clumsy
attempts at irony and sarcasm. One can not but marvel at the naive spirit
of the times that would tolerate six columns of a purely personal character
in a public print. Drake's letters of reply stamp him as the better man from
every point of view. His innuendos are clever, his sarcasm delightful, his
style faultless. A sense of artistic moderation pervades his utterances. His
letters were short, almost epigrammatic, compared to Moorhead's long-
winded epistles. Several times Drake ignored Moorhead's attacks, and in
this way precipitated a new outbreak on the part of his "irritated foreign
friend," as Drake called Moorhead. This war of words and letters con-
tinued for a long time. The people of Cincinnati were alternately amused
and excited ; the principals in the tight were relieved by having a chance to
get rid of excess steam. In reading the Western Spy of those days (1820),
one is reminded of the speech-making heroes of the Trojan war, or of the
complaint of the ancient arrowmaker In "Hiawatha," who finds fault with
the men that fight like women —

"using but their tongues as weapons."

A delightful sketch of Moorhead is given in the personal reminiscences
of an old Ohio student, published anonymously ("Clinic," 1873), at the time
of Moorhead's death. The following is an excerpt :

"I first saw Dr. Moorhead forty-three years ago, and heard his course of lectures
then upon the practice of medicine. Very well do I remember the first Monday in
November, 1830. I then entered the Medical College of Ohio as a student. All of
the professors, that morning, at 9 o'clock, were sitting around a long, wide table.
Commencing at one, paying fee and taking ticket, every student continued until he
had made the entire round. To the best of my recollection, each professor, that
morning^ got about six hundred dollars. I remember to have thought it quite a
princely business, and looked upon those grave philosophers, as I took every one
to be, with absolute awe, wondering if they had not descended from the gods, to
have attained such wonderful distinction ! I stopped one of them on the street the
next day, to beg of him a prescription to relieve a poor man in my neighborhood of a
hemiplegia, and I had not a doubt but what a few cabalistic hieroglyphics of his, on a
scrap of paper, would confer on me the power of making my poor friend whole — chat
he might leap, with recreated energy, and go on his way rejoicing."

"And now the lectures began. With the exception of Cobb, each of them sat down
on a chair and read his lecture straight along from one end to the other, when, saying
'Good morning, gentlemen,' he left, to make way for another."

"Moorhead wore black buckskin boots, drawn on over his pantaloons, which were
of black plush. I had no doubt that such boots were only for those in the highest walks
of philosophy, and wondered if it were possible for any of his colleagues, or of the
students before him, ever to attain so sublime a height as to be entitled to such boots
as those. I had never seen any like them before, nor have I since. All the other pro-

fessors trudged about on foot to their patients, if at any time they had any; but Moor-
head, who always had plenty of them, rode an old gray mare, heavy in foal."

"Moorhead had his lectures written on small note paper, ' and carried the one
selected for the day in a thick and rather greasy-looking pocketbook, which he would
extract from his side pocket, after taking his seat, untie its fastenings, and, lifting
sheet by sheet, read them as one might read a letter aloud at his own fireside. His
brogue was terrible, and it was with the greatest difficulty that I could comprehend
him. I believe a large majority of the class never tried. I never saw him make but
one gesture. He was talking of salivation, and said: 'Some of your patients, hereafter,
upon a morning visit, will' (and here he carried his forefinger and thumb to his upper
right canine, and motioned, as if extracting it), 'will reproachfully say, "See here,
Doctor !" ' "

"He had a large collection of pills, plasters and things, in an old frame building
fronting the levee, and a brother, as I understood, who was a 'surgeon,' and who was
pretty generally on hand here, and who, I remember, prescribed 'searching cathartics,'
so popular with his brother. I did not hear that he did any other surgery." (Dr. Robert
Moorhead, who had been a surgeon in the British army, died in Cincinnati in 1843.)

"Doctor Moorhead always said that he would prescribe for no one who did not
have on a flannel shirt. He would not prescribe for a roommate of mine until he
got one, which was not an easy thing, in the absence of a subscription, for the poor
fellow to do."

"Doctor Moorhead got married, for the first time, during this Winter, and, on
the night of the wedding the students had a meeting, and appointed an 'orator' to con-
gratulate him next day, at his lecture hour. Sure enough, next day, just as the doctor
was taking his seat, at a preconcerted signal, the whole class arose as one man, when
our orator, a very tall, gaunt man, with enormous porterhouse steak whiskers, as red
as blazes, fired away, and in hot haste was up among the stars, and walking the milky-
way as fearlessly as a conjurer dances on a tightrope. When he was through, we all
sat down, and so did the doctor, and, leisurely taking out his old leather pocketbook, he
untied the string, took out a sheet and commenced reading, as if nothing in the world
had happened."

"When he went to see a patient, of whose financial rank he was ignorant, he no
sooner entered the room than he asked, pencil and paper in hand: 'Who pays this bill?'
Moorhead had the habit of carrying his money, preferably silver, with him, tied up
in a red bandana handkerchief."

Moorhead was a man of ability, although lacking in brilHancy. He
was a slow and pedantic lecturer, full of dignity and importance. In stature
he was clumsy and ponderous. He was in no sense of the word a match for
the wiry, agile, active, seductively eloquent and brilliant Drake. The latter
loved a good chance for the display of his mettle. In 1826, when Samuel
Thomson, the founder of the Thomsonian system, came to Cincinnati and
made many converts to his new creed, Drake challenged him to a public
debate. In 1828 the students of the Medical College of Ohio started a
debating society and frequently asked invited guests to take part in the
discussions. Drake was invited and" simply electrified his audience by an
extemporaneous address on medical education. He was at that time a
bitter enemy of the Ohio faculty, arid attended the students' meeting without
any one of the professors knowing about it. In spite of the existing feud
he did not hesitate to invade the camp of the enemy and appear before the

students of the hostile college. Moorhead was particularly bitter in his
denunciation of Drake. Being a good, conscientious practitioner, he had
many friends in Cincinnati who sided with him against Drake. The enmity
of the two men lasted fully twenty years, and only ceased when Drake left
Cincinnati for Louisville, in 1839, and had no more occasion to worry about
his old antagonist who held the professorship of practice until 1849, when
he, upon his father's death, permanently settled on his estate in Ireland,
became Sir John Moorhead and led the life of a gentleman of wealth and
leisure. Moorhead was made professor of practice in the Medical College of
Ohio in 1825. He held this chair for six years, when he was transferred to
the chair of obstetrics and diseases of women and children. After nine sessions
he again became professor of practice. He left in 1849 and he was followed
in his chair by his old enemy, Daniel Drake. The manner in which ironical
Fate happened to arrange this session, we shall see later on. Moorhead died
in Ireland in 1873. During his residence in Cincinnati he had a strong fol-
lowing among the profession. He was respected on account of his learning
and dignified conduct. "Old Hydrarg," as he was popularly known, was a
believer in blue mass and calomel. One of his favorite means of practical
illustration was the careful inspection of the faeces. Frequently he would
cause a vessel to be passed among the class, and insist upon careful study of
the appearance and odor of the contents. If any one of the students ob-
jected, Moorhead would say to him in his slow and deliberate manner:
"There may not be any poetry in that vessel, but there is quite a good deal of
learning in it."

In 1835, when the complete collapse of the Medical College of Ohio
seemed inevitable, Drake was called to save the ship. As stated above, his
demand was the summary dismissal of Moorhead, "the foreigner." The
latter appellation was singularly significant in view of the fact that Moor-
head was in the habit of spending only his Winters in Cincinnati. His
Summers he spent on his father's estate in Ireland. Yet, his friends were
powerful enough to sustain him in the face of Drake's demand. Moorhead
held the fort and Drake, who was determined to crush the Ohio College,
founded the Medical Department of the Cincinnati College. This was, in
more ways than one, the crowning event of Drake's career as a builder of
medical schools. The story of this short-lived but greatest medical school
Cincinnati, or perhaps the West, has ever seen, will be told elsewhere. The
men who were associated with Drake in the new venture were the brain'tfest,
most brilliant and famous medical teachers of the day, particularly Samuel
D. Gross, who left the Medical College of Ohio and joined Drake; Willard
Parker, a peerless surgeon; J. B. Rogers, a chemist of national reputation,
and others. This school was abandoned after four years of a valiant fight
for supremacy.

Daniel Drake during these three years was at his best as a teacher of
medicine. S. D. Gross has given us such a graphic sketch of Drake in

those days, that I beg to reproduce the excellent word-picture penned by
Gross :

"Drake was a handsome man with fine blue eyes and manly features. He had a
commanding presence, being nearly six feet tall, having a fine intellectual forehead.
His step was light and elastic, his manner simple and dignified. He was always well-
dressed, and around his neck he had a long gold watch chain, which rested loosely upon
his vest. He was a great lecturer. His voice was clear and strong, and he had the
power of expression which amounted to genuine eloquence. When under full sway,
every nerve quivered and his voice could be heard at a great distance. At such times,
his whole soul would seem to be on fire. He would froth at the mouth, swing to and
fro like a tree in a storm, and raise his voice to the highest pitch. With first course
students he was never popular, not because there was anything disagreeable in his
manner, but because few of them had been sufficiently educated to seize the import of
his utterances."

Gross characterizes Drake by saying he was easy of access, kind and
genial, a hater of vulgarity and immorality, a lover of children and of
innocent fun, a thoroughly noble Christian gentleman. His modesty bordered
on affectation. In 1850 he refused the presidency of the American Medical
Association because "he was not worthy of such honor." He did not want
to go to Europe because he was afraid of meeting" great physicians, men of
university education, who had had greater advantages than himself. "I
think too much of my country to place myself in so awkward a position."
Drake said this at a time when his name was spoken with respect everywhere
in England and on the Continent.

After the collapse of the Medical Department of the Cincinnati College
(1839), Drake, worn out and thoroughly disgusted, accepted an appointment
as professor of materia medica and pathology at the Louisville Medical In-
stitute, later on being made professor of practice. He moved to Louisville
in 1840 and remained there for almost ten years, teaching, practicing and
preparing his monumental work on the "Diseases of the Interior Valley of
North America." In 1850, when the Medical College of Ohio was again
passing through a most critical period, its friends thought of Daniel Drake,
now the foremost physician in the West, honored and beloved at home and
abroad. It was thought that his name and his genius would save the founder-
ing craft. The old Ohio College turned its longing eyes towards him who
thirty years before had given it its existence, and bade him return. Did
he return? When on November 5, 1849, at the opening of the thirtieth
session of the Medical College of Ohio, the tall figure of Daniel Drake, as
handsome and as erect as ever, though the frosts of sixty-four Winters had
slightly silvered his temples, appeared before the class — received by the stu-
dents as no one had ever been received before — it seemed as though Destiny
had reserved that particular triumph for him, as a vindication of his long
struggle in the interests of all that is good and pure in the profession.
Where were the men who had fought him, who had attempted to take from
him the fruits of his labor? Where were the Jesse Smiths, the Moorheads

and all the others of lesser renown? There he stood, the Daniel Drake of
old, like an Olympic hero receiving- the thundering acclaim of those whose
approval was the one thing- in all the world to him worth possessing. In
that hour all the bitterness of the past was forgotten. His was the battle,
and his the great final victory. With a suggestion of moisture in his eyes
and ill-concealed tremulous emotion in his voice, standing before the stu-
dents whose vociferous applause would not down, and amid the professors
and trustees who had assembled to do him honor, Drake opened his heart and

Louisville Medical Institute

revealed the secret of that delusion that had pursued him through thirty
years of his life. It was the confession of a father who had found his long-
lost child. Drake said:

"My heart still fnndly turned to my first love, your alma mater. Her image,
glowing in the warm and radiant tints of earlier life, was ever in my view. Tran-
sylvania had been reorganized in 1819, and included in its faculty Professor Dudley,
whose surgical fame had already spread throughout the West, and that paragon of labor
and perseverance, Professor Caldwell, now a veteran octogenarian. In the year after
my separation from this .school, I was recalled to that ; but neither the eloquence of
colleagues, nor the greeting of the largest classes, which the university ever enjoyed,
could drive that beautiful image from my mind. After four sessions I resigned, and was
subsequently called to Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia : but the image mingled
with my shadow; and when we reached the summit of the mountain, it bade me stop
and gaze upon the siKery cloud which hung oxct the place where you are now assem-
bled. Afterward, in the Medical Department of Cincinnati College, 1 lectured with men

of power, to younp- men thirsting for knowledge, but the image still hovered round me.
I was then invited to Louisville, became a member of one of the ablest faculties ever
embodied in the West, and saw the halls of the university rapidly filled. But when I
looked on the faces of four hundred students, behold ! the image was in their midst.
While there I prosecuted an extensive course of personal inquiry into the causes and
cure of the diseases of the interior valley of the continent; and in journeyings by day,
and journeyings by night, on the water and on the land, while struggling through the
matted rushes where the Mississippi mingles with the Gulf^ or camping with the Indians
and Canadian boatmen, under the pines and birches of Lake Superior, the image was
still my faithful companion, and whispered sweet words of encouragement and hope. I
bided my time ; and, after twice doubling the period through which Jacob waited for
his Rachel, the united voice of the trustees and professors has recalled me to the chair
which I held in the beginning."

Drake's Residence (1850)

(Now the site of 124 West Fourth Street)

Surely, if every man who has ever been connected with the old Ohio
College in the capacity of a teacher or a trustee, or both, had been imbued
with the patriotism and the sentiments of pure, unselfish devotion, that in-
spired these words of Daniel Drake, the old Ohio would have never descended
from that regal throne that should be, and, for a time, was her station.

Daniel Drake, mirahiJe dictu, resigned at the end of the session. He
yearned for peace and quiet such as he had enjoyed in Louisville. The
Medical College of Ohio was still the scene of incessant wrangling and fight-
ing. Drake was disenchanted. He had sought the realization of the dreams
of his youth in vain. He returned to Louisville, where he was received with'
open arms. Parental love is a peculiar product. Its roots lie deep in the
human heart, and are nourished by the blood of the heart itself. It is blood-
love, and lives and dies with the blood — "Bint ist ein gans besond'rcr Saft!"

This explains the return of Drake to his wayward child, in 1852, when he was
again asked to come back and stay the seemingly inevitable dissolution. He
began his college work, but took sick on October 26, after attending a public
meeting held by the people of Cincinnati to honor the memory of Daniel
Webster. Drake had been indisposed for more than a week. Shortly after
his return from the Webster meeting he was seized with a violent chill which
was followed by vomiting and great depression. He took to his bed with all
the physical signs of pneumonia. From the very beginning of the attack the
outlook seemed doubtful. He grew weaker from day to day, and seemed
to realize that he was fast approaching the end of his earthly career. His
friends, Drs. Wm. S. Ridgeley and W'olcott Richards, were in constant at-
tendance. Alexander H. McGuffey, his son-in-law, who was with Drake in
his last hours, describes the parting of the distinguished man as follows :

"He had made his peace with God and was resigned to meet his Maker. A few
hours before his death, when loudly called by a familiar voice, he would partially open
his eyes ; and during the forenoon he made faint efforts to swallow the fluids which
were placed in his mouth. But the lethargy steadily gained ground, and his breathing
became more and more labored, until about five o'clock, when his pulse became im-
perceptible and his breathing less heavy. His breathing became gentler and shorter,
till, at last, it ceased so gradually that we could not say when his lungs ceased their
functions. But just at this solemn moment, when all eyes were fixed on the face of
the departing, he closed his mouth most naturally, drew up and placed upon his breast
the right hand, which had for hours lain motionless by his side, the eyes opened and
beamed with an unearthly radiance, as if at the same time clasping in and reflecting the
glories of heaven, and — the spirit was with God, who gave it."

He died on the sixth day of November, 1852. His obsequies assumed the
character of a public demonstration. It seemed as though every person in
Cincinnati was a mourner. They all unconsciously felt that one of the na-
tion's great men had departed. He was laid to rest in beautiful Spring Grove,
where he lies at the side of her whom he had never ceased to love and mourn.
He sleeps beneath a modest shaft of sandstone, which today is crumbling.
Others whose lives were of no import have monuments of royal splendor.
Republics are notoriously ungrateful.

In reality, Daniel Drake needs no monument to remind posterity of his
work and worth. That miserable shaft is a monument of Cincinnati's shame.
E. D. Mansfield, in his "Personal Reminiscences," says : "Over the graves of
Cincinnati's heroic pioneers there is not a single monument which gives to
the passing stranger an idea of their work, and the future city of Cincinnati,
great in art and population, will know little of its founders or its benefactors."
Cincinnati has been too busy perpetuating the memory of its lesser lights on the
walls of its schoolhouses and public buildings to think of those giants of the
past who, like Daniel Drake, were the architects of our national greatness.

Daniel Drake's Monument in Spring Grove Cemetery, Cincinnati, Ohio

The legend on the monument, which marks the last resting-place of Daniel
Drake, reads :

Sacred to the memory of Daniel Drake, a learned and distinguished physician, an
able and philosophic writer, an eminent teacher of the medical art, a citizen of ex-
emplary virtue and public spirit, a man rarely equalled in all the gentler qualities which
adorn social and domestic life. His fame is indelibly written in the records of his
country. His good deeds, impressed on beneficent public institutions, endure forever.
He lived in the fear of God and died in the hope of salvation.

He who rests here was an early inhabitant and untiring friend of the City of Cin-
cinnati with whose prosperity his fame is inseparably connected.

CHAPTER VI.

DRAKE AS A AIEDICAL AUTHOR.

IN following Drake through his long and eventful life we are struck with
the versatility of his talents. He was indeed a singularly gifted man.
In addition to this, he was distinctly a man of affairs, full of ambition,
energy and determination. He had a quick, intuitive judgment and grasped a
situation with remarkable facility. Like Bacon, he identified an underlying
principle almost coincidently with recognizing the fact which embodied it.
In his reasoning from facts to ideas and principles he was rapid, intense and
incisive. He would have made a good professor of philosophy, yet, he was
emotional to a degree and could mix flights of fancy and logical evolution
easily and skillfully. He was, therefore, a natural orator who could harangue a
political gathering or a religious meeting with equal success. He would have
made a capital actor. He was always ready to talk. Artful silence was
foreign to him. He would have been a Machiavelli, a Talleyrand or a Moltke
if he had been able to use his tongue for the purpose of hiding rather than
divulging his thoughts. He would have made an ideal preacher because his
mind, his heart and his tongue were always perfectly attuned. He had no
fitness to be a politician in the pulpit, in the rostrum or in the lecturer's chair.
If he had been less scrupulously honest, he would have made a good lawyer.
Constituted as he was, he would have made a better incumbent of the bench
than a member of the bar. He was a protester by nature, an iconoclast
by cultivation, a reformer by force of habit. Taking him all in all, he was
best fitted for the medical profession, using the latter term in its pure and
ideal sense. To him truth was everything. When he founded the Medical
College of Ohio, he was moved by an ideal which he wished to embody in
the interests of science and pro bono publico. When he founded the Com-
mercial Hospital, he was animated by the love of humanity and of scientific
progress. The petty schemes of the latter-day medical politician who seeks
his own gain, his own aggrandizement in the working out of his schemes was
foreign to him. Colleges, hospitals and medical societies are frequently used
by the small medical politician as stepping-stones or pedestals. Large men
like Drake do not need either. A man like. Drake lifts the college, the hospital
and the society to his level. The small medical politician debauches them by
pulling them down to his own niveau. This is the diff'erence between men of
the Daniel Drake type and his small imitators of later days.

There was only one thing in his make-up that was equal to his tongue.
It was his pen. lie wielded the pen as few medical men have handled it.

The delightful diction of an Austin Flint, the clear and logical analysis of a
Roberts Bartholow, the engaging, light, graceful and often satirical style of the
feuilleton so masterfully handled by a William Osier, and the minuteness and
painstaking accuracy of detail so characteristic of a George M. Gould, they
all enter into Daniel Drake's splendid mastery of the pen. Considering the
imperfection of his early education, it seems more wonderful than ever that
he should have been facile princeps among his many contemporaries who
were educated and trained litterateurs. The greatest of them all was un-
doubtedly John D. Godman. Compared to his colleagues, with the exception
of Drake, Godman was of transcendentally superior quality as a medical
author.

John D. Godman has been likened to that young man and great genius,
Bichat, of France. He, too, died at an early age but left his footprints in

John D. Godman

the sands of time. He will always be spoken of as one of the medical leaders
of his age. Godman held the chair of surgery in the Medical College
of Ohio for one session. It was the second session in the history of the
college and there was excitement enough for everybody. Drake had been
forcibly eliminated and was in the mood resembling that of Marius sitting
on the ruins of Carthage and thinking about ways of getting even with the
ungrateful Roman republic. Godman was a mild-mannered young man, not
in the best of health and wrapped up in his work. His fort was anatomy
rather than surgery. Anatomy with him was an art as well as a science.
He was a product of Maryland, a native of Wilmington, where he was born
in 1794. In his boyhood he was a printer's apprentice. In 1814 when the war
raged in the Chesapeake, he became a sailor under Commander Barney, and
was engaged in the service at the bombardment of Fort McHenry. His first
experience on board of ship moulded the character of the young man. He
was ordered to the masthead, and, while ascending, looked down, became
dizzy and was about to fall when the stentorian voice of the captain almost

shook the ship: "Look aloft, you kibber!" He looked aloft, became self-
possessed and did what he had been told to do. Godman often in after life
told how the captain's stern command many times rang in his ears in moments
of doubt and anxiety. When the heart is growing faint and the fear of men
and their opinions is creeping over one's inner self, how gloriously the com-
mand of conscience and self-respect rings through one's soul, and brings one
back to honor and self : "Look aloft, you lubber !"

Godman, in 1816, managed to attend medical lectures in Baltimore. In-
cidentally he studied Latin, Greek, French, German and Italian, and became a
brilliant linguist. He was twenty-four years old when he graduated from
the Medical Department of the University of Maryland. Three years after
his graduation he became professor of surgery in Cincinnati. In the East
he was esteemed as a remarkable anatomist and promising surgeon. It was
his great and rapidly earned reputation that secured for him the appointment
at the Ohio College. He was thoroughly disgusted at th^ end of the term
and resigned. He remained in Cincinnati for a number of months, but finally
went to Philadelphia to practice medicine and do scientific work in a more
congenial atmosphere. When, in 1826, Hosack, Mott and others founded
that short-lived but brilliant medical school called Rutgers Medical College,
Godman was given the chair of anatomy. He was then the leading American
anatomist. Valentine Mott was his special friend and admirer. He soon
broke down entirely, had to give up teaching and practicing, and died in
Philadelphia in 1830, thirty-six years of age, of tuberculosis. Godman
throughout his whole life suffered the pangs of poverty. "During my whole
life," he was wont to say, "I have eaten the bread of sorrow and drunk the
cup of misery." Gross, who met Godman in 1828, describes him as a thin,
frail, sickly-looking man with a pallid face, heavy brow and a clear, sonorous
voice, interrupted at intervals by a hacking cough.

Godman was a voluminous writer. He not only wrote on anatomical
subjects, but on natural history and collateral topics. His paper on "Fasciae"
is a classic. His "Contributions to Physiological and Pathological Anatomy"
attracted much attention. He edited and annotated "Bell's Anatomy". A book
written in a most happy vein is his "Rambles of a Naturalist." Godman
founded and edited the first medical journal in Cincinnati, or, for that matter,
in the West, under the title of "The Western Quarterly Reporter of Medical,
Surgical, and Natural Science." The first number appeared March, 1822.
His publisher was Mr. John P. Foote (father of Dr. H. E. Foote, at one time a
professor in the Miami Medical College), a public-spirited citizen, himself
quite a writer, and interested in literary and scientific pursuits. He conducted
a book store at No. 14 Lower Market Street, and later on did much for the
Medical College of Ohio as president of its board of trustees. Mr. John P.
Foote should be gratefully remembered by the people of Cincinnati as one
of its most useful citizens during the first century of its existence. He
assumed the financial responsibility of Godman's journal and contributed

articles on natural history. The journal was quite a pretentious publication.
Each issue contained over one hundred pages. After six issues the journal
was discontinued, Godnian going to Philadelphia.

Godman was the first medical editor in Cincinnati. Drake had a very-
high opinion of Godman's ability and wrote for his journal. That Godman's
path as a medico-literary pioneer was not strewn with roses is not surprising.
The medical profession has always had its share of men who would block
progress at any cost and embitter the work of progressive men at all hazards.
Says Godman in his introduction :

"To deviate from a beaten track, is at all times sufficient to startle the fears of the
prejudiced and faint-hearted. Fortunately for us, we live in an age and country
where innovation on established follies draws down nothing but harmless thunder, noise,
but not fire. Truth is too little affected by it to be disturbed, and mankind are con-
vinced experimentally, that folly never is changed into wisdom, by age."'

Godman, however, was confident:

"As to the manner in which our first attempt is to be received and estimated
abroad, we feel undisturbed. If we have new facts to adduce, new modes of thinking
to offer^ or new modes of action to propose, they are to be examined and tested by the
rules of right reason and common sense, which are confined to no location. If there
be some sneers at propositions we make, or plans we lay down, a sneer is not an
argument, any more than assertion is proof. In short, if our mode of proceeding,
however new, be supported by reason and confirmed by actual experiment, we are sure
to receive the greatest of all human justifications — success."

In the second issue of his journal Godman published a Neurological
Table, exhibiting a view of the nerves of the head, showing their origin,
course, relation, distribution, connection, function, comparative anatomy and
giving their synonyms. This table shows Godman's studious habits and
scholarly achievements.

Godman like the voluble Caldwell, of Transylvania, was an earnest stu-
dent of phrenology and other speculative lines of investigation. He con-
tributed a number of interesting articles on phrenology to his journal and
translated articles from the Dutch on the same subject. From the French he
translated articles on Medical Jurisprudence.

In Number III of his journal he published an interesting entomological
chart by J. Dorfeuille, who was one of the curators of the Western Museum
in Cincinnati. (This museum, of which Drake was one of the founders, was
at that time (1822) the fourth in size in the United States. In point of
scientific value it stood second. Dorfeuille was one of the curators, another
one was Robert Best, distinguished chemist, [born in 1790 in Somersetshire,
England; in America since his twelfth year, Rev. Elijah Slack's assistant
during the first session of the Medical College of Ohio, lecturer on chemistry
at Transylvania in 1823, author of a book on medical chemistry, AI. D. in
1826 at Transylvania, died 1830, a nervous wreck]. J. J. Audubon, the
famous ornithologist, was for awhile connected with the Western Museum.
Dorfeuille afterwards gained fame and recognition as a naturalist in Europe.)

An editorial on "Medical Journals" could be profitably read by medical editors
even today. Godman pleads for pure and forcible English and complains
that most medical editors do not seem to know their mother-tongue. Godman's
ideas about "Medical Education" were lofty and pure, almost too exalted
even for our own advanced notions on the same subject. In discussing "Med-
ical Quarrels," he complains bitterly of the smallness and moral decrepitude
of many members of the profession, even among those who pose as types of
ethical, respectable medical gentlemen. Godman was an enthusiastic admirer
and follower of Benjamin Rush, whom he refers to as being incomparably
great and deservedly immortal. In regard to drugs Godman was a skeptic,
not to say a cynic. Considering the times of drug-superstition and drug-
mania in which he lived, his cynicism in and of itself stamps him as an
extraordinary man. Godman shows himself in his journal just as he was,
scholarly, independent and thoroughly devoted to medicine and the natural
sciences. He was widely known and respected. The Medical Society of
Maryland, the Baltimore Medical Society and the Cincinnati Medical Society
had elected him an honorary member before he had completed his twenty-
eighth year. He was not a local celebrity. He belonged to the Nation as
one of the foremost medical scholars of his time. The Medical College of
Ohio can well be proud of that one session during which a man of his caliber
was a member of the faculty.

This was the man who disputed with Drake the honor of being the fore-
most medical writer in the West. The two men, as they appear to us, can
well be placed beside each other. They were distinct individualities, however,
even in point of style and diction. Godman was correct, erudite and polished.
Drake was trenchant, vigorous and full of fire and animation. Both made
deep impressions on the rank and file of the profession. This is evident from
the honors they received simultaneously. The Pittsburg Medical Society, in
1823, elected both honorary members. That this honor was one not to be
despised is shown by the names of others who were also thus honored : the
German clinician Hufeland, the German physiologist Osiander and that prince
of surgeons, Dupuytren. It was in Godman's Journal that Drake began his
career as a medical author. A volume containing the complete set of six
issues of Godman's Journal is well worth possessing and preserving. Cin-
cinnati has produced but one journal that was equal to it (Drake's Western
Journal of the Medical Sciences), but none superior.

In the Spring of 1826 the "Ohio Medical Repository," a semi-monthly,
was begun by Drs. Guy W. Wright and James M. Mason, both being Western
graduates and intensely patriotic with reference to everything pertaining to
the West. Their ambition was to give the profession a Western medical
jt)urnal edited by \Vcstern doctors. Dr. Mason retired after the first year.
Drake taking his ])lacc. It became a monthly under the title of "Western
Medical and Physical Journal, original and eclectic." Drake soon became
the sole owner and editor and issued it under tlie name of the "Western

Journal of the Medical and Physical Sciences." Its motto engraved upon a
picture of the Cornus Florida was very suggestive: E sylvis nunciiis. Drake's
collaborators were John C. Dunlavy, of Hamilton, Ohio, an early graduate
of the Medical College of Ohio; James C. Finley, a young Cincinnati physi-
cian ; Dr. Wm. Wood, also a local physician ; Drs. S. D. Gross and John P.
Harrison, professors in the Medical College of Ohio. In 1839 Drake took
the journal with him to Louisville, where it was subsequently combined with
the "Louisville Journal of Medicine and Surgery," which was issued by the
professors of the "Louisville Medical Institute."

The files of Drake's "Western Journal of the Medical and Physical
Sciences" represent medical archives of extraordinary scientific and historical
value, principally on account of the contributions which Drake himself made
to his journal. His contributions included case reports, papers on the path-
ology and treatment of special diseases, articles on medical education and
kindred subjects. He traveled extensively and wrote interestingly on any-
thing and everything in connection with what he saw, heard, learnt and
thought while away, including the botany, geology, etc., of the country
traversed. A characteristic paper by Drake was written by him in 1827 on
"The Modus Operandi and the Effects of Medicines," an heroic efifort to
systematize a non-classifiable subject. This essay throws considerable light
on Drake's therapeutic notions. He was a champion of moderation of dosage
and adaptation of physiological efifects to pathologic processes. Considering
the time in which he wrote, he was distinctly in advance of his contempo-
raries. A memorable essay was on "Intemperance," in which he expounded
with great energy and at considerable length the well-worn philosophy of the
temperance advocates. His arguments are directed principally against whis-
key drinking. That Drake, in his belligerent moods, used his journal as an
outlet for his ire and venom, especially during his struggle against the Med-
ical College of Ohio, it is but natural to suppose. His articles against the
professors of that institution are characteristic of the man and of the situa-
tion. In point of acridity and biting sarcasm these articles left nothing to be
desired. In spite of Drake's attitude some of the Ohio professors wrote for
his journal.

The most noteworthy among his contributions were his seven essays on
"Medical Education and the Medical Profession in the United States." He
published them in book form in 1832, and dedicated them to the students
composing the twelfth class of the Medical College of Ohio. The titles of
the seven essays were : 1. Selection and Preparatory Education of Pupils. 2.
Private Pupilage. 3. Medical Colleges. 4. Studies, Duties and Interests of
Young Physicians. 5. Causes of Error in the Medical and Physical Sciences.
6. Legislative Enactments. 7. Professional Quarrels. These essays have
lost none of their truth, vigor and pertinence and can be profitably read even
today. They are typical of the man, earnest, animated and permeated through-
out by an idealism that is inspiring. The diction is matchless.

Considering that he was a self-appointed, then dismissed, later reinstated
and duly appointed professor of medicine, his utterances about "Medical
Colleges" are of peculiar interest. He favored a graded course of four
years, thought it wise to demand a classical education on the part of those
who wished to study medicine, and emphasized the importance of bedside
instruction. To those who would like to be professors in a medical college,
but have never found the magic key that opens the portals of a faculty-
room where one at once absorbs wisdom, dignity and that higher form of
humanity that the common herd can not understand, the following lines
penned by Drake may be a source of solace :

"Did the best talent of the American profession find its way into our numerous
schools, it can not be doubted that they would be ably sustained; but truth and justice
require me to say that this is not always the case; and that every part of the Union
presents men of loftier genius, sounder learning and purer eloquence than many of
those whom the trustees of our different institutions from time to time select as pro-
fessors."

In 1832 the cholera visited Cincinnati. In order to help in the dissemina-
tion of knowledge concerning the nature of the epidemic, Drake published a
small booklet in which he discussed (1) the Geography and Chronology of
the Disease, (2) the Causes of the Disease, (3) the Symptoms of the Dis-
ease, (4) the Appearances after Death, (5) the Nature of the Disease, (6)
the Treatment of the Disease, and (7) the Prevention and Mitigation of the
Disease. His notions concerning the etiology of the disease are interesting.
He sees the morbific cause in the existence of myriads of living organisms
("animalcules") in the water. They are too small to be seen and have never
been isolated. The book on cholera was not particularly well received by
the profession or the laity. Drake made no attempt at originality. His
object was to present whatever was known on the subject at that time. Never
having seen a case of cholera before his book was written, Drake was not
thought competent to write authoratively on the subject.

Drake wrote and published many minor discourses on a variety of topics
medical and otherwise. He even wrote religious essays for religious period-
icals and discourses for Sunday meetings of medical students. In the latter
discourses he discussed the moral and ethical side of the profession. Among
his smaller literary productions the best are without a doubt: 1. "A Dis-
course on Northern Lakes and Southern Invalids" (1842). 2. "Early Med-
ical Times in Cincinnati," and "Medical Journals and Libraries." In the first-
named discourse Drake displays his magnificent powers as a word-painter of
natural scenes and phenomena. The last two discourses were delivered before
the Cincinnati Medical Library Association, January 9 and 10, 1852, only
ten months before his death. They are a veritable treasury of information
for all those who are interested in Cincinnati's medical past.

The greatest achievement of Drake's pen, the monument he erected to his
own literary genius, scientific knowledge, tireless industry, indefatigable zeal

and wonderful originality, was his stupendous work on "The Principal r3is-
eases of the Internal Valley of North America." Like "Faust," which was
the inspiration of Goethe's youth, the ever-present thought of his maturer
years and the finished product of his ripe old age, Drake's great work was
the realization of a dream which pursued its author throughout his whole
professional life. The seed from which it sprang was the little book about
Cincinnati which Drake published in 1810. Twelve years later he announced
his intention to write his great work, and asked the profession of the West
to aid him in the gathering of material. Shortly after he undertook the first
of his extensive trips of observation, which he continued year after year for
almost a quarter of a century. He covered the whole Western country in
these trips, studying the earth, the river, the plants, the animals, the people,
the air, the sky. "From Hudson Bay to the desert lands of the Rio Grande,
from the palm groves of Florida to the headwaters of the Mississippi, from
the mouth of the St. Lawrence and the great lakes of the North, to the
prairies of the far West and to the Sierras of the Rocky Mountains" he
observed, investigated, collected and compiled. "In the cities and towns of
the Middle West, in the villages and hamlets of the basin of the Mississippi,
in the settlements of the colonist, in the reservations and wigwams of the
Indian, around the campfires of the trappers, in the barracks of the frontier
posts, in the mines of the unexplored West" he worked and studied inces-
santly. There were no authorities to quote from, no reference books to con-
sult. He traversed the land in every direction on horseback, on foot, by
boat or railway. He endured hardships and spent time, labor and money in
the preparation and accomplishment of his great work. Finally its first
volume appeared in 1850, nearly nine hundred pages, a veritable encyclopedia
of knowledge of the topography, geography, geology, botany, meteorology and
statistical data of the Western country, including diseases, their classification,
etiology, diagnosis and treatment. Two years after his death Drs. S. Hanbury
Smith, of Starling Medical College, Columbus, Ohio, and Francis C. Smith,
of Philadelphia, brought out the second volume which contained nearly one
thousand pages. The complete title of the work is : "A Systematic Treatise,
historical, etiological and practical, on the Principal Diseases of the Interior
Valley of North America, as they appear in the Caucasian, African, Indian,
and Esquimaux Varieties of its Population." The first part of the work was
published by Winthrop P. Smith & Co., of Cincinnati, the second part by
Lippincott, Grambo & Co., Philadelphia.

BOOK I.--GENERAL ETIOLOGY.
Part I. — Topography and Hydrography.

Chapter I. — Analysis of the Hydrographic System. — Altitude. — Configuration and Outline.
Chapter II. — Hydrographic Basin of the Gulf of Mexico. — Form, Depth, Currents and

Temperature.
Chapter III.— Coasts of the Gulf of Mexico. — V^ra Cruz. — Tampico. — Galveston. —

Cuba. — Key West. — Pensacola. — Mobile and minor bays.

Chapter IV. — Delta of the Mississippi. — Rise, Fall, Depth, and Temperature of the Mis-
sissippi. — Materials. — Geological Age. — Vegetation.

Chapter V.— Localities of the Delta.— The Balize. — New Orleans. — Bluffs of the Delta.

Chapter VI. — Medical Topography of the Bottoms and Bluffs of the Mississippi. —
Texas. — Yazoo. — St. Francis. — American Bottoms.

Chapter VII. — Medical Topography of the Regions Beyond the Mississippi. — Basin ^i
the Rio del Norte. — Southern Texas. — -Valley of the Red River. — The Arkansas
River.- — The Ozark Mountains. — -The Missouri River.

Chapter VIII. — Medical Topography, East of the Mississippi and South of the Ohio. —
Appalachicola Bay and River. — Alabama River.— Tuscaloosa. — Pascagoula. — Pearl
River. — Big Black and Yazoo Rivers.

Chapter IX. — The Ohio Basin. — Tennessee River. — The Cumberland. — Green River. — Falls
of the Ohio. — The Kentucky. — The Licking. — The Ohio. — Kanawha and Monongahela.

Chapter X. — Basin of the Ohio on the North. — Alleghany. — Beaver. — Muskingum. — Hock-
ing. — Scioto. — Miami Basin.— City of Cincinnati. — White River. — Wabash.

Chapter XL — Ohio Basin. — The Kaskaskia. — Illinois. — Rock River.

Chapter XU.— Eastern or St. Lazvrence Hydrographic Basin. — Basin of Lake Superior. —
Lake Michigan. — Lake Huron. — The Straits.

Chapter XIII. — Basin of Lake Erie. — River Rasin.^Maumee Bay.— Sandusky Basin. —
Huron River. — Black River. — The Cuyahoga. — The Chagrin. — Grand River. — Lake
Shore. — City of Buffalo.

Chapter XIV. — Basin of Lake Ontario. — Niagara River. — Genesee River. — Oswego
River. — Black River. — Coast of Lake Ontario. — Kingston.

Chapter XV. — River St. Lazvrence. — Ottawa. — City of Montreal. — Quebec. — Entering of
the St. Lawrence.— Parallel between the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence.

Chapter XVT. — The Hudson and its Basin. — The Hudson Hydrographic Basin. — -Conclu-
sion of Topography.

Part II. — Climatic Etiology.

Chapter I. — Nature, Dyv.amics, and Elements of Climate.

Chapter II. — Temperature of the Interior Valley. — Curves of Mean Temperature.

Chapter III.— Atmospheric Pressure of the Interior Valley. — Barometrical Observations.

Chapter IV. — Winds of the Interior Valley. — Introductory Observations. — Tabular Views
of the Wind at Our Military Posts.— Tabular Views of the Wind at Various Civil
Stations. — Order, Relative Prevalence, Characteristics, and Effects of our Various
Winds.

Chapter V. — Aqueous Meteors. — Rain and Snozv. — Clear, Cloudy, Rainy, and Snowy
Days. — Humidity.

Chapter VI. — Electrical Phenomena.— Distribution of Plants and Animals. — Atmospheric
Electricity. — Thunder Storms. — Hurricanes. — Climatic Distribution of Plants and
Animals.

Part HI. — Physiological and Social Etiology.

Chapter I. — Population. — Division Into Varieties. — Caucasian Variety. — Historical, Chron-
ological, and Geographical Analysis. — Physiological Characteristics. — Statistical Physi-
ology.

Chapter II.— Modes of Licing.—D\et—SoUd Food.— Liquid Diet and Table Drinks.—
Water. — Alcoholic Beverages.^ — Tobacco.

Chapter III.— Clothing, Lodgings, Bathing, Habitations, and Shade Trees.— Clothing. —
Lodgings.— Bathing.— Habitations.— Shade Trees.

Chapter IV. — Occupations, Pursuits, Exercise and Recreations. — Agricultural Labors.

Commercial Pursuits. — Mining and Smelting. — Salt Making. — Mechanical and Chem-
ical Arts and Manufactures.— Exercise, Recreation and Amusement.— Conclusion of
Book First.

BOOK II.— FEBRILE DISEASES.
Part I. — Autumnal Fever.

Chapter I. — Nomenclature^ Varieties, and Geographical Limits of Autumnal Fever.

Chapter II. — Speculation on the Cause of Autumnal Fever.

Chapter III. — Mode of Action and First Effects of the Remote Cause of Autumnal Fever.

Chapter IV. — Varieties and Development of Autumnal Fever.

Chapter VI. — Intermittent Fever. — Simple and Inflammatory.

Chapter VI. — Malignant Intermittent Fever. — General History. — Symptomatology. — Pa-
thology and Complications. — Treatment in the Paroxysm. — Treatment in the Inter-
mission. — Conclusion.

Chapter VII. — Remittent Autumnal Fever. — Simple and Inflammatory. — Considered To-
gether. — Symptoms.— Treatment.

Chapter VIII. — Malignant Remittent Fever. — General Remarks. — Diagnosis and Pa-
thology. — Treatment.

Chapter IX. — Protracted, Relapsing and Vernal Intermittents. — Chronic and Relapsing
Cases. — Vernal Intermittents. — Treatment, Hygienic and Medical.

Chapter X. — Pathological Anatomy and Consequences of Autumnal Fever. — Mortality of
Autumnal Fever. — Condition of the Blood in Autumnal Fever. — Pathological Anatomy
of Intermittent Fever.— Pathological Anatomy of Remittent Fever. — Consequences of
Autumnal Fever.

Chapter XL — Consequences of Autumnal Fever. — Diseases of the Spleen : General Views.
— Splenitis.^ — Suppuration of the Spleen. — Enlargement of the Spleen. — Diseases of the
Liver. — Dropsy. — Periodical Neuralgia.

Part 11. — Yellow Fever.

Chapter I.— Nomenclature, Geography and Local History.

Chapter II. — Local History. — New Orleans.

Chapter HI. — East and Southeast of the Delta of the Mississippi.

Chapter IV. — Places to the Westward and Northwest of New Orleans.

Chapter V. — Places up the Mississippi.

Chapter VI. — Etiological Deductions.

Chapter VII.— Symptoms.

Chapter VIIL— Pathological Anatomy.

Chapter IX. — Pathology.

Chapter X. — Self-limitation. — Prevention. — Treatment.

Chapter XI.^Miscellaneous Observations.

Part HI. — Typhous Fevers.

Chapter I. — Introduction.— General Epidemic — Typhous Constitution.
Chapter II. — Local History of Typhous Fever.
Chapter HI. — Local History, continued.
Chapter IV. — Local History, continued.
Chapter V. — Local History, continued.
Chapter VI. — Local History, continued.
Chapter VII. — Continued Typhous Fever.
Chapter VIIL — Irish Emigrant Fever.
Chapter IX. — Etiological Generalizations.
Chapter X. — Etiological Generalizations, continued.
Chapter XL — Classification of Continued Fevers.
Chapter XII. — Classification of Continued Fevers.
Chapter XIII. — Pathological Anatomy of Typhous Fevers.
Chapter XIV. — Pathology of Typhous Fever.

Chapter XV. — Treatment of Typhous Fever.

Chapter XVI. — Relations of Typhous Fever with Yellov^, Remittent and other Febrile
Diseases. — Seven-day Typhus. — Typhoid Stage.

Part IV. — Eruptive Fevers.

Chapter I. — Small Pox. — Variola.

Chapter II. — Cow Pox. — Vaccinia. — Variola Vaccinia.

Chapter III.— Modified Small Pox.— Varioloid.

Chapter IV. — Varicella, or Chicken Pox.

Chapter V.- — Measles. — Rubeola.

Chapter VI. — Scarlet Fever. — Scarlatina.

Chapter VII. — Rose Rash.- — Roseola ; also Lichen and Strophulus.

Chapter VIII.— Nettle Rash.— Urticaria.

Chapter IX. — Erysipelas.

Part V. — Phlogistic Fevers. — The Phlegmasiae.
Chapter I. — Comparison with the Previous Groups.
Chapter II. — Etiology of the Phlogistic Fevers.

Chapter III. — Rise and Establishment of the Simple, or Common, Plegmasiae.
Chapter IV. — Progress, Termination, and Anatomical Characters.
Chapter V. — Indications and Means of Cure.

Chapter VI. — Phlegmasiae of the Central Organs of Innervation, Brain, and Spinal Cord.
Chapter VII. — Phlegmasiae of the Central Organs, continued.
Chapter VIII. — Inflammation of the Nervous Centers, continued.
Chapter IX. — Inflammation of the Nervous Centers, continued.
Chapter X. — Inflammation of the Organs of Motion. — Rheumatism.
Chapter XL — Phlegmasiae of the Respiratory Organs. — Etiology.
Chapter XII. — Mucous Inflammation of the Respiratory Organs.
Chapter XIII. — Laryngismus Thidulus. — Pertussus. — Asthma. — Hay Fever.
Chapter XIV.— Acute and Chronic Bronchitis.
Chapter XV. — Pneumonia and Pleurisy.
Chapter XVI. — Typhoid and Bilious Pneumonitis.
Chapter XVII. — Pleurisy, Acute and Chronic.
Chapter XVIII. — Tubercular Pneumonitis, or Phthisis Pulmonalis.
Chapter XIX. — Tubercular Pneumonitis, continued.
Chapter XX. — Cardiac Inflammations.

The reception of the work by the profession was worthy of the effort and
of the author. In 1850 the American Medical Association met in Cincinnati.
Dr. Alfred Stille, of Philadelphia, chairman of the committee on medical lit-
erature, reported on the latest medical publications, and devoted the greatest
part of his report to an analysis of Drake's work, referring to it as an ''achieve-
ment of which every doctor in America should be proud." Drake was present,
and, upon arising, was greeted with a demonstration such as had never been
accorded to any one on a similar occasion. The cheers and the clapping of
hands were deafening and lasted for several minutes. Again and again the dem-
onstrations started anew. Finally; when the noise had subsided, Drake wanted
to thank his colleagues, but his voice failed him. He seemed to be growing
faint and was helped to a chair. He covered his face with his hands and

wept like a child. His friends crowded around him. To Dr. Stille, who
wanted to comfort him, he said, when he had gained his self-possession : "I
have not lived in vain, but I wish father, mother and Harriet were here !"

What is the position which Daniel Drake's great work occupies in the
world's medical literature and more particularly among the medical books
written by Americans? Alexander von Humboldt pronounced it "a treasure
among scientific works." B. Sillinian, of Yale, the foremost American phy-
sicist of his time, called it "an enduring monument of American genius."
Samuel D. Gross, who was not given to laudatory effusions, calls Drake '"the
American Hippocrates whose work, like those of his immortal prototype, is
indestructible and challenges at once our admiration and gratitude." Edward
D. Mansfield, Drake's learned biographer, refers to Drake's work as "the
greatest work of pure science ever produced in America". Charles D. Meigs,
the distinguished Philadelphian, says that "it would be impossible in a mere
review to do justice to the quality of this vast work." James T. Whittaker
remarked that "the immensity of Drake's work is growing larger as the years
roll by." P. S. Conner says, "It is the work of genius — this expresses it all!"
Wm. H. Taylor says that "too much praise could not possibly be bestowed
on Drake's great work." James Gregory Alumford, of Boston, whose recent
"Narrative of Medicine in America" contains a very readable account of
Drake's life and labors, refers to the sparsity of really great medical books
that originated in our country and observes: "We can not make a great
list, but we can make a strong one and Drake's work is among the strongest."
Speaking of Drake's hardships and labors in preparing this work, Mumford
says : "It is impossible to convey an adequate idea of the magnitude of
Drake's labors beside which those of Hercules himself seem very modest
affairs."

Last, but not least, Drake's rugged and vigorous Anglo-Saxon English
is a feature of the work not to be forgotten. Drake's style does not possess
the academic correctness of John D. Godman's, the aesthetic quality of
James T. Whittaker's, or the scholastic finish of Roberts Bartholow's, but
Drake surpasses all these masters of style and diction in his elementary and
irrepressible vigor. No American physician has ever put forth the fiery,
almost explosive temperament, terse, pointed, strong and incisive English,
ever-present and overtowering individuality as Daniel Drake.

No physician ever gave to the West, to the profession of this Western
country and particularly to the profession in Cincinnati as much of lasting
quality as he. What have we, his heirs and beneficiaries, done in remem-
brance and appreciation of his labors? Does the present Medical Department
of the University of Cincinnati, the technical successor of the Medical Col-
lege of Ohio, perpetuate the heritage of Christian philanthropy, broad pa-
triotism and scientific altruism which he left to his beloved home town?
Does the spirit of that great humanitarian hover over the Cincinnati Hos-
pital where not even a modest tablet reminds the present generation of the

master who gave the institution its existence? Has the Cincinnati Academy
of Medicine done anything- to honor the most illustrious physician of the
West, the man who was to the West what Benjamin Rush was to the East?
Is this great American patriot, pioneer, physician and scientist, less worthy
of honor than Ephraim MacDowell, whose monument in Danville, Ky., links
the ambitions of the grateful present to the achievements of the heroic
past? The American Institute of Homoeopathy, on June 19, 1900, in the
City of Washington, honored the man whom homoeopaths the world over
revere as a great figure in medical history and as the founder of their
school, Hahnemann. They erected a magnificent monument to his memory
which proclaims to the world the fact that he is not forgotten, that he is
appreciated by those who follow him. The medical profession of the West
is numerically by far stronger than those who gave to the City of Wash-
ington the colossal statue of Hahnemann. Yet nothing has been done to
remind the rising generation of doctors of that greatest of all Western
physician, Daniel Drake, who, according to an entirely unbiased authority
(H. W. Felter, author of "A History of Eclecticism") is "one of the greatest
figures and most admirable characters in the medical history of our country."
The respectful, nay, even reverential, spirit that prompted the people of
classical Greece to pay tribute to the great characters of the past and to
surround the memory of heroic soldiers, statesmen and more particularly
famous poets and philosophers with all the glamor of a mythical cult and
worship, was typical of ancient culture and civilization. It is this pride in
the traditions of the past and in the struggles and achievements of the great
men of the times gone by, that is the rock upon which the self-conscious
spirit, the self-respect, the national pride of republics, kingdoms and em-
pires rest. It is the soul, the life-element of patriotism. Only barbarians
have no love for the ideals that are embodied in the traditions of their tribes
and races. Who has not been inspired by the sight of the statue of Nathan
Hale in the City Park of New York? The incessant clatter and grind of a
thousand hoofs and wheels of industry and commerce that accompany a
great city's mad chase for the Almighty Dollar, can not drown the voice
that speaks so eloquently out of the wan countenance of the heroic youth
whose only regret was that he had but one life to give to his country. To
gladly listen to the voices that faintly reverberate through the aisles of time
and tell us of the heroic past, to try and understand the language of the great
souls that speak to us out of musty tombs and crumbling monuments is a
form of education that makes us better understand and more deeply appre-
ciate our own purpose in life. It is proper and profitable for every true
American to seek his ideals in the lives of such models as Washington and
Franklin. Every loyal son of ( )liio can turn to the noble countenance of
McKinley and thus become a truer man and l)etter citizen of the old Buckeye
State. Every man who ministers to the sick bodies of his fellowmen in the
valley of the Ohio River can peer through the mists of time and be inspired

at the sight of Daniel Drake's heroic figure that looms up in solemn and
silent grandeur. To love and appreciate the past means' to serve and secure
the future.

When will the physicians of the great Interior Valley of North America
become conscious of their duty towards the memory of him whose immortal
contributions to his profession were only equalled by his imperishable work
as a Western pioneer and patriot?

CHAPTER VII.

MEDICAL CINCINNATI AFTER 1800.

/ look to the doctors to resuscitate society. — Carl Riimelin.

THE conditions of medical practice in the \\'estern country one hun-
dred years ago were in keeping- with the unsettled state of society
generally. Most of the physicians were empirics, although among
them there were men of fine general education and great natural ability.
There were no medical schools in the West. The oldest medical school in
America was of comparatively recent date. In 1765 the University of Penn-
sylvania, through the efforts of John Morgan and William Shippen, who
had the powerful support of Benjamin Franklin, opened its medical depart-
ment, the first medical school on this side of the Atlantic. Three years later
King's College, afterwards called Columbia College, was organized in New
York. The Harvard Medical School followed in 1784. Dartmouth sprang
into existence at the dawn of the nineteenth century. The University of
Maryland was founded in 1807, and Yale Medical School in 1810. There
was no medical school in the West before 1817, when Transylvania Uni-
versity, in Lexington, Ky., opened its medical department. Drake prac-
ticed medicine for ten years before he attended a course of lectures, and
was granted a diploma. Hardly any of the earlier physicians in this part of
the country were graduates in medicine.

The first attempt to regulate the practice of medicine and give those
engaged in the latter a distinct legal standing in the community, was made
in 1811, when the Ohio Legislature divided the State into five districts,
naming three censors in each whose duties it was to issue licenses to those
desiring to practice medicine. The candidates were examined by these cen-
sors, who met in Cincinnati, Chillicothe, Athens, Zanesville and Steuben-
ville, respectively, for each of the five districts. This act of the Legislature
was repealed the following year when the "Medical Society of the State of
Ohio" was created a legal body to examine candidates and issue licenses.
The State was divided into seven districts (Cincinnati, Chillicothe. Athens,
Zanesville, Steubenville, Warren and Dayton). Under this law the first
State Convention was held in Chillicothe, at least the attempt was made to
hold it. It was in mid-winter and only five delegates appeared (Canby, of
Lebanon ; Parsons, of Columbus ; Drake, of Cincinnati ; Scott and Edmiston,
of Chillicothe). The following year a new law was passed which substan-
tially re-enacted the law of 1811, with the exception that it divided the State

into seven districts instead of five, leaving out Zanesville and adding Newark,
Warren and Dayton. Penalties for practicing without a license were fixed
at $70, or at $5 for each offense. The acts passed in 1817, 1821 and 1824
were substantially the same as that of 1813. In 1818 the law recognized the
right of graduates to obtain a license without examination. In 1821 twenty
medical districts were created with a "Medical Society" for each, the persons
to constitute these societies are named, the organization, rights and duties
of the societies defined and all provisions made for proper regulation of
medical practice. This law called for a "Convention of Delegates from the
District Societies" to be the executive body for the administration, interpreta-
tion and application of the medical laws of the State. The first one of these
conventions was held in 1827 and presided over by John Woolley, of Cin-
cinnati. This convention adopted a plan and constitution of a State Medical
Society to meet in Columbus in 1829. An amusing account of the first con-
vention (1827) can be found in the Transactions of the Ohio State Society
(1857). The historian says: "Towards the latter part of that year, some
fifteen or twenty horsemen might have been seen wending their way, through
mud and mire, along the different roads that centered in the village of Co-
lumbus. Their personal appearance somewhat resembled that of a company
of men crawling out of a canal, where they had been excavating on a ramy
day."

Sanitary legislation in Cincinnati seems to have begun in LS02 when the
council of the town passed an ordinance to prevent carcasses of animals from
lying in any of the streets, alleys, lanes or commons. Fines are imposed
on persons who violate the ordinance by permitting nuisances. The ordinance
also regulates the slaughter of animals by butchers, compelling the latter to
slaughter only in a specially appointed slaughter-house. A smallpox ordi-
nance pertaining to isolation of patients, vaccination, etc., was passed in
1804. Death returns by physicians were made compulsory by an ordinance
passed by council in 1813. This is the beginning of the present system of
keeping vital statistics. Additional smallpox regulations were adopted in
1816. An ordinance creating the ofifice of health-ofiicer was passed in 1821.
A Board of Health, consisting of five members, was established in 1826.
The office of coroner was created by General St. Clair in 1789.

In 1819 Cincinnati had 5,402 white males, 4,471 white females, 215 colored
males, 195 colored females, altogether 10,283 inhabitants. This was the
year of publication of the first City Directory and the birth-year of the Med-
ical College of Ohio. The physicians who were practicing in Cincinnati at
that time were Wm. Barnes who had an ofifice at 157 Main Street and lived
at 7 W. Fourth Street; Oliver P. Baldwin, 35 W. Front Street; Chas. N.
Barbour, 230 Main Street; John Cranmer, 39 Main Street; Daniel Drake, 91
Main Street (h. Third and Ludlow) ; Daniel Dyer, Walnut, between Fourth
and Fifth Streets; Jonathan Easton, Fifth, between Race and Elm; Isaac
Hough, 51 Main (house 55 M.) ; Vincent C. Marshall, 133 Main; Eben. H.

Pierson, 87 Sycamore (h. 85 Second) ; Samuel Ramsey, 14 W. Front; x\bel
Slayback, 194 Main, (h. Fifth, between Main and Sycamore) ; John Sellman,
26 E. Front; John Wooler, 170 Main; Coleman Rogers, Fourth and Walnut;
Thos. Morehead, 24 E. Front; John A. Hallam, 6 Lower Market; Josiah
Whitman, Second Street ; Edw.. Y. Kemper, Fifth and Race; John Douglass,
228 Main ; Ithiel Smead, Sixth and Smith ; Elijah Slack, Fourth, between
Elm and Plum, is given as a physician although he was a preacher and a
chemist. Truman Bishop, a Methodist minister, came here in 1818 and prac-
ticed medicine until 1829 when he died. Edward Y. Kemper was one of
Doctor Goforth's pupils. He was born in Virginia in 1783 and was the son
of Rev. James Kemper, who is referred to elsewhere. Doctor Kemper died
in Cincinnati in 1863, probably the last survivor of that little band of medical
students who gathered in Cincinnati prior to the establishment of the Medical
College of Ohio. For a short time John Moorhead and John Sellman shared
offices. The first Mayor of the City of Cincinnati was Isaac G. Burnet, who
had his office at 49 Water Street. He was the son of Dr. William Burnet,
one of the earliest physicians in Cincinnati. Jeremiah Tibbets, barber, sur-
geon and hair-dresser, popularly known as the "Emperor of the West," had
his shop on Second Street, between Sycamore Street and Broadway. The
physicians named, twenty-two in number, ministered to the physical ills of
nearly ten thousand people. In 1830 the population of Cincinnati was about
25,000, with fifty-eight physicians.

A few of the doctors named had the desirable clientele of the city, the
few wealthy people like the Ludlows, Ganos and others who did not settle
in this Western country empty-handed, but came, mostly from the East, with a
comfortable allowance of the world's goods. Of these, however, there were
not many. The majority of the people were poor and their condition was
doubly uncertain on account of the hard times that prevailed for nearly four
decades after the first settlement of the Miami lands. The stringency of
the economic conditions was accentuated by a number of financial panics that
swept disastrously over the land and wrecked banks and business houses,
notably in 1820 when the failure of the Miami Banking & Export Co. caused a
riot and bloodshed. That the practice of medicine under such conditions in-
volved much labor and self-sacrifice can be understood. There was much
country practice on both sides of the river. "The doctor had to be his own
pharmacist. He made his own pills and tinctures, compounded all his medi-
cines, and generally carried all he required, as, with saddle-bags across his
horse, he wended his way from house to house, administering to the sick
and ailing, always welcome and often regarded as an angel of mercy, although
his homely garb and rough appearance looked anything but angelic. His
life was one of peril, toil and privation. The country was new and thinly
settled, and his rides were long and solitary; his patients were scattered
over a wide expanse of territory ; his travel was mostly performed on horse-
back, and its extent and duration was measured bv the endurance of him-

self and his horse. He struggled through almost unfathomable mud and
swamps and swollen streams. He was often compelled to make long detours
to cross or avoid the treacherous slough. His rest was often taken in the
saddle, sometimes in the cabin of the lonely settler. From necessity he was
self-reliant and courageous. Every emergency, however grave, he was gen-
erally compelled to meet alone and unaided, as it was seldom assistance could
be procured without too great an expenditure of time and money. His fees
were small and his services were often paid for in promises, seldom in money,
of which there was but little. The products of the country, called by the
people "truck," was the general and most reliable circulating medium, and
with this the doctor was usually paid. But there is a bright side to this pic-
ture. The kindly life of a new country, and the dependence of its inhabitants
upon each other, gave the doctor a strong hold upon the afifection and grati-
tude of those among whom he lived and labored. They loved him when
living, and mourned for him when dead." This graphic description was
given by a man who lived among these early Cincinnati doctors, Dr. Robert
Boal, a student in the Medical College of Ohio in 1827. He also refers to
the few fashionable doctors who did their work in powdered wig, cocked hat
and knee breeches, and were able to feather their nest in the service of the
well-to-do. The average doctor of those days was satisfied with 25 to 50
cents for a visit. Half of this and sometimes the whole of it went for
provender for his horse or produce for his family. If he had to sit up the
whole night, he got $1.00.

In 1819 there were seven stores in Cincinnati where medicines could be
purchased. Caleb Bates, at No. 19 Lower Market, was considered the leading
apothecary. Dr. John Woolley had bought out Drake & Co., on Lower Main
Street and was considered a progressive man in his line. His soda fountain,
purchased in Philadelphia in 1815 by Daniel Drake, was a great attraction.
Oliver Fairchild had a drug store at 19 Main Street. Caleb Bates remained
in business until 1849 when he was succeeded by James Burdsal. In 1829 the
leading druggists in addition to those named, were J. B. Baird, Sycamore,
between Fifth and Sixth; Henry Clark, No. 6 Lower Market; Goodwin,
Ashton & Cleaveland (O. G. Goodwin, Daniel A. Ashton and S. B. C. Cleave-
land), Upper Market Space; William Greene, 50 Lower Market; James H.
Latham, 213 Main Street ; William Woolley, Upper Market Space ; Charles T.
Minche, 16 Lower Market; John F. Stall & Co., Main, between Third and
Fourth, which was four doors below the United States Bank, ^nd who an-
nounced "Medicine chests complete — physicians' prescriptions and orders from
the country carefully attended to," and last, but certainly not least, William
S. Merrell, Sixth and Western Row, who called his the "Western Market
Drug Store," and announced "Prescriptions prepared with greatest fidelity
and accuracy."

Pulaski Smith who graduated at the Medical College of Ohio, kept a drug
store in the early thirties on Main Street, near Ninth. He sold out to

Samuel Burdsal, who was a druggist in this town for more than fifty years.
This old drug store with its snake jars and dingy interior was an historic
place. When William H. Harrison, long before he thought of becoming
President, was clerk of the courts, he was in the habit of lounging around
this quaint old drug shop, talking politics to some of the other men who
would congregate there, and occasionally ask Old Sammy, as Burdsal was
generally called, for a little soda "with a stick in it". This expression was
en vogue then as it is now. The old shop passed out of existence in 1895.
Soda water was probably more in demand before than since the war. In
the fifties there was a drug store at the northwest corner of Fourth and Vine
Streets that had the greatest soda water business in the West. Later W. B.
Chapman, elected president of the American Pharmaceutical Association in
1854, made money and a reputation at the southwest corner of Sixth and
Vine Streets. He had a soda fountain that was considered one of the attrac-
tions in Cincinnati. It is not generally known that nectar syrup was orig-
inated in this city. Its inventor was C. August Smith, who had a drug store
at Fourth and Race Streets in the sixties. During the cholera year, 1849,
many druggists reaped a harvest making and selling Burgundy Pitch Plasters
which people would wear on the stomach to ward off the cholera.

After 1840 the drug business was almost entirely in the hands of Germans.
G. A. Hiller was probably the first German pharmacist here. He held forth
on Lower Market. William Karrmann, famed as a connoisseur and col-
lector of paintings and violins, was located at Fifth and Smith Streets as
early as 1845. Adolph Fennel, who came here in lS."Jl, and was located at
the southwest corner of Vine and Eighth Streets for many years, was an
able exponent of scientific pharmacy. Edward S. Wayne, who at dift'erent
times held chairs in the Medical College of Ohio, the Cincinnati College of
Medicine and Surgery and the Cincinnati College of Pharmacy, was with
Suire and Eckstein in their great drug establishment at the northwest corner
of Fourth and Vine Streets. His salary was $7,000 a year, considered at that
time the largest paid to any chemist, in this country. Fennel and Wayne were
prominent among the men who started the Cincinnati College of Pharmacy,
the third of its kind in the United States. In 1848 the x\merican Phar-
maceutical Association was founded. Through this Association a charter
was obtained in 1850 for the Cincinnati College of Pharmacy. The first
home of the school was in Gordon's Hall at the southwest corner of Eighth
Street and Western Row. W. J. M. Gordon, a prominent pharmacist in those
days, had a drug store downstairs. Above the store was a large room,
known as Gordon's Hall. The College of Pharmacy had its humble begin-
ning in this hall. Gordon himself was an enthusiastic supporter of the school,
and should be remembered as one of the pioneers of scientific pharmacy in
the West. The school vegetated for a number of years in Gordon's Hall
and subsequently in a room in the Cincinnati College, and was finally aban-
doned. After the civil war a reorganization of the school was decided upon.

The plan did not go into operation until 1871 when the school was established
at the southwest corner of Walnut Street and Gano Alley, whence it moved
into a house at the southwest corner of Fifth and John Streets. The faculty
consisted of E. S. Wayne (materia medica and pharmacy), T. F. Judge

E. S. Wayne

Adolph Fenne:l

Wm. B. Chapman

J. F. JUDG]

(chemistry), and F. H. Renz (botany). The following year Wm, B. Chap-
man was added to the faculty. The first course was attended by fifty-one
students. Later on the institution moved into one of the historic buildings of
the city, the old Catharine Street Baptist Church. Catharine Street was at
one time the name of Court Street. In the early days the building fronted
the Baptist Cemetery which was to the east of the old Methodist graveyard.
Since 1871 the Cincinnati College of Pharmacy has been in continuous opera-
tion. The early founders of the college were among the ablest exponents
of chemistry, botany and scientific pharmacy in the country. Adolph Fennel

was born in Cassel, Germany, in 1824. He attended the Polytechnic Institute
in his native town and was employed as a chemist and pharmacist in Stutt-
gart and in Switzerland. He emigrated to the United States in 1850, located
in Cincinnati, and gained a vast reputation as an analytical chemist. He died
in 1884. An equally distinguished man was E. S. Wayne, a native of Phila-
delphia, to whose zeal and enthusiasm the American Pharmaceutical Asso-
ciation owes its existence. Wayne was a man of solid scientific attainments,
an excellent teacher and immensely popular. He was the Beau Brummel
of the profession, always faultlessly attired and with manners to match.
He was John A. Warder's assistant (1856) in the Medical College of Ohio.
From 1858 to 1860 he was professor of chemistry in the Cincinnati College
of Medicine and Surgery. He reoccupied the same chair in the last-named
school in 1884. His health failing he returned to the place of his birth.
Philadelphia, at the end of the session. He died there in 1885, sixty-seven
years of age. Wm. B. Chapman, the third in the trinity of great pharmacists,
was born in Pennypack Hall, near Philadelphia, in 1813, came to Cincinnati
in 1835, opened a drug store in conjunction with John Eberle's son, graduated
from the Medical College of Ohio in 1839, but continued in the drug busi-
ness. For many years he had a store at the southwest corner of Sixth and
Vine Streets. In 1854 he was elected president of the American Pharma-
ceutical Association. He was the inventor of Chapman's suppository mould.
He died in 1874. J. F. Judge, another distinguished chemist who became
associated with the College of Pharmacy, is referred to in connection with
the Miami Medical College.

Another institution whose history has been closely related to the history
of the medical profession, is the Ohio College of Dental Surgery, founded
by an act of the Legislature January 24, 1845. It was the second school
of its kind in the world, its predecessor being the dental school in Baltimore,
founded a few years previously by H. Willis Baxley, subsequently a pro-
fessor in the Medical College of Ohio. The Ohio College of Dental Surgery
was organized by physicians. The first course of lectures began in Novem-
ber, 1845. The first faculty consisted of Jesse W. Cook, professor of dental
anatomy and physiology; M. Rogers, professor of dental pathology and
therapeutics ; James Taylor, professor of practical dentistry and pharmacy,
and Jesse P. Judkins, demonstrator of anatomy. In February, 1846, a class
of four graduated. Every graduate received a diploma and copy of the Holy
Bible. Whether the graduates were expected to practice dental art by au-
thority of the former or the latter is not stated. During the second session
Elijah Slack delivered lectures on chemistry. During the long career of the
Ohio College of Dental Surgery, many eminent medical men have been con-
nected with the institution. Anatomy has been taught by John T. Shotwell,
Thomas Wood, C. B. Chapman, Charles Kearns and Wm. Clendenin, pa-
thology by George Mendenhall, Edward Rives, F. Brunning and others. Jesse
W. Cook resigned in 1847. and was followed by J. F. Potter, a surgeon of

repute, who subsequently was connected with St. Luke's Hospital. His dis-
pute over an unimportant point in ethics with R. D. Mussey who was a
stickler on correct form, attracted much attention at the time. Potter died
in 1868. His wife was Miss Martha Longworth.

The school started in an old building- on College Street, whi-^h was torn
down in 1854 and followed by a new structure erected on the site of the old.
The new edifice was the first building in the world put up specially for dental
education. This building was for many years the home of the Academy of
Medicine. In 1881 a reorganization took place which ushered in an era of
prosperity for the school under the management of Dr. H. A. Smith, Dr.
C. M. Wright, whose name is mentioned in the biography of James Graham,
has been the professor of physiology for many ye&rs. The present home
of the school is at the northeast corner of Court and Central Avenue. Prob-
ably the most distinguished dentist ^who has ever practiced in Cincinnati was
Jonathan Taft (1820-1903) who held a chair in the Ohio College of Dental
Surgery and wrote an excellent book on operative dentistry. He was a
member of the family that has given a President to our country.

The quack, the medical confidence-man, was very much in evidence in
the early days. Human credulity and stupidity prepared a rich harvest for
charlatans of all kinds. Even witches had to be reckoned with. Daniel Drake
tells us about his Indian horse that could not be caught after nightfall and in
this connection recalls a case in which a witch figured very prominently.
"Witches were not then extinct, and some of them were actually known.
One of the most mischievous lived a few miles back in the country, and
bewitched a woman on the river bank. Her husband came at dusk in the
evening for assistance, and went into the lot to assist in catching my horse,
which, 6f course, we failed to do, and he ascribed the failure to the witch
having entered the animal. It only remained to give him a paper of medicine,
which he afterwards assured me was the best he had ever tried, for, as he
entered the door of his cabin, the witch escaped through the small back
window, and fled up the steep hill and into the woods. He carefully preserved
the medicine as a charm, and found it more efficacious than a horseshoe nailed
over the door, which, before the united skill of Dr. Goforth and myself had
been brought to bear on this matter, was the most reliable counter-charm."

Some of the stories told about the early quacks in Cincinnati are very
amusing. A writer in the "Cincinnati Times' (1867) who concealed his
identity under the nom-de-plume of "Old Man" refers to Menessier's Board-
ing House near the corner of Main and Pearl Streets. "Here on a Summer's
day in 1803 or 1804 came a tall and venerable-looking man clad in the most
fantastic array with very long white hair. This striking personage introduced
himself as Professor Yernest, a Swede by birth, and his business was indi-
cated by the following advertisement :

"The Elixir of Longevity."

"Doctor Yernest, a native of Sweden, the inventor of the above Elixir, and by whom
the secret has long remained in his family, lived 254 years, his grandfather 130 years,
his mother 107 years, his father 130, and his grandmother 175 years.

"Doctor Yernest. the eldest in descent of the male line of this venerable family, now
in his eighty-fifth year, lives at Mr. Menessier, and has the Elixir of Longevity with
him; a fifty-cent bottle of the same being sufficient quantity to insure the continua-
tion of life of the most sickly for at least a century."

The Professor for a time did a prosperous business, but one day the dis-
tinguished French advocate and tavernkeeper and the patriarchal Swede be-
came involved in a discussion on European politics. Angry words soon gave
way to blows, and in the excitement of the conflict the wonderful white hair
of the antediluvian came off, bringing to view a mass of bright red curls, as
red, says the "Old Man," as the topknot of a woodpecker. As a result, a
vision of youth took the place of the semblance of hoary old age, and a man
of 35 stood in the shoes of the fossil of 85. The "Elixir" was not able to
save him and night riding on a rail accompanied by a dozen or more of his
former friends who had indulged in sufficient quantities of another sort of
elixir, he was escorted from town to the tune of the "Rogues March".

Another story by "Old Man" tells of the great King, "the prophet, the wise
man, the immortal King" who advertised his business in the following-
manner :

"Humble ones, my mission calls me among you. The Great Book, on being opened,
annov.nces my coming. Your pains, sufiferings and sorrows shall cease. Doctor King can
look back through a vista of three thousand years, and trace his descent from a con-
tinued line of great physicians. Wherever he has been, the blind have been restored to
sight, the lame walked, the heart-broken made happy. More than a million of people,
affiicted with every ill that flesh is heir to, have applied to him for relief during the
past ten years, and in every instance has a permanent cure been effected. Come, behold,
see for yourselves, and watch the hand of Fate, as it points you out the course to
follow."

"Doctor King can not attend to any calls after sundown, as he is then engaged until
morning dawn in consulting the stars and planets as to the proper treatment of his
patients on the following day."

This prophet was so successful that at last he was so indiscreet as to
issue a challenge to physicians to meet him in a joint discussion. This was
too much of an opportunity for Dr. Drake, then a young and combative
practitioner. He accepted the challenge and as a result of an announcement
in the paper a large crowd was present to see the fun. In those (^ays, as at
the present, the humbug had his followers and the result of the contest was
by no means certain. King opened with a speech in some absurd gibberish, at
the end of which he was interrogated by Drake as to its meaning. King
triumphantly announced that that was the language of the natives of Farther
India. Thereupon, Drake brought in an extraordinarily dressed personage
whom he announced as Fredora, a native of Farther India, who would act
as interpreter. Fredora who had been dressed to represent an Icelander,

Indian, Hottentot or any other outlandish personage, began to grumble, growl
and roar at the unfortunate King. It was a case of Indian against Indian.
Greek against Greek, dog eat dog, and King was obliged to retire discomfited.
He finally confessed that he had worked for years in a Philadelphia woolen
mill, but concluded that it was easier to live by his wits. He was allowed to
leave town without ceremony.

In "Liberty Hall" January 11, 1815, Peter Smith, the itinerant preacher
and Indian Doctor, who wrote the first medical book that was published in
Cincinnati (see reference to this in the last chapter of this book), advertises
his "Pulvis Excitaria or Life Invigorating Powder," a remedy for almost
every possible ailment. The advertisement is signed by Peter Smith of the
Gospel and concludes with a certificate of William Burke to the effect that
his hoarseness had been relieved by the use of this drug, and that he hoped
by the blessing of God to be entirely restored. The drug was put up in "small
square papers signed on one square with my name corresponding to the like
assignment on the bill attending it, without which the medicine is not to be
esteemed genuine." To use it, the powder must be dissolved in vinegar and
of the mixture a teaspoonful was put in a half glass of sage tea which could
be sweetened. The dose was to be repeated in double the quantity every ten
minutes "until the stomach becomes full warm and easy." Then the patient
must drink a cup of hot toddy with hot toast crumbled into it and finally he
must drink plentifully of some herb or root tea such as herb balm, pennyroyal,
horseradish-root, square stock root or blueberry root, any of them alone or
all mixed together. After this final dose the patient is supposed to eat and
drink and sleep freely. In two hours the patient, if still alive, "will likely know
if the point aimed at will succeed." This advertisement is accompanied by
an elaborate system of notes and a series of observations, together with ref-
erences to the author's medical book called the "Indian Doctor's Dispensatory."
Despite the use of this extraordinary remedy, Father Burke's hoarseness
continued until the day of his death. Dr. Smith was not to have a monopoly,
for the following issue contains a notice of Dr. Thomas Hill from Boston
to the efifect that he had taken a house on Walnut Street near the Academy
where he intended to practice physic and surgery. The fact that he had prac-
ticed thirteen years in a warm climate was urged as of special importance.

In the Directory of 1829 an advertisement appears of Dr. L. M. Johnson
who made a specialty of galvanism as a remedy and was equipped with the
"Medical Galvanic Battery where patients can receive this gentle and agree-
able stimulus at all times." It was also provided with "a powerful Electro-
Galvanic Resuscitating Battery which will be free for the Humane Society
and the faculty for restoring suspended animation." Dr. Johnson also had
discovered that medicines applied externally were "much more beneficial and
more likely to subdue certain forms of disease than those administered in-
ternally which most generally irritate and do much mischief to the stomach
and bowels before any specific action can be prodjiced, and the manner of

applying those medicines externally in the form of gas is certainly a discovery
the most valuable in medicine." His institution, therefore, was provided with
suitable apparatus for applying to the whole body fumigations of sulphur,
chlorine, iodine, muriatic acid, alcohol and balsamic medicines, which the
patient could avail himself of without inconvenience in either sitting or re-
clining or horizontal posture."

In the Western Spy, September 19, 1800, Dr. Shelton announces that
"he has discovered a species of bug which abound in potato patches, having
all the virtues of the Spanish, which cost twenty dollars per pound, while
more of these American cantharides may be obtained, than will be wanted
for domestic use, with no expense and little trouble." Mr. Cist, who quotes
Shelton's ad in his interesting book "Cincinnati in 1841," adds : "I have no
doubt that these bugs were all humbugs."

One of the boldest charlatans who for awhile monopolized the best prac-
tice in town, held forth at the northeast corner of Eighth and Plum Streets,
where every day the carriages of the wealthiest people drove up, while the
leading physicians deplored the absence of their best patients. Drake informs
us that this quack was a negro who had followed an itinerant oculist from New
Orleans and was stranded in Cincinnati. This negro was nearly blind from
gonorrheal ophthalmia. He, in some manner or another, attracted an enormous
practice by the silliest kind of a swindle. He would tell the patient to dip
one finger into a tumbler of water whereupon he would study and anal3'ze
the water and tell the patient what ailed him. One young lady was told by
the negro that a male had also dipped his finger into the water. She denied
this whereupon the negro stated that she was pregnant with a male child.
The girl broke down and confessed that she was pregnant. In due time
she was delivered of a male child. A man was told by the negro that a
dead person's finger had been put into' the water. The patient was worried
and annoyed and decided to see his family physician about the matter. On
his way to the doctor's office he dropped dead in the street. These and sim-
ilar occurrences established the negro's reputation. Drake tells us that one
of the leading physicians proceeded to drive this negro out of the city and
in the melee which followed, this physician whose name Drake does not give,
was severely cut by the negro. Fearing the result, the latter left the city.

Drake narrates with much glee the success which two phrenologists had
who opened a shop on Lower Market, and for some time did a land-office
business. One of their specialties was the sale of "love powder" which the
young folks bought from them by the pound to adjust affairs of the heart.
All is fair in love and war, says Drake.

The necessity of establishing a criterion of professional decency, a rule of
action to guide the physician in his dealings with patients and colleagues,
was recognized by the doctors of Cincinnati as early as 1821. At a meeting
of the physicians of Cincinnati, on February 21, 1821, at which John Sell-

man presided and Joseph Buchanan acted as secretary, a "Code of Medical
Police and Rules and Regulations" was adopted and a copy of it submitted to
every practitioner in the city for his signature. The author of this code was
Jesse Smith, aided by Drs. Pierson and Buchanan. This code is a remarkable
document. In it the philosophy of ethical conduct is beautifully expressed
and its practical application to the exigencies of professional life most aptly
illustrated. Esprit de corps or a high regard for the ideals of the profession
and respect for those who share the responsibilities of professional activity
is given as the foundation of correct conduct. The rights of patients, the
duties of the physician towards his patients and towards his brethren are
succinctly set forth, the technique and mode of consultation are discussed,
the manner of adjusting differences among physicians is clearly defined, a
fee-bill is established, quackery is denounced and a general savoir vivrc in
the profession is outlined. The profession of Cincinnati is permanently or-
ganized as "The Cincinnati Medical Association" to meet annually on the
first Monday in January. The fees recognized by the Association were as
follows :

For a visit $0.50

For a visit and first consultation 5.00

For a visit, and each subsequent consultation 2.00

For a visit, or a visit in consultation, out of the city of Cincin-
nati, the fees as above for a visit, or a visit in consultation;
with the addition^ of every mile, except the first, from the

Lower Market, of from 50 cents to 1.00

In like manner, for every other service, when out of the city, the
fee for the service shall first be charged, and for every mile,

except the first, from 50 cents to 1.00

For a visit to Newport or Covington, Ky 2.00

For a visit and passing catheter 3.00

For a visit and passing catheter when frequently repeated 1.50

For a visit and performing venesection 1 . 00

For a visit and extracting a tooth 1 . 00

For a visit and dressing only 1 . 00

For venesection, extracting a tooth, or dressing at surgeon's house .50

For rising in the night and visit 2.00

For rising in the night, and visit in consultation 7.00

For rising in the night, and advice at the physician's house 1.00

For advice at the physician's house, or elsewhere, according to

the importance of the case and time occupied, from 50 cents to 10.00

For a case of gonorrhoea 10 . 00

■ For all other cases of syphilis 12.00

For a case of midwifery 10.00

For amputation of large limbs, trepanning, extirpation of large
tumours, and other surgical operations of equal difficulty and

importance 30 . 00

For Lithotomy 75 . 00

For the operation for fistula in ano 15 . 00

For the operation for hair-lip 15.00

For tapping for dropsy 10 . 00

For reducing luxations, or fractures of large bones, from $10 to. ..$20.00
For amputating toes, fingers, and for excision of small tumours. .. 7.00
For reducing luxations, or fractures of small bones, for stitching

recent wounds, opening large abscesses and similar operations. 3.00

For vaccine inoculations 2.00

Insertion of a seton, or making an issue 2.00

The physicians who signed the "Code" in 1821 were John Sellman, Samuel
Ramsay, Ebenezer H. Pierson, Coleman Rogers, John Moorhead, Jesse Smith,
John Cranmer, Josiah Whitman, Daniel P. Robbins, William Barnes, Joseph
Buchanan, Ichabod Sargeant, Oliver Fairchild, Edward Y. Kemper, Cyrus W.
Trimble, Abel Slayback, Truman Bishop and William T. Crissey.

It is interesting and instructive to observe the changes which have oc-
curred in the therapeutic notions of the profession since those early days.
The lancet was as consistently employed in those days as it is too indiscrim-
inately condemned today. Calomel was the mainstay of the physician. It
would take us beyond the confines of our subject to discuss these points in
detail. No student or practitioner of medicine should forego the pleasure of
reading the writings of the early authors, especially Drake, Eberle and Cross.
They can be found in the journals of those days. An interesting paper that
should be read by every student of the medical history of our Western country,
was contributed by Dr. G. S. B. Hempstead, of Portsmouth, Ohio, to the
"Cincinnati Lancet and Clinic" (1878). The title of the paper is "Remin-
iscences of the Physicians of the First Quarter of the Present Century, with a
Review of Some Features of Their Practice." Dr. Hempstead was the first
graduate of the Ohio University (Athens, 1813) and received his medical
degree from the Medical College of Ohio in 1821. In 1829 he published
an essay in which he tried to prove that the hydrocyanic acid in decaying
vegetable matter is the probable cause of autumnal fever.

Up to 1815 all Cincinnati physicians were Americans by birth and edu-
cation. The first foreigner that located in Cincinnati as a physician was
Dr. Wm. Mundhenk, who came from Germany in 1815 and remained two or
three years. It is supposed that he retired to a farm in Northern Ohio and
spent the rest of his life there. In 1819 FRANZ OBERDORF joined the lo-
cal profession. He was born in 1776 in a village near Heidelberg. When he
was seven years of age, he accompanied his mother, who was a French woman,
on a visit to her relatives in the town of Montpelier in the southern part of
France. Young Oberdorf remained in Montpelier under the care of his uncle
who was an army surgean. He began his medical studies in the ancient
University of Montpelier (founded 1196). The outbreak of the French
revolution interrupted his medical course. He was appointed assistant sur-
geon and had ample opportunity to make up in practical experience what he
lacked in theoretical knowledge. Eventually he became a surgeon in Na-
poleon's army and accompanied the grim Corsican on most of his campaigns.

He attended the wounded beneath the pyramids, in the Italian Alps and on
the icy plains of Russia. He witnessed Napoleon's struggle against Fate at
Leipsic; he served during the battle of the Bridge of Lodi. It was here that
his uncle who had practically raised him, fell within a few feet of him,
struck by a cannon ball. When the star of Napoleon had set, never to rise
again, Oberdorf quit the life of the soldier and emigrated to America, landing
at Baltimore in 1816. He became a surgeon on board of an East Indian
merchantman. In 1818 he visited a ranch in Mexico with a view of buying
it and settling down. While there, he fell in love with a young widow from
Lancaster, Pa. He married her and located in Cincinnati where the young
wife had relatives. Oberdorf had many obstacles put in his way by the
native American physicians who disliked him on account of his being a for-
eigner. He was every inch a soldier, crude and unconventional in his manner,
straightforward and forcible in his speech. The common people liked him.
During the first few years of his practice he was compelled to earn his living
by giving music lessons and teaching German and French. In the course of
ten years he became one of the busiest physicians in Cincinnati. His ob-
stetrical practice was phenomenal. Few physicians of those days were as
universally popular as he. His rough, forcible and yet honest way of talking
to his patients and his many acts of kindness to his suffering fellowman
established him firmly in the hearts of the people. For thirty-seven years
he was a character in the local profession whose quaintness and originality
were known throughout the Western country. In 1844 his wife died. Her
death seemed to change his whole nature. He longed for the flowers and
trees and the freedom and simplicity of life in the country. He moved to
Kentucky in 1857 and died in 1860. His son, F. J. C. Oberdorf, was born
in Cincinnati in 1822, attended Woodward College, graduated from the Med-
ical College of Ohio in 1846 and practiced with his father until the latter
moved to Kentucky. Failing health compelled the son to join his father.
He died in 1880. Both father and son were noted for their surgical skill and
for their great philanthropy.

The next foreigner that came to Cincinnati and became one of its dis-
tinguished citizens was John Moorhead, v.diose career has been noted else-
where. In 1827 Dr. Friedrich Bunte, a learned German physician, came to
Cincinnati fresh from the University of Wiirzburg. He remained a few years
and took up teaching. Finally he drifted away. He died in the sixties in
Brookville, Ind. Soon after 1830 quite a number of foreign-born physicians
located in Cincinnati. DR. THEODOR A. TELLKAMPF who practiced here
for a number of years, was probably the most distinguished of these. He was
the younger brother of J. L. Tellkampf, a lawyer of international reputation,
who taught political economy at Union College, Schenectady, N. Y., after-
wards became a professor at the University of Breslau, and eventually was
associated with Mommsen and Virchow in the German Parliament. He died
in 1876. Dr. T. A. Tellkampf, the younger brother, was born in Biickeburg

in 1812. He attended the gymnasium at Hannover and studied medicine in
Gottingen and Berlin. He graduated in Berlin in 1838 and completed his
medical education in Vienna. A desire to see more of the world prompted
him to go to America. He located in Cincinnati but spent much time traveling
and studying. He made a specialty of sanitation and hygiene of prisons, and
became known on both sides of the Atlantic as an authority on this subject.
In 1844 he was offered and declined a chair in the University of Berlin.
While in Cincinnati he was a most active member of the local profession
and took a deep interest in educational matters. In 1845 he located in New
York and continued to work in the interest of the subjects with which his
name will always be associated. He was the friend of Alexander von Hum-
boldt and other celebrities. In 1861 General Fremont appointed him on his
staff. He practiced in New York until 1881, when failing health prompted
him to return to the land of his birth. He died in Hannover in 1883. His
two most important scientific contributions ("The Influence of Confinement
and Prison-Hfe on Body and Mind" and "Sanitary Conditions in American
Prisons"), which were published in Berlin, 1844, were written by him during
his residence in Cincinnati.

Cincinnati has had many German physicians who wielded a vast influence
in the community. Some of these men had obtained their medical education
in Europe, others studied medicine in this country, adding to the hardships
of a medical course the difficulties of a new, unfamiliar tongue. In this con-
nection it is of interest to know that quite a few educated Germans took their
medical course in Transylvania University where students were permitted to
present inaugural theses in Latin, Greek, French, German, Italian, Spanish,
and, of course, English. Latin theses were common, French and German
not infrequent. Many people imagine that the professors and students of
medicine in Lexington and in Cincinnati in those days were crude, uncul-
tured and ignorant men. This is a serious error. Some of the men who
taught medicine at these early schools were the equals of the most famous
teachers in Europe. While it would be like decorating the lion's mane, to
put an A.B. or A.M. after the name of geniuses like Drake and Dudley, it
was nevertheless a fact that the majority of the medical teachers of those
early days were men of splendid classical education.

The influence and quality of the German element is well shown in the
German physicians of early days. Some of the more prominent ones were
also conspicuous in other lines besides medicine.

J.VCOB CONRAD HOMBURG was born in Wachenheim in 1798 and at-
tended the University of Marburg. While he was studying he was hounded by
Government detectives on account of his liberal views. To avoid arrest he
made his escape and continued his studies at Basel in the hospitable Swiss
Republic. He graduated in 1824 and went to America. For a number of
years he practiced in Cincinnati. He located in Indianapolis in 1840 and

1»9

rose to great prominence as a physician. He died in 1881. His youns:er
brother, FRIEDRICH HOMBURG, came to this country in 1834 and attended
the Medical College of Ohio. He graduated in 1838 and located first in Shelby-
ville, Ind., then in Cincinnati, where he was for years a leading German
physician. He died in 1868. Like his friend, George Fries, James Graham's
brother-in-law, he was a staunch Democrat and remained one even during
the Civil War. The assassination of Lincoln threw the people of the North
into a high fever of excitement and indignation. In many places a senseless
revenge was visited upon men who were prominently identified with the Dem-
ocratic party. These men were known as "copperheads" in war-times. In
Cincinnati a number of residences were mobbed the day following Lincoln's
death. Among the prominent men who thus sufifered at the hands of the
lawless mob were George Fries and Friedrich Homburg, whose houses were
located at Eighth and Vine Streets. Homburg's house was completely wrecked
and most of his furniture, books, etc., burnt. Homburg literally grieved him-
self to death over this undeserved treatment. He was a kind-hearted man,
universally beloved on account of his charitable nature. The greatest source
of bitterness was the fact that the outrage was committed by some of his
own countrymen, German republicans, who assembled at Turner Hall to do
honor to the memory of the great Emancipator and disgraced the latter and
themselves by committing outrages on the homes of defenseless citizens.

M. W. PAUL was born in 1807 at Recklinghausen, studied for the priest-
hood at Munster but changed his mind and attended medical lectures at Mar-
burg and Bonn. At the latter place he graduated. He came to Cincinnati
in 1834, and, not being acquainted with the people or their language, had to
do the coarsest kind of menial work to keep from starving. He worked in a
rope factory in Covington. His genial and refined manner aroused the suspi-
cion of his foreman, who introduced him one day to Dr. C. A. Schneider, at
that time one of the leading physicians in Cincinnati. Schneider took an
interest in Paul and made it possible for him to practice his profession. In a
short time he was a much-sought-after physician. His convivial habits made
him very popular. He was a fine classical scholar and an accomplished mu-
sician. He grew enormously fat and died of apoplexy in 1847.

FRIEDRICH ROELKER was born in Osnabrueck, Germany, in 1809, and
received a splendid education at the Collegium Carolinum of his native town
and the seminary at Munster, Westphalia, where he prepared himself for
the profession of teaching. He came to America in 1835 and after two years
of teaching in New York arrived in Cincinnati. He became an English teacher
and ultimately principal of Holy Trinity Catholic School on West Fifth Street.
He began to read medicine and matriculated at the Medical College of Ohio
where he graduated in 1841. Roelker in after life often referred to the
splendid scholarship of John Eberle whom he had met shortly after his arrival

100

in Cincinnati, although he never heard him lecture at the college. Roelker
frequently spoke of Eberle's fluency in German and of his peculiar-
ities. Eberle was a typical German scholar, impractical, absent-minded and
full of eccentricities. Roelker had great respect for another German physician
of those days, S. D. Gross, and for the peerless leader of the profession, Daniel
Drake, who reciprocated Roelker's regard most cordially. Roelker in a short
time was a successful practitioner and one of the best known men in town.
In 1843, when the nativistic element made an attempt to banish German
instruction from the curriculum of the public schools, Roelker became a can-
didate for the school board and was elected in a Republican ward, although
he ran on the Democratic ticket. He became chairman of the Committee on
German Instruction and systematized the plan of teaching in the schools under
his supervision, introduced rational pedagogic methods of instruction and had
the satisfaction of demonstrating the superiority of his educational plan by the
splendid showing of his German-English schools at the semi-annual examina-
tions. Roelker is generally considered the father of German instruction in
the Cincinnati schools. His success as a practical educator and in no small
measure as a physician, made him an invincibly popular man in those days.
Amid his educational work he took care of an enormous practice, wrote occa-
sionally for the medical journals of those days, took an interest in medical
societies and used his political influence in favor of progressive medical and
sanitary legislation. He was a thoroughly public-spirited man whose brilliant
mentality and splendid education made him a tower of strength and reflected
great credit on his profession. In his educational work he had the help of
another prominent German physician of those days, J. S. Unzicker. When
Roberts Bartholow came to Cincinnati, Roelker at once took a great interest
in the gifted young physician who was as poor as the proverbial church-
mouse. He introduced Bartholow to many influential people and finally, when
Roelker left the city for a prolonged European visit, he put Bartholow in
charge of his office and thus gave him his start as a practitioner. Roelker
was a lifelong champion of German interests in Cincinnati, and will always
be remembered as one of the most distinguished representatives of the German
element in this part of the country. Professionally he occupied a high rank
as a general practitioner. The universal respect which the profession had for
him, found its practical expression in 1868 when the Cincinnati Academy of
Medicine elected him an honorary member. In 1867 he. was appointed pro-
fessor of pathology and pediatrics in the Cincinnati College of Medicine and
Surgery. Roelker died in Providence, R. I., in 1883.

D. S. GANS was a native of Hannover, Germany, and a graduate of the
University of Gottingen. He emigrated to this country about 1835 and, after
practicing in Dayton, New Orleans and Havana, Cuba, located in Cincinnati.
He died in 1863. He was a cultured man who enjoyed the respect of the
whole profession in a high degree. He took an active interest in medical

101

organizations and contributed many papers of value. He was one of the
most versatile medical writers in the local profession.

JOSEPH S. UNZICKER was born in Waldeck, Nassau, Germany, in 1813
and came to this continent when he was only a few years old. His parents emi-
grated to Canada. When the boy was sixteen years old, he went to Cincin-
nati to become an apothecary. He worked in different drug shops and finally
decided to study medicine. He attended the Medical College of Ohio and
graduated in 1839. After one year's service as an interne and pharmacist in
the Commercial Hospital, he entered general practice and soon became one of
the foremost practitioners and pharmacists in Cincinnati. His large expe-
rience as a pharmacist made him a useful member of medical societies in the
interests of legitimate pharmacology and suitable legislation in support of
pure drugs and unadulterated foods. The files of the local medical journals
bear witness to his great zeal and scientific knowledge. After thirty-two
years of hard work in the interests of the profession and its purposes he
retired from practice. He died in 1876. He was immensely popular among
people of all classes and had the respect of his colleagues. No greater eulogy
could be spoken on behalf of any physician. Aside from his professional
work he was deeply interested in all questions pertaining to the welfare of the
German population. His daughter is the widow of Frederick H. Alms.

CARL AUGUST SCHNEIDER was born in the Rhenish Palatinate
(Rheinpfalz) in 1804, received his medical degree in Heidelberg in 1G28, came
to this country in 1833 and settled in Cincinnati, having made the trip down the
Ohio River in a flatboat. For forty years Schneider practiced in Cincinnati with
an almost hypnotic hold on his large German clientele. He retired in 1878
and spent the remainder of his life in his semi-rural home on Clifton Heights.
He died at the age of 92 years. He was a quaint and curious character',,
greatly devoted to his profession. After his arrival in Cincinnati in 1S32
he never left the city. He never rode in a railroad car and but once in his
life in a street car. In all his life he never saw a steamship. His son, Dr.
Charles A. Schneider, died in 1880.

J. TH. FRANK was born in Gottingen in 1810. He enjoyed the advan-
tages of a thorough classical education and studied medicine at the Univer-
sity of his native town, graduating in 1833. He practiced in his home town for
twenty years. In 1855 he decided to go to America and accordingly came to
Cincinnati where he located. He was for years one of the most prominent
German practitioners of the city. He died in 1887.

FRANZ ANTON JOSEPH GERWE was born in Oldenburg in 1820.
His parents emigrated to America and came to Cincinnati when he was nine-
teen years of age. Being possessed of much native ambition, he attended St.

102

Xavier College to learn Eng-lish and in the course of a few years matriculated
at the Medical College of Ohio. He graduated in 1849. He impersonated the
type of the hard-working and conscientious general practitioner. He was a
talented musician and took a prominent part in the doings of the German
societies. He died in 1881.

GUSTAV BRUEHL was born in Herdorf, Province of the Rhine, Ger-
many, in 1826, studied medicine in Munich, Halle and Berlin, emigrated to
America in 1848 and located in Cincinnati. He was one of the most learned
members of the profession and for many years was the most eminent and suc-
cessful German physician in the city. In 1858 he helped in the organization of
St. Mary's Hospital. He was the first physician in Cincinnati to demonstrate

0^.

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^"4

G. Bruehl

A. ZlPPERI^EN

and practice laryngoscopy having studied it under Czermak and Tuerck. His
most valuable contribution of a strictly medical character was a dissertation
on "The Pre-Columbian Origin of Syphilis" read before the Cincinnati Aled-
ical Society. Bruehl died in 1903.

Bruehl's best work was done along archaeological, anthropological and
ethnological lines of investigation. He was a great traveler and visited almost
every part of the globe. In the interests of his archaeological studies he spent
many years in Central America investigating the remnants of prehistoric races
and their civilization, the Aztecs, the aborigines of the Western Hemisphere,
etc. His work "Die Kulturvoelker Altamerikas" is monumental in scope
and a most important contribution to archaeology. Bruehl also published a
book of travel in which he pictures the people, the scenery, the natural his-
tory and other features of the Western Continent in a delightfully entertain-

lon

ing style with just enough of the scientific flavor to make the book interesting
to the educated layman. The title of this book is "Zwischen Alaska und dem
Feuerlande."

Bruehl had a poetic temperament and occupies a place of honor among
the few German Americans who made contributions of lasting value to German
literature. The legends and folklore of the Indian furnished the subjects for
some of Bruehl's best poetic productions. Bruehl was a word-painter of
great skill and power. The picturesque and sublime in still life, scenery or
in action brought out Bruehl's poetic talent to best advantage. He published
five small volumes of poetry : "Charlotte," an epic after the style of Goethe's
"Herrmann and Dorothea" or Longfellow's "Evangeline;" "Die Heldin des
Amazon," a typical American product, reflecting the characteristic features of
pioneer life, "Poesieen des Urwalds," poems dealing with the mountains, the
forests and the pioneers of the Western wilderness ; "Abendglocken," a col-
lection of poems of a lyric and didactic character, and "Skanderbeg," an epic
dealing with a subject taken from the mediaeval history of Eastern Europe.
Bruehl's most characteristic poems are contained in "Poesieen des Urwalds."
All his poetic productions were published under the iiom de plume of "Kara
Giorg." Dr. Bruehl's son-in-law, William H. Wenning, is (1909) gynecologist
to St. Mary's Hospital.

CYRUS D. FISHBURN, born in 1832 in Hummelstown, Dauphin Co., Pa.,
was a typical "Pennsylvania Dutchman" whose great-grandfather emigrated
from Germany to this country in 1749. His grandfather fought under Wash-
ington. Cyrus received a good preliminary education in a school near his
home and afterwards in Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass. The financial
troubles of his father prevented the boy from entering Harvard. He returned
to Pennsylvania and became a medical student-apprentice in the office of a
busy country doctor. In 1854 he graduated in medicine from the University
of Pennsylvania and began to practice in Elizabethtown, Pa. In 1856 he
came West and tried to practice in Detroit and Cleveland. In 1858 he arrived
in Cincinnati with ten dollars in his pocket, but lots of determination in his
heart. He rapidly built up an enormous practice, especially among the Ger-
mans who liked his rough and ready ways. He was an ideal family physi-
cian, equally devoted to his patients and to the science of medicine. He died
in 1889.

ADOLPH ZIPPERLEN was born in Heidenheim,Wurttemberg, Germany,
in 1818, received his classical education in Stuttgart, graduated in medicine
from the University of Tuebingen in 1841 and took special courses in Vienna.
At an early age his love of Nature had made him an enthusiastic amateur in
botany, zoology, anthropology and other natural sciences. Later on he gave
his inclination along naturalistic lines the fullest scope, devoting much time
to systematic study and original research. He came to this country in 1848

104

CvRus D. FrsHiu'RX

F. ROEI.KKR

105

and began to practice in Weinsberg, Canal Fulton and Akron, Ohio. When
the war broke out, Zipperlen offered his service to Governor Todd, of Ohio,
and was appointed surgeon of the 108th Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry.
He accompanied his regiment in all its campaigns and engagements from
1862 to 1865 and left the service June, 1865, as a brigade-surgeon. After the
war he located in Cincinnati and became a popular and successful physician.
He died in 1905.

As a naturalist Zipperlen occupied a front rank. His fort was zoology.
His knowledge, experience and enthusiasm were the life element of the Cin-
cinnati Zoological Garden during its early days. The courtly old gentleman,
clad in a "Lodenmantel," was known to every visitor of the "Zoo." His
appearance in the carnivora building was always the signal of a mighty out-
burst of delight on the part of the untamed denizens of the desert and the
wilderness. With a good-natured smile on his face and speaking words of
assurance, he would go from cage to cage, put his hands through the bars
and pet the hyena, the tiger and the leopard. Even the monarch of the
desert would rub his mane against the bars of his cage and express his
pleasure in a long-drawn-out grunt while the old doctor would pet the back
of his mighty head and tell him in his quaint Suabian dialect what a fine
fellow he was. "And a little child shall lead them!" Zipperlen's was a beau-
tiful childlike character, naive and pure. He was a prolific writer on zoological
and collateral subjects. His excellent work in this direction won for him
many honors at home and abroad. When Dr. Brehm, the famous zoologist,
in 1884 visited America, he included Cincinnati in his itinerary for the sole
purpose of meeting his distinguished collaborator.

GEORG HOLDT, born at Corunna on the coast of Spain in 1829, was the
son of a naval captain who served under Napoleon and had married a Spanish
lady. His father moved to Riga, Russia, and here young Holdt received his
early education. He studied medicine at the University of Dorpat and took
post-graduate courses in Germany. Under orders of the Russian Govern-
ment he built an Insane Asylum at Riga and had charge of it for five years.
His work was rewarded by the Emperor of Russia who decorated him with
the order of St. Stanislaus. Holdt started out to see the world and came
to America in 1868. He was much impressed with the possibilities of medical
practice in Cincinnati. He returned to Europe to get his family and located
in Cincinnati in 1870. He died in 1880, having during the comparatively
short time of his residence built up a commanding practice among the German
people of the city. He was a scholarly man of diversified talents. As an
alienist and neurologist he enjoyed a large reputation. He was a member
of the Cincinnati Hospital Staff.

Among the talented foreigners who practiced in this vicinity in the early
days was THOMAS HINDE, an Englishman by birth, whose life reads like a
romance. At the time of his death he was considered the patriarch of the

106

American profession. Dr. Hinde had a large following in the Miami Country
although he preferred to reside in Newport, Ky., where he had a beautiful
country home. According to Drake's account, Thomas Hinde was born in
Oxfordshire, England, on the 10th of July, 1737. After receiving a classical
education he was sent to London, to study physic and surgery. His principal
tutor was Dr. Thomas Brooke, one of the physicians of St. Thomas' Hospital.
The practice of this physician was embodied and published by his brother,
Dr. Robert Brooke, in two volumes, which were popular books of reference a
hundred years ago.

In the year 1757, at the early age of twenty, Mr. Hinde had made such
progress, that his master presented him to the Royal College of Surgeons
for a license. Passing a satisfactory examination, he immediately afterwards
received the commission of surgeon's mate in the navy and sailed for xA.merica
with the forces under the command of General Amherst.

He landed at New York on the 10th of June, 1757, and was afterwards,
during the same year, with the squadron at Louisburg. The following Winter
he spent at Halifax; and in 1758 assisted in the reduction of Louisburg by
Amherst. A new conquest was now meditated and our young surgeon pro-
ceeded with the celebrated General Wolfe in his memorable expedition against
Quebec. It was his good fortune to be attached to the ship which bore the
commander-in-chief, where he had ample opportunities of seeing much of
that distinguished man and observing his operations. His reminiscences of
these events were among the most cherished of his life. Down to the day
of his death he was accustomed to describe the General as "a. tall robust person
with fair complexion and sandy hair ; possessing a countenance calm, resolute,
confident, and beaming with intelligence."

Dr. Hinde was near the General at the moment of his fall, and when an
aid exclaimed: "They run, they run," the doctor heard the expiring chief
articulate the question: "Who run?" He was answered: "The French, sir;
they are running away in all directions." "Then," said he, "I die contented,"
and, sinking into the arms of the officer who supported him, he expired. This
celebrated death scene has often been painted, and in some of the pictures
Dr. Hinde is represented as being present and feeling the pulse of the wounded
General.

Dr. Hinde remained in the service until 1763 when he was induced by a
relative to come to the United States and locate in Virginia. Here he rose to
great eminence. He became the friend and physician of Patrick Henry, of
Samuel Davis, afterwards president of Princeton, of Lord Dunmore, Colonial
Governor of Virginia and other prominent people. In 1776 he was serving the
cause of his adopted country against his mother country.

In 1797 Hinde located on the Kentucky side of the Ohio River and
became a very popular physician. He died in 1829 rich in honor and in the
fullness of his years. The only thing that can be said against this learned

and experienced man (so Drake thinks), is that he never wrote a Hne in his
hfe. Perhaps he is entitled to greater credit for this dehnquency.

Two physicians of foreign birth were the Bonner brothers. HUGH BON-
NER was born at Mt. Charles, County Donegal, Ireland, in 1800. He came to
this country in 1817 and located in Lancaster, Ky., where he was engaged
in business. He began to read medicine and in 1825 graduated at Transyl-
vania. He came to Cincinnati in 1828 and practiced here until the time of
his death in 1837. His devotion to duty during the cholera year, 1832, is a
matter of record. His brother STEPHEN BONNER came to this country in
1825 at the age of sixteen and graduated at Transylvania in 1834. He located
in Cincinnati, and for more than forty years practiced his profession with
untiring devotion to the sick, especially those who were in need. He was a
public-spirited man and showed great interest in the doings of the profession.

Stephen Bonner Nathaniel Foster

He died in 1876. His son, Stephen Purcell Bonner, was born in Cincinnati,
graduated from the Medical College of Ohio in 1858, served throughout the
war in the capacity of surgeon of the 2d Kentucky, afterwards the 47th
Ohio Regiment, and located in Cincinnati. The exposure and hardships of
the war had undermined his health. He died of tuberculosis in 1874.

NATHANIEL FOSTER enjoyed the distinction of being an eminent man's
nephew and being a distinguished physician himself. His mother was John
Moorhead's sister. Foster saw the light of day in Newbliss, County Monaghan,
Ireland, in 1817. His father -was an Englishman by birth and an officer in
the English army. An uncle was a colonel who had fought under Wellington
at Waterloo. Foster came to the United States with his mother in 1833 to
visit his uncle, John Moorhead, and decided to remain. He graduated at the
Medical College of Ohio in 1838 and returned to Ireland to continue his
studies in the Hospitals of Dublin. He eventually located in Cincinnati and

108

fell heir to John Moorhead's vast practice. For nearly forty years he was
one of the leading physicians of the city, beloved by his colleagues, revered
by his patients and respected by everybody. In the early years of h-is career
he did some creditable work as an operator. In 1852, during a cholera epi-
demic, he literally sacrificed himself for the people of the city. He cared

Thk First IIcj.mk ok PHVSio-MKniCAi.isM in Cincinnati (1889)

Mmk. Trollope's Bazaar

little for medical societies and would not accept a position in a college. For a
few years he was on the stafif of the Good Samaritan Hospital. He died
in 1888.

Foster in 1853 married into the family of Gen. William Lytle and took
up his abode in the old homestead, the "Lytle Flouse," which was one of the
most interesting, historical structures in Cincinnati. Wm. Lytle's son. Gen.
Wm. H. Lytle, author of the once famous poem: "I am dying, Egypt, dying!",
who died for his country at Chickamauga, was born in this house. In this
house many guests of national prominence were entertained and given a taste

109

of Cincinnati hospitality. Nathaniel Foster lived in this house for many
years. This venerable old homestead, a relic of Cincinnati's pioneer days,
was torn down in 1908, the protests of the Ohio Historical Society and all
other intelligent and patriotic citizens of Cincinnati notwithstanding. The
councilman in whose ward the Lytle House was located, decided that it must
come down for reasons only known to himself. Not wishing to soil the pages
of this book or to dishonor the fair name of Cincinnati, I prefer to suppress
the name of this individual who, since emerging from the shadow of a State
prison, has been a conspicuous figure in the political life of the city, a living
parody on civil decency.

The year 1839 was in a double sense a memorable one for Cincinnati. It
marked the disappearance of Daniel Drake from the local theater of action and
noted the advent of a unique character who introduced sectarianism in Cincin-
nati and for forty years occupied a position of more or less prominence in the
local profession, Alva Curtis, the founder of the local Physio-Medical College.

ALVA CURTIS was the product of revolutionary stock and first saw the
light of day in Columbia, N. H., in 1797. He received a good literary
education and began life as a teacher. He took up medicine as a side issue
and became an ardent advocate of the therapeutic notions expounded by
Samuel Thomson. In 1835 he became the editor of the "Thomsonian Recorder"
of Columbus, Ohio, an exotic medical periodical, which under his management
became a widely known publication. He obtained a charter for a Physio-
Medical College in 1836. It went into operation in Cincinnati in 1839 with
Curtis at the helm. The college was called the "Botanico-Medical College",
afterwards the "American Medical Institute," later the "Physio-Medical Col-
lege of Ohio," still later known as the "Literary and Botanico-Medical Col-
lege" and "Literary and Scientific Institute." At first the college occupied
Madame Trollope's Bazaar, Third, east of Broadway, later on it was va-
riously located in the building of the Cincinnati College, still later, on Third,
near Western Row, at John and Longworth Streets, and finally in the old
Corry Homestead which stood at the junction of Auburn Avenue and East
Auburn Avenue. The Physio-Medical School had its palmy days when it
occupied the Bazaar Building which Mme. Trollope erected in 1828 and which
was one of the historic structures in this part of the country. It was demol-
ished in 1881, to make room for the present Lorraine Building.

Curtis was the head, hand and soul of the school. The Thomsonians or
botanical practitioners made a good deal of noise in the early part of the
last century. Popularly they were known as the "steam doctors" because they
practiced diaphoretic therapy under any and all circumstances. Their prin-
cipal remedies were sweat-baths, lobelia and capsicum. Coupled with these
fundamental principles of their therapeutic faith was an intense hatred of
regular medicine. Samuel Thomson, their founder, was a man of talent, but
crude and uneducated. C. S. Rafinesque, author of a book on "The Medical

110

Flora of North America" (Philadelphia, 1828), is really the originator of
the botanical movement. He was a genius whose strange career puzzled his
contemporaries as much as it has been an enigma to posterity. In Cincinnati
the physio-medical or botanical practitioners had Alva Curtis to fight for
them and their cause. He was a host in himself, tremendously energetic,
well educated, a good talker and reasoner and by nature a fighter. That a
man of this character should in the course of time become greater than the
cause he was fighting for, is not surprising. Throughout his long and
strenuous career (he died in 1880) he kept himself prominently before the
people. He locked horns with some of the ablest medical men in this part
of the country, John P. Harrison, Roberts Bartholow, AI. B. Wright and
others. He published the "Jo"'"^^l of Education" in 1866 and for fully

Alva Curtis

Wm. H. Cook

sixteen years the "Botanico-Medical Recorder." With him the cause of
physio-medicalism in Cincinnati died, showing that all "systems" in medicine
need some extraneous support to prevent collapse. No "movement" in med-
icine can live which embodies a tendency towards constriction and restriction.
Science is necessarily free. It is essentially expansive, not limited ; it is
centrifugal, not centripetal. Commercial interests may keep a "system" alive.
A powerful individuality may keep it above water. In the end any "system"
is doomed, and rightly so.

Compared to Alva Curtis the other leaders of physio-medicalism in Cin-
cinnati dwindle into insignificance. A rival institution conducted by a few
of the minor lights under the name of the "Physo-Medical College," also
the "Physio-Medical Institute" (founded 1859), (Fifth Street and Western
Row) did not last. A man whose name was of some consequence in his day,

111

was William H. Cook who taught surgery for a number of years. He was
the author of a work on surgery and had a wide reputation as an operator.
The "Physio-Medical Institute" was suspended in 1885.

After the advent of the physio-medicalists in 1839, other schools of prac-
tice were quick to follow. Before the first half of the century had passed,
many homoeopathic and eclectic practitioners had located in Cincinnati. That
the multiplication of systems of practice did not contribute to the peace and
comfort of the profession as such, can readily be understood. The rivalry
was intense and not very dignified. Analogous to the old Greeks who con-
sidered every non-Greek a barbarian, the devotees of each school designated
every doctor of different therapeutic faith as a quack. The acrimony of those

John Bunvan Campbell

days has been mellowed by the gentle hand of time. The horizon has widened.
We know more and believe less. This makes people charitable towards others
who know less and believe more. Perhaps we all have begun to realize that

"Der Geist der Medizin ist leicht zu fassen :
Ihr durchstudirt die gross' und kleine Welt,
Urn es am Ende gehn zu lassen,
Wie's Gott gefallt."

Inasmuch as individual opinions, even if crystallized into schools or
"movements" in medicine, are, per sc^ rather a source of energy expended
in the interests of truth, they are really levers of progress. All depends
on the individual who fathers the opinions. The greatest achievement of
recent days is the policy of the progressive men in the profession to ignore
the opinion or its crystallization, the school, and scrutinize the individual.
Ignorance has no right to an opinion. The solution of the whole difficulty
has been found in the establishment of an educational criterion by which

112

all individuals in the profession shall be judged, in the exactment of an
iron-clad rule that only educated men shall enter the medical school and
that only well-informed medical students shall be allowed to enter the pro-
fession. After all, the sectarian idea of medicine becomes a menace only
when it springs from ignorance or rascality. This phase of the subject has
been amply illustrated in the medical history of Cincinnati. In this con-
nection it seems proper to speak of the many so-called "schools" and "col-
leges" that existed in the city before the days of medical legislation. The
story of these enterprises would eloquently illustrate the arrogance of ig-
norance, supported by the credulity of mental imbecility, in fact, all the
vagaries of the human mind, unaided by honesty or knowledge. It is hardly
worth while to disinter these malodorous carcasses from the grave of ob-
livion. Cincinnati had more than her share of disgrace in harboring diploma-
mills and disreputable "schools." It is a sickening chapter in her history.
There is only one individual whose memory ought to be preserved because
he exemplifies the possibilities of schemes executed under the cloak of med-
icine. He is the type of an entire class and as such is necessarily of value
to the medical historian. This man was the Cagliostro of Medical Cincin-
nati, John Bunyan Campbell, who at one time did more to amuse the edu-
cated and mystify the ignorant than all the other charlatans put together.

Campbell was born in 1820 on Little Pine Creek, Lycoming Co., Pa.
The sketch of his earnest efforts to find the truth in medicine, given by
himself in the preface to his "Encyclopedia of Vitapathic Practice," reminds
one of Faust's "Monologue." This preface and the book should be read by
every physician who has the blues. The fact that this man ever found
even one human being who took him seriously, is an unfathomable mystery.
There were thousands in all parts of the country who were his devout
followers, some of whom, when the spell was broken, entered medical col-
leges and graduated in medicine. Campbell called his system "vitapathy," a
mongrel mixture of half-digested science, brazen assurance and medical and
religious quackery. His graduates were "vitapathic physicians and min-
isters" who were empowered to heal the sick, to give the vitapathic breathing
prayer, to administer the milk-sacrament, to receive and give forth higher
spiritualization, etc., etc. Campbell wrote a book on practice and another
on vitapathic materia medica, in which he included all the quack-nostrums
and house-remedies of all ages and centuries. The principal therapeutic
agent is "vita," the vital spirit which is everywhere and is introduced into the
body, if handled by a properly qualified vitapathic physician. Campbell says:
"The higher wisdom and spiritual power comes in at the top of the head
and the hair must be parted there to let the spirit in, as hair is a non-con-
ductor." Campbell did not sell any of his books, nor did he allow his students
to divulge the contents. He made his students pronounce a terrible oath
that they would not speak of the contents of his books or show the books
to anyone. A statement on the title page of his "Practice" reads: "All dis-

113

coveries and processes, teachings and practice protected by United States
Right, by State Charter and by the Highest Divine Right." Campbell
charged a good fee for his "course of instruction" and drew large classes
of males and females. He died in 1901. His citadel of infamy still stands
in Fairmount, a mute witness of iniquity unspeakable. After following up
this man's career, the only question remains whether he should have properly
been confined in a State prison or in an insane asylum. His "graduates"
some years ago could be found in every State in the Union.

Medical legislation in Ohio was late coming, but it came. The different
laws passed prior to 1896, particularly the law enacted October 1, 1868, did
not place any restrictions or impose any obligations on those desiring to
practice. The first attempt to establish a fixed criterion of efficiency for
colleges and individuals was made February 27, 1896, when a State Board
of Medical Registration and Legislation was established by law. This law
has put an end to the endemic prevalence of bogus colleges in Cincinnati and
has had a most salutary effect on the legitimate institutions, of which only
the fittest will eventually survive. The greatest boon which the law of
1896 has conferred on the profession and on the science of medicine is that
it has placed all "schools" and "systems" on the same level of educational
qualification. The requirements are, as yet, very modest. The day, how-
ever, is not far distant when no one will be allowed to study medicine in
Ohio who has not a bachelor's degree in the arts or sciences and no one
will be permitted to practice who has not studied medicine for five years,
examinations to be conducted by the State. The examinations will include
all scientific branches of medical teaching. Matters of faith and prejudice,
including religion, politics and materia niedica, will be rigorously excluded.
This will be the ultima thule of medical legislation.

The prejudice existing between different "schools" has given rise to
many strange episodes in the history of Cincinnati. One would imagine
that great misfortunes, befalling men in large numbers without regard to
rank or station, would bring them together on the common plane of hu-
manity and make them forget petty diflferences. Cincinnati experienced the
ravages of four epidemics of Asiatic cholera during the past century, 1832,
1849, 1866 and 1872. In 1849 when throughout the valley of the Ohio the
grim reaper was gathering in his murderous harvest and no ray of hope
was peering through the gloom of night, the profession witnessed the strange
spectacle of bitter controversy about the relative merits of the different
systems of practice. In this half pathetic, half ludicrous war of words every
newspaper, religious periodical and medical journal was pressed into service
to publish bulletins from the scene of action, manifestos, lengthy editorials,
bitter rejoinders and learned criticisms. The homoeopaths under Pulte and
Ehrmann published statements in which they attempted to show the unques-
tioned superiority of their system, by reporting as many as twenty-five cases

114

without a death, inchiding cases that had been practically given up by other
physicians. Their statements were vehemently attacked by physicians of
other schools, especially the Eclectics who feared the supremacy of their
rivals. The old files of the "Gazette" (1849) contain letters addressed
to the editor by many well known physicians, including Daniel Drake and
R. D. Mussey. The regular school lost two of its leading men from cholera,
John T. Shotwell and John P. Harrison. Alva Curtis, of course, could not
refrain from taking a hand in the fight. From a historical point of view,
several documents are of peculiar interest, all pertaining to the cholera-
controversy of 1849. One is the report on "Cholera in Cincinnati," sub-
mitted to the American Institute of Homoeopathy at its meeting in Philadel-
phia, June 13, 1849, by Joseph H. Pulte. This report refers to 350 cases of
Asiatic cholera, treated by six homoeopathic physicians in Cincinnati without
a single death. The "Institute" accepted the report with thunderous applause,
the rest of the profession received it cum grano salis. No one seemed to
question that every one of the 350 patients got well, but everyone was w^on-
dering how many of them were really cholera cases. An interesting con-
tribution to the cholera-literature of those days was R. D. Mussey's paper
on "Cholera Animalcules," antedating the bacillary theory fully thirty years.
A layman, John Lea, Esq., of Cincinnati, in 1849, published a paper on "The
Geologic Theory of Cholera." This paper is a remarkable production which
was copied by the medical journals of all schools and very favorably com-
mented on. The climax of the cholera controversy was a brochure on "The
Pretensions of Homoeopathy" by Samuel A. Latta, physician and Methodist
minister. Latta was a remarkably versatile man. After his demise the "Cin-
cinnati Medical Society" held a public memorial meeting, at which M. B.
Wright delivered a beautiful eulogy. Latta was born on a farm near Ur-
bana, Ohio, in 1804. He became a licensed practitioner in 1826 and located
in Cincinnati. He was ordained a minister of the Methodist Church in 1829.
He was an exemplary man, pure in his motives, lofty in his ideals, full of
energy and moral courage. He was a devoted lover of the profession. He
died in 1852. His brochure on homoeopathy gained for him a national repu-
tation. Abstracting from the undignified and ill-timed spectacle of quarrel-
ing in the very face of death, there is no doubt that the profession in those
hours of visitation served the cause of humanity with all the devotion and
heroism for which it has always been noted. The cemeteries of the city
harbor the mouldering remains of many a doctor who "fell, like a soldier
in the line of duty, with his face to the foe." There is no monument to
perpetuate the memory of his heroism, no one to tell the story of a life that
was cheerfully given to the service of humanity. Let us in this connection
not forget the valor of that little band of heroic physicians that went out of
Cincinnati in 1876 during a yellow fever epidemic to render aid to the
stricken people of Memphis, Tenn. If all the ill that has been spoken of
doctors, if all their real and alleged frailties, foibles and follies that have

amused Aesop, Plato, Moliere, Jean Paul and the rest of mankind, were con-
centrated and expressed in one word, this word would be silenced amid the
mighty chorus of praise and gratitude that would simultaneously arise from
the hearts and lips of countless generations and reverberate triumphau-tly
through the aisles of time unto eternity. Ours is the greatest profession
because it is the most human and most humane profession.

In the history of the Valley of the Ohio where stood the cradle of
Western civilization, the doctor has always been in the foreground as the
ever resourceful and active champion of progress. Cincinnati's greatest
citizen was a physician, Daniel Drake. Her two most famous exponents of
science spent the best part of their lives in the interests of medical educa-
tion: John Locke and Daniel Vaughn. Three of the five original Cincinnati
charter-members of the Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio were
identified with the medical profession : Jedediah Cobb, the anatomist, Elijah
Slack, one of the original professors of the Medical College of Ohio, and
John P. Foote, publisher of the first medical journal issued in the West. In
matters of education and public improvements the physician has always
wielded the most powerful influence. The names of Joseph Ray (1806-1855,
graduate of Medical College of Ohio 1830, author of Ray's Arithmetic), C.
G. Comeg-ys and John A. Warder will in this connection not soon be for-
gotten. Taking it all in all, the first century of medical life in Cincinnati
presents a proud record of great names, great deeds and great achievements.
Last, but not least, let it be remembered that Cincinnati gave to the profes-
sion of the United States its greatest bibliographer, John S. Billings, who
graduated at the Medical College of Ohio in 1860. The example of these
men should be an inspiration to the younger generation. The ideal doctor
is by education and association qualified to be a leader in any line of human
endeavor. He should be the commanding figure, wherever and whenever the
interests of his fellowmen are concerned. In the Cabinet of the President,
in the halls of Congress, in the Legislatures of States, in the Councils of cities
and villages, in Boards of Education, should be his place to teach and
enforce the hygiene and sanitation of body, mind and heart, so necessary in
the social and political life of our country, to heal the wounds inflicted by
unfit public servants and to strengthen the health of the body politic. What
Homer says of the doctors in the Grecian army before Troy, is true of the
physicians of to-day :

"A ivisc physician, skilled our ivounds to heal,
Is more than armies to the public zveal!"

116

CHAPTER YIII.

THE MEDICAL COLLEGE OF OHIO.

Who shall decide zvJicn doctors disagree? — Pope.
(First Decade.)

THE circumstances which gave rise to and surrounded the founding
of the Medical College of Ohio, have been described in a previous
chapter. It was the second medical school in the West, Transylvania
having preceded it by one year. The events of the first two years in the
life of the Ohio College can be better understood by a reference to the posi-
tion which Drake occupied in relation to the institution and to his colleagues.

Drake had personally appealed to the Legislature for a charter. He was,
therefore, the founder of the college. He had a reputation as a medical
teacher, having filled a chair in the Transylvania School. His "Picture of
Cincinnati" had made him famous as an author. He was by all odds the
most conspicuous figure in the medical life of the town. That all these
circumstances were apt to arouse envy in the hearts of smaller men, can
readily be understood. Adding to his commanding position his fervent and
aggressive temperament, the troublesome career of the college during the
first few years of its existence appears as a natural sequence to the con-
ditions surrounding the very inception of the school.

Drake gave the college its first home in a large room over his father's
store at 91 Main Street. During the first session Drake lectured on prac-
tice, physiology (institutes of medicine), diseases of women and children.
His colleagues were Dr. Jesse Smith, professor of anatomy and surgery;
Dr. B. S. Bohrer, professor of materia medica, and Mr. Elijah Slack, pro-
fessor of chemistry. Both Smith and Bohrer had been appointed by Drake.
The four professors constituted the first faculty of the college. Considering
that the University of Pennsylvania, the foremost medical school in the
country, had only six professors in her medical department, the Ohio College
did not fall very short of the standard of those days.

JESSE SMLHI, the successor of John D. Godman in the chair of surgery,
was the scion of a distinguished New England family. At the time of his
birth his uncle was occupying the gubernatorial chair of New Hampshire.
He was born in Peterborough, N. H., March 6, 1793 and received his educa-
tion at Dartmouth, graduating in 1814. Young Jesse had made • up his

117

mind to study medicine, and, not wishing to tax the financial resources of
his family, took to teaching school in order to have a chance to save up
enough money to pay for his medical course. The latter he took in Harvard
University, receiving his degree in 1819. In the following year he was
appointed lecturer on anatomy at Dartmouth. Before the end of the session
he was offered the chair of anatomy in the newly founded Medical College
of Ohio and accepted it.

It would seem that posterity has not dealt kindly with the memory of
Jesse Smith. This is mainly due to the uncharitable references to him by
S. D. Gross in the latter's "Autobiography." Gross was a man of intensely
strong likes and dislikes. His admiration for Daniel Drake was nothing
short of worship for the latter and bitter enmity towards Drake's antagon-
ists. Smith was undoubtedly a strong man. As a surgeon he enjoyed a
great reputation. He was a bold and original operator, familiar with sur-
gical literature and much esteemed as a well-posted anatomist. He had a
record of over sixty successful lithotomies. As a lecturer he was well liked
by the students, some of whom sided with him against Drake. In appear-
ance he was a handsome man, over six feet in height, broad-shouldered, well-
proportioned, with blonde hair and blue eyes. Gross finds fault with him
on account of his vanity. Smith frequently rode through the streets of the
town and attracted much attention, especially among the ladies, on account
of his fine athletic figure and proud military bearing. Smith was a highly
cultured gentleman, a fairly good talker and acknowledged an excellent
teacher of surgery. He was a man of strong mind and indomitable will-
power. In the early troubles of the college he took an active part and
never went out of his way to show his dislike of Drake. The quarrels among
the professors involved many outsiders. Doctor Smith who violently opposed
Daniel Drake aroused in some manner or other the ire of David G Burnet,
brother of Isaac G. Burnet, mayor of the town. The Burnets were rather
friendly to Drake. There was a man in town at that time, named D. I.
Johnson, who conducted a grocery and general store at No. 86 Main Street.
This man had a bulletin board in front of his place of business upon which
he would advertise his goods and announce the dates of auctions held in his
place. A notice was posted on this board August 28, 1821, full of insulting
epithets applied to Dr. Jesse Smith. The latter was referred to as "an un-
principled scoundrel, a liar, a poltroon and a coward." The notice was signed
by David G. Burnet. This notice was an open invitation to fight and Jesse
Smith immediately got ready. The impending duel was prevented by Wm.
H. Harrison and others who adjusted matters in a manner satisfactory to
both sides.

In 1831 Jesse Smith was displaced as professor of surgery by James M.
Staughton whom Drake had brought from the East as professor of surgery
in the projected faculty of the Medical Department of Miami University
(Oxford, Ohio). Doctor Smith died of cholera in 1833. There is no doubt

118

that during his incumbency of the chair of surgery he had the welfare of
the Ohio College at heart, although his judgment was often at fault. He
was a head-strong, implacable man, who never cared to waste time and
effort in amicable and tactful settlements. His contributions to contempo-
raneous literature bore ample evidence to his scholarship in medicine. It
is to be regretted that there is no portrait of Jesse Smith extant.

BENJAMIN SCHENKMEYER BOHRER, the first professor of materia
medica in the Medical College of Ohio, was born of German parents, April 6,
1788, in Georgetown, D. C. He attended a private academy and afterwards
began to study medicine, receiving his medical degree from the University of
Pennsylvania in 1810 whereupon he located as a practicing physician in his
native town. He was appointed professor of materia medica in the Med-

Bp;njamin vS. Bohrer

ical College of Ohio in 1820 and remained at his post for one session. He
was a reserved and refined gentleman who could not stand the association
with his belligerent colleagues. He returned to Georgetown and rose to
great eminence as a physician. He died in his home town in 1861. He was
one of the founders of the Medical Society of the District of Columbia and
took an active part in the doings of the American Medical Association. He
had a vast reputation as a classical scholar and as the owner of one of the
most valuable private libraries in the United States.

Elijah Slack, the professor of chemistry, has already been referred to.
]\Ir. Slack's assistant was Robert Best, a young man of splendid education,
who was one of the curators of the Western Museum. His career has like-
wise been spoken of in a previous chapter.

The professors were hard workers. During the whole first session Smith
lectured three times a day and the others hardly less frequently. The stu-
dents most of whom were practitioners were much in earnest. . The session

IK)

lasted five months and, in order to get over the ground, the students had to
work from early morning until late at night. In addition to attending didactic
lectures and demonstrations in chemistry and botany, they heard clinical
lectures in medicine and surgery and saw surgical and obstetrical operations.
The college had a pretentious library of more than five hundred volumes,
mostly French and English medical works. Then there were the mineralogical,
geological and zoological collections of the Western Museum to which the
students had access.

The student was obliged to attend two courses of lectures and to prepare
a thesis on some medical subject which he had to defend publicly. The
thesis had to be written in Latin, French or English. Drake offered a silver
medal to the student who would submit a thesis embodying the results of
original research. Another silver medal was offered the student composing
the best Latin thesis. It would be interesting to determine how the educa-
tional standard of the Western medical student of today conipares with
that of the students that assembled over old man Drake's store in 1820, and
how many of the present generation could successfully compete for those
silver medals offered by the first faculty of the second oldest school in the
West.

The fees paid by the students of the first class were $20 to each professor
and an additional fee of $5 including admission to the hospital, use of the
library and matriculation. Subsequently students had to pay a graduation-
fee of $3 to each professor. Every student was expected to assist the faculty
in obtaining anatomical material. This meant periodical visits to the neigh-
boring graveyards. The diploma adopted by the first faculty was almost an
exact copy of that of the University of Pennsylvania.

The members of the first graduating class of the Medical College of
Ohio were James T. Grubbs, Daniel Dyer, Isaac Hough, Wm. Barnes,
"Samuel Monett, Ichabad Sargeant and John Wooley. The best examinations
were passed by Wooley, Monett and Dyer. Hough and Barnes located in
Cincinnati. Jas. T. Grubbs began to practice in Boone Co., Ky., and pre-
sided over a meeting of the Alumni of the Medical College of Ohio in- 1875,
fifty-four years after his graduation.

At a meeting of the faculty held four days after the first Commencement,
John D. Godman was appointed professor of surgery and obstetrics. A
sketch of this excellent physician has already been given. Jesse Smith was
appointed professor of anatomy and physiology. Bohrer had clinical med-
icine added to his chair. The price of dissecting tickets was fixed at $10,
to be equally divided between the college and the professor of anatomy. It
was decided to admit ministers of the Gospel as students of medicine, simply
upon payment of the matriculation fee. The service at the Commercial Hos-
pital, which by legislative enactment had been placed in the hands of the
Ohio professors, was regulated. The professors of clinical medicine and
surgery were to be the medical and surgical attendants of the hospital from

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November 1 to May 1, the professors of practice and of anatomy to serve
during the remainder of the year. At this same meeting it was decided to
start a students' library, to engage a janitor and to allow the newly organized
Medico-Chirurgical Society the use of the lecture-room if they will pay for
lighting and heating. Stringent rules were laid down for the government
of the students. It was "resolved that students must take off their hats
during lectures and keep silent, that coming late should be considered im-
proper, that students who shall wantonly or maliciously disclose anything
concerning dissections whereby the public mind may become excited or
incensed, shall be suspended or expelled at the discretion of the faculty, that
students fighting or challenging to fight or assisting in a fight, shall be ex-
pelled."

The end of the second session of the college was signalized by the visit
of Drs. Edmiston, of Chillicothe, and Canby, of Lebanon, who had been au-
thorized by the First Medical Convention of Ohio to inspect the institution
and report to the General Assembly of the State. The professors requested
them to recommend the creation of a board of trustees. The second Com-
mencement was held March 4, 1822. Seven students graduated. The rival
school in Lexington had thirty-seven graduates in 1822. The Ohio gradu-
ates in 1822 were Harvey Armington, a Cincinnati boy, who submitted and
defended his thesis on "The Modus Operandi of Mercury;" John C. Dun-
lavy, of Hamilton, Ohio, who spoke on "Epilepsy;" Giles S. B. Hempstead,
of Portsmouth, Ohio, whose subject was "The Epidemic Fevers of the
Western Country ;" Archibald J. Higgins, of Neville, Ohio, who presented a
thesis on "The Mechanical Powers as Applicable to the Cure of Diseases;"
John L. Richmond, of Newtown, Ohio, who spoke on "Euonymus Carolini-
ensis" (Indian Arrowwood) ; Peleg Sisson, of Columbus, Ohio, whose
thesis was entitled "Inflammation," and George F. Jagues, of Posey Co.,
Ind., who discussed "The Sick Stomach." Of these seven graduates three
gained distinction. Giles S. B. Hempstead, whose name is perpetuated by
the Hempstead Library, of Portsmouth, Ohio, became one of the most dis-
tinguished physicians in Ohio. John C. Dunlavy became a medical writer
of note. His thesis was published in the "Western Journal of the IMedical
and Physical Sciences" in 1827. John L. Richmond performed the first
Caesarean section in this country. This fact makes him a historic person-
age. Through the courtesy of Dr. Wm. N. Wishard, of Indianapolis, Ind., I
was able to ascertain some interesting facts concerning Richmond. Doctor
Wishard's father. Dr. Wm. H. Wishard, now ninety-three years old, knew
John L. Richmond and says that Richmond had but two weeks' schooling
in a country school in the State of New York. The family drove to Pittsburg
and thence by flatboat went to Cincinnati. Young Richmond worked in a
coal mine to earn his living and finally made up his mind to again take up the
study of medicine which he had begun with a neighboring physician in New
York State. With no education and no means with which to Iniy clothing and

121

books and pay his board and tuition, he started in. He succeeded in getting a
position as assistant janitor in the Medical College. of Ohio and thus worked
his way through school. Richmond located in Newtown, Ohio, where he was
called to attend a young woman with a deformed pelvis who was about to
become a mother. Realizing that a Caesarean section offered the only hope
of saving the mother, and, assisted by two neighboring women who held a
few candles, Richmond performed the operation. This was in a log cabin,
long before the days of anaesthesia and with the aid of only a pocket case.
The cabin was cut off from the rest of the world by high water and Rich-
mond had to use a skiff to reach his patient. The heroic doctor reported
this case in his quaint and modest way in Drake's "Western Journal of the
Medical and Physical Sciences" (Vol. III., p. 485). The mother recovered,
but the child died. About 1832 Richmond moved to Pendleton, Ind., near
Indianapolis, and there practiced medicine and preached the Gospel as a Bap-
tist minister. Soon after he moved to Indianapolis, became pastor of the
First Baptist Church and continued his work as a physician. His practice
grew to such an extent that he resigned his pastorate, formed a partnership
with George W. Mears (father of Dr. J. Ewing Mears, of Philadelphia) and
his son, Corydon Richmond. Owing to failing health Richmond was com-
pelled to retire from practice. During the last years of his life he lived with
his daughter in Covington, Ind., and died there. He is buried in Lafayette,
Ind. His son, Corydon Richmond, died in Kokomo, Ind., a year or two ago.

Two days after the second Commencement (March 4, 1822) the row
among the professors began in earnest. Godman and Bohrer resigned.
Drake who had presented bills and various claims against the college, occu-
pied the chair. Jesse Smith moved that Drake be dismissed. Slack seconded
the motion. Drake had to bring the motion before the house. It was carried
and Drake left the chair and the house. Smith and Slack adjourned for
thirty minutes and met again in Smith's office. Smith presided and Slack
acted as secretary. They addressed a note to the citizens of Cincinnati, in-
forming them of Drake's dismissal.

This episode, Drake's expulsion from his own college and by men whom
he himself had appointed, is one of the most pathetic chapters in the history
of Western medicine. Yet it was not without its ludicrous features. These
Drake himself appreciated. His "Narrative of the Rise and Fall of the
Medical College of Ohio," published by him in the same year and dedicated
to the General Assembly of the State, is a most remarkable document. Full
of delightful satire and biting sarcasm it contains Drake's version of the
events that led up to the serio-comic climax. The cause of all the disturb-
ances, as Drake sees it, was the intense jealousy of his colleagues, who felt
that they were being completely overshadowed by Drake's prominence and
reputation. Of Jesse Smith he says :

122

"The real objects which the gentlemen proposed to themselves in my expulsion,
were: First — To drive me from Cincinnati and succeed to my professional business.
Second — to reorganize the school in such manner as would give it a new aspect, and
dissolve, in the public mind, a connection which it had with my name, so intimate as
to be painful to them. The former would feed their avarice, the latter their vanity.
Each member of the combination had additional and subordinate motives and each had a
part to perform, somewhat different from the other. I shall, therefore, consider them
separately, beginning with Dr. Jesse Smith.

"In addition to the two common objects stated above. Doctor Smith had two specific
purposes: First — To punish me for not joining the Cincinnati Medical Association, and
second, to gratify and animate the medical men who had made him their chieftain, by a
sacrifice, the incense of which would be to them such a sweet-smelling savour.

"Either of these four objects would have been with him a sufificient motive for an
immolation^ that could do no other harm, at most, than destroy an unoffending man ;
the union of them became irresistible, and might even have agitated a heart somewhat
fortified by the principles of virtue and honour.

"To accomplish his ends without subjecting himself to the odium of voting for my
expulsion, had been with him a desideratum. It had for some time, therefore, been his
policy, to let the institution sink that I might leave it ; after which it might be resusci-
tated under his own auspices."

B. S. Bohrer comes in for the following:

"Of this beautiful specimen of the beau viondc, what can I say? Who can paint
the camelion, or fix the characters of Proteus? He was constant in but two things, — his
pretended friendship for me, and his affection for my station in the school."

The happenings of that eventful day and meeting Drake narrates in the
following way :

"On the morning of this day. Doctor Bohrer resigned; and the faculty were then
reduced to Doctor Smith, Mr. Slack and myself. Immediately after the citizens' com-
mittee was appointed, two of its members waited upon each of us, and upon those who
had resigned, to say that they would meet the next morning, and to invite the whole
to attend personally, or make written communications to them. Messrs. Smith and
Slack informed this sub-committee that they meant, before they slept, to expel me and
let the investigations be made afterwards. At 8 o'clock we met according to a previous
adjournment, and transacted some financial business. A profound silence ensued, our
dim taper shed a blue light over the lurid faces of the plotters, and everything seemed
ominous of an approaching revolution. On trying occasions, Doctor Smith is said to
be subject to a disease not unlike Saint Vitus' Dance; and on this he did not wholly
escape. Wan and trembling he raised himself (with the exception of his eyes) and
in lugubrious accents said, 'Mr. President — In the resolution I am about to offer, I
am influenced by no private feelings, but solely by a reference to the public good.'
He then read as follows : 'Voted that Daniel Drake, M.D., be dismissed from the Medical
College of Ohio.' The portentous stillness recurred, and was not interrupted till I
reminded the gentlemen of their designs. Mr. Slack, who is blessed with stronger
nerves than his master, then rose, and adjusting himself to a firmer balance, put on a
proper sanctimony, and bewailingly ejaculated: 'I second the motion.' The crisis had"
now manifestly come; and, learning by inquiry that the gentlemen were ready to meet
it, I put the question, which carried, in the classical language of Doctor Smith, 'nemo
contradicente.' I could not do more than tender them a vote of thanks, nor less than
withdraw, and, performing both, the doctor politely lit me downstairs."

123

"Doctor Smith immediately elected Mr. Slack Registrar; and Mr. Slack in turn
elected the Doctor President pro tempore. They organized themselves into a faculty;
proposed Doctor Bohrer for my professorship, and then nominated twelve gentlemen,
whom they dubbed 'Councillors ;' not^ however, as the event has shown, to advise them
what course to pursue, but to counsel them on the best mode of reconciling an insulted
community to that which they had adopted."

Jesse Smith and Elijah Slack had to face the storm of pubhc indigriation.
They decided to ask Bohrer to reconsider his resignation and to become pro-
fessor of practice. Then they "resolved that a board of thirteen trustees be
created to act in conjunction with the faculty, to-\vit : Wm. Burke, Samuel N.
Davies, David K. Este, Nathan Guilford, W'm. H. Harrison, Nicholas Long-
worth, Rev. Martin Ruter, Rev. Oliver M. Spencer, Ethan Stone, Micajah
F. WiUiams the president of the faculty, the president of the Medical Con-
vention of Ohio, the Governor of Ohio (the last three ex-oMcio). This
resolution subsequently became a law by an act of the Legislature, passed
December 13, 1822. The attempt to appease the citizens, who sided with
Drake, failed. Smith and Slack were compelled to rescind their action, and
on March 12, 1822, Drake was reinstated. They sent him word to this effect,
but he promptly handed in his resignation. An action which was brought
against him a few months later to compel him to give up certain properties
of the college was finally amicably adjusted. Bellamy Storer was the at-
torney for the Ohio faculty in this case.

During the sessions 1822-'23 and 1823-'24 the college vegetated under the
management of Jesse Smith and Elijah Slack who constituted the faculty
and divided the subjects among themselves. Smith built a lecture room in
the rear of his residence on Walnut Street, between Third and Fourth
Streets, and accommodated the college for these two terms or rather during
the term 1822-'23. I have not been able to ascertain whether there was any
attempt made at teaching during the following Winter. There was no Com-
mencement held in 1824. Yet the year was a memorable one because of the
accession of Jedediah Cobb and John Moorhead as members of the faculty.
John Moorhead, Drake's implacable enemy, has been referred to in a previous
chapter. The other new arrival, Cobb, was destined to become a command-
ing figure in the medical affairs of the Ohio Valley.

JEDEDIAH COBB, one of the most brilliant and at the same time most
popular teachers the Ohio College has ever had, was born in Gray, Me., Febru-
ary 27, 1800. His early education was obtained at Hebron Academy. He
graduated in medicine at Bowdoin College in 1823. With a view of practicing
medicine, he moved to Portland, Me., but accepted an offer to become a
professor in the Medical College of Ohio. During the session of 182-4-'25
he held the chair of practice, for which he had neither fitness nor liking. The
following year he was given the chair of anatomy and physiology. In the exer-
cise of the duties of this chair, more especially in the practical work on the ca-
daver. Dr. Cobb displayed that phenomenal ability that gained for him a national

124

reputation as an anatomist. He resigned in 1837, to accept the corresponding
chair in the newly established Louisville Medical Institute. He remained in
Louisville until 1852 when he joined Daniel Drake and returned to the Med-
ical College of Ohio. His health failing, he resigned at the end of the session
and retired to a small farm in Manchester, Mass., where he spent the re-
maining years of his life in peace and contentment.

JEDEDIAH Cobb
Doctor Cobb is one of the most interesting characters in the medical
history of the West. He was not a physician, in fact, he disliked the em-
piricism of medicine and the drudgery of practice. He was an anatomist by
choice and vocation. He and John D. Godman were considered among the
greatest American teachers of anatomy during the first half of the nineteenth
century. Doctor Cobb was a genius in his line of work, great as an anatomist,
greater as a wielder of the scalpel in the dissecting-room, but greatest of all
and perhaps unsurpassed as an eloquent and fascinating lecturer on anatomy.
"He was the very personification of a neat, gentlemanly and finished lec-
turer," says S. D. Gross. "The cadaver before him had to be fresh and
sweet, the table clean and orderly, the dissection exquisitely finished, nay,
even artistic." There he stood, tall, slender, graceful and refined, holding
aloft his fine head, and gazing at the class with his large black eyes full of
earnestness and yet beaming with kindly sentiment. His forehead was ex-
quisitely chiseled, overshadowing a delicate, beautiful, almost spiritual coun-
tenance. His voice was melodious and gentle, his speech fluent, his delivery
that of the cultured, self-possessed, scholarly gentleman. He was afifable
and cordial in his dealings with the students who idolized him as they did no
one else. He took no part in the perpetual quarrels among the Ohio profes-
sors. He did his work with scrupulous attention to details and with but one
object in view: to make his students love and remember anatomy. Doctor
Cobb occupied a position by himself. His students w'orshippcd him, his col-

125

leagues in the faculty loved and respected him. Thus it was that the changes
in the faculty did not affect him. Every one knew that Cobb the man, and
Cobb the anatomist, could not be replaced. He was the friend of Drake.
He was as close to Moorhead as any one could get. Gross loved him second
only to Daniel Drake. Among the doctors of Cincinnati, whose sentiment
was severely divided in regard to the different members of the Ohio faculty,
he was the one they all loved. Thus it is plain that the moral influence of
Jedediah Cobb was of incalculable value to the Medical College of Ohio.

Any medical school in the United States would have been glad to possess
a teacher like Doctor Cobb. He refused offers every year and remained
loyal to the old Ohio. In the Summer time he would retire to the wooded
banks of the Little Miami for a little fishing or shooting. He was an enthu-
siastic sportsman and incidentally a most delightful companion for those who
were fortunate enough to be with him at such times. In 1830 he visited
Europe and made purchases for the library and museum of the Medical Col-
lege of Ohio. In 1836-'37 he lectured on anatomy at Bowdoin College, his
old Alma Mater. In 1852, when he returned to Cincinnati, he brought with
him his son, Dr. Wm. H. Cobb, a young man of much promise who had
inherited his father's love of anatomy. Dr. Wm. Cobb, Jr., was demonstrator
of anatomy in 1852. When his father resigned, he likewise left the city,
settling in Missouri as a practicing physician. The young man contracted
tuberculosis and died a few years later. His father never quite recovered
from the sorrow which his son's untimely demise had caused him. Jedediah
Cobb was for several years dean of the faculty. He was elected to this office
because he had the confidence of his colleagues who believed in his fairness,
justice and sterling integrity. He was one of the founders of the Historical
and Philosophical Society of Ohio. He died in 1861 and was laid to rest in
Manchester, Mass., within a stone's throw of the Atlantic Coast, the dashing
billows of the mighty ocean chanting his requiem.

The home of the college during the sessions 1824-'25 and 1825-'26 was a
large room in the building once occupied by the Miami Exporting Co. and
Banking House, on Front Street, near Sycamore. The failure of this com-
pany in 1820 occasioned a riot. Since that time the house had been vacant.
In this building the Ohio College took on a new lease on life. Cobb and
Moorhead had infused new life into the college. The year 1825, the birth-
year of Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, witnessed the advent of a
new professor of materia medica, Whitman.

JOSIAH WHITMAN came from West Barnstable, Mass., where his father
was a practicing physician. He was born March 3, 1796, took his degree at
Harvard in 1816 and began to practice in Plymouth, Mass. In 1818 he was
caught in the act of resurrecting a body in a neighboring cemetery. He
managed to make his escape, however, and dissected the body at his leisure.
The coffin containing the bones he deposited in his father's kitchen in Barn-

126

stable where it remained, standing in a corner, for many years. Josiah did
not succeed in living down the bad name which his nightly visit to the grave-
yard had given him. He decided to go West and located in Cincinnati where
he became a member of the Ohio faculty in 1825. He was a man of great
natural ability, and, while not a very interesting lecturer, was personally very
popular with the students. He was a believer in rest and comfort under any
and all circumstances. He was very fat and possessed of an enormous appe-
tite. The flowing bowl was his steady companion. He had inherited some
money from his father and found himself comfortably relieved of the neces-
sity of work. He was careless in business and paid but little attention to his
appearance. He was good-natured, big-hearted and thoroughly at peace with
all the world. He remained a bachelor all his life. His residence was the
Mecca of all the college-bred good fellows of the town. Dr. Robert Boal, of
Peoria, 111., who graduated in 1828 and studied under Doctor Whitman, at-
tended a reunion of the Alumni of the Medical College of Ohio in 1888 and,
in recalling some early reminiscences of his student days, spoke of his pre-
ceptor, Doctor Whitman. One hot Summer day a man called at the doctor's
office. The man was suffering from a sub-glenoid luxation and young Boal
proceeded to call the doctor who was snoring with more than ordinary energy
on his bed in the back room. After repeated efforts Boal succeeded in arous-
ing the doctor, who yawned, stretched his limbs, rubbed his eyes and finally
asked what the matter was. When apprised of the nature of the case he
bade the man sit on the edge of the bed, put his heel info the axilla, made
extension of the arm and reduced the dislocation. Then he told young Boal
to dress the man's shoulder, turned over and fell asleep again. While Doctor
Whitman was slow and ponderous in word and action, he had the universal
respect of the profession as a quick, accurate and intuitive diagnostician.

Whitman's connection with the college ceased in 1831 when Drake's
faculty of the proposed Medical Department of the Miami University was
absorbed by the Medical College of Ohio as a measure of the latter's self-
preservation. Whitman continued to practice in Cincinnati until his death
in 1837.

In 1825 many new regulations pertaining to the management of the school
were adopted. Altogether about sixty separate and distinct rules were laid
down for professors and students. These rules betray the managing hand of
Moorhead, whose systematic and pedantic manner of procedure can be seen
in the straight and narrow path which these rules mark out for everybody.
The professors seem to have gotten along fairly well with each other during
these years. From time to time there were efforts made to disturb the tran-
quility of their relations. These efforts emanated from cliques outside of the
college, from officious members of the profession throughout the State and
from politicians who had an ax to grind. The position of the college as a
State institution made it possible for almost anyone to raise his voice or take a

127

hand whenever he felt inchned. In addition to this, the Medical Convention
of Ohio was exercising a kind of guardianship over the college.

That the Legislature of the State was acting in good faith towards the
college is evident from an act passed December 31, 1825, whereby the acts of
January 19, 1819 (establishing the college) and December 13, 1819 (amend-
ing the former act) and December 13, 1822 (act for better regulation of and
making appropriations for the college) and of February 5, 1825, (creating a
board of eleven trustees and making other provisions) were repealed and a
board of trustees was created, consisting of eleven members. It was pro-
vided that no professor can be a trustee, that the trustees shall have the
power of appointing and dismissing professors, of establishing new chairs
and of conferring degrees, the latter function to be exercised in conjunction
with and upon recommendations from the faculty. This act of December 31,
1825, signed by William W. Irvin, Speaker of the House of Representatives,
and Allen Trimble, Speaker of the Senate, made the trustees the governors of
the college and confined the activity of the professors to their sphere as
teachers. All moneys realized for five years in Hamilton County on tax
penalties, auction sales and auction licenses were appropriated for the support
of the Medical College of Ohio. The new board of trustees consisted of
Wm. Corry, Samuel W. Davies, Jacob Burnet, Ebenezer H. Pierson, Wm. H.
Harrison, Samuel Ramsey, Oliver M. Spencer, Joseph Guert, Martin Ruter,
David K. Este and Nathaniel Wright. Dr. Samuel Ramsey was the president
of the new board. He was born in 1781 in York, Pa., came to Cincinnati in
1808, entered into a partnership with Dr. Richard Allison and died in 1831.
His remains were interred in the old Presbyterian cemetery, now Washington
Park, just in front of the Twelfth Street entrance. His tomb was the last one
to be removed. He was universally respected on account of his integrity,
philanthropy and knowledge. He had no diploma but was considered a good,
reliable physician. He was a stickler on correct form and made the Com-
mencements of the Ohio College occasions of much ceremony. He presided
at these events and presented the graduates with their diplomas in a most
dignified and impressive manner while he pronounced these words with much
earnestness and unction :

"Pro auctoritate mihi ab hisce Curatoribus Collegii commissa vos ad Doctoris
gradum in Medicina admitto; vobisque liunc librum trado cum potestate de medicina
consultandi, etiam praxin caeteraque exercendi, quae Medicinae Doctores exercere solent:
cujus haec membrana nostri Collegii sigillo ornata testimonium sit."

The faculty meetings under the managing hand of Moorhead were short
and business-like. Moorhead had an eye for details and was a strict parlia-
mentarian. Even a pair of candlesticks which were needed he would not pur-
chase on his own responsibility. He brought the matter before the faculty
and was duly authorized to buy the candlesticks. Even in those early days
the advantage of light on the subject of medical education seems to have
been appreciated by the learned attendants at faculty meetings.

128

The first tangible good effect of the new regime was the purchase of
ground on Sixth Street, between Vine and Race, and the erection of a suit-
able college building, ninety-one feet in front by fifty-four in depth. The
Western Medical Ga::ctte (April, 1832) describes the building as follows:

"The basement contains commodious quarters for the janitor and his family. The
ground floor contains a capacious lecture hall for the chemical department, to which is
attached a laboratory building and private room, with smaller apartments for storing
various articles that are required by the professor of chemistry. The lecture hall will
accommodate three hundred students. Between it and the laboratory, is a partition of

III Ill liiiii ii iiM i ii -iiT

The Medic.\i. College of Ohio ( 1827)

folding shutters, which can be opened or closed at pleasure. The shutters are thrown
back for the hours of lecture and closed when the hall only is wanted, as for the
meetings of the Ohio Medical Lyceum. Adjacent to the chemical hall, is a small apart-
ment, labelled janitor's room. On the same floor, (and in the addition to the edifice,
which was completed in the last year) is the lobby, or entrance hall, about twelve by
twenty- four feet ; on the left of which is the faculty and trustees' room, and directly
in its rear, two commodious library rooms."

"Immediately above the faculty and library rooms, is tlio new hall for the use of
the professors of materia medica and tlieory and practice of medicine. The private
entrance to this apartment (for the use of the professors) is from the faculty room.
This hall is fifty-four by thirty-one feet, and will seat at least three hundred and fifty

129

persons. Over this hall is a cabinet room furnished with a large skylight, so arranged
as to exclude the light at pleasure. This room is about eighteen feet square, shelved on
either side and having glass doors, for the preservation and easy view of the prepara-
tions. In addition to this room, there are two very large dissecting rooms, and a
spacious drying apartment.''

"On the other side of the house, and over the chemical hall, is the anatomical
theatre, for the use of the professors of anatomy and physiology, surgery and ob-
stetrics. This is a very appropriate room, and capable of holding about three hundred
persons. Adjacent to it is the private room of the professor of anatomy, and a similar
one for the professor of surgery, both of which are labelled accordingly. Contiguous
to these, are dissecting and drying rooms, furnishing altogether, on this score, sufficient
accommodations for a class of practical anatomy, of nearly one hundred persons. The
anatomical theatre is provided with a skylight, similar to that attached to the cabinet
room."

"The library contains 'nearly fifteen hundred volumes of the most valuable char-
acter, and the best periodicals and new works are constantly added. The splendid
drawings, which, in point of number and usefulness, exceed those of any other school
in this country, have lately received an important addition, viz : a painting of a per-
fectly injected subject, considerably larger than life, making the entire canvas about
five by eight feet. These, together with the chemical apparatus, and other important
appendages, for all of which we are indebted to the liberality of the State, give to the
Medical College of Ohio very superior advantages."'

The new building was opened in time for the session 1826-'27. The first
characteristic occurrence, that indicated the existence of a controlhng board
of trustees was the appointment in 1828 of Dr. Pierson to a professorship in
the school.

CHARLES EDWIN PIERSON, for six years a professor in the Aledical
College of Ohio, was a descendant of an old New England family. He was
born near Morristown, N. J., September 1, 1787. He attended the Morristown
Academy where he was taught by Samuel Whelpley, author of "The Tri-
angle," and finished his collegiate education at Princeton in 1807. He received
his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1813. He began
to practice in Morristown, N. J., but owing to repeated attacks of hemoptysis
was compelled to give up active practice. He spent six years in Europe
combining the pleasure of travel with much practical work in the hospitals
and clinics. He returned to America in 1823 and located in New York City.
His brother-in-law, Samuel W. Davies, a prominent politician and subse-
quently mayor of Cincinnati, persuaded him to come to Cincinnati. His
father's family was since 1815 living in Dayton, Ohio. Doctor Pierson lo-
cated in Cincinnati, and, on the tide of his relative's political influence, landed
in the chair of materia medica in the Ohio College. Another relative was a
member of the board of trustees of the college. This is the earliest recorded
instance of political influence wielded in the purely professional afifairs of
the Ohio College. In 1835 he returned to New York, dividing his time
between the practice of medicine and the discharge of his duties as a member
of the board which managed the public schools of New York City. He gave

130

much time and labor to educational work. He wrote a spelling book for
children and introduced many innovations to improve the physical and moral
hygiene of the schools. He retired from active work in 1857 and died in
Bergen, N. Y., in 1865. In appearance Doctor Pierson was of medium stature
and dark complexion, grave and reserved in his manner and rigidly dignified
in his professional dealings. He was a total abstainer and deeply religious,
especially towards the end of his life. Drake refers to him as one of the
most learned and amiable of the faculty. His chair was that of materia
medica, except during the session 1831-'32 when he held the chair of Insti-
tutes of Medicine and Medical Jurisprudence. The fact of Doctor Pierson
weathering the storm of 1831 when several of the old professors had to
leave to make room for Drake's victorious Eastern phalanx, shows that he
was a skillful manipulator of persons and things. Probably the fact that his
brother-in-law, Sam. W. Davies, was running for mayor about that time
and from 1832 to 1841 was practically the political dictator of the town, had
something to do with Doctor Pierson's professional ascendency. That the
political prowess of a friend or a relative is by far a more powerful lever in
securing professional prestige and advancement than personal or educational
qualifications, has been frequently observed in the medical afifairs of Cincin-
nati, particularly of late years. The retention of Doctor Pierson caused much
comment at the time. The noteworthy feature of the whole situation was
that a new chair (Institutes of INIedicine and Medical Jurisprudence) was
created for Doctor Pierson's benefit, John Eberle assuming charge of the
chair of materia medica, previously held by Pierson. The following year
John Eberle was made professor of practice and Pierson was again given the
chair of materia medica. There being no further need for the chair of
Institutes and Jurisprudence, it was abolished. His brother, Ebenezer H.
Pierson, was also a native of New Jersey and came to Cincinnati in 1818.
He was a trustee of the Medical College of Ohio and president of the board
of health. He died in 1828.

The last four years of the first decade in the life of the Ohio College
passed in comparative quietude. Daniel Drake was watching the course of
events with intense interest. His restless nature made him seek means and
ways of maintaining his conspicuous place among the physicians of the West-
ern country. In 1826 he started the "Western Journal of the Medical and
Physical Sciences" and thus found an outlet for his overflowing mentalitv.
In spite of the fact that he was but a private individual practicing medicine,
he was and remained the acknowledged leader of the profession. Apparently
he was pursuing the noiseless tenor of his way. In realitv he was waiting
for a favorable opportunity to even up old scores. He had long ago made
up his mind to crush the school in which his arch-enemy, John Moorhead, was
occupying the place which he had prepared for himself. The favorable chance
came in 1830 when the trustees of Miami rniversit}-. ( )xfor(l, ( )hio. decided
to establish a medical department in Cincinnati and ])ut Drake in charge of

it. Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia offered him a chair. Drake
came, saw and conquered. He made a tremendous impression as a medical
teacher. When he told his newly won Eastern friends that he was about to
establish a new medical school in Cincinnati and asked some of them to ac-
company him to Cincinnati and join him in the faculty of the new school,
only two declined to go : George McClellan, the founder of Jefferson College,
who was fighting for supremacy in Philadelphia and did not wish to retire
under fire, and Robley Dunglison, who had already accepted a position in the
University of Maryland to be opened to him as soon as his contract with
the University of Virginia, where he was dean of the medical faculty, would
expire. The other men whom Drake asked to come to Cincinnati accepted.
Their advent in Cincinnati marked the beginning of the second decade in the
life of the struggling Ohio College.

The record of the Medical College of Ohio during the first ten years of
its existence was fair, considering the many tribulations which beset the
path of the school. With a dangerous rival .in a neighboring town, Lex-
ington, with many open and covert enemies at home and endless dissensions
within its own fold, the fact of its survival is nothing short of marvelous.
The relative size of the classes of the two great rivals was in

1819 none in Medical College of Ohio, 38 in Transylvania University.

93 "

" 138 "

" 171 "

" 200 "

•• 234 "

'• 281 "

" 235 "

152 "

206 "

" 199 "

211 "

In 1826 the Medical College of Ohio moved into its own building with a
class of twenty-two students. In the same year -180 medical students were
attending the University of Pennsylvania, 196 the College of Physicians and
Surgeons of New York, 130 Harvard University, 80 Dartmouth College, 215
the University of Maryland, 120 the College of Physicians and Surgeons of
the Western District of the State of New York, 82 Yale College, 124 Ver-
mont Academy of Medicine, 235 Transylvania University, 60 the Medical
School of Maine, 40 Brown University, 42 the University of Vermont, 94
Berkshire Medical School and 50 the Medical College of South Carolina.
Transylvania was second only to the University of Pennsylvania. The Med-
ical College of Ohio was at the end of the list. Lexington, Ky., was at that
time the center of medical education and culture in the entire West.

132

1820...

.. 25

1821...

... 30

1822...

. .. 18

1823...

. . .none

1824...

... 15

1825...

. .. 30

1826...

. .. 22

1827...

. .. 101

1828...

... 101

1829...

... 107

1830...

. .. 124

CHAPTER IX.

THE MEDICAL COLLEGE OE OHIO.
(Second Decade.)

DANIEL DRAKE who disappeared from the scene of action in 1822
and since that time did not figure in the afifairs of the college, sud-
denly, in 1831, sprang into prominence as the wielder of its destinies
and during the entire second decade stood in the foreground of the stage of
events. During all these years Drake waged a relentless war of extermina-
tion against the Ohio College and more than once the school seemed on the
verge of collapse. If the college had been a private enterprise instead oS a
State institution it would have surely succumbed.

The following announcement appeared in the "Western Journal of the
Medical and Physical Sciences" (1831, No. 1), and apprised the people of
Cincinnati of the founding of a new medical college in their town :

MIAMI UNIVERSITY.

MEDICAL DEPARTMENT.

The Board of Trustees of Miami University, beg leave, respectfully, to announce
that they have established, in Cincinnati, a Medical Department, which will go into
full operation the ensuing Autumn.

The following gentlemen compose the faculty:

DANIEL DRAKE. M.D., (late Professor in Transylvania University and the Jef-
ferson Medical College), Professor of the Institutes and Practice of Medicine, and
dean of the faculty.

GEO. McCLELLAN, M.D., (Professor of Surgery in the Jefferson Medical Col-
lege), Professor of Anatomy and Physiology.

JOHN EBERLE, M.D., (Professor of Materia Medica in Jefferson Medical Col-
lege), Professor of Materia Medica and Botany.

JAMES M. STAUGHTON, M.D., (late Professor of Surgery in Columbian Col-
lege), Professor of Surgery.

JOHN F. HENRY, M.D., of Kentucky, Professor of Obstetrics and the Diseases
of Women and Children.

THOS. D. MITCHELL, M.D., of Philadelphia, Professor of Chemistry and Phar-
macy.

JOSEPH N. McDowell, M.D., of Cincinnati, Adjunct Professor of Anatomy
and Physiology.

It will be observed that most of these gentlemen have, for several years, been
public teachers, and are extensively and advantageously known, both by their lectures
and their writings. Composed of such distinguished professors, the school, from its

133

very beginning, must bear a comparison with any other in the United States ; and, as
such, the board would respectfully commend it to the confidence of the profession
generally.

The terms and regulations for the first course will be published in due time by
the faculty.

By order of the Board: ^ ,, risHOP, President.

JOEL COLLINS, Secretary.

Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, Feb. 22, 1831.

Drake was in Philadelphia lecturing at Jefferson and impatiently waiting
for the end of the session. That he had no idea of staying in the East when
he accepted the Jefferson appointment, but that he had another very clearly
defined object in view, is apparent from the fact that he continued to edit
the ''Western Journal," and repeatedly stated therein that "his associations
are all in the West and that he expected to live on this side of the mountains."'
He arrived in Cincinnati in the Spring of 1831 and at once went to work-
organizing the new school. The professors and trustees of the Ohio College
who at first had laughed at his threats, were thunderstruck. A hasty con-
ference was held. Everyone realized that an open struggle was out of the
question. The Ohio College was not strong enough to fight antagonists like
Drake and his men. Everybody saw the necessity of an honorable com-
promise with Drake. Some of the Ohio trustees went to see Drake and
talked things over with him. He knew that he had the better of the fight
and did not hesitate to dictate terms of peace. He was willing to take a
chair in the Ohio College, provided his men were also taken care of and —
there was the rub ! — all the offensive characters in the Ohio school were
removed. The trustees hesitated. Drake fired a few opening guns by
giving a few lectures in the Cincinnati College and in the ^Mechanics' Insti-
tute to advertise the new school. This brought the C)hio trustees to terms.
Jesse Smith and Elijah Slack who had expelled him from his own school
in 1822, had to go. Their places were taken by Staughton and ^Mitchell, two
of his Eastern men. Whitman, who was the friend of Smith and Slack, re-
signed. His chair was given to J. F. Henry who had come from Kentucky
to join the Miami faculty. John Eberle had come \\'est with a guarantee
of $2,000 per annum. He was next to Drake the most distinguished member
of the Miami faculty. He had a great reputation as a teacher of and writer
on materia medica. He was given the chair of materia medica in the Ohio
school. C. E. Pierson who had previously been the incumbent of this chair
was a protege of two of his relatives one of whom was a member of the
board of trustees. Of course, he had to be retained. A new chair (medical
jurisprudence) was created for him. The question of a chair for Drake
himself was a difficult problem. John Aloorhead, Drake's arch-enemy, was
the professor of practice. Pie was a much respected member of the pro-
fession, a popular teacher and had the unanimous support of the trustees.
After much wrangling Drake finally accepted a new chair, that of clinical

134

medicine. Cobb retained the chair of anatomy. Thus a new faculty had been
organized which was composed of strong men. The Miami venture was
abandoned. The Ohio trustees felt relieved. Drake was again a teacher in
the school. Everything seemed serene. It was the calm before the storm,
as the events of the following year showed.

The faculty was a thoroughly heterogeneous, unharmonious mixture.:
Drake knew that the Ohio trustees had yielded, not because they loved him,
but because they had no choice in the matter. They had come to him with
peace offerings only after they had exhausted every means at their command
of arresting the operations of the new school. They had appealed to the
Legislature. They had tried to enjoin Drake by law. Failing in both, they
endeavored to kill the Miami faculty and save the Ohio school by strategem.
Drake was not disposed to yield, but was finally persuaded by his own col-
leagues. He probably feared that the loyalty of two or three of them might
not hold out under fire. In entering the Ohio College he bound Staughton,
Mitchell and Henry by a solemn pledge not to desert him or each other under
any circumstances. He distrusted the Ohio contingent. He knew that they
would not act in good faith after breaking up the new school. He knew that
poor John Eberle would not consider any interests except the certainty of
drawing his $2,000 per annum. Then there was Moorhead, surly, implacable,
an enemy and a rival besides. This was the situation when the session of
1831-'32 began.

The work of detaching the erstwhile Miami professors from each othei
was carried on by the Ohio contingent throughout the whole session. Even
the students were involved in the secret agitation. Staughton fraternized
with the trustees and forgot his allegiance to Drake. Mitchell and Eberle
were men of ability but without much backbone. They permitted many
things to be done which they should have resented. Pierson wanted to get
back to his old chair. Within a month after the session had begun, Henry and
Drake had been successfully isolated. The work of getting rid of Henry who
was loyal to Drake, was easy. He had to be eliminated at all hazards. After
an unsuccessful attempt to persuade the students to complain of Henry's
unfitness for the performance of the duties of his chair, the township trustees
who had the supervision of the Commercial Hospital, were next approached.
When they declined to interfere, the conspirators in the board of trustees
and in the faculty decided to reduce the number of chairs to six and rear-
range the personnel. To satisfy Pierson who wanted to be professor of
materia medica, Moorhead took the chair of obstetrics and diseases of women
and children. Eberle was made professor of practice and Pierson was given
the coveted chair of materia medica. In this way John F. Henry whose
only crime was that he had remained loyal to his friend Drake, was forcibly
eliminated. The whole disgraceful proceeding was subsequently exposed by
Henry in a pamphlet of twenty-two pages. Drake, completely isolated and
out-gcneraled, resigned his chair to forestall another expulsion and again

135

became a private practitioner. The disastrous ending was made possible by the
absence of esprit de corps in his Miami professors. Staughton, a young am-
bitious man, was easily won away from him. Mitchell and Eberle were men
without stamina, though they meant well. Henry, the victim, played a part
which was not without a suggestion of heroism.

JOHN EBERLE. The humble birth of John Eberle, his early struggles, his
brilliant and yet blighted career and his tragic death at a comparatively
early age constitute a pathetic chapter in the history of American medicine.
While this gifted and unfortunate man spent but a few years of his life
in Cincinnati, he may justly be considered one of her eminent medical men.
Some of his best work was done while he was a professor in the Medical
College of Ohio. Here he reached the zenith of his fame as a great medical
teacher, whose name was spoken with respect even in Europe, where his

John Eberle

John P. Harrison

book on materia medica was familiar to all medical students. The book had
been translated into French and German (Paris and Weimar). During his
incumbency of a chair in the Medical College of Ohio he was considered one
of the three great Western physicians, the other two being Daniel Drake and
Benj. W. Dudley, of Lexington, Ky.

John Eberle was born in Hagerstown, Md., December 10, 1787. The
statement that he was born in Lancaster Co., Pa., in 1788, is erroneous.
His parents who were hard-working, respectable German people, moved to
Pennsylvania when John was an infant. His childhood was spent amid
people who had clung to their German language and customs. Thus the
boy was fully twelve years of age, before he acquired any knowledge of
English. He spoke English with a German accent all his life. Those who
did not know him well, considered him a full-fledged German. His early
education was scant. He loved books and by constant study and effort ac-

136

quired a good general education. He was a self-made man in the best sense
of the word. Experience has shown that, in educational matters, a self-
made man is usually a badly made man unless he is a genius. Considering
that Eberle had practically no preliminary training and yet was in after-
life a splendid Latin scholar and wrote English with singular force and
purity, he must have had a remarkable mind. His parents decided that John
should not be a mechanic or a farmer, but should go to Philadelphia to
become a doctor and live like a gentleman. John matriculated at the Uni-
versity of Pennsylvania where Benjamin Rush was occupying the undisputed
post of high-priest of American medicine. Eberle graduated in 1809, his in-
augural thesis on ''Animal Heat" attracting much attention among the pro-
fessors. He attended three courses. This, in and of itself, would indicate
that his folks were not at that time in poor circumstances. The cost of
living in Philadelphia was rather high in those early days. The aggregate
amount of lecture fees for one session was $125, which had to be paid in
advance. Eberle returned home and began to practice among the German
farmers of Lancaster County. He was well liked on account of his modest
and honest disposition and soon acquired a large practice. He was drawn
into political wrangles and decided to go into politics. He became a fear-
less and formidable champion of honesty in political life and exposed the
corrupt methods of the professional politicians. He wrote for the news-
papers and finally became the editor of a political paper. That he, during
that time, had largely given up the practice of medicine and devoted prac-
tically all his time to political and editorial work, seems certain. He held a
commission as surgeon in the militia and saw active service in 1814 at the
battle of Baltimore. The following year he moved to Philadelphia, expecting
to continue his newspaper work. Two years more sufficed to completely
nauseate him with politics and politicians. He realized that, in this country, a
man could not be a politician and remain an honest man. John Eberle's char-
acter was cast in an honest German mould. He was a dreamer, an idealist
who imagined that truth and honesty would have to triumph in the end. The
lethargy of the great mass of people, their gullibility and ignorance, disen-
chanted him. He realized that it was folly to swim against the stream and
expend his energy in a purposeless struggle. He returned to his first love
and became in 1817 a practicing physician in Philadelphia.

It is but fair to say that during his short career as a political journalist
he had not entirely forgotten his profession. His leisure hours were given
to study and to the reading of foreign journals. There was no medical
journal in Philadelphia at that time. The "^Medical and Physical Journal"
of the scholarly Barton had passed out of existence, as had likewise Coxe's
"Medical Museum." When Eberle returned to the practice of his profession,
he at once planned to issue a quarterly medical journal, the "Medical Re-
corder" which, upon its appearance, made an excellent impression in this
country and abroad. Eberle was fortunate in becoming acquainted with

137

James Webster, a publisher, who was a lover of scientific work and backed
Eberle in the new journal without any thought of gain or profit. The name
of James Webster deserves to be remembered by the physicians of this country.
It was men like Webster and our own John P. Foote who lent a helping- hand
when American medicine was taking its first faltering footsteps. Thomas
D. Mitchell in his biography of John Eberle, tells us that Webster made
annual tours over the United States, calling on delincjuent subscribers for
payment of arrearages, and soliciting new names, not by proxy, as is now
done, but in person. "He narrated to me," says Mitchell, "the particulars of
one of his interviews with a subscriber who was indebted for four or five years'
subscription. This interview is so full of interest to all publishers and editors of
medical journals that I venture to introduce the story here. The scene was
located in A^irginia, and the subscriber was a highly respectable Mrginia
physician, and possibly there are many now in all States of the Union in
pretty much the same position. After a polite reception, the doctor began to
find fault with the 'Recorder." Tt has fallen ofT sadly,' said he. 'and I think
I will cease to take it; you ought to have been paid, however, long ago, but
the thing passed from my memory.' 'Well.' said Webster, T should like
to know the particular numbers to which you refer, for we respect the judg-
ment of our patrons, and are glad to take a hint when it may profit all
concerned. Please let me see the objectionable articles.' The doctor mounted
a table to reach the lot of numbers piled on the upper shelf of a case, handing
them down one by one with rather a bad grace, as the publisher thought.
What must have been his surprise, we may conjecture only, to find that in
scarcely an instance had the leaves been cut so as to permit a perusal. It is
hardly needful to add that the subscriber exhibited tokens of mortification
which words could not describe, and that he not only paid his dues, but con-
tinued his subscription to the periodical."

Under Eberle's editorial management the "Recorder" rose to a high
rank as a medical journal. In 1822 the Berlin (Germany) Medical Society
elected its editor a corresponding member. In 1825 the German Academy
of the Natural Sciences made him an honorary member.

Eberle's work (2 vols.) on ''Therapeutics" was ready for the press in
1822 and the author's loyal friend Webster undertook to publish it. Eberle
received $250 for the manuscript and was a famous man within a year after
the work was published. About this time Eberle who was an incessant
worker, contracted the o])ium habit which gained complete mastery over him
and eventually undermined his health.

Eberle, at the age of thirty-five, was considered one of the foremost
American physicians. In Philadelphia he had powerful enemies in the j^ro-
fession who, by all manner of secret op])osition, tried to make his life mis-
erable. In this they succeeded. Eberle worried a great deal about the many
petty annoyances which were caused by his cowardly opponents. It is not
unlikely that the constant brooding eventually made a confirmed drug fiend

138

out of him. On the other hand, some of the most eminent physicians in the
East were his warm friends and admirers. Among the latter was George
McClehan that brihiant but erratic young man, who after an imagined insult
at the hands of one of the professors in the University of Pennsylvania,
determined to start an opposition school, and thus eventually became the
founder of Jefferson Medical College. Before the school was officially
opened as such, iMcClellan and Eberle, gave regular lectures in the old Apol-
lodorian Gallery, Walnut Street, opposite Washington Square, and managed
to attract large audiences of students and doctors. In 1825 Jefferson Col-
lege (originally known as Medical Department of Jefferson College at Can-
nonsburg) was opened with John Eberle in the chair of materia medica and
afterwards in that of practice. He added to his reputation as an author by
issuing his two volume work on Practice. This work showed his vast knowl-
edge and great originality. It became the leading American text-book on
practice and passed through several editions. In close connection with his
work on Practice, appeared a small volume intended as a kind of a
z'adc uiccum for the student, and known by the title of "Eberle's Notes."
It was a duodecimo, containing the skeleton of his course on theory and prac-
tice. It had a fair sale in the East, and was so much sought for in the West, in
1832, as to require the issue of a new edition.

The new school was for years involved in litigation and controversy.
Eberle was sick at heart and was glad to accept the offer of Daniel Drake
when the latter appeared in Philadelphia in 1830 and organized a faculty
for the Medical Department of Miami University which was to annihilate
the ^ledical College of Ohio. W'hen Eberle arrived in Cincinnati in 1831.
the new school was absorbed by the Ohio College. He, shortly after his
arrival in Cincinnati, published his treatise on Diseases of Children, and.
in conjunction with the other Ohio professors, started the "Western Medical
Gazette." He edited the Gazette with much vigor and contributed some of
his best shorter articles to its pages.

Eberle's reputation saved the tottering Ohio College from collapse.
During the entire time of his connection with the college he and J. C. Cross
were by far the strongest men in its faculty. Eberle was popular with the
students who liked his simplicity of manner and admired his great learning.
His lectures were earnest and clear. He was not an orator, but a good
teacher. When his short and dumpy figure appeared before the class, there
was at once respectful silence in the lecture room. While lecturing, he
would stand with his legs wide apart and his right hand resting on the table.
The boys for this reason called him the "German Tripod." His voice was
low and sonorous, his delivery slow and deliberate. The continuous quarrels
among the professors and the unsettled condition of the school itself eventu-
ally made him melancholy and morose. Physically he was not strong. His
weakened condition, brought on or aggravated by the drug habit, reacted
on his mind. He was timid and always undecided and frequently allowed

139

himself to be led by inferior men. He was morbidly introspective and often
haunted by imaginary fears. One of his peculiarities was a dread that he
would die on his birthday. This fear pursued him for many years and
caused him unspeakable anguish. In addition to these mental troubles he
was not in good circumstances. In money matters he was as helpless as a
child. He worried about his family and what would become of them if he
should die.

In 1837 when even the friends of the Ohio College began to despair of
its future, the rival school in Lexington was passing through a most serious
crisis. Some of its best professors had gone to Louisville to associate them-
selves with the newly founded Medical Institute. The friends of Transyl-
vania suggested the appointment of Eberle to the chair of practice. Eberle
was then a famous man with whose writings every doctor in the West was
familiar. A guaranteed yearly salary of $4,000 was ofifered to him and he
decided to go to Lexington. When he appeared there, haggard and wan,
he looked like a man of seventy instead of fifty. He was not able to appear
before the class. His condition grew rapidly worse. Death supervened on
February 2. 1838. His body was taken to Cincinnati and laid to rest in
the Episcopal Cemetery. His demise was mourned by physicians in all
parts of the world as an irretrievable loss that the art of medical practice
had sustained.

In the history of American medicine John Eberle will always occupy a
place of honor. Even during his lifetime he was considered an international
figure in medicine. His two great works on "Therapeutics" and "Practice"
were for many years well-known reference books in Germany where, as
stated above, translations of Eberle's books were issued for the use of stu-
dents. He was known as the great champion of physiological drug action
in contra-distinction to "solidism" which was taught by another distinguished
professor of medicine in the Medical College of Ohio, John P. Harrison.
Reference to Harrison's therapeutic teaching is made elsewhere.

THOMAS D. MITCHELL was born in Philadelphia in 1791 and received
a splendid literary education in the best schools of his native town, including
the academic department of the University of Pennsylvania. With a view
of becoming a physician young Mitchell spent one year in a chemist's lab-
oratory, at the same time receiving private instruction from Dr. Parrish, a
learned and stern Quaker doctor. He matriculated in the Medical Depart-
ment of the University of Pennsylvania in 1809 and received his degree
in 1812. The class numbered seventy, the total number of medical
students being 387. Mitchell during his medical course paid special atten-
tion to chemistry at the suggestion of his favorite teacher, Benjamin Rush.
Immediately after receiving his degree he began his career as a teacher, his
first appointment being that of professor of chemistry and physiology in
St. John's College, a classical school conducted by the Lutherans. He prac-

140

ticed in addition to teaching and soon became a popular physician. In 1819
he pubhshed a handbook of medical chemistry which attracted wide atten-
tion. When Daniel Drake in 1830 organized a faculty for the projected
Medical Department of Miami University, he offered the chair of chemistry
to Mitchell with a guaranteed annual salary of $2,000. Upon the abandon-
ment of the Miami scheme, Mitchell became professor of chemistry in the
Medical College of Ohio and — nolens volens — took a very active part in
the endless wrangles and quarrels of the school. He was glad to accept the
chair of materia medica in Transylvania University in 1835. He remained
in Lexington until 1847, filling different chairs (chemistry, materia medica,
obstetrics) . In Lexington he had a share in the various difficulties that were
occasioned by the pugnacious Dudley, the erratic Cross and others of lesser
renown. The professors who had seceded from Transylvania and had
started the Louisville Medical Institute wanted him to teach in their school.
He remained loyal to Transylvania and was roundly abused by the Louisville
contingent in their journal. In the endless controversies in Cincinnati and
Lexington Mitchell appears in the light of a rather well-meaning, but ex-
tremely weak character. In 1847, thoroughly disgusted with the ways of
Western colleges, he returned to Philadelphia to lecture on practice in the
Philadelphia College of Medicine. He held this post until 1857 when he
became professor of materia medica in Jefferson Medical College. He died
in 1865.

His "Elements of Chemical Philosophy" (600 pp. 8vo.) appeared in 1832
(Carey and Fairbank, Cincinnati, publishers). In the same year a small
compend ("Hints to Students") was published by him. His "Materia Med-
ica and Therapeutics" (738 pp. 8vo.) appeared in 1850. Mitchell was asso-
ciate editor of the Western Medical Ga::ette in 1832 and wrote many papers
on practical medicine.

As a lecturer and teacher Mitchell was not much of a success. He fol-
lowed an alphabetical arrangement of subjects, and, in his presentation and
delivery, was dry to the verge of utter barrenness. He was full of his own
importance, a typical pedant with a monotonous nasal voice and without any
animation at any time. His edition of "Eberle's Diseases of Children" was
an arbitrary performance. His "Life of John Eberle" (contained in Gross'
"Medical Biography") was a curious production which he might have left
unwritten. His influence in the various medical schools with which he was
connected was practically nil. He was undoubtedly a capable and learned
man, but had neither the qualifications of a teacher to command the respect
of the students nor the independence of thought and action to win the confi-
dence of his colleagues. His inglorious record in the turbulent times of
1832 is referred to elsewhere. If Mitchell and Eberle had not been weak
characters and had firmly stood by Drake when the latter brought the trustees
of the Medical College of Ohio to their knees in 1831, the medical history
of Cincinnati would have developed along totally different lines.

141

JAMES M. STAUGHTON was born in Bordentown, X. J., in 1800, as the
only son of Rev. Wm. Staughton who was the president of a female seminary
in Bordentown, later on became a popular minister in charge of a large
Philadelphia congregation of Baptists and ultimately took charge of a lit-
erary college in Washington, D. C. At the age of twenty-one young Staugh-
ton received his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania and
removed to Washington where he soon acquired a respectable practice and
incidentally became professor of chemistry in Columbian College. Staughton
resigned his post after one session and went to Europe where he devoted
nearly two years to the study of surgery. When Columbian College organ-
ized a medical department, the chair of surgery was assigned to Staughton

James M. Staughton

Thomas I). Mitchell

upon his return from Europe. Staughton was a brilliant lecturer and a
successful operator who soon attracted the attention of George McClellan, of
Philadelphia. The latter was on the lookout for available talent for the
newly founded Jefferson College. Staughton. however, did not go to Phila-
delphia, but upon invitation of Daniel Drake he came to Cincinnati to assume
the chair of surgery in the Medical Department of Miami Unversity. When
consolidation with the Medical College of Ohio took place, Staughton became
the professor of surgery and served, for a time, as dean of the faculty.
The latter fact indicates the regard in which he was held personally and
professionally by his colleagues who were his seniors in age and experience.
He was only thirty-one years old at that time. He was a member of the
staff of the Commercial Hospital and made a good record as a successful
surgeon. That he was not spared in the tumultuous scenes of 1831, but
received his full share of tribtilation, can be readily assumed. He was one
of the editors of the Western Medical Gasettc and contributed many valu-
able papers to its pages. He wrote a paper on "The Life and Services of

142

Ambrose Pare." His most meritorious literary production was a "History
of Lithotomy" which appeared in the "Western Journal of the Medical
Sciences" (1831-'32, page 67). Staughton died of cholera August 6, 1833,
only thirty-three years of age. While he had held the chair of surgery for
but two sessions, he gave ample evidence of ability of a high order. M. B.
Wright tells us that he was a most inspiring lecturer, possessing a fine pres-
ence, an agreeable voice and a pleasing manner of delivery.

JOHN FLOURNOY HENRY, whose dismissal from the faculty in 1832
was the culmination of one of the most turbulent sessions of the unfortunate in-
stitution, came from distinguished Kentucky ancestry. He was born in the
village of Henry's Mills, Scott County, Ky., in 1793. His father was a

John F. Henry

major-general in the United States army and rendered distinguished services
in his country's war of 1812. The son who had already begun the study
of medicine served as a surgeon's mate during this war. He was present
at the battle of the Thames and was in Fort Meigs during its long siege.
Later he served under William H. Harrison in the latter's Canadian cam-
paign. In 1816 he attended lectures at the University of Pennsylvania. In
1818 he graduated at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New York.
He located in Washington, Ky., and afterwards practiced in Bois Brule, Mo.
In 1822 he opened an office in Hopkinsville and remained there until 1831.
In 1827 he was elected to the United States Congress from the Christian
County, Ky., District. Drake, in 1831, offered him a chair in the faculty of
the ^Medical Department of ^liami University. He accepted it and, when the
consolidation took place, became ]M-ofessor of obstetrics and diseases of
women and children in the ]Mcdical College of Ohio for one session. After
his forcible removal, which he describes in a sensational pamphlet (1833),

143

he practiced in Kentucky, Illinois, and finally (1843) in Burlington, Iowa,
where he became very prominent as a physician and man of affairs. He
died in 1873. His short but exciting career in the Medical College of Ohio
is referred to elsew^here. Drake thought much of him on account of his
ability as a well-informed and conscientious lecturer and because of his
experience in worldly affairs. He is the author of a booklet on "Asiatic
Cholera" and of many short contributions to the contemporaneous medical
journals. He was a contributor to Drake's monumental work on the "Dis-
eases of the Interior Valley."

The session of 1831-'32 gave rise to all kinds of incidents and situations,
some embarrassing, others ludicrous and none conducive to the good of the
school. The first meeting of the combined faculty took place at the home of
Jedediah Cobb, July 13, 1831. There was the evident desire on the part of
everybody to make the best of the existing conditions and try to get along.
In order to keep Drake and Moorhead apart, it was decided that Drake
should deliver his lectures on clinical medicine at the Commercial Hospital.
Moorhead being the professor of practice, stringent rules were laid down to
prevent Drake from invading Moorhead's subject. He had to "confine him-
self to the case presented, was not to discuss the class to w'hich the case
belonged, had to avoid saying anything about the physiological, pathological
and therapeutic points involved, was not permitted to refer to method or
system of treatment nor to make use of hypothetical illustrations." That
Drake felt the humiliation involved in these absurd restrictions, goes without
saying. On January 21, 1832, he handed in his resignation. It was full of
grievances. He accused the faculty of acting in bad faith towards him, refers
to the township trustees, who were the managers of the hospital, as "falsifiers
and slanderers," etc., etc. He retired more bitter than ever and more de-
termined to triumph over his enemies.

That some of the professors meant to improve conditions in the school
can not be questioned. At the beginning of the session more than $1,000 was
spent for chemical apparatus, anatomical models and manikins, etc. The
daily papers were full of hopeful announcements. The session was inaugu-
rated by a public meeting in a Methodist Church, near the college. To pre-
vent friction, the professors decided that the dean should be elected annually
and that the same person could not serve longer than one year. To avoid
scandals frequently caused by the students' excursions to graveyards, a pro-
fessional "resurrectionist" was added to the force employed in the school.
The college library was enlarged and one of the graduating class was ap-
pointed librarian. A new design for a diploma was adopted and Wm. Per-
kins, a renowned New York engraver, was instructed to make a plate,
Moorhead and Eberle having conjointly composed the Latin wording of the
new diploma which was destined to serve its purpose for over sixty years. In
spite of all these evidences of well-meant activity, the school did not thrive.

144

The professors were fighting among themselves, the trustees were wranghng
and neither seemingly cared to make an effort to understand the other. The
students were deserting the school and matriculated elsewhere. To make
matters worse, the cholera broke out in Cincinnati in 1832 and raged with
unabated fury for nearly two years. Many prominent physicians succumbed,
among them J. Staughton and Jesse Smith. The panic-stricken city council
appealed to the faculty of the Medical College of Ohio. An official manifesto
w^as issued by the latter, calling on the citizens to remove filth from the
streets, lanes and public places, to ventilate cellars and to clean privies.
Eberle and Mitchell were appointed' special health officers and given full
authority by the municipal government. Their report was published in the
Cincinnati Daily Gazette, June 26, 1832. On account of the epidemic the
beginning of the session 1832-'33 had to be postponed until November 12.

While the session 1832-'33 was in progress, the enemies of the school
in the town and throughout the State were busy. Continued attempts were
made to disorganize the school and demoralize the students. The news-
papers added to the general confusion by scurrilous attacks on the profession.
The Governor of Ohio sent a committee of physicians to Cincinnati with
instructions to investigate the affairs of the college. Of these examiners,
Dr. Robert Thompson, of Columbus, and Dr. Kreider, of Xenia, were
among the most eminent medical men in the State and friendly to the col-
lege. They gave everybody a chance to vent his grievances, examined
more than forty witnesses and attended lectures in order to form an opinion
in regard to the qualifications of the individual professors. Their report
to the Governor was favorable to the college. In spite thereof the agitation
in Columbus against the college continued. The enemies of the school
submitted to the Legislature a memorial signed by most of the students of
the Ohio College full of aspersions cast upon the faculty. The latter sent
Eberle and Mitchell to Columbus to guard the interests of the school. They
remained a week and were ably seconded in their eft'orts by Dr. Wm. Doane
who was a member of the Senate. Honest John Eberle stated on his return
that their trip to Columbus, including all the expenses of travel, board, room
and incidentals, had cost $48.50, which the faculty paid.

The condition of the school from 1832 to 1837 was unspeakably wretched.
The college had lost its prestige and had become the laughing stock of the
profession throughout the country. The "Boston Medical and Surgical
Journal" (August 5, 1835) refers to it as "an apparently rotten institution"
and "a house divided against itself." While it- must be admitted that the
tribulations of the school were largely created by extraneous agencies, it
can not be denied that the management of the institution, both professionally
and scientifically, was far from what it should have been. The trustees
were, with few exceptions, men wdio had no fitness for their positions. It
was charged against them that they on one occasion forced the faculty to
confer the highest honor within the gift of the college, the honorary degree of

145

Doctor of Medicine, on an ignorant, unaspiring and obscure individual who
made his hving as a bookbinder and an itinerant dentist, simply because he
happened to be a friend of one of the trustees. On another occasion they
graduated a "steam-doctor," a devoted follower of the Thomsonian system
which was at that time sweeping over the land. The professors lacked the
backbone to resent the meddlesome interference of the ignorant individuals
who were then, as they are sometimes now, appointed trustees of institutions
of learning in this country.

Drake was not idle during the years following his second exit from the
Ohio College. He was preparing for his greatest efifort, the creation of a
great medical school in Cincinnati as a monument for himself and for the
glory of the town he loved. Incidentally he made up his mind to erect this
great school upon the ruins of the Medical College of Ohio. In the one pur-
pose he succeeded as signally as he failed in the other. He did create a great
school and assembled within its walls the most brilliant faculty that has ever
presided over a medical college in the West. But it was short-lived. The
Medical College of Ohio lived to see the downfall of the Medical Depart-
'ment of the Cincinnati College after a gigantic struggle lasting four years.
Drake, whom John S. Billings calls "the great organizer and the great dis-
organizer, the great founder and the great founderer," became the savior of
the crumbling Ohio College. The rise of as formidable a rival as Drake's
College led to the reorganization of the Ohio College in 1887 and the acces-
sion of a few men of unquestionable genius through whose work the Ohio
College eventually became the great Western school of medicine.

The events that marked the second decade in the life of the Ohio Col-
lege were the downfall of the proposed Medical Department of Miami Uni-
versity in 1831, the investigation into the affairs of the college by a com-
mittee appointed by the governor in 1832, the death of Dr. Staughton, the
professor of surgery, and the appointment of his successor, Alban Goldsmith,
in 1833, the appointment of Samuel D. Gross as demonstrator of anatomy in
1833, the numberless entanglements that followed Drake's exit (1832), the
founding of the Medical Department of the Cincinnati College (1835), the
appointment of James Conquest Cross, one of the most brilliant American
physicians of his time, to the chair of materia medica (1835), the battle royal
between the two schools (1835 to 1839), the reorganization of the Ohio Col-
lege in 1837, the appointment of Shotwell, Locke, Wright, Kirtland and
R. D. Mussey (1837) and the downfall of the great rival, the Medical De-
partment of the Cincinnati College, in 1839.

In all the tribulations of the Ohio College from 1830 to 1839 the hand
of Daniel Drake was clearly to be seen. The students admired him and
sided with him and Henry in the embroglio of 1832. The charges of incom-
petency brought by the First District Medical Society against the school in
1833 were inspired by Drake who also saw to it that the agitation in Colum-
bus was kept up. The First Medical District Society (Dr. Joshua Martin,

146

of Cincinnati president) brought its charges not only against the facuUy, but
also against the board of trustees. The charges refer to "incompetency of
the professors, degradation of the school by ridiculously low fees, low
standing of the college as shown by the action of other schools in refusing
to recognize a course in the Ohio College as being equal to a course in a
respectable school, questionable politics as shown by the creation of a new
chair for Dr. Pierson, cowardly underhand methods adopted in the dismissal
of Dr. Henry, discrimination against the distinguished founder of the col-
lege, incompetency of trustees, negligence of the professor of surgery of the
Medical College of Ohio in his service at the Commercial Hospital, etc., etc."
These charges were submitted to the examiners appointed by the governor
(see "Western Journal," 1832). In 1835 a memorial signed by twenty-eight
Cincinnati physicians and one hundred and eight practitioners throughout the
State (nearly the entire profession), was submitted to the trustees of the col-
lege. The college is declared to be "in a languishing condition" and earnest
appeal is made to alter this state of affairs. Drake immediately issued a state-
ment (Western Journal of Medicine and Surgery, 1836, p. 172) in which he
attacked the trustees and professors in the most violent manner. Again the
olive-branch is offered to him. He is asked to re-enter the school. He is
willing to come back if John Moorhead, his arch-enemy, is dismissed. This
the trustees refused to consider. In 1835 the medical students held a meeting
and endorsed Drake's stand. In their anxiety to get strong men to accept
chairs in the school offers were made to Eastern celebrities, among them
Silliman, of Yale. No one was willing to risk his reputation by becoming
identified with the Ohio school. With the exception of Eberle and Cobb the
men who taught in the college had nothing more than a local reputation. This
and their habits of quarreling among themselves were the charges brought
against them on all sides. In 1834, to increase the number of students, it
was decided to admit "beneficiaries," indigent young men of good character
and more than ordinary intelligence and education. Even this plan proved
futile. The tide in the affairs of the college came when Drake opened the
rival school. There were three great faculties teaching in the Middle West
in 1837: that of Drake's college, of the flourishing Transylvania school and
of the newly founded Louisville Medical Institute. In the face of such oppo-
sition it was a question of life or death with the Ohio school. This led to
the reorganization of 1837 which was a turning point in the history of the
school.

The number of students that attended the Medical College of Ohio during
the session of 1834-'35 was 91, against 255 in Transylvania University and
370 in the University of Pennsylvania. The size of the graduating class in
1831 was 26 ; in 1832, 36 ; in 1833, 19 ; in 1834, 20 ; in 1835, 27 ; in 1836, 25 ; in
1837, 47 ; in 1838, 15 ; in 1839, 26. The falling off in,tlie number of graduates
in 1838 was due to the opening of the Louisville IMedical Institute which
attracted many students from Kentucky and other Southern States. The

147

fees of the professors during the second decade were variable. Some of
them, for instance Eberle. drew regular salaries which were guaranteed. The
other professors divided among themselves wdiatever was left. After the
session 1834-'35 the share of each non-salaried professor was $91 for every
graduate. The number of students during the session ISoO-lS-tO was 124
with 23 graduates.

The history of the Medical College of Ohio during the second decade is
strikingly portrayed in the biographies of the professors who became identi-
fied with the school in those years.

Alban Goldsmith

ALBAN GOLD SMITH (Alban Goldsmith) shares with Jesse Smith and
John Moorhead the opprobrium which seems to cling to the men whom Daniel
Drake singled out as the objects of his relentless hatred and revenge. Drake's
"War of Extermination" was started by him in self-defense and lasted prac-
tically twenty years (1820-1840). During all these years he was hounded by
such men as Moorhead and Smith and their friends. He was compelled to
fight and certainly never shrank from the contingencies of self-preservation.
Owing to the fact that Drake was the storm center during all those turbulent
years and that he was the editor of the widely read and influential "Western
Journal," his side of the difficulty became more familiar to the profession than
that of his numerous but scattered adversaries. When Drake approached the
eventide of life, he longed for peace, and deeply regretted many happenings of
former times. Yet he could not undo what the instinct of self-preservation
had prompted him to do with the aid of pen and tongue in years gone by.
He has left an imperishable record of his enemies sketched by his pen when
he was in the thick of the fight. Not one of his enemies was so mercilessly
attacked by Drake as Alban Goldsmith who was a pioneer surgeon of great

148

ability, but had the misfortune of becoming a professor in the Medical College
of Ohio at the time when Drake was determined to break up the school.

Alban G. Smith, usually known as Alban Goldsmith, was a native of Dan-
ville, Ky., and was born about 1788. He grew up like most of the lads of
his time, with lots of native ambition and energy but little chance for the sat-
isfaction and display of either. When Ephraim McDowell came back from
Edinburgh, young Goldsmith became his friend and protege. It is generally
supposed that Goldsmith was present in 1809 when McDowell performed his
first ovariotomy. In the course of time Goldsmith had become sufficiently
familiar wnth the principles of medical and surgical practice to be made a full-
fledged associate by his master. In 1823, four years after McDowell's last
recorded ovariotomy, Goldsmith performed McDowell's operation, being the
second man in the United States to make an ovariotomy. About 1826 Gold-
smith went to Paris to study under Civiale who. had introduced lithotripsy.
He returned to America after two years and performed Civiale's operation
for the first time in the United States. He located in Louisville and early
in 1833 secured from the Legislature of the State the charter of the Louis-
ville Medical Institute. Although a faculty had been organized, the Institute
did not open until 1837, when some of the seceding members of the Tran-
sylvania faculty opened the school under the charter obtained by Goldsmith,
who, therefore, is the legal founder of the institution though he was never
connected with it. In 1833 he accepted the chair of surgery in the Medical
College of Ohio and moved to Cincinnati. He remained with the Ohio Col-
lege until 1837 when the regents of the College of Physicians and Surgeons
of New York ofifered him the chair of surgery in their institution. There is
no question that Goldsmith was a clever and resourceful surgeon. He was,
however, a poor teacher and made the mistake of taking an active part in the
politics of the Ohio College. The most savage newspaper attacks on Drake
were published under the pseudonym of "Vindex." They were well written
and created an immense sensation. There seems to be no doubt that Gold-
smith was the author of these covert attacks, and in this way aroused the
already much irritated Drake to renewed efforts of extermination of his
enemies. Goldsmith naturally received the lion's share of Drake's venom.
When Drake heard of Goldsmith's New York appointment he referred to him
in the following manner :

"A smatterer in anatomy, in surgery a meclianic ; a man whose fondest friends have
not claimed for him either science or talents ; a man who does not know the grammar
or orthography of his mother tongue, a man who is not a graduate and could never get a
degree; a man who has been thrice published as a liar in Cincinnati and left the town
■without telling his colleagues and friends that he was about to decamp." — (W. J. of M.
Sc, ]837-'38, p. 163.)

Goldsmith resigned his chair in the New York school after two sessions
and was succeeded by Willard Parker. He remained in New York practicing

genito-urinary surgery, and died about 1865. In his own line of work he

149

had a national reputation. His classical writings on lithotomy and lithotripsy
were epoch-making in their importance. He was probably the first man in
the United States to ligate the subclavian artery.

JAMES CONQUEST CROSS should be remembered as one of the most
brilliant, versatile and cultured men who have ever been connected with a med-
ical school in Cincinnati. It would almost seem as if he had too much talent for
his own good. He lacked the ability to adapt himself to persons, things and con-
ditions. The art of savoir vivre was totally foreign to him. His life was that
of an adventurer who kept above water because he was fortunate in possessing
brainy and influential friends who appreciated his talents and condoned his
weaknesses.

He was born in Lexington, Ky., in 1798. He attended Transylvania Uni-
versity and obtained a thorough classical education whereupon he began the
study of medicine in Lexington. He graduated in 1821 and was appointed
professor of materia medica, succeeding Daniel Drake who had lectured in
Lexington after his expulsion from the Medical College of Ohio. The young
and ambitious professor soon found himself at swords' points with the tyrant
of the Transylvania school, the tremendously able but equally erratic Dudley,
the lithotomist. After an open rupture Cross resigned in 1827 and went to
Courtland, Ala., where he practiced medicine and wrote some of his best
papers for the Transylvania Medical Journal. In 1835 when the trustees of
the Medical College of Ohio had to face an almost complete exodus of the
professors, Cross was asked to assume the chair of materia medica. He had
the reputation of being one of the great Western medical writers and owed
his appointment to his splendid mastery of the subject and of the pen. His
record as a professor in the Medical College of Ohio was without a blemish.
With Eberle in the chair of practice and Cross in that of therapeutics, the
Ohio College had as strong a combination of talent as any institution in the
country. Eberle and Cross were fast friends. Shotwell, the dictator of the
Ohio College, disliked Cross because he could not control him. When, in
the Spring of 1837, Transylvania University asked Cross, the prodigal son,
to come back to his own and Dudley himself invited him to again become a
member of the medical faculty of Transylvania, Cross dissolved his disagree-
able association with the Ohio College, and, together with his friend Eberle,
moved to Lexington. Dudley was still the same irritable, domineering chief
of the faculty. Cross was just as aggressive and independent as he had been a
decade before. In 1843 the long-expected explosion took place. It was in
the nature of a public scandal which shocked the medical profession from
one end of the country to the other. By means of pamphlets and counter-
pamphlets, insertions in the secular press and indignation meetings a war
was waged which lasted a whole year and nearly wiped out the Medical De-
partment of Transylvania. Cross was accused of every crime in the calendar,
from drunkenness to rape. Litigation followed in which Henry Clay rep-

150

resented Cross. Finally matters were adjusted and Cross went to Europe
for rest and study. When he returned, the trouble broke out anew and
Cross published his "Appeal to the Medical Profession of the United States"
(63 pages), in which he told the story of his troubles at Transylvania. It
is a valuable historical document of which but few copies exist. After
weighing the evidence, it is hard to decide whether Cross had not been sinned
against more than he sinned.

Cross became a sort of an itinerant doctor. He never remained at any one
place longer than a year. He often delivered lectures before medical classes
but would not accept a chair. In 1850 he located in Memphis, Tenn., and
tried to establish an independent medical college under the name of the
"Memphis Medical Institute" which prospered for two or three years, but
finally collapsed. Cross, weary at heart and not in the best of health, re-
turned with his family to old Kentucky, bought a house in Maysville and
was recuperating nicely when sudden death overtook him in 18.35 and gave
him the peace which the world had denied him.

As a medical author Cross ranks with Drake and Eberle. His contribu-
tions to the contemporary medical press on physiology and therapy were
remarkable for their lucid style and accuracy of statement. His clinical
essays and case reports are the best that were written in this country at that
time. His best papers were published in the Transylvania Journal, in Drake's
Western Journal and in the Western and Southern Medical Recorder, of
which Cross was the editor. By many physicians he was considered the
greatest American physiologist of his time.

Cross was a good man at heart but he perished in the lifelong worship of
the three things that are supposed to be finer in Kentucky than anywhere
on earth. In addition thereto he was an ardent Whig politician. When
Henry Clay ran for the Presidency (1844), Cross was his indefatigable sup-
porter who addressed immense masses of people in Kentucky, Tennessee and
Virginia, and risked health and life in the service of his idol, Henry Clay.
The latter, in recognition of Cross' loyalty, was his lifelong friend who was
always ready to get him out of trouble which was practically a perpetual
occupation.

JOHN T. SHOTWELL occupies a conspicuous place among the many who
helped to shape the destinies of the Medical College of Ohio. In one sense
he is one of the foremost characters in the history of the school. He was a
fine and popular gentleman, but there are many of this kind who have been
forgotten. He was a successful and faithful physician who commanded an
enormous practice. Thousands of practitioners, as good and loyal as he,
rest from their labors in the dreamless dust. Their names even have passed
from the memory of those whose benefactors they were. Yet, Shotwell's
name will live as long as the name of the Ohio College. He was for fully
one decade the deiis ex mochina of the school, the manipulator of medical

151

politics who wanted to build up a great college, but only as a pedestal for
himself. He was the power behind the throne that was kept busy making
and breaking friend and foe. He loved and admired John T. Shotwell better
than everybody and everything on earth. In spite of all his excellent traits
as a man and as a physician, his memory suggests the darkest and dreariest
days in the history of the college. He was the evil spirit of the school whose
machinations and insatiable ambition resulted in the disorganization of 1850.
He was morally responsible for the springing up of rival schools. His death
which occurred when he was but forty-three years of age, caused the great
disintegrating factor to disappear from the theater of action.

Dr. Shotwell was born in Mason County, Ky., on the tenth of January,
1807. When he was fifteen years old his father sent him to Lexington where
he attended the academic department of Transylvania University until 1825.
Having made up his mind to study medicine, he came to Cincinnati and began
to read medicine in the office of Daniel Drake who was his cousin. Shot-
well's father was a brother of Drake's mother. For three years Shotwell
studied medicine in Drake's office. He then became a student in the Medical
College of Ohio, receiving his degree in 1832. To improve his health he went
South and spent six months in travel, visiting many Southern States on horse-
back. Much improved in health he returned to Cincinnati. He opened an
office on Walnut Street, below Third Street, and soon acc[uired a respectable
patronage. The cholera epidemic of 1832 gave him a chance to show his
mettle as a physician. He made a splendid record as an energetic and faithful
practitioner. In 1832 he married a daughter of John P. Foote, a public-
spirited citizen, who took a deep interest in the perturbed medical affairs of
Cincinnati. Through his cousin Drake and his father-in-law, who was a
trustee of the Medical College of Ohio, Shotwell was brought into close
contact with the affairs of the college. In 1835 he was made demonstrator
of anatomy under Jedediah Cobb ; the following year he was appointed adjunct
professor of anatomy. The upheaval of 1837 resulted in making Shotwell
master of the situation. John Locke was in Europe ; J. C. Cross, John Eberle,
Jedediah Cobb and A. G. Smith (Goldsmith) had resigned. John Moorhead
was preparing to spend the summer in Ireland. Shotwell, being the only
member of the faculty who was left to look after things, elected himself dean.
The situation was a singular one because his cousin and preceptor, Drake, who
had started a rival institution (Cincinnati College) in this way became his
rival and eventually his bitter enemy. Drake was determined to break up
the monopoly of the Ohio College in the Commercial Hospital. He de-
manded a share of the clinical advantages for the Cincinnati College. Shot-
well tried to block Drake's movements and resorted to many schemes that
were not exactly in keeping with the conventional notions of honor. Drake
in 1839 branded his cousin, Shotwell, publicly as "a falsifier, a coward, an
ingrate, a dishonorable competitor." In this controversy Shotwell's char-
acter certainly appears in a very strange light. In the Ohio Legislature the

152

R. D. MUSSEY

John T. Shotwkm.

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John Delajiater

John Locke

153

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interests of the Ohio College had been warmly defended by M. B. Wright
and J. P. Kirtland. Shotwell asked them to become professors in the Ohio
College. Mussey had accepted the chair of surgery. Thus a new faculty was
organized and new life seemed to have been infused into the asthenic Ohio
College. Amid continuous conflicts and quarrels, resignations and perpetual
attempts to rearrange and reorganize the faculty, the third decade in the
life of the college passed into history. The Summer of 1842 Shotwell spent
in Europe. The memorable year 1849 saw the affairs of the college in worse
shape than ever. The faculty was hopelessly divided into two factions and a
final fight for the survival of the fittest was imminent. Shotwell's staunch
supporter in the board of trustees was John L. Vattier, who was the sworn
enemy of i\I. B. Wright. Honest John Locke was opposed to Shotwell on
account of the latter's methods of warfare. L. M. Lawson was non-commit-
tal. He favored Shotwell because he was in control. John P. Harrison died
before the session of 1849-'50 began. Thus the fight was practically between
M. B. Wright and Shotwell. When the test of strength came, it resulted in
Wright's defeat and expulsion. John Locke, Wright's friend, also had to go.
T. O. Edwards, representative from Lancaster, Ohio, who had fought Shot-
well's battles before the Ohio Legislature, was rewarded for his loyalty. He
was made professor of materia medica. Shotwell was the undisputed master
of the situation. He ha.d succeeded in keeping the chairs filled but the morale
of the school was hopelessly wrecked. Even his friends had tired of the per-
petual wrangling. Shotwell realized that his temporary absence from the
scene of the strife was necessary to pacify the minds of those whom he had
not been able to convince of the purity of his motives. It was either this
thought or perhaps some skillfully concocted scheme hatched by his friend
Vattier that prompted Shotwell to resign from the faculty in the Spring of
1850. What his resignation meant and how soon he intended to again appear
on the scene, it is difficult to surmise. That Shotwell was sincere in his with-
drawal, is hard to believe in view of his previous record and of his insatiable
ambition to be the professor of surgery. The cherished goal was plainly within
reach. Mussey was seventy years of age and had lost interest in the school
and its troublesome affairs. Yet Shotwell resigned, giving as a reason his
wife's poor health. Who can tell what the next session would have brought
if the hand of Destiny had not interfered in this comedy of errors? Shotwell
died of cholera July 23, 1850. His sudden death at the early age of forty-
three years was the pathetic termination of a strange career. Shotwell died
at a time when life was sweetest and seemed full of promise. With his
chances for doing good he might have been the redeemer of the much afflicted
Ohio College.

De mo7-tuis nil nisi bene! Shotwell was personally one of the most popu-
lar physicians in the city. He was a good mixer, of pleasant address, clever
and a delightful entertainer. He was a cultured man and well up in anatomy
and surgery. He had a good-sized and symmetrical head, dark hair, project-

154

ing chin, rather prominent cheek bones, a large and mild blue eye and
compressed lips. His voice was agreeable, his smile infectious, his whole
conduct good-natured. He had the reputation of being a wit and a clever
punster. Nature had endowed him liberally with all the elements that make
good and great men. In spite of this fact his activity in the Medical College
of Ohio was not constructive, but demoralizing and disintegrating. His
policy was to rule or to ruin. He was well liked by the students who nick-
named him "Well-shot" because he had been shot at and wounded on one
of his body-snatching expeditions.

JOHN LOCKE. It has often been said that the twentieth century genera-
tion of medical teachers in Cincinnati is inferior to the generations that have
preceded it. Powerful individualities and original characters are unknown
today. Whence the decadence? The absolute standard of medical knowledge
is higher and more uniform today than it was in the past. Hence it can not
be scholastic qualification that contains the element of greatness. It must be
the individual, the character of the unit through which a standard of supe-
riority is established. If the standard has been lowered, it is due to the
diminution of the character element in the unit : too much stereotype and not
enough type. Whatever favors the development of stereotypes will eventually
cause the deterioration of type or character. This phase of the subject we
will have occasion to discuss elsewhere. The life of John Locke illustrated
the meaning of the word "type" as a necessary condition of greatness in a
medical teacher.

John Locke was born in Fryeburg, Me., February 19, 1792 and, partly
as a result of instruction received at the hands of his father, a mechanic and
machine constructor of great skill, partly in response to an innate and never-
satisfied longing for knowledge,, was well versed in handicraft, in mathematics,
in botany and in the languages at a comparatively early age. His mind ran
in the direction of scientific pursuits which inclination prompted him to take
up the study of medicine after he had completed a classical course at an
academy in Bridgeport. While he was a medical student (1816) he met Dr.
Nathan Smith, the distinguished founder of Dartmouth Medical School, and
received much encouragement from him. In 1818 he lectured on botany at
Dartmouth and other places, giving practical demonstrations to large classes
that accompanied him through the meadows and woodland. His enthusiastic
work attracted the attention of Jacob Bigelow, of Boston, that versatile phy-
sician and educator, and, through Bigelow's influence, secured for him the
position of Curator of the Botanical Gardens at Cambridge. Locke had an
independent mind and in religious matters was what we moderns with
negative affirmation, but positive significance would call an agnostic. This,
figuratively speaking, broke his neck. If he had possessed more of what we
moderns call diplomacy, /. c, an adaptability, made up of hypocrisy and moral
cowardice, there would have been no trouble. But since the possession of a

155

frank and outspoken individuality was by some accounted as much of a crime
in the early days of the nineteenth century as it is today and has been, I
presume, since and before the times of Socrates, young Locke soon found
himself out of a position, with all the exacting necessities of life staring him
in the face. He wanted to see the world and to study botany in foreign
lands. He succeeded in getting an appointment in the navy as a surgeon's
mate and realized his desires to visit foreign shores. A West India tornado
cooled his ardor somewhat. He was glad to be permitted to resign, and
returned to New Haven where he attended medical lectures and received
his degree in medicine. In 1819 he published a Manual of Botany for which
he engraved the illustrations with his own hands. The book established his
reputation as a naturalist. In this book he called attention to the value of the
river maple as a shade and ornamental tree and as a substitute for the sugar
maple in the production of sugar. This was fifty years before the same
question was considered by the botanical experts of the Government.

Locke's Botanical Press, originated in those early days, attracted general
attention. In Silliman's Journal, the leading scientific publication of the day,
it is thus described : "Although this press is so portable as to be packed in a
common traveling trunk, it will exert a force, by the application of one hand,
of half a ton. When neatly made of mahogany, and polished, it is not un-
sightly in the parlor; and the pressure being applied to the pile of papers
containing the specimens, the click holding the last force, the lever may be
removed, and it may be set on one end at the side of the room, scarcely in-
commoding any other operations. It is peculiarly adapted to the purposes of
the traveling botanist. It is capable of being applied to other uses than those
of pressing plants for an herbarium. On a large scale it would be an excellent
cheese press, and it has already been adopted for some parts of bookbinders'
operations. Printers will find it convenient to apply to their paper in wettmg
it down."

An unsuccessful attempt to practice medicine and thus gain a livelihood
prompted him to accept a position in a female academy in W^indsor, Vt.
When the superintendent of the academy shortly afterwards resigned and
assumed charge of a similar institution in Lexington, Ky., Locke agreed to
go with him. He began his work in Lexington, Ky., in 1821 and soon evinced
his superior talents as a teacher. In 1822 Locke had occasion to visit Cin-
cinnati, making the trip from Lexington on horseback. "As he emerged
from the woods of Kentucky, and rose over the hill south of Newport, the
valley surrounding the now Queen City opened to his admiring view. On
approaching the city the rattling of drays, the clink of hammers, the smoke
of factories, the rush of steamboats, the firing of signals of arrivals and de-
partures, acted upon his mind with all the force of enchantment. He fell in
love with the Queen City and decided to. make his home here." Ethan Stone,
that remarkable pioneer and philanthropist, took an interest in the young
stranger and aided him in estabbshing a non-sectarian school for young ladies

150

(Dr. Locke's School) which enjoyed a great reputation for many years and
was patronized by the best people. The school was. located on the east side
of Wahiut Street, between Third and Fourth Streets. In addition to his
school work he lectured at the Mechanics' Institute.

His connection with the Medical College of Ohio as professor of chem-
istry began in 1837. In order to do his work as thoroughly as possible he
went to Europe, purchased a magnificent equipment and installed it in the
Medical College of Ohio in addition to his own apparatus most of which was
his own handiwork. He likewise brought with him boundless enthusiasm and
capacity for work.

The circumstances amid which Locke began his work were not at all en-
couraging. Drake who had established the Medical Department of the Cin-
cinnati College was fighting with all his might for supremacy over the Med-
ical College of Ohio. He had a powerful faculty to back him up. He had taken
Samuel D. Gross away from the Ohio college. The faculty of the latter was
discouraged, worn out from the perpetual strife in their own school and was
woefully lacking in esprit dc corps. John Eberle and Jedediah Cobb had
practically decided to leave the Ohio College and associate themselves with
Transylvania University. James Conquest Cross, who was probably the best
educated member of the Ohio faculty, was at loggerheads with everybody in
general and was only waiting for an appointment elsewhere. Alban G.
Smith was not giving satisfaction in the chair of surgery. These were the
disheai-tening circumstances under which John Locke entered. He put his
shoulder to the wheel and worked manfully and unceasingly for the school.
His devotion to the school during the fourteen years of his incumbency was
almost pathetic. Neither the turbulent times within the school itself nor re-
peated tempting offers of appointments elsewhere could swerve his loyalty
or curb his confidence in the ultimate success of the school. No man ever
loved the Ohio College as did John Locke. He worked incessantly for its
welfare and was just as ready to repair a defective flue or roof in order to
save the .college expense, as to acquaint his students with the mysteries of
chemical lore. Frequently his friends had to remove him from the building
by main force. He was so devoted to the school that he was loath to leave
the building after lecture hours were over. When during the troubles of
1849-'50, after fourteen years of faithful service, that unaccountable spirit
of malice and jealousy that had been the curse of the Ohio College through-
out the greater part of its life history, picked out John Locke as a victim,
forcibly removing him from the chair he had so long adorned, the result was
heart-breaking. It was a stunning blow to the old faithful servant. His
grief was pitiable to behold. With tears streaming down his furrowed cheeks
he spoke of the college as a doting father would of his wayward child. It
was the story of Belisarius re-enacted. John Locke's heart was broken.
Even his subsequent rehabilitation as professor of chemistry did not undo
the damage wrought by that terrible experience. Two years more he gave

157

the college, but he was not the John Locke of old. The sorrow of a great
and noble soul surely is the saddest thing in all the world. The triumph of
moral and mental inferiority is one of those periodic acts of providential
injustice for which there seems to be no reasonable explanation.

To tone up his broken spirits Locke moved to Lebanon, Ohio, where he
managed a preparatory school for eighteen months. He traveled in the
South and along the Atlantic Coast. It was all in vain. On the 10th of
July, 1856, when John Locke was sixty-four years of age, the angel of death
spread his wings over his wasted form and the gentle soul took its flight.
Seldom was there more genuine sorrow shown at the demise of a distin-
guished member of the profession than when John Locke passed to the great
beyond. At the memorial meeting of the local profession Prof. H. E. Foote,
of the Miami IMedical College, wdio had been Locke's favorite pupil, delivered
the eulogy.

John Locke's work as a scientist is a matter of history. His geological
investigations of large portions of our country, especially Ohio, have lost
none of their value although many years have elapsed since they were made
(1838). He found the largest trilobite on record, twenty inches long and
twelve wide. His epoch-making studies of galvanism and terrestrial mag-
netism he followed up with the invention of the microscopic compass to which
he refers in the following manner in \^ol. XXHL of the "Am. Journal of
Sciences" :

"I do not propose this as a substitute for the surveyor's compass ; but merely as an
instrument exactly suited to amateurs, and scientific travelers, to whom it is inconve-
nient or unpleasant to carry a backload of machinery to take the bearing of an object.
I have, for several years, been carrying on a trigonometrical survey of the beautiful
valley of Cincinnati, in which I reside. This I have done for the recreation, both
physical and intellectual, which it affords. It invites me to exercise in the open air,
and is the best antidyspeptic I have tried. I have managed the several points of the
valley very much to my satisfaction with the sextant ; but nothing answers so well for
'meandering' the ravines, rivulets, and ridges of the hills, as the microscopic compass.
I take the angles with equal accuracy with the surveyors, and with ten times the con-
venience."

Soon after he had commenced his investigations in electricity and its
associate subjects, depending for results mainly upon his own tact and re-
sources, he was informed by Mr. Wells, of this city, that he had seen a
magnet, of great superiority, made by a rude unlettered blacksmith. The
latter offered to communicate with Dr. Locke the method, by which he im-
parted to magnets such immense power, for the sum of twenty-five dollars.
An agreement was entered into between them, but the blacksmith was dilatory
and neglectful of his appointments. At length a scientific London journal
was received by Mr. Wells, describing the manner in which the force of the
magnet was increased by electricity. This journal was carried by Mr. Wells
straightway to Dr. Locke, who became almost wild with excitement, and
together they wrought out, and experimented with a magnet, hour after hour,

158

during the night, and until day dawned. This led, step after step, to inven-
tions and discoveries until he brought forth the improved galvanometer.

Other inventions must be passed by, for a brief consideration of his great
achievement, his crov^ning glory : the "Electro-Chronograph," or "Magnetic
Clock." Some of the facts of this invention may be given in Dr. Locke's
own language. He says :

"My attention was first drawn practically to the subject of the combination of clock
and electrical machinery, for procuring useful results, in 1844. I was delivering a
course of popular lectures in Cincinnati on Electrology. My object was, not so much
to reduce anything to a complete system in actual practice, as to show the essential
elements of what was actually practicable. Having commenced and continued my
studies of electrology, under what was called 'disadvantageous circumstances,' viz.,
without the usual aid of instruments or instrument-makers, I was under the necessity
of devising and making my own apparatus. Under these circumstances, I had accum-
ulated in the shoproom, contiguous to my laboratory, a very efficient and perfect set
of tools, among which are the lathe and other shop tools made by the distinguished
sculptor, Hiram Powers, and used by him while he occupied himself as a mechanic in
Cincinnati. Whenever a new principle was announced, I found it better to devise and
make the apparatus suited to its illustration, than to purchase the stereotyped models,
imperfectly planned, and worse manufactured. Thus avoiding all servile copying, and
venturing almost to avoid the trodden path pointed out by books, we drank as much
as possible from the fountain itself, by appealing directly to Nature. This course gave a
freshness to popular instruction which evidently excited an interest, and produced an
effect proportionate to the intense toil which the prosecution demanded."

Lieut. Chas. Maury's letter, announcing ofificially Dr. Locke's invention
to the Hon. John Y. Mason, secretary of the navy, from the National Intel-
ligencer of June 8, 1849, and dated National Observatory, Washington, Jan-
uary 5, 1849, reads thus :

"I have the honor of making known to you a most important discovery for as-
tronomy, which has been made by Dr. Locke, of Ohio, and asking authority from you
to avail myself of it, for the use and purposes of this observatory. The discovery
consists in the invention of a magnetic clock by means of which seconds of time may
be divided into hundredths with as much accuracy and precision as the machinist, with
rule and compass, can subdivide an inch of space. Nor do its powers end here. They
are such that the astronomer in New Orleans, St. Louis, Boston and any other place
to which the magnetic telegraph reaches, may make his observations, and at the same
moment cause this clock, here at Washington, to record the instant with wonderful
precision. Thus, the astronomer in Boston observes the transit of a star, as it flits
through the field of his instrument, and crosses the meridian at that place. Instead
of looking at a clock before him, and noting the time in the usual way, he touches a
key, and the clock here subdivides his seconds to the minutest fraction, and records the
time with unerring accuracy. The astronomer in Washington waits for the same star
to cross his meridian, and, as it does, Dr. Locke's magnetic clock is again touched; it
divides the seconds, and records the time for him with equal precision. The difference
between these two times is the longitude of Boston from the meridian of Washington.
The astronomer in New Orleans, and St. Louis, and every other place within the reach
of the magnetic wires, may wait for the same star, and as it conies to their meridian,
they have but to touch the key, and straightway this central magnetic clock tells their
longitude. And thus this problem, which has vexed astronomers and navigators, and

159

perplexed the world for ages, is reduced at once, by American ingenuity, to a form
and method the most simple and accurate. While the process is simplified, the results
are greatly refined. In one night the longitude may now be determined with far more
accuracy by means of a magnetic telegraph or clock than it can by years of observation
according to any other method that has ever been tried. It is^ therefore, well entitled
to be called a most important discovery. It is a national triumph and it belongs to
that class of achievements by which the most beautiful and enduring monuments are
erected to national honor and greatness."

The English Government, in appreciation of Locke's labors, presented him
with a full set of magnetical instruments. The electrically regulated clocks
which are in general use today were evolved from John Locke's invention.
The "Thermo-electrometer," another of Locke's inventions, is described by
him in the "Western Journal of Practical Medicine," Vol. L, No. 1. 1837.

Dr. J\L B. Wright gives us some idea as to Locke's universality. He
says :

"If a mind, that can fathom and comprehend deep and abstruse things; if genius,
that can originate, and skill, that can execute ; if will to labor and patience to endure,
constitute greatness, Doctor Locke was, truly, a great man. He had the inspiration
and language of a true poet; he understood music as a science; he could sketch the
landscape with the accuracy of a practiced artist ; he was a mechanic, a mathematician,
an astronomer, a chemist, a philosopher, a logician, a physician. He had studied all
things upon the face of the earth, had penetrated into its hidden depths, and had formed
an intimate, every-day acquaintance with the beauty and glory that surround it."

A noteworthy incident in Dr. Locke's career was the part he took in
examining into the causes that led to the explosion of the steamship "Moselle"
on the Ohio River, x\pril 26, 1838. The explosion cost the lives of nearly
fifty persons, and wrought the community up to a high pitch of excitement
and indignation. Dr. Locke's report was exhaustive and to the point, and
chagrined those who were commercially interested in steam navigation. They
even attempted to suppress the report, but were thwarted in their designs by
Locke's manly and independent stand. The report emphatically called for
an adequate federal law pertaining to the inspection of steam vessels and
to the proper training of engineers. It is of interest to know that John
Locke surveyed Spring Grove or rather the tract of land where Spring Grove
was subsequently laid out.

Locke was an odd genius. He had the accurate and calculating mind of
the physicist and at the same time the sensitive aesthetic nature of the poet.
Some of his poetical productions show that he was a master of poetic form
into which he would pour the tenderest, sweetest sentiment of truest lyric
ring. In describing a visit to the regions near Lake Superior Locke says :

"I took lodgings with the missionaries, and never did I see the Christian religion
appear more lovely than in this sequestered spot, where sectarianism dies a natural
death, and the Christians almost, or quite forget to which denomination they belong,
further than that they are Christians; and where, beside the poor pagan idolatry, or
fanatical feats of the Aborigines, Christianity stands strongly contrasted, in simple,
unaiTected, graceful, benevolent majesty."

160

"From the slight sketches I was able to obtain from the missionaries and Indians, I
came to the conclusion, that their traditionary and religious opinions, which are entirely
blended with their ideas of medicine and necromancy, had no settled form, but were
the machinery by which their artful ones obtained an ascendancy over the more simple
and credulous, and that it admitted every latitude of variation which suited that pur-
pose."

To escape the dangers of a fearful storm, the voyagers landed, and turned
their canoe bottom upward, as a shelter. Locke continues :

"We found ourselves just above the mouth of Garlic River. The shore at this
place is a level plateau, shaded by tall Norwegian pines, and carpeted by whortle-berries,
arbutus and other lowly plants. In the center of this plain, highly picturesque in
itself, but rendered enchanting by overlooking the broad, deep, clear waters of the great
lake, is a solitary grave, covered by a monumental log cabin, with an ample cedar cross
overgrown with long usnea moss, waving and sighing mournfully in the breeze. Peeping
into this little house of death, I saw the sand had sunk down on the decayed body."

This simple rude monument reared by pure affection he apostrophized in
the following manner :

"Stranger, another stranger calls to see thy sacred dwelling-place,

Where for years thou 'st slept alone in this sequestered spot.

No unhallowed foot of sauntering idler

Comes to spend a vacant hour

In fashionable, fantastic cemetery;

But a heart-thrilled stranger.

Persecuted by Superior's relentless waves.

Is cast by Fate, upon the sand-chafed shore,

And with holy breast, and tearful eye,

Leans o'er thy rude built monument.

And by the ills of life, as by Superior's wave,

Would fain lie down beside thee.

To share this envied place.

Thy comrades laid thee gently in the sand,

Reared up this cabin-monument.

And o'er thy lowly head have placed

This ample cedar cross, on which

The tangled moss has grown, to mark

The unlettered time.

The Spring fir tree greens around.

And spreads its balmy fragrance ;

The lofty pine tree bends its boughs,

And breathes Aeolian murmurs ;

The river glides its winy waters;

The lake sends up its billowy cry,

And here, amid God's holy temple,

Which He himself has made.

The stranger kneels, and breathes a prayer,

That both our souls may rest in Heaven,

Sleep on, I leave thee now, but soon

Must sleep in earth more rudely trod.

Like thine, my breast too must yield

To earthly pressure, and the sand,

161

The cold, sharp sand, must fill the chest
Where, now so long, the lungs have heaved.
And heart has throbbed, and ached.
And throbbed and ached again."

John Locke', a giant in intellect, was a child at heart, tender, naive, lovable,
sincere, and full of youthful enthusiasm. He loved the flowers of the heather,
the trees on the hillside, the birds of the forest and the eternally beautiful
scenes sketched by a divine masterhand on the canopy of heaven, in soft tints
or in colors gay. He roamed through the fields and the woodland with
beaming countenance and throbbing heart. Often he sat on the roof of his
house, gazing at the stars or listening to the sublime language of the night
spoken and chanted by choirs invisible amid the myriads of orbs above. John
Locke loved nature because he was a child of nature. He was full of the
milk of human kindness because he had been nursed at the breasts of Nature.
Nature is, after all, the fountain-head of all beauty and all goodness, and
there never was a true child of Nature that was not beautiful and good. If
simplicity of heart is coupled with great power of intellect, it represents per-
fect and complete humanity. It is the type that was embodied in the life of
John Locke.

REUBEN DIMOND MUSSEY, sometimes referred to as the "elder"
Mussey, was the first bearer of a name which has been honorably identified with
the medical life of Cincinnati for three-quarters of a century. He was the son
of Dr. John Mussey, of Pelham Township, Rockingham County, New Hamp-
shire, where young Reuben was born June 23, 1780. Dr. John Mussey was a
poor country doctor who tried to give his son the educational advantages
which he himself had but sparingly enjoyed. When Reuben was eleven years
of age, his father moved to Amherst, N. H. At the district school of Am-
herst Reuben received his first instruction in grammar and arithmetic. Later
on he took up Latin under the tutorship of his father. At the age of fifteen
he was a student at Aurean Academy, a classical school at Amherst. He
studied hard and, in order to lighten his father's burden, worked for weeks
on farms or taught school in the neighboring villages. He saved up a little
money, and, having made a good deal of progress in his studies, he presented
himself at Dartmouth for examination and was admitted to the junior class.
He was at that time twenty-one years of age. He was a faithful student and
hard worker, always at the head of his class, and recruiting his finances by
coaching some of the younger students at the college. He graduated in 1803
and took up the study of medicine. His first preceptor was Dr. Nathan
Smith (born at Rehoboth, Mass., 1762, established the Medical Department
of Dartmouth College, became its first professor of practice, taught later on
at Yale College, Vermont University and Brunswick College, died 1828),
one of the most distinguished American physicians of his time.

162

The "preceptor" in those days took the place of the medical college, the
student serving- a regular apprenticeship in medicine. With very few excep-
tions all the medical men of the States, East, Middle West and South, had ac-
quired their professional knowledge through just such a system of apprentice-
ship, to quote from Dr. P. S. Conner's Historical Address delivered at the
Centennial of Dartmouth Medical College, June 29, 1897 :

"The doctor of established position had his students; they lived in his house,
relieved him of much of his work, sometimes professional, sometimes menial, profited as
far as they might, from his instruction and his example, and in due time were sent out
(with or without certificate) to cure or otherwise, as the case might be. Students 'had
the use of the library of their master whose shelves, if not abundantly supplied, generally
held a few books and whose house usually contained in some closet or nook a few*
bones of the human frame or perhaps an entire skeleton. These the student handled,
examined and studied. His opportunities for clinical study consisted in witnessing and
often assisting in the office practice of his master. There he pulled his first tooth,
opened his first abscess, performed his first venesection, applied his first blister, admin-
istered his first emetic, and there learned the various manipulations of minor surgery
and medicine. After a time his clinical opportunities were enlarged by visiting with
his teacher the patients of the latter and becoming acquainted, not in hospitals, but in
private houses with the protean phases of disease. His clinical lectures were his master's
talk on the cases they had visited, as they rode from house to house. After three years
spent in this sort of study and practice the young man was supposed to have acquired
enough medical knowledge to enable him to commence the practice of his profession.'
(Frof. Edward H. Clarke, of Harvard Medical School.) As the result of this neces-
sarily varying and largely imperfect training the majority of medical men in our
country a century ago were unlearned, untrained and unskillful. Exceptions there
were; and here and there was to be found a man of marvelous perception, of extra-
ordinary adaptability, of wonderful knowledge if not of books, of cases, ready for any
emergency, able to decide upon a proper remedy and to compound and dispense it,
knowing when to operate and how ; and a pupilage under such a teacher was at once
an- education and an inspiration."

This was the kind of apprenticeship young Mussey served under Dr.
Nathan Smith for one year. The following year he taught school at Peter-
borough, N. H., in order to save up enough money for the coming Winter's
medical course. While at Peterborough he did not, however, interrupt his
medical studies. He read under the tutelage of another very eminent physi-
cian. Dr. Luke Howe (born at JaiTrey, N. H., 1777, became well known
through many useful mechanical devices which he invented, died 1841).
Mussey returned to Dr. Nathan Smith and in 1805 took his degree of Bach-
elor in Medicine at the Medical Department of Dartmouth College, present-
ing and defending a baccalaureate thesis on "Dysentery." Being without means,
he was compelled to make an attempt at earning some money. He located
at Essex, Mass., and after three years of general practice had saved enough
to enable him to go to Philadelphia and finish his medical education. Dr.
Benjamin S. Barton, the distinguished botanist, chemist and pharmacologist,
became his preceptor. The University of Pennsylvania in those days was
the Mecca of medical students from all parts of the American continent.
Benjamin Rush, the most famous American physician of his time; Caspar

163

Wistar, the Nestor of American anatomists ; Philip Physick, the father of
American surgery ; Nathaniel Chapman, the most polished medical litterateur
of his day; Thomas C. James, the first American lecturer on midwifery,
these were the men who attracted students from all parts of the country.
Under these men Mussey finished his medical course, receiving- his degree
of Doctor of Medicine in 1809.

As a mere fledgling in medicine ]\Iussey attracted considerable attention
by taking issue with Benjamin Rush who taught that the skin was non-
absorptive. Mussey experimented in various ways to prove that the skin
does absorb. He immersed himself in a bath containing three pounds of
madder and sufficient water to cover the entire body. For days following
the urine showed the presence of madder. He also proved that rhubarb
can be absorbed by and through the skin. These experiments furnished the
subject for his inaugural thesis. They required much patience and perse-
verance, two predominant traits of Mussey's character. Even as a student
he evinced the traits that were characteristic of him in after life. He was
not brilliant or possessed of a powerful intellectuality. He achieved his
success by hard work, faithful devotion to duty and ceaseless effort. He
was a plodder in the best sense of the word. It must not be inferred, how-
ever, that he lacked the enthusiasm of the true scientist. He was, on the
contrary, an enthusiastic worker, in whose mind the success of the work
itself was uppermost. The experiments he made on his own body prove
conclusively that his altruistic love of scientific research displaced all con-
siderations of personal comfort or safety. He went so far as to immerse
his body in a strong solution of nutgall, and, subsequently, in sulphate of
iron to find out whether he could not pass ink instead of urine. This experi-
ment nearly proved disastrous. Mussey took very sick and decided not to
repeat his attempt to make an ink-well out of his body.

Mussey's work along this line attracted considerable attention among
the professors at the University of Pennsylvania. He devoted a great deal
of time and labor to research work of this kind. The function of the skin
interested him very much. In 1821 he made his famous experiment of
silver-coating a gold-piece which had been laid on the skin of a patient who
had taken mercury. This led him, step by step, to investigate the cataphoric
action of galvanism. He introduced iodine cataphorically and extracted it
from the body in a similar manner. Considering that these experiments were
original with him and were in no sense of the word imitations of the labors
of other men, that, in fact, nothing along this line was known in his day, we
must look upon his work as a scientific achievement of great merit.

After graduation Mussey located in Salem, Mass., and had the good for-
tune of becoming associated with Dr. Daniel Oliver, afterwards a teacher
in the Medical College of Ohio, a brilliant and wonderfully versatile man.
Mussey and Oliver built up an immense practice and yet found ample time
for scientific work. Mussey acquired a considerable reputation as a surgeon,

164

particularly in operations on the eye. He was also a chemist of some ability.
In Salem he and his associate Oliver gave regular courses of lectures on
chemistry. He remained in Salem five years. In his after life he proudly
referred to his success as an obstetrician while practicing in Salem, often
attending twenty and more cases a month. The tendency of those days was
in the direction of a liberal education in all branches of medicine and surgery.
In this way great specialists were grown on healthy soil. That the specialism
of today is inimical to the educational as well as the economic interests of the
profession, can hardly be denied. It impairs the powers of mental vision and
narrows the mental horizon. The specialism of today which is trying to
emancipate itself from medical science in the broad and necessary sense,
develops mechanical skill but cripples the medical mind. It evolves crafts-
men, but not physicians.

In 1814 Mussey left Salem to become a teacher of medicine at Dartmouth.
He taught the theory and practice of medicine together with materia medica
and midwifery. In 1817 he delivered a course of lectures on chemistry at
Middlebury, Vt. In 1822 he was made professor of surgery at Dartmouth.
Of his work as a teacher of surgery at Dartmouth Dr. P. S. Conner who
was among Mussey 's successors in the chair of surgery, both at Dartmouth
and also at the Medical College of Ohio, says that "but few men in our
country impressed students and practitioners as did Dr. Mussey. Of
untiring energy, a diligent student, a careful investigator, a bold operator, a
strong teacher, stern, uncompromising, he was professionally and morally
a power in those days."

In 1829 he went to Europe and spent ten months in Paris and London.
He visited the hospitals and clinics and made the acquaintance of many men
of note particularly Sir Astley Cooper, then in the zenith of his fame as a
surgeon. In 1831 Mussey added to his duties at Dartmouth those of the
chair of anatomy and surgery at Bowdoin College where the term started
shortly after the session at Dartmouth had closed. In 1836 and 1837 he
delivered lectures on surgery at the College of Physicians and Surgeons,
located at Fairfield, Herkimer County, New York, then a flourishing insti-
tution, but now extinct. About that time Mussey was thinking of moving
to some large town in the West, principally on account of his health which
had been failing. He had some correspondence with Professor Stowe, of
Cincinnati, known to posterity as the husband of Harriett Beecher Stowe.
Professor Stowe knew Daniel Drake and acquainted the latter with Mus-
sey's desire to locate in the West. Drake had known Mussey for some
time, in fact had urged the trustees of the Medical College of Ohio four
years previously to appoint Mussey to the chair of surgery. This was at a
time when Drake was not connected with the college, but merely as a private
citizen interested in its welfare. The board at that time did not appoint
Mussey, but preferred Dr. Alban G. Smith whom Drake despised.

1(15

In 1837 Drake was conducting the Medical Department of the Cincin-
nati College. He had surrounded himself with a small but powerful faculty,
and missed no opportunity to antagonize and embarrass the Medical College
of Ohio. When Professor Stowe told him about Mussey's intentions, he
wrote a long, confidential letter to Mussey. The writing of this letter,
prompted by Drake's impulsive and ever-alert temperament, was a serious
tactical error. Whether Mussey intentionally betrayed Drake's confidence or
whether some shrewd third person used Mussey as a weapon against Drake,
has never been determined. The letter, in some way or other, got into the
hands of Drake's enemies and was published in the "Cincinnati Advertiser
and Western Journal." The people of Cincinnati took a lively interest in
medical affairs in those days. Drake had a large following, but also many
influential enemies. The Legislature of the State was besieged by both fac-
tions, mainly with reference to the professional advantages of the Commer-
cial Hospital which were possessed by the Medical College of Ohio but were
coveted by Drake on behalf of the Medical Department of the Cincinnati
College. At this juncture Drake's ill-advised letter to Mussey was pub-
lished by Drake's enemies. This was an awful blow to Drake. H Mussey
permitted the publication by the Ohio College contingent, it was an unpar-
donable breach of confidence. Drake's letter throws a peculiar light on the
situation in those days and reveals the scheming and planning which Drake
had resorted to in his attempts to destroy the Medical College of Ohio. The
letter reads as follows:

Cincinnati, August 15, 1837.

Dear Sir — Our common friend, Professor Stowe, has lately made several inquiries
of me, at your request, concerning the probable stability of the Medical Department of
the Cincinnati College; and both from him and others, I learn that you have been
solicited to allow your name to be placed before the board of trustees of the Medical
College of Ohio for the chair of surgery.

Three or four years ago, when I belonged to no institution, but felt an interest in
the respectability and success of the latter, I urged your election into it ; but the board
preferred Doctor Smith. Two years afterwards they undertook to reorganize the school,
and offered to restore me to it ; but some of the materials were too bad ; and, in con-
junction with several other gentlemen, I took an appointment from the Cincinnati
College.

I had belonged to the other institution from 1818 to 1832, was expelled from it,
and it fell into incompetent hands. My object in wishing to see you in it, was, in
part, to prepare the way for my own return. When I became hopeless of a reunion
with it, I felt myself at liberty to co-operate in the formation of another school, for I
was the first to commence medical education in this city, and had, as we say in the
West, a preemption right. Thus, I am now but prosecuting the object begun in 1818.
My six colleagues are able, ambitious and resolute men, and we are bound to each
other and to the object, by many ties, as a natural fraternity, an earnest esprit de
corps, a reciprocal sentiment of personal friendship, a common debt, a joint interest in
the edifice, library, apparatus, anatomical museum, hospital and medical journal, a
solemn covenant against resignations and the aim at a common glory. We have already
caused three of the professors of the Medical College of Ohio to resign : Drs. Cross,

166

Smith and Eberle, and a fourth, Dr. Moorhead, has notified the board, that he will
follow their example next Spring. Thus, in fact, it is reduced to two, Drs. Cobb and
Locke. The latter is now in England in company with President Bache of the Girard
College, and his friends here, including Mr. Neville, the president of the board of
trustees of the Medical College of Ohio, expect that he will be called to the Philadelphia
institution, as soon as its president and he return from Europe. Doctor Cobb, as you
know, belongs to the Bowdoin College, where he has spent the last five or six months;
and has, within the last three days, been invited to Louisville, which invitation he
acknowledges he will accept, if he knew that Doctor Locke would go there likewise,
and he was under no engagement to Doctor Oliver. From these various facts, you
can judge for yourself which of the two Cincinnati schools is most likely to be per-
manent. My letter is not confidential, and you may, therefore, quote any or all of it to
your friends and correspondents here, or elsewhere, for the purpose of satisfying your-
self whether I have sought to exaggerate anything. I was your classmate in 1805-'06,
and do not wish that you should become my rival and opponent, now that we are both
descending into the vale of years. At all events, I am determined that you shall not
inadvertently place yourself in that position. I say then, in all frankness, that the war
between the two medical schools of this city, is one of extermination. I have been
treated ill (or sincerely think so) and have been made desperate. I am anxious to be
preserved from everything dishonorable, in the prosecution of the contest, but shall
carry it on to a final triumph, or till I am gathered to my fathers.

If you suppose, my dear sir, that this is mere grandiloquence, come out here and I
will convince you that it is not; and others will soon show you, that they do not
expect you to enlist under their banner, without putting on the armor of falsehood and
calumny; the chief missiles with which they have sought to retain that of which I was
plundered by their predecessors.

Most respectfully, your ob't. serv't,

DANIEL DRAKE.

The publication of this letter made Drake's position in Cincinnati very-
uncomfortable and led ultimately to the abandonment of the Medical De-
partment of the Cincinnati College. Drake realized that he could not con-
duct a medical college without adequate clinical advantages and gave up the
fight. He left Cincinnati the following year to accept a professorship in
Louisville, Ky.

Mussey was appoined professor of surgery in the Medical College of Ohio
in the year 1838 and was — nolens volens — drawn into the factional fights
that enlivened the career of nearly every man connected with the college
during those turbulent times. For fourteen years Mussey remained at his
post, giving didactic lectures at the college, conducting surgical clinics at the
Commercial Hospital and taking care of an enormous practice. His record
at the Medical College of Ohio represents a bright page in its history. It
is to be regretted that he did not possess the firm and aggressive disposition
which the incumbent of an important chair should have had amid the endless .
troubles, petty jealousies, secret machinations and occasional open outbreaks
of a constantly changing faculty and a no less belligerent and meddlesome
board of trustees. Mussey was a hard and conscientious worker, satisfied to
do his duty and happy in the thought of duty well done. He was of a non-
assertive disposition, willing to follow rather than lead. He was not a man

167

of commanding intellect and character, such as the turbulent times of the
Medical College of Ohio in the forties required. Viewed from the stand-
point of great moral influence, Mussey was weak. M. B. Wright was too
young and lacked the tact which alone makes iconoclasm a safe method. L.
M. Lawson was a fine and scholarly gentleman, but without much force of
character. John L. Vattier who managed things in the board of trustees
after the fashion of a political manipulator who wants to produce results,
caring less about the morality than the utility of the method employed, was
under suspicion of always having an ax to grind. This disqualified him for
the leadership. John T. Shotwell was the floor-leader, to use a word bor-
rowed from political parlance. He was a mediocre man thoroughly imbued
with his own importance and filled with an insatiable ambition to be the pro-
fessor of surgery. Much of the disturbed condition of the college at that
time was due to his underground operations. Mussey was like a helpless
child in the hands of this schemer. When in 1849 the college was on the
verge of collapse, having practically lost its moral influence among the pro-
fession, Shotwell realized that there was but one man in the country whose
name could give back to the college its old time splendor, and that this one man
was Daniel Drake, living in voluntary exile in Louisville. Drake was then
sixty-five years of age and acknowledged to be the most distinguished physi-
cian in the West and South. He was not the impulsive, belligerent Drake
of years gone by. He had been mellowed by the gentle hand of time. The
magic of his name, enhanced by the glamour of an honored career, was won-
derful. Above all, he was the father and the hectic Medical College of
Ohio was his child! Drake had no surgical ambition and would, therefore,
not be in the way! All these thoughts flitted through the brain of the
resourceful Shotwell. He convinced the aging Mussey that Drake was the
man to steer the rudderless ship. Mussey wrote Drake to come back to his
own. Drake came.

The ways of destiny are wonderfully hard to scrutinize. Shotwell died
July 23, 1850, leaving Mussey without an executive hand. Drake did not
feel at home in his new surroundings and returned to Louisville. Things
had come to such a pass in the affairs of the college that pacification of the.
opposing forces was out of the question. On the soil of discontent and
strife a new stripling had taken root, nursed by the hands of youth and am-
bition. The Miami Medical College sprang into existence. The tide of
secession carried Mussey, a septuagenarian, into the chair of surgery in the
new institution. He held the chair until 1857 when he resigned and moved
to Boston where he spent the remainder of his life with his daughters. He
died June 21, 1866, at the age of eighty-six years. Dartmouth College, his
first Alma Mater, had conferred upon him the degree of LL.D. in 1851. The
great regard in which Mussey was held by the profession of the United
States, found its practical expression in 1850 when the American Medical
Association, at its meeting in Cincinnati, elected him president.

16.S

Dr. Mussey was the type of an upright, conscientious and scrupulously
honest gentleman. He believed in the righteousness of mankind generally
and of his friends specifically. As a man of science he was diligent and
deliberate, a hard worker and a zealous student. What he lacked in dash
and brilliancy as a surgeon, he made up in the careful working out of and
conscientious attention to details. As an operator he was slow and cautious.
There was no attempt at display. The human element was well marked in
him. Samuel D. Gross tells us that Mussey often prayed for and with his
patients in order to inspire them with confidence and secure the help of the
Almighty. As a lecturer Mussey is said to have been heavy and uninter-
esting, but managed to give his listeners in practical information what his
lectures lacked in scholarly treatment or brilliant discussion of the subject.

In the annals of American surgery Mussey will always receive honorable
mention. Some of his earliest surgical exploits were historical in importance.
The ligation of both carotids in the same patient for the cure of an immense
naevus of the scalp, also the removal of the scapula with a portion of the
clavicle after previous amputation at the shoulder-joint, were achievements
of a high order at a comparatively early period in his career. His discourse
on fracture of the neck of the thigh-bone and possibility of bony union was
of epoch-making significance and commanded the respectful attention of Sir
Astley Cooper. Mussey antedated Marion Sims in the successful surgical
treatment of vesico-vaginal fistula.

Mussey, like Daniel Drake, was a lifelong abstainer from alcohol in any
form. He looked upon alcohol as the greatest menace to the health of modern
man and never missed an opportunity to speak and write in the interests of
abstinence. In his views on food he was far ahead of his time. He preached
and practiced vegetarianism persistently and in this respect had gained a
deeper insight into the vital physiological problems of health and the relation
of certain foods to certain diseases {e. g., meat to cancer) than most physi-
cians possess even at this advanced day.

By way of a befitting conclusion I beg to quote the beautiful tribute which
Dr. C. G. Comegys paid to the venerable Mussey in an introductory lecture
before the class of the Miami Medical College in 1857 :

"Erect, though bearing the weight of five and seventy years, with eye undimmed,
and still possessed of the courage of the lion, the nerve of the ox, and the delicacy of
woman's touch; at the moment we would see him, he has just passed the ligature
around the common carotid artery — its fellow he has before tied ; he pauses ere the
knot is, taken; his face is turned upward, with lips firmly compressed and beaming
e^e; — he expresses no vain egotism, no wish for applause, but gratitude to God, that
surgical science has such resources, and that he should have been counted worthy to
be the first to do this great act."

"Do you ask his name? Go to the rolls of surgery, and there, just below the name
of Physick, whose pupil he was, you will find it associated with all who have shed
luster on the American name. It is also in the world's record ; on the same page with
Cooper, Liston, Roux, Dieffenbach, Lisfranc and Velpeau. Hundreds of the most

eminent men of this valley are proud that his name is inscribed upon their diplomas;
and you are hastening on, also anxious to secure his approval of your application to
enroll yourselves in medicine. His companions are gone ; they await him in the skies.
But long may our venerable Mussey be spared, to advance to full high success the
young institution for which he has, these few years past, labored with all the ardor
of youth."

Miissey's valuable collection of books, containing many rare medical
works, is in the Cincinnati Public Library. The bust of Mussey which can
be seen over his last resting-place in Spring Grove Cemetery, was modelled
by the distinguished sculptor John Frankenstein, of Cincinnati, later of New
York. It is considered one of the most meritorious pieces of plastic art
ever produced in this country. It is said to be a good likeness of the great
surgeon whom Gross describes as having been "of low stature, of an at-
tenuated form, with high cheek bones, a prominent chin, a small gray eye
and an ungraceful gait. His head was of medium size. He possessed none
of the magnetism which gives a man a commanding influence over his fellow-
men."

JOHN DELAMATER was born in Chatham, N. Y., April 17, 1787, and
died in Cleveland, March 28, 1867, after giving to the profession nearly sixty
years of an active and honored career as a practitioner but more especially
as a teacher of medicine. He was of Huguenot ancestry and literally grew
up in a doctor's office. Little is known concerning his earlier career. He
practiced in Albany, N. Y., and later in Sheffield, Mass. His taste ran in the
direction of surgery and he soon acquired a great reputation as an operator.
In 1823 he taught surgery in the Berkshire Medical Institute, at Pittsfield,
Mass., and became, four years later, professor of operative surgery in the
medical school at Fairfield, Herkimer Co., New York, where he was the
preceptor of Daniel Brainard, of Chicago, who in the middle third of the last
century constituted with G. C. Blackman, of Cincinnati, and C. A. Pope, of
St. Louis, the great Western surgical triumvirate. Delamater became a
member of the medical faculty at Dartmouth (professor of practice 1836-
1838, professor of obstetrics and diseases of women and children 1839-'40)
and filled occasional lecturing engagements at a number of medical colleges,
among them Bowdoin College and Geneva Medical College. He lectured at
the Medical College of Ohio during the first half of the session 1838-'39 on
surgery and pathology, filling the place of R. D. Mussey who had been
elected professor of surgery and did not begin his work until January, 1839.
He was urged to remain in Cincinnati, but preferred to return to Dartmouth.
Subsequently he followed his friend, J. P. Kirtland, to Willoughby Medical
College, where he occupied the chair of surgery for six years. He resigned
his chair to again join Kirtland in Cleveland in the Medical Department of
Western Reserve University and continued to teach until 1860 when increas-
ing feebleness forced him to seek long-merited rest. He had been a teacher

170

of medicine for forty years and enjoyed a national reputation. His prin-
cipal contribution to practical surgery was the excision of the scapula which
he was the first operator in this country to perform. Coupled with his extra-
ordinary ability as an exponent of medical science was his splendid char-
acter as a man, which in no small measure contributed to his great popularity
among the profession of this country. Delamater and Kirtland are the most
distinguished names in the medical history of Northern Ohio. It was said
of Delamater that he aided in the medical education of more young men
than any man of his time and that he was the most versatile medical teacher
in America. He gave over seventy courses of lectures in his life and
embraced every branch of medicine in his teaching.

JARED POTTER KIRTLAND, physician, naturaHst, philosopher, jurist,
politician and man of afifairs, distinguished alike for his versatility in the va-
rious branches of natural philosophy and for his broad culture and genius, was
without a doubt one of the most talented men that ever graced the medical
profession of Cincinnati. His work as a naturalist in investigating the re-
sources of the West and as a humanitarian of lofty ideals who worked in-
cessantly to satisfy his craving for knowledge and his love of mankind, will
not be forgotten as long as there are people in the West who appreciate the
pioneer work on behalf of civilization and progress done by such men as
Daniel Drake, John Locke, J. P. Kirtland, and others.

J. P. Kirtland, the "Sage of Rockport," was born November 10, 1793, in
Wallingford, Conn., where his grandfather was a successful physician. His
grandfather, Jared Potter, was a distinguished old gentleman who had been
surgeon to the militia when Connecticut was still a British colony. He
adopted the boy and gave him all the advantages of a good education. Kirt-
land's father had gone West in search of a future and had located in the
little town of Poland, Ohio. Young Kirtland must have been a child of
genius because in addition to his studies which he pursued at the academies
of Wallingford and Cheshire, he was an expert botanist when but twelve
years of age. He had picked up the botanical principles of Linneus without
instruction or help, simply by reading and investigating. He was an expert
at budding and engrafting and assisted his grandfather in the management
of his extensive orchards of white mulberry trees which had been grown
for the cultivation of silk worms. When the lad was seventeen years of
age, he set out on horseback to see the world and incidentally to visit his
father who was ill and had written him to come West. It took young Kirt-
land nearly a month to reach Poland, Ohio. He found his father hale and
hearty and decided to remain for awhile. He could not stand the drudgery
of a life of ease and accepted a position as a teacher in the town school.
After one year he returned to the home of his grandfather only to find the
old gentleman on his deathbed. He inherited his grandfather's medical li-
brary and sufficient ' means to defray his expenses at Edinburgh, Scotland,

171

where he was to study medicine. In keeping with the custom of the day
he served his medical apprenticeship in the office of an old physician, as-
sisting the doctor in his work and reading the medical text-books of the day.
In 1813 he was ready to sail for Edinburgh. The war with England made
it impossible for him to carry out his intention and he decided to matriculate
at the Yale Medical School, which was to open the following Winter. He
was the first medical" matriculant of Yale. At New Haven he found much
to arouse his interest and rivet his attention. He continued his botanical
studies and did much original work in mineralogy and zoology. Silliman
who enjoyed a national reputation as a physicist, took much interest in young
Kirtland and encouraged him in many ways. Kirtland was an ambitious
young man and soon overtaxed his strength. The spirit was willing, but
the flesh was weak. After his iirst course at Yale he was compelled to inter-
rupt his studies and decided to return to Wallingford and take a vacation.
He began to practice while at home and was quite successful. After a few
months he went to Philadelphia and began his second course of lectures.
The University of Pennsylvania was at that time the great medical school
of the East and no young man considered his medical education complete
unless he had attended at least one course of lectures at the Pennsylvania
school where Rush, Wistar, Physick, Barton and other great teachers com-
posed the faculty. He returned to his first love, the Yale Medical School,
the following year, took his degree, got married and began to practice in
Wallingford. He was in a short time the leading physician. His father
who was a prosperous farmer in Poland, Ohio, tried to induce him to move
to Ohio with his family. He visited Ohio preparatory to bringing his family
West. When he returned to Wallingford he found that in his absence the
people of the town -had elected him judge of the probate court. While the
work was not congenial, he performed it with such fidelity and success that
the people proposed to re-elect him. To prevent this, he moved to Durham,
Conn., and started to practice medicine there. In 1823 he lost his wife and
only child and in a thoroughly despondent state of mind closed his office and
joined his father in Poland, Ohio. His intention was to become a farmer.
Medicine, however, is a jealous mistress. After a short time he was prac-
ticing medicine in Poland, Ohio. He was elected to the Ohio Legislature
in 1828 and served during three terms. He did a great deal towards im-
proving the sanitary conditions of the penal institutions in Ohio. During
all these years he had never lagged in his research work in botany and other
branches of natural philosophy. His career as a medical teacher began in
1837 when the Medical College of Ohio, then a State institution, was re-
organizing its faculty in order to ward ofit' the collapse which seemed inevit-
able. Drake and the other giants of the Cincinnati College were attracting
vast throngs of students to their school. The professors and trustees of the
Medical College of Ohio were wrangling and fighting over the almost defunct

172

Ohio College. Some of its best teachers, like Eberle, Cross and Cobb, were
preparing to leave. At this juncture an effort was made to infuse new
life into the old Ohio College by filling the chairs with new men of reputa-
tion and ability. Two men who had fought for the interests of the Ohio
College in the Legislature were among the new professors. They were M.
B. Wright and J. P. Kirtland. Another man of great ability, R. D. Mussey,
became a professor. Thus a true regeneration of the college was effected.
Kirtland held the chair of practice during five sessions. He resigned in
1842, lectured for a short time on practice in Willoughby Medical College,
was appointed to the chair of practice in Cleveland Medical College, later
the Medical Department of Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio,
resigned in 1864 and devoted the rest of his life to scientific work and re-
search, more especially in the interests of the flora and fauna of Ohio. He
died in Cleveland, Ohio, December 10, 1877, eighty-four years old.

Kirtland occupies a high rank among American naturalists. He pub-
lished a zoological catalogue of Ohio, made geological investigations in
Northern Ohio, and wrote an exhaustive monograph on the fresh water
fishes of the Western States. He found out by close observation that the
female silk moth could produce fertile eggs without the co-operation of the
male. This discovery was made and carefully noted almost fifty years before
Siebold published his observations on partheno-genesis in insects. As early
as 1829 he demonstrated the existence of sexes in the fresh water shells
which had previously been considered hermaphrodites. He was an authority
on scientific farming and did much towards the cultivation of the soil in
Northern Ohio. His short papers on mineralogy, conchology, ichthyology,
botany, fruit culture, taxidermy, and other lines of natural history are too
numerous to mention. He was an enthusiast on natural history up to the
time of his death. Those who have not learnt the value of time and the
methodical use of it, might profit by earnest contemplation of a motto which
Dr. Kirtland had hanging over his desk for the benefit of idlers and incon-
siderate visitors : "'Time is money ; I have neither to spare !"

The title "Sage of Rockport" refers to a country place five miles from
Cleveland where he demonstrated the principles of scientific treatment of
the soil and its products. He was accustomed to farming and gardening
from his youth, and wherever he resided had always successfully cultivated
the soil. He was the first to prove that the stiff clay soil derived from the
underlying Devonian shales could be made highly productive of fruit, espe-
cially the vine, and his success so stimulated others, and his teaching so aided
them, that the unprofitable and exhausted fallows were transformed into
valuable orchards and vineyards. The grounds about his house were a per-
fect arboretum, containing nearly every variety of fruit suitable to this cli-
mate, and more exotic trees, shrubs, flowering plants and garden vegetables
than were to be seen at any other private establishment in the State. Some

173

of his varieties of fruit, especially cherries, were found to surpass any of
the best varieties yet known, and were cultivated extensively in the United
States and in Great Britain and on the Continent of Europe.

The farmers of Ohio are under a great debt of gratitude to Dr. Kirt-
land. He not only studied out and demonstrated many problems in regard
to soil and climate, and variety of fruits, which required long, tedious and
laborious experiments, but when the problem was solved, the variety estab-
lished, and the method of its culture perfected, he gave the results gratis,
broadcast; seeds, slips and young trees were distributed all over the country.
His voluminous correspondence contained many letters declining the money
sent for grafts or seeds or bulbs, saying he did not keep a nursery, but
enclosing a list of the required articles he was preparing to pack and for-
ward, or instructions to come during a certain month and help themselves to
cuttings, seeds, etc. A cotemporary wrote of him that more than half of
his arduous labors were for the benefit of the public and bestowed without
compensation.

MARMADUKE BURR WRIGHT. Some day when the history of Ameri-
can midwifery and gynecology is written, Cincinnati and her tributary territory
will receive respectful, nay, even honorable, mention. All the world loves
and admires the heroism of Ephraim McDowell whose wonderful surgical
feat in the pioneer days of this Western country, away in the then backwoods
of Kentucky, caused the exclusive gentlemen of the surgical fraternity in
England and on the Continent to for the first time take notice of something
medical that came to them from this side of the Atlantic. Can anything good
come out of Nazareth? About twenty years after McDowell's great opera-
tion the first Caesarean section in this country was successfully performed
by John L. Richmond, a poor country doctor, in Newtown, only a few miles
from Cincinnati. The brave doctor's name ought to be preserved on tablets
of brass because he was a great surgeon in its proudest and most comprehen-
sive sense. A great surgeon is a man whose intellectual resources are inde-
pendent of any technical equipment or rules of convention or tradition, a man
who conquers perplexing and unclassified contingencies with an ever-victo-
rious readiness, that knows no rule o' thumb, but does the correct thing
instinctively before the mind has hardly had a chance to analyze. John L. Rich-
mond had the heroism of a pioneer and the courage that is born of absolute
self-dependence.

Cincinnati counts among her great medical men one who at one time was
said to have had as great an obstetrical experience as any man in America,
Reuben Dimond Mussey, better known as a surgeon than an obstetrician.
Landon Rives was an accoucheur of such skill that Daniel Drake considered
him facile princeps in the West. Cincinnati boasts of the tokological records
of Thad. A. Reamy and Wm. H. Taylor whose names have been revered by
the doctors of two generations. There is one other man whose memory is

174

kept green by his own great and diversified achievements as well as by the
high regard in which he was and is held by American obstetricians, the orig-
inator of bi-mannal version, Marmaduke Burr Wright, great obstetrician,
splendid and honest medical politician, brilliant teacher, man of affairs and
versatile medical writer. It was he to whom James T. Whittaker, with his
never-failing felicity of quotation, applied the stanza that was once penned in
honor of Fielding, of obstetrical fame :

"Sir Fielding old was made a knight,
He should have been a Lord by right,
For then each lady's prayer would be:
O Lord, good Lord, deliver me !"

Marmaduke Burr Wright was a product of New Jersey, where he was
born November 10, 1803, in the town of Pentberton, Burlington County.
Soon after his birth his father moved to Trenton where seven more children
were added to the family. Mr. Wright, Sr., was a successful land speculator
and builder, who was amply able to give his talented first-born all the advan-
tages of a good education. Young Wright attended school at Lanseville,
N. J., and afterwards at Trenton where Rev. Elijah Slack, subsequently one
of the founders of the Medical College of Ohio, was in charge of an academy.
At the age of sixteen young Wright began to read medicine as a "surgeon's
apprentice" and continued his studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He
graduated in 1823.

A few years previously Mr. Wright, Sr., had reverses in business as the
result of which he came West in search of better luck. He located in Co-
lumbus. When young Wright, in the Spring of 1823, returned home with a
medical diploma in his hand and fond hopes in his heart, he found his father
on his deathbed. Young Wright started his battle of life with a widowed
mother and her seven children depending on him for support and protection.
Wright looked Fate squarely in the face and went to work. God always helps
the man who helps himself. Wright was not one who waited to be helped.
He soon had acquired a fair practice in the building up of which he had
made a good living for his large family of mother, brothers and sisters, and
incidentally a splendid reputation for himself. A notable achievement of
his early professional career was the tying of the internal iliac in an emer-
gency case. The patient got well.

Wright was distinctly a man of action, full of initiative, fearless and per-
severing, built after the pattern of Daniel Drake. He took an interest in
public affairs and became a member of the Ohio Legislature where he was
soon recognized as the Whig floor-leader. He was an aggressive, yet pru-
dent fighter, and used his tongue and his fist with equal facility. His
record in the Legislature was one of ceaseless activity, as shown by results,
and of unquestionable integrity, as admitted even by his political antagonists.

175

Dr. Wm. M. Awl, of Columbus, was also a member of the Ohio Legis-
lature. Wright and Awl, through similarity of purpose, became fast friends.
They were the promoters of a bill which was to place the care of the insane
in the hands of the State. They planned to open a State Hospital for the
Insane near Columbus and to found similar institutions in different parts of
the State. The bill became a law May 5, 1835, and the opening of the Co-
lumbus State Hospital in 1838, with Dr. Awl as superintendent, was the
result. In the course of time other hospitals were added (Dayton, 1855;
Cleveland, 1855; Longview, 1857; Athens, 1864; Toledo, 1884; Massillon,
1892). Dr. Wright was largely instrumental in giving Ohio this advanced
and humane system of caring for the insane. While a member of the Legis-
lature, he took an interest in the turbulent affairs of the Medical College of
Ohio, and opposed any and all attempts to jeopardize the existence of the
school by countenancing any rival school. His argument was that the Med-
ical College of Ohio was a State institution, was the oldest school in the
State, and that Cincinnati was too small a town for more than one college.
The latter point was well taken.

Wright believed in medical organization and took an active part in the
doings of medical societies. He was a practical worker as well as a scientific
contributor. Much of his work as a physician was done in the Ohio Peni-
tentiary in his capacity as the official medical attendant. In June, 1837, he
contributed an article on "Scurvy in the Ohio Penitentiary" to the "Western
Quarterly Journal of Practical Medicine," of which John Eberle, the great
rival of Drake as the exponent of principles of practice, was the editor. This
was in one of the most critical periods in the life of the Ohio College. The
college was on the verge of collapse, owing to the everlasting wrangling of
its professors most of whom were inferior men. Drake, with a magnificent
faculty, had started the Medical Department of the Cincinnati College, and
left no stone unturned in his endeavor to put the rival institution out of
existence. The friends of the Ohio College were looking around for capable
and active men to fill the chairs. John Locke was added to the faculty.
Reuben D. Mussey became a professor. Wright was asked to lend a hand in
keeping the school above water, and he accepted. In 1838 he was made pro-
fessor of materia medica. In 1840 he became John Moorhead's successor
in the chair of obstetrics. He held the chair for ten years and incidentally
took a very decided part in the continuous fighting which was as freely
indulged in as ever by the traditionally belligerent Ohio professors. The
inglorious record of John T. Shotwell whose ambition to be the professor of
surgery and dictator of the faculty, kept the latter in a constant uproar, led
to the confusion which marked the year 1850. Wright was removed from the
chair and sought surcease from excitement and warfare in Europe where he
visited hospitals and clinics. In 1860 he re-entered the Medical College of
Ohio and remained its professor of obstetrics until 1868 when he became an
emeritus professor at his own request. He died August 15, 1879, after a

176

busy and extremely useful life as a citizen and physician. Next to the col-
lege he was devoted to the Commercial (Cincinnati) Hospital where he did
most of the work that made his name famous throughout the country.

Wright reached the climax of his professional career in 1854 when he
presented to the Ohio State Medical Society his famous paper on "Difficult
Labors and Their Treatment," for which he received a gold medal. This
was a dissertation on the correction of malpositions of the foetus by means
of cephalic version. In this paper Dr. Wright did not claim to have orig-
inated the operation, but to have been very successful in performing it by
means of his method of bi-manual, or external and internal manipulation.
In this operation the hand applied internally acted upon the shoulder so as
to give it a lateral movement, while the other hand was applied to the ab-
domen in such a manner as to give the breech movement towards the cen.ter
of the uterine cavity. The operation is, however, wdl known and does not
require a description here. Priority in the method of turning by external
and internal manipulation was claimed by Hardin, of Pennsylvania, in 1857 ;
by Hohl, of Leipsic, in 1862; Braxton Hicks, of London, in 1861; and Stadt-
feld, of Copenhagen, in 1869. In a letter to the "Lancet and Clinic," in
1878, Dr. Hicks acknowledges Dr. Wright's claim to priority, and points out
the differences in their respective methods.

In LSol the Ohio State Medical Society appointed a committee, consist-
ing of Drs. M. B. Wright, of Cincinnati ; R. Thompson, of Columbus, and
J. S. Newberry, of Cleveland, to report on Medical Ethics. The report,
written by Wright in his best ironical vein, is an interesting document. Wright
summarizes his opinion in the statement that a physician who is a gentleman
needs no special code, and that the most detailed code of ethics will not make
gentlemen out of those who are not gentlemen by nature. Referring to the
framing of a special ethical code for the guidance of physicians Wright ob-
serves :

"But the belief is irresistible, that a body of dignified and learned doctors might have
been more profitably employed, than in compiling a book on good manners, and in letting
themselves down into second childhood, to repeat the early lessons of the first. Still
more objectionable is that edict which would give us so lowly a position, as to become
the proper recipients of such puerile instructions."

The proposed code contained some instructions for the patients who are
bound to gratitude, etc. Wright says :

"It must not be forgotten that these lessons are intended for the old ladies of the
land, who will doubtless obey them to the letter, and be ever grateful for such precious
boons. It was a great oversight, however, that the committee did not provide for their
dissemination. They are luminous with simplicity, truth and beauty, and that their useful-
ness may be transferred from the Code of Ethics to the pages of that old and still more
useful book. Mother Goose's Melodies."

On "duties of physicians to each other" Wright has this to say :
"Scrutinizing these rules of conduct carefully, one is led to inquire, Have they
been published for the instruction of uneducated boys or to regulate the conduct of those

177

who have advanced to ripe manhood? Our astonishment is heightened when we learn
that certain individuals have been deputed to teach morals to those fully equal to them-
selves in age, respectability, learning, experience and correctness of conduct."

Wrig'ht further opines :

"Thus have your committee presented the substance of the entire code of medical
ethics, adopted in its wisdom by the American Medical Association, for the benefit of
its members, and which, in our presumed ignorance, it would impose upon us. If we
have been successful in securing your attention, you are doubtless prepared to decide,
that the code contains some good precepts ; but that they are commonplace, known to
every man, and therefore unnecessary, that others are simply ridiculous, that others may
justly admit wide differences of opinion, and that others still are arrogant and insulting."

That Wright was a man of principle, of courage and wisdom is apparent
from the following comment he made on "ethics made to order." Says he :

"The great object of the American Medical Association, in adopting a code of
ethics, seems to have been, to give a standard of professional dignity. Professional dig-
nity ! Alas, how often does our adherence to words make us unmindful of ideas. Those
who are ever telling us what dignity is, may be reminded, without offense, of what it
is not. True dignity is not captious. It does not embroil itself in low, petty disputes.
It does not peep at corners to see whose house is visited ; nor does it put its ears to key-
holes, to catch half words, that imagination or malice may make sentences. It does not
revel over misfortune, nor envy rewarded merit. It does not crawl on the earth, that
it may throw dust in the eyes of fools ; but it stands erect, in all the fullness of god-like
manhood, and in the light of day, that the whole world may gaze upon its open, unshaded
brow."

"As interpreted by the American Medical Association, what does professional dignity
mean? It means, that all medical men should look through the same spectacles, and if
they are not adapted to the eye, the eye must be adapted to them. Each must acknowl-
edge that his cranium contains less brains than any other. The body must be squeezed
with the same corset, that all may be reduced to one shape. Corns or no corns, our
boots must be made upon the same last. No man shall bow half an inch below the
standard measure. Still, we are not dignified enough, we must unite with our patients,
and entertain one another in making music with a sugar whistle."

"Under restraints like these, the active and vigorous of the profession will become
no more efficient than the acknowledged cripples. Now is the time, and this is the
place, to tear in tatters the mantle which has so long concealed our individuality. We
can not reach a higher or more attractive dignity, than that which characterizes a gen-
tleman."

"Those societies which have engaged most earnestly in scientific culture, which have
been conducted most harmoniously, and attained greatest strength, are those which have
excluded elaborate constitutions and by-laws, and all codes of ethics. On the other hand,
the bane of some societies has been legislation upon legislation, respecting sickroom
politeness. Angry discussions have arisen, crimination and re-crimination have followed,
notices of withdrawals have been entered, until the organization has become so reduced,
that it could scarcely be considered a wreck of that which once existed. The crucible
of the philosopher has been thrown aside, and the cauldron of the defamer introduced
as its substitute."

"To establish a character for honesty of purpose and fair dealing and to bring indi-
vidual members within its influence, the Ohio State Medical Society must conform its
actions to its professions. It must not look with indifference upon the high offenses of
some, and even place tliem in elevated positions, while it aims at the destruction of a

178

pretending member, whom malice has unjustly pursued. Laws for the punishment of
crime should reach the high as well as the low. The thief, with an outside show of
respectability, merits even more punishment than the bold, unclothed offender. A com-
mittee selected to explain, direct and enforce the code of ethics, should have no more
stain upon their garments than falls to humanity as a common lot. If they are offenders,
they are disqualified from the enforcement of the law upon others, and the law itself
becomes worse than a nullity. How is it with the Standing Committee on Ethics, ap-
pointed to regulate our conduct, and to report upon our delinquencies?"

"Let any honorable man, with the history of the past before him, look at the center
of that committee, and he can not fail to pronounce it a biting sarcasm, a hideous mock-
ery. The individual occupying that place (Professor Mendenhall), has rendered himself
notorious by unprovoked, assassin-like attacks upon professional character, and for no
other reason, seemingly, than that he might secure a foothold upon some portion of the
ruin. How much more dignified and attractive would this society appear, if, in its
organization, it had presumed upon the honorable bearing of its members, instead of
acting upon the principle that all were corrupt, requiring one, accomplished in meanness,
to keep them in subjection."

"It has been already intimated that there are some who interpret the code to mean
the establishment and enforcement of certain defined principles and that all outside con-
duct is strictly legitimate and correct. Has the society, backed by the Code of Ethics
as supreme authority, summoned trustees and professors of colleges, to answer for their
long-cherished malignancy, and unceasing abuse of others? If not, is the omission to
be attributed to the fact that the code does not embrace the names of trustees, professors,
and would-be professors, and that they can not be held accountable in these several
relations, for any act they may commit, however dishonorable it might be to them as
individuals? If they are released from accountability, how can we assume hardihood
enough to punish those who have been drawn within the influence of their example?
It were better that medical men should be left to the guidance of their own conscientious
views of right, than that they should be held responsible only for the commission of
villainy named in the bond. Either spread your code into a volume ponderous enough
to include all medical men, and every species of offense within its embrace, or condense
it into the single more potent sentence : 'The Physician and the Gentleman are in-
separable.' "

"The late attempt of the American Medical Association to inflict a deep wound
on this society, must prove injurious to herself, and it may be, that upon us will devolve
the painful duty of writing, as her only deserved epitaph, self-destruction. From this
day onward, unless new and wiser counsels prevail, she will gradually but surely tend
to her sad, dishonorable end."

"There is nothing upon which our society is in greater danger of being, wrecked,
than upon the treacherous and sandy Code of Ethics. Let us, before it is too late, dis-
miss the pilot who would conduct our bark along the shoals, and sail out upon the
broad, deep ocean of individual enterprise. We have the manhood and the skill to
overcome all the dangers that beset us, and at last win the honors due noble achieve-
ments. And especially, let us not be too anxious to remain attached to that unwieldy
hulk, that would over-ride and sink us forever. Our hearts are our most true and
reliable compass; and the enlightened mind is the helmsman who is to guide us in
safety, through all professional dangers."

"Fear
No petty customs or appearances.
But think what others only dream about ;
And say what others dare but think; and do
What others would but say; and glory in
What others dared but do."

"The committee, therefore, append to this report the following: Resolved, That the
Ohio State Medical Society does not require the existence of any Code of Medical
Ethics, as such, to secure kindness of intercourse, concert of action, and scientific im-
provement among its members; that the great moral code, containing the injunction,
'Do unto others as ye would that others should do unto you,' and our feelings as gentle-
men, are as efficient as anything can be, in promoting a true and unexceptionable spirit
of social and professional intercourse."

"M. B. WRIGHT,
"R. THOMPSON,
"J. S. NEWBERRY."

The number of lectures, addresses, papers and essays on a variety of topics,
written by Wright, is very considerable. His best efforts were :

The Physiological Effects and Therapeutic Uses oFWater. 1839.

Incidents of Professional Life. 1841.

The Science of Medicine as a Compilation of Truths. 1843.

The Integrity of the Profession and Its Moral Courage. 1843.

Drunkenness and Insanity. 1845.

Exhumation and Dissection of Human Bodies. 1846.

The Qualifications of Professors and Students. 1847.

Life and Character of S. A. Latta, M.D. 1852.

Life and Character of John Locke, M.D. 1857.

Drunkenness, Its Nature and Cure. 1859.

Historical Reminiscences of the Professors of the Medical College of
Ohio. 1861.

A Short History of the Medical College of Ohio. 1861.

The Idolatry of Our People ; or, The Rebellion in Its Medical Aspects.
1862.

Pigmentation, a Rare Disease Among Infants. 1875.

Address at the Opening of the New Amphitheatre of the Cincinnati Hos-
pital. 1877.

These and other papers and addresses were read and delivered before
classes of medical students, before local and State medical societies and one
or two before the American Medical Association.

Wright had considerable poetical talent and left cjuite a few evidences of
it in the form of poems written at various times. He was intensely patriotic,
and in 1861 insisted that his sons should enlist to help in the defense of the
Union.

I have referred to Wright as a "medical politician."' In contra-distinction
to what Drake called "the selfish, narrow-minded, cowardly and dishonest in-
dividuals who, in not a few instances, carry on the politics of the profession,
of a medical society, of a hospital or of a college," Wright, like Drake, im-
personated the clean and honest type of the medical politician. He was and
remained honest because he never confounded principles with persons. Per-
sons to him were only incidental to the idea. He despised the political methods

180

of Shotwell, \'attier and other men of this type whose every effort was in
the direction of personal gain and advantage. This is what he said in 1851
when his enemies had the upper hand and he had to leave the college he loved :

"It is the unclean and dishonest medical politician who fortities his position and
increases his power by the studious cultivation of sycophancy, nepotism, suppression of
individuality and terrorization of real talent."

It seems that quite a few men today could profitably emulate the splendid
example of M. B. Wright who demonstrated that what Drake said in 1835
was, is and will ever remain true, to-wit : that "it is possible to be a politician
without ceasing to be honest and honorable, to be a professor in a medical
college without sacrificing manhood and becoming a zealot, to be a man of
affairs professionally without giving up individuality, and to be a public man
without losing the respect of men." Wright's life is one of the object-lessons
which the heroic past offers to the barren present. "His life was noble and
the elements so mixed in him that Nature might stand up and say to all the
world : This was a man !"

181

CHAPTER X.

THE MEDICAL DEPARTMENT OF THE
CINCINNATI COLLEGE.

(Drake's School.)

There zvere giants in the earth in those days. — Genesis iv., 4.

BEFORE giving an account of the short but brilHant history of this, the
greatest medical school the West has ever seen, a brief historical
sketch of the Cincinnati College will serve as a suitable introduction to
our subject.

Practically the whole block bounded by Fourth and Fifth, Main and
Walnut Streets, was originally given to the Presbyterians as a site for
their church, for a cemetery and for whatever other purpose they might want
to use the ground. In 1814 the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church,
Rev. Joshua L. Wilson, a pioneer churchman in the West, conceived the idea
to start a Lancasterian school in Cincinnati, and enlisted the interest and
support of some of the most influential citizens. Drake was deeply interested
and helped Rev. Wilson in every way. The meaning of the word "Lancaster"
in connection with an educational institution has been explained elsewhere
in this book. Mr. Isaac Stagg, a noted local architect, designed the plan of
the new school building, and in 1815 it was ready for occupancy. The struc-
ture was a two-story brick building, with two oblong wings, stretching eighty-
eight feet back from Fourth Street. They were connected by an apartment
for staircases, eighteen by thirty feet, out of which sprang a dome-shaped
peristyle by way of observatory. The front of this middle apartment was
decorated with a colonnade, forming a handsome portico thirty feet long and
twelve feet deep, the front and each side being ornamented with a pediment
and Corinthian cornices. The aspect of the building is described as light and
airy, and would have been elegant had the doors been wider and the pedi-
ments longer, and the building divested of disfiguring chimneys. As it was,
it was considered the finest public edifice at that time west of the Alleghanies.
One wing was for male and one for female children; and between the two
there was no passage except by the portico. The recitation and study rooms
in the lower story had sittings for nine hundred children, and the whole for
fourteen hundred. Each upper story, in the plan, was to have three apart-
ments, two in the ends, each thirty feet square ; and one in the center twenty-
five feet square, with a skylight and the appurtenances of a philosophical hall.

182

,/^

1 Si w'i'^li m

.. Si'" ^^ ,'f nri ill

^^'^:

«»"t g. ffi

Cincinnati Coi.i.ege Building

(Erected 1816. Destroyed by fire 1844)

^^^ME^

iu^jii^ffM#>x#)»fi)if;:isii)i(!eDi(§)is$l#)iieiim

Cincinnati Coli^ege Buii^ding

(Erected 1845. Destroyed by fire 1869)

183

The building was destroyed by fire in 1845. A second building was erected
which burnt down in 1869. It was followed by another structure which was
razed a few years ago to make room for the present Mercantile Library
Building.

The Lancasterian Seminary was short-lived. Within a year the Lancas-
terian feature was dropped and the institution (1819) chartered as a literary
college or a university under the presidency of Elijah Slack. At the first
Commencement (1821) the degree of Master of Arts was conferred upon
two distinguished Cincinnati divines, Rev. Joshua L. Wilson and Rev. James
Kemper, and Wm. H. Harrison, afterwards President of the United States.
The literary department flourished for a number of years. Some of its
professors were very eminent men. The school president, Rev. W. H. Mc-
GufTey, the author of "McGuff ey's Readers," had been president of Miami
University, Oxford, Ohio, and after leaving Cincinnati became president
of the Ohio University, Athens, Ohio, and still later professor of philosophy
in the University of Virginia. He was a scholar, but above all, he was a
teacher of great ability. The professor of mathematics was Ormsby M.
Mitchell, the founder of the Cincinnati Observatory, a genius and a great
teacher. The site for the observatory building was given by old Nicholas
Longworth and the equipment was purchased with money which was raised
by popular subscription. At the dedication the principal speech was made
by John Quincy Adams which fact is perpetuated by the name of the hill
upon which the observatory was built, Mount Adams. The professor of
languages in the Cincinnati College was Rev. Asa Drury, another great
teacher, born at Athol, Mass., in 1802, a graduate of Yale in 1829, a teacher
at Yale from 1829 to 1831, ordained a minister of the Baptist Church in
1832, professor of Greek and Latin in Denison University, Granville, Ohio,
from 1832 to 1835, professor in the Cincinnati College from 1835 to 1838.
He spent a few years in the East, was professor of Greek in the Western
Baptist Theological Institute, Covington, Ky., from 1843 to 1851, when
he w^as elected principal of the Covington High School and superintendent
of the public schools. During the war he was Chaplain of the 18th Regi-
ment Kentucky Volunteer Infantry. At the battle of Richmond, August 30.
1862, he was taken prisoner and sent home on parole. In 1866 he took
charge of a church in Minneapolis, Minn., and died in 1870. He was the
father of Dr. Alexander G. Drury, the distinguished medical historian. The
professor of rhetoric and belles-lettres in the Cincinnati College was Charles
L. Telford, distinguished alike as an orator and a writer. He was after-
wards a professor in the law department of the Cincinnati College. The
Law School and the Law Library are the only remainders of the once famous
Cincinnati College under whose charter in 1835 Daniel Drake opened his
medical school as the "Medical Department of the Cincinnati College."

That the opening of this rival school met with most determined oppo-
sition at the hands of the friends of the Medical College of Ohio can readily

184

Samuel D. Gross

LaxdonC. Rives

Horatio B. Jameson

Joseph N. McDowell

Willard Parker

AMi;s I>. Rooers

be imagined. They contested the right of the trustees of the Cincinnati
College to conduct a department of medicine under their charter. Failing
in this, they tried to cast discredit upon the new school by a circular in which
they stated that the new school would not be recognized by the other schools.
This proved a boomerang because it evoked statements from nearly every
school of prominence that were flattering to Drake. Next they attacked
Drake's work and character in the secular press, especially the "Cincinnati
Whig and Commercial Intelligencer." This was a mistake because it adver-
tised Drake and won him new friends. Alban Goldsmith was the author
of a series of the bitterest and most defamatory articles. Drake answered
his enemies through his "Western Journal" (1835). On June 27, 1835,
the trustees of the Cincinnati College announced the opening of their Med-
ical Department with the following faculty: Joseph N. McDowell, anatomy;
Samuel D. Gross, pathology, physiology and jurisprudence; Horatio B.
Jameson, surgery ; Landon C. Rives, obstetrics and diseases of women and
children; James B. Rogers, chemistry and pharmacy; John P. Harrison,
materia medica; Daniel Drake, practice; John L. Riddell, adjunct in chem-
istry and lecturer on botany. Drake June 30, 1835, issued a manifesto in
which he explained his position. It is a remarkable document (see "West-
ern Journal," 1835, No. 2). Gary A. Trimble who, as a student in the Ohio
College, had, in 1833, memorialized the Legislature and brought charges
against the Ohio faculty, was made demonstrator of anatomy in the new
school. Dr. Jameson resigned after the first session. His successor was
Willard Parker.

The rivalry between the two schools was most bitter. Even the students
had caught the spirit of the situation and indulged in fisticuff engagements
whenever the opportunity was offered. The Commercial Hospital from
which the professors and students of the new school were excluded, the Ohio
College being by law the caretaker and beneficiary of the hospital, was the
principal bone of contention. Drake fitted up a small hospital opposite his
college (where now the Gibson House stands) and called it the "Cincinnati
Hospital." It furnished the clinical material for the new school. Yet it
was inadequate to compete with the Commercial Hospital which was con-
ducted by the State. Drake's Eye Infirmary, referred to elsewhere, became a
clinical department of the new school. In 1839, after a four years' struggle,
Drake broke up the monopoly of the Ohio College in the Commercial Hos-
pital. In accordance with an act passed by the Legislature in 1839 the
township trustees issued an order permitting the students of the Cincinnati
College to attend clinical lectures in the Commercial Hospital and made an
arrangement whereby some of the professors were added to the staff. Un-
fortunately the victory came too late. Drake and his associates who had
conducted their school without help or endowment, were about to abandon
the school. During the year previous the Standing Committee' on Medical
Colleges and Medical Societies submitted two reports to the Legislature, one

186

sustaining the Medical College of Ohio, the other recommending the Med-
ical Department of the Cincinnati College as the more deserving of sup-
port. It was suggested to turn all properties of the Medical College of Ohio
over to the Cincinnati College, making the latter a State institution. The
committee consisted of five members. Each report was handed in by two
members. One member did not vote. This is what saved the day for the
Ohio College. Drake had many open and hidden enemies to fight. He
struggled manfully against hopeless odds. He impersonated in his fight for
supremacy the motto of his school: Labor vincit omnia! In pleading the
cause of his school before the Legislature in 1838, he stated :

"The Cincinnati College possesses every requisite except genius and learning in
its professors, but these, I suppose, could be at any time bestowed on them by a
circular of the board of trustees."

This bit of sarcasm refers to the trustees of the Ohio College who every
few weeks issued a circular setting forth what the professors of the Medical
College of Ohio were going to do, what great men they were, etc. These
circulars appeared so often that even the Legislature in Columbus did not
take them seriously, but frequently joked about them whenever the affairs
of the Ohio College came up for discussion. The short but brilliant career
of the Medical Department of the Cincinnati College is thus described by
Gross in 1854 in his Memorial of Drake :

"With such a faculty the school could hardly fail to prosper. It had, however, to
contend with one serious disadvantage, namely, the want of an endowment. It was,
strictly speaking, a private enterprise; and although the citizens of Cincinnati contrib-
uted, perhaps not illiberally, to its support, yet the chief burden fell upon the four
original projectors, Drake, Rives, McDowell and myself. They found the edifice of
the Cincinnati College erected many years before, in a state of decay, without appa-
ratus, lecture rooms or museum; they had to go east of the mountains for two of
their professors, with onerous guarantees; and they had to encounter no ordinary
degree of prejudice and actual opposition from friends of the Medical College of Ohio.
It is not surprising, therefore, that after struggling on, although with annually in-
creasing classes, and with a spirit of activity and perseverance that hardly knew any
bounds, it should at length have exhausted the patience, and even the forbearance
of its founders. What, however, contributed more, perhaps than anything else to
its immediate downfall, was the resignation of Doctor Parker, who in the Summer
of 1839, accepted the corresponding chair in the College of Physicians and Surgeons
of the City of New York, an institution which he has been so instrumental in elevating,
and which he still continues to adorn by his talents and his extraordinary popularity
as a teacher and a practitioner. The vacation of the surgical chair was soon followed
by my own retirement and by that of my other colleagues. Doctor Drake being the last
to withdraw."

"During the four years the school was in existence it educated nearly four hun-
dred pupils ; the last class being nearly double that in the rival institution, an evi-
dence at once of its popularity, and the ability and enterprise of its faculty. The
school had cost each of the orig-inal projectors about four thousand dollars, nearly
the amount of the emoluments of their respective chairs during its brief but brilliant
career."

187

"Doctor Drake had the success of this enterprise much at heart, and often ex-
pressed regret at its failure; what the result might have been, if it had been vig-
orously prosecuted up to the present time, must, of course, remain a matter of con-
jecture. I have often thought, and so had my lamented friend, that we had vitality
and energy enough in our faculty to build up a great and flourishing institution,
creditable alike to the West and to the United States. He had a high opinion of the
ability, zeal and learning of his colleagues, whom he never ceased to regard as one
of the most powerful bodies of men with whom he was ever associated in medical
teaching. The correctness of his judgment was amply confirmed by the elevated posi-
tions to which most of them have since attained."

The Aledical Department of the Cincinnati College was the crowning
glory of Drake's career as a teacher. The faculty was the ablest under the
roof of a Western medical school. It is doubtful w^iether any school in the
West has ever seen greater talent and genius within its walls than Drake's
College during its four years of brilliant existence. Its faculty and that of
Rutgers College, which entered upon its brief but glorious existence about a
decade previously, and possibly the Medical Department of the University
of Pennsylvania at the beginning of the nineteenth century, are without a
doubt the three greatest combinations of medical talent this country has
ever seen. The character of Drake's College is strikingly shown by the
personnel of the faculty. Among the first graduates of the school was
Charles A. Pope (born in Huntsville, Ala., in 1818, died in Paris, France, in
1870) the famous St. Louis surgeon.

SAMUEL D. GROSS, for fully four decades the representative American
surgeon, may justly be considered a product of Medical Cincinnati, where
he laid the foundation to his subsequent greatness as a surgeon, a teacher
and an author. The story of this distinguished man's life illustrates the
possibilities of greatness and success which are opened up by natural ability
re-enforced by a wilhngness to work. It seems that of these two elements
of greatness the willingness and capacity for work preponderated in Gross'
case. In point of natural born genius Gross was not the equal of Daniel
Drake, but he certainly was a toiler all his life, proving that great capacity
for work will sometimes take the place of genius.

Gross was born July 8, 1805, on his father's farm near Easton, Pa. His
parents were Pennsylvania Germans. The family originally came from the
Rhenish Palatinate (Rheinpfalz), Germany. Young Gross grew up in the
bosom of Nature and cultivated his powers of observation and research at
an early age. He was a favorite among the neighbors who all liked the
bright and clever flaxen-haired boy. The old family physician was particu-
larly fond of the chap who reciprocated the friendly interest of the dignified
old gentleman by great respect and ultimately by a determination to become a
doctor. Gross attended the country schools and, with whatever education he
had acquired there, entered at the age of seventeen the office of Dr. J. K.
Swift, of Easton, as a medical apprentice. He soon found that his early

188

education was not equal to the requirements of scientific work and inter-
rupted his medical studies for two years for the purpose of attending the
Wilkesbarre Academy. Here he studied and worked day and night. After
two years he returned to his medical studies and made rapid progress.
Eventually he became a pupil of George McClellan, the brilliant but unfor-
tunate man, whose monument is Jefferson Medical College. Gross took his
medical course at the latter institution and graduated in 1S28. He opened
an office in Philadelphia and, with nothing but time on his hands, made
translations of European works for Eastern publishers. From the German
he translated Hildebrand on "Typhous Fever," from the French Hatin's
Obstetrics," Bayle and Hollard's "Anatomy" and Tavernier's "Surgery."
In addition thereto he published an original treatise on the anatomy, physi-
ology and the diseases of bones and joints. This was the result of work
done during the first eighteen months of his professional life. In 1829 he
had the good fortune of becoming acquainted with that marvel of a scientific
man and enthusiast, John D. Godman, and helped him in his translations
of German and French works. Gross at that time was distressingly poor.
Amid all his work and poverty he fell in love with a young widow who had
one child. Gross married her in short order, determined to work and win.
She proved to be a splendid companion and helpmate, with whom he lived
in absolute happiness for nearly fifty years. In 1830 he moved to his home
town, Easton, where he could live cheaply and expected to acquire a prac-
tice more quickly. While practicing at Easton he did a great deal of orig-
inal work in physiology. He studied the process of absorption by experi-
ments on animals. His investigations pertaining to wounds of the intestines
were remarkable, considering the time at which they were made. An account
of them was subsequently published in Drake's "Western Journal of Med-
icine and Surgery" (1842-43).

While Gross had been a student at Jefferson, he had become well ac-
quainted with John Eberle, who taught materia medica at Jefferson. Eberle
had moved to Cincinnati and was a teacher in the Medical College of Ohio.
Gross yearned for a larger field of usefulness, and more particularly for a
chance to become an anatomist and a surgeon. He wrote to Eberle and
asked him to use his influence, should a vacancy occur in the Ohio College.
Eberle asked to -have Gross made demonstrator of anatomy and, accordingly,
in the Fall of 1833, Gross, with $237 in his pocket and accompanied by his
little family, consisting of wife and two children, made the wearisome
journey to Cincinnati. In thirteen days he arrived and his troubles began.
Gross tells the story in the following way :

"I had hardly entered upon the discharge of my official duties, when, early one
morning, Dr. T. D. Mitchell called at my lodgings on Sixth Street and asked me
whether I had seen a certain article in reference to myself in the Ciiiciunati Gazette,
adding that the professor of anatomy had taken umbrage at it, and that, in consulta-
tion with some of his colleagues, they had come to the conclusion that it would be

189

best, at all events for the present Winter, that I should not lecture in the amphi-
theatre, as had been agreed upon when I accepted the office of demonstrator of anat-
omy. Upon inquiring what the offensive article was, for I had neither seen it nor
heard of it, he informed me that it was a complimentary notice of myself, in which
the writer congratulated the Medical College of Ohio upon its acquisition of so able
an anatomist, a kind of puff, intended, as the professor of anatomy, naturally a very
jealous man, supposed to be a reflection upon his own ability as a teacher. It required
no consideration as to what I should do on the occasion. I, therefore, at once said :
'If the faculty debar me from lecturing in connection with practical anatomy, as had
been stipulated, my only course is to withdraw from the school and get along as best I
may. My object in emigrating to the West,' I continued, 'was to qualify inyself for
teaching anatomy, and if this privilege be denied me, I shall be sadly disappointed.'
Mitchell, therefore, went away, but returned the same afternoon saying that the faculty
had decided to fit up for me a lecture room in the attic of the college, close to the
dissecting room. This was accordingly done, and I now began in earnest to organize
the department, which, up to that time, had been shamefully neglected ; for upon my
arrival at Cincinnati I found everything in the department of practical anatomy in the
college in the most miserable condition. There was not a table, not a bench, not a
wash basin in the room; in short, nothing that denoted that any dissections had ever
been carried on within its walls. Some students had already assembled, and the session
was to open in a few days. No time was to be lost. Everything was to be done, and
done promptly. Carpenters were at once procured, and in less than a week my room
had quite a furnished appearance. Out of eighty-six students, my class numbered
nearly sixty. I gave regularly three lectures a week, chiefly on surgical and visceral
anatomy, kept the rooms well supplied with subjects, and thus laid the foundation of
the study of practical anatomy, up to that time a nominal matter in the Western
States. In the Spring and Autumn I delivered private courses to small classes, earning
little money, but heaping up valuable knowledge, and acquiring some reputation as a
zealous anatomist and as a respectable lecturer."

In 1835 Gross became Drake's associate by assuming the chair of patho-
logical anatomy in the Medical Department of the Cincinnati College. When
the latter school was abandoned in 1839, Gross found ample time to pre-
pare his "Elements of Pathological Anatomy" for publication. It is inter-
esting to know that the material for this pioneer work was furnished by
the Cincinnati slaughter houses where Gross spent much time in the study
of animal tissue. Of this great work J. M. DaCosta, in his biographic
sketch of Gross, says :

"His 'Elements of Pathological Anatomy," issued in 1S39, in two octavo volumes
of more than five hundred pages each, did more to attract attention to the subject than
anything that had ever been done in this countr}^ The book, illustrated profusely
with wood cuts and with several colored engravings, reached three editions. It is a
mine of learning, and its extended references make it valuable to this day. Its merits
have been fully recognized abroad ; and on no occasion more flattering than when the
great pathologist, Virchow, at a dinner given to Doctor Gross at Berlin, in 1868, com-
plimented him publicly on being the author, and, pointing to the volume, which he laid
upon the table, gracefully acknowledged the pleasure and instruction which he had
often gained from it. As another acknowledgment of its merits, we find that soon
after the publication of the second edition the Imperial-Royal Society of Vienna made
Doctor Gross an honorary member."

190

In 1840 Gross became professor of surgery in the University of Louis-
ville (formerly Louisville Medical Institute) and continued in this position
for sixteen years with the exception of the session 1850-'51, during which
he filled the chair of surgery in the University of New York as the suc-
cessor of Valentine Mott. At the end of this session he was so homesick
for his old Kentucky home that he resigned his New York position and re-
turned to the land of the blue grass.

In 1851 he published his treatise on the "Diseases of the Urinary Or-
gans." Three years later he issued his work on "Foreign Bodies in the
Air Passages" of which Morell Mackenzie said almost forty years later that
it is "a classic and can not be improved upon." During his stay in Louis-
ville Gross wrote two biographical sketches of great merit and value, one
of Daniel Drake and one of Ephraim McDowell. For Drake Gross had
unbounded admiration. He places him at the side of Benjamin Rush.

In 1856 Gross went to Philadelphia and became professor of surgery at
Jefferson. When in 1875 Gross attended the meeting of the American Med-
ical Association in Louisville, he was the recipient of royal honors. In 1879
he delivered the memorial address at the dedication of the McDowell monu-
ment in Danville, Ky., and was received with demonstrations of such love
and enthusiasm as can only be found in the hearts of the noble people that
gave the Nation such men as Henry Clay, Daniel Drake and Ephraim Mc-
Dowell.

In Philadelphia Gross began the preparation of his monumental "System
of Surgery." The first edition appeared in 1859. In 1861 he issued a
"Manual of Military Surgery" and also a biographical volume entitled "The
Lives of Eminent American Physicians and Surgeons of the Nineteenth
Century" to which he contributed sketches of Drake, McDowell and J. S.
Dorsey. In 1882 Gross resigned his chair at Jefferson. His health had been
failing for some time. He died May 6, 1884, at the time of his death ad-
mittedly the greatest figure in American surgery. No American physician
has ever been honored in Europe like S. D. Gross. He visited Europe sev-
eral times and everywhere the princes of intellect, the mighty ones in the
realm of science, vied with each other to do him honor. Gross's personality
is beautifully portrayed by Isaac M. Hays who says that "his majestic form
and dignified presence, his broad brow and intelligent eye, his deep, mellow
voice, and benignant smile, his genial manner and cordial greeting, remain
indelibly impressed upon the memory of all who knew him." Gross was a
man of warm, human impulses, strong in his affection, pure in his ideals,
fond of the young men in the profession to whom he was the living illus-
tration of his two famous sayings : "Once a student, always a student" and
"It is better to wear out than to rust out!" His Autobiography was pub-
lished by his family in 1887.

Gross's greatest work as a pioneer in medicine was done in Cincinnati.
He was the first man in this country who practiced systematic dissection

and made close examination of pathological specimens. He was so thor-
oug-hly imbued with the importance of this kind of work that he induced
Drake to recognize pathological anatomy by the establishment of a special
chair in the Cincinnati College which was the first chair of this kind in this
country, Gross being its first incumbent.

Gross never forgot the treatment he received at the ^Medical College of
Ohio when he arrived in 1833. The men who composed the faculty and who
sent him to the garret to teach instead of offering him free access to the
amphitheatre, were, according to his statement, ''mostly weak, selfish, nar-
row-minded men, with moderate scientific attainments and little ability as
teachers." I am inclined to think that the man whose vanity was hurt by
the newspaper-squib about Gross was not Jedediah Cobb, but Thomas D.
Mitchell. The latter was the dean and very jealous of his prominent posi-
tion. He used Cobb as a catspaw in order to vent the ire of his own small
and jealous soul. Gross always had a high regard for Cobb both as a man
and as a physician. The best sketch of Cobb's life was written by Gross.

Gross during his life was distinctly the type of the "beloved physician."
His popularity in the profession was unparalleled. To posterity he should
be known as the "man of ceaseless toil." An idea of his capacity for work
can be gotten from a perusal of the list of his contributions to the literature
of the profession. The immensity of his labors in this regard entitle him
to the suggestive appellation of the "American Virchow."

JOSEPH NASH McDowell was the scion of a distinguished Virginia
family that had given a governor and other men of eminence to the State.
His parents had moved to Lexington, Ky., and there he was born in 1803.
He received a splendid literary and medical education in his native town,
which during the first three decades of the nineteenth century was not in-
appropriately called the Athens of the West. Transylvania University with
its corps of able and famous teachers was at that time one of the great seats
of learning on the Western Continent. Young McDowell became a student
of medicine in Transylvania L^niversity about the time when Daniel Drake,
after the latter's forced resignation from the Medical College of Ohio, was
appointed a professor in the Lexington school. McDowell graduated in 1825
and subsequently took a course in Philadelphia. He devoted himself to the
study of anatomy and gained such a reputation as an anatomist and a teacher
that his Alma Mater was glad to offer him the chair of anatomy which he
held for one year. In Philadelphia his knowledge of anatomy attracted at-
tention and led to his appointment as professor of anatomy in the newly
founded Jefferson Medical College. There seems to be no doubt that the
fame of the great Ephraim McDowell did much to introduce Joseph Xash
McDowell, who was his nephew. After lecturing in Philadelphia durmg
one session, J. N. McDowell returned to the West and settled down near
Lexington where he married the girl who had been his playmate and swcet-

192

heart when he was a young boy, Amanda Virginia Drake, the sister of his
teacher, Daniel Drake. "When the "War of Extermination" began in 1835,
McDowell was on hand to help his brother-in-law in the latter's fight against
the Medical College of Ohio. He became professor of anatomy in the Med-
ical Department of the Cincinnati College and remained at his post until the
abandonment of the institution in 1839.

The often discussed problem of genius as a species of insanity found a
lifelong illustration in the career of this singularly gifted but thoroughly er-
ratic man. McDowell was the idol of his classes because he had wonderful
power of entertaining and amusing them. As an anatomist he wa? the
formidable rival of Jedediah Cobb. Samuel D. Gross refers to McDowell's
great ability as a demonstrator of and lecturer on anatomy. Doctor Armor,
for several years a professor in the Medical College of Ohio, was a pupil of
McDowell and often spoke of the latter's marvelous eloquence which "made
even the dry bones talk." In fighting the Ohio College McDowell shrank
from the use of no weapon however questionable. He left the argumentative
part of the embroglio to Drake while he devoted himself to a sort of guerilla-
campaign against the Ohio College, attacking the professors of the latter at
all times in unmeasured terms of abuse and vilification. His public declara-
tion : "Give me one year's time and I will blow the d Ohio College to

hell !" was a byword in Cincinnati for many years. This manner of fighting
made him a much-dreaded antagonist. He was intensely jealous and in
moods, created by attacks of jealousy, he would spare neither friend nor foe.
No man ever had a viler tongue. He never hesitated to discuss his griev-
ances before the class, heaping abuse on and applying the vilest epithets to
anyone who had happened to arouse his ire. In his calmer moods he was the
most lovable of men, ready to sacrifice himself for his friends. His devotion
to his family was the talk of the town.

Thus McDowell's character was a mixture of commendable attributes and
most detestable traits. In his dealings with the students he often lost sight
of the fact that intimacy breeds contempt. He would go fishing and hunting
with them and thought nothing of borrowing money from them. He was
very superstitious and could not be induced to lecture on Friday. He was
ready for two or three lectures on any other day. He had a mortal fear of
thunderstorms and buried himself in feather beds to keep from being struck by
lightning. On one occasion he boasted of his skill at target shooting. Some
of the students arranged to give him a chance to show his aptness and fixed a
target on a plank. Behind the plank they placed a man who w^as instructed
to scream and pretend to be mortally hurt as soon as McDowell fired the
pistol. McDowell was frightened out of his wits when he heard the scream
and saw the man fall. He started for a boat to leave the town in order to
escape the consequences of his shooting. At the last moment the joke was
revealed to him. He was overjoyed and repeatedly embraced the man whom
he thought he had killed.

193

After the dissolution of the ^Medical Department of the Cincinnati Col-
lege. McDowell went to St. Louis and started the Missouri Medical College
which was known as "McDowell's College" and for a number of years was
affiliated with the Missouri State University. From 1840 to 1860 McDowell
had a tremendous surgical practice. His fame extended from the Alleghenies
to the Rocky Mountains. He was a much sought-after public speaker. Like
his silver-tongued brother-in-law, Drake, he was always ready for a speech.
On one occasion he delivered a temperance speech before an immense con-
course of people. Every ten or fifteen minutes he poured out a quantity of
whiskey, mixed it with water and refreshed himself. He seemed to be totally
oblivious to the humor of the occasion.

In 1861 he espoused the cause of the South and, accompanied by many
of his students and colleagues, left for the Southern battlefields. He brought
with him six cannons, 750 muskets and other munitions of war which he
purchased to help the cause of the South. He stood very high in the councils
of the Confederacy. In 1863 he was sent to Europe as an Emissary of the
Confederacy. After the termination of the war he returned to St. Louis and
reopened his medical college. He died in 1868, leaving behind him a record
of unparalleled eccentricity. That he was a man of genius, can not be doubted.
Gross admits it and Henry Clay who knew McDowell well, once said that
there never was a greater mind than McDowell's and one so totally disabled
by eccentricities. In the annals of Western medicine his name occupies a
conspicuous place. He was vice-president of the American Medical Associa-
tion from 1860 to 1863.

HORATIO G. JAMESON was professor of surgery in the Cincinnati
College, holding the chair for one term (October, 1835, to March, 1836).
He was born in 1778 in York, Pa., took up the study of medicine as a student-
apprentice in his father's office when he was not more than fifteen years old
and located successively in West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Maryland. In
1810 he moved to Baltimore and attended lectures at the University of Mary-
land where he graduated in 1813. He soon acquired a great reputation as a
surgeon, and, being energetic and ambitious, aspired to a position on the
staff of the University of Maryland where he would have the opportunity to
display his talents as a surgeon and teacher. Some of the men connected with
the University were jealous of his rapidly gained reputation and prevented
his appointment. Thereupon (1827) he combined with a number of able men
and founded Washington Medical College in Baltimore. This precipitated a
long and bitter controversy between the different factions, Jameson being made
the target of numberless open and anonymous attacks in and out of the pro-
fession. Jameson in 1828 brought an action against one of his bitterest
antagonists for defamation of character. This trial attracted attention all
over the country. It was one of the most sensational episodes in the medical
annals of this country and resulted in Jameson's complete vindication. His

' 19-4

fame as a bold operator and brilliant lecturer spread all over this country.
In 1829 he founded the "Maryland Medical Recorder," for three years one
of the strongest and most influential medical publications in the United States.
In 1830 he appeared by invitation before the Society of German Naturalists
in Hamburg, being the first American who was ever thus honored. He trav-
eled extensively in Europe, receiving marked attentions from many of the
foremost surgeons of the Old World. After his return he gave much of his
time and attention to questions of sanitation and public hygiene, with special
reference to the prophylaxis of cholera, yellow fever and smallpox. In 1835
he became professor of surgery in the Cincinnati College and attracted much
attention on account of his eloquence as a teacher of surgery. The failing
health of his wife prompted him to resign his chair at the end of the term
and return to Baltimore. The statement made by Gross that Jameson did not
give satisfaction in Cincinnati and was practically dismissed at the end of
the term, is not borne out by other contemporaries. After his return East he
lived in Baltimore, afterwards in York, Philadelphia, and New York. He
died in 1855.

In 1817 he published a booklet on "Fevers" and a book of 161 pages on
^'Domestic Medicine." Some of his best known papers were "The Surgical
Anatomy of the Neck," "Traumatic Hemorrhage," "Anatomy of the Parts
Concerned in Lithotomy," etc. His operative work was brilliant and epoch-
making. On November 11, 1820, he performed extirpation of the upper jaw
for the first time in this country after preliminary ligation of the carotid
artery. In 1821 he ligated the external iliac artery for aneurism, in 1822 he
made a successful tracheotomy for the removal of a watermelon seed from
the windpipe. His surgical record comprises many important ligations, radical
cure of hernia, stone operations, etc. He was the first in England and America
w^ho amputated the cervix for scirrhus (1824). This operation was the third
of its kind on record, two similar cases having previously occurred in France
and Germany. Pie was the first American who used animal ligatures and
proved their superiority by many experiments on animals. As a medical re-
viewer, critic and bibliographer he occupied a most conspicuous place for
more than thirty years. There is no question that Horatio G. Jameson was
deservedly one of the most eminent medical men of his time. He was a
forceful writer, a brilliant surgeon, possessing much originality, and a schol-
arly medical teacher. Jameson's libel suit against his adversaries was written
up in the "American Medical Recorder," January, 1829. It is a characteristic
story of a quarrel among medical men and shows to what depths of moral
turpitude, cowardly and foul aspersion and incredible cruelty human nature
will descend when spurred on by the sting of jealousy, malice and unfair pro-
fessional rivalry. It seems that human nature, after all, was the same in the
days of the crude pioneers, as it is in these more advanced and refined times of
ethical culture.

195

'JOHN P. HARRISON, one of the most distinguished practitioners and
professors of medicine that have graced the profession of Cincinnati, hailed
from Louisville, Ky., where he was born in 1796. He received his preliminary
education in his home town but went to Philadelphia to study medicine. He
became the private pupil of Nathaniel Chapman, the renowned medical author
and founder of the "American Journal of Medical Sciences," and attended
lectures at the University of Pennsylvania. He graduated in medicine in
1819. He returned to Louisville and began to practice. He soon became one
of the most successful physicians. He was ambitious to make a name for
himself as a medical teacher and author and decided, in 1834, to remove to
Philadelphia and apply for a position in the Medical Department of the Uni-
versity of Pennsylvania. Drake who was organizing the Medical Department

%^^

^ —

John P. Harrison

of the Cincinnati College, wrote him to come to Cincinnati and assume chaige
of the chair of materia medica in the Cincinnati College. Harrison accepted
the appointment, and in 1835 came to Cincinnati. He and L. C. Rives were
the only two of the professors of Drake's College who remained in Cincinnati
when the school was abandoned in 1839. Two years later (1841) he entered
the faculty of the Ohio College as professor of materia medica. With the
exception of two sessions (1847-'48 and 1848-'49) he retained his chair.
During the two sessions named he taught theory and practice. He died of
cholera in 1849, as J. T. Whittaker says of him : "Like a soldier in the line
of duty with his face to the foe."

John P. Harrison was personally one of the most amiable of men, a gen-
tleman by nature and cultivation. He was a handsome man, straight and
erect, with a fine intellectual countenance which in his youth resembled that
of Robert Burns. He was scrupulously clean and orderly in his appearance
and in his habits, well groomed and refined. His office was a model of order
and system. Even the appearance of his horse and carriage showed the sense

196

of neatness of their owner. In his lectures and essays he was thoroughly
systematic and scrupulously attentive to details. He had a fervent tempera-
ment which quickly communicated itself to his listeners. His manner of
delivery, in moments of inspiration, w^as quick and impulsive. His voice was
high-pitched and aglow with feeling. In his statements he was bold, positive,
aggressive and even defiant. He never failed to impress, arouse, inspire and
electrify his auciience. In his writings he was polished and elegant. What he
said was clear-cut and exact, his phraseology pleasing and often suggestive
of the poet rather than the medical philosopher. In his makeup he was the
opposite of his famous predecessor, John Eberle. The latter was slow and
deliberate, Harrison was quick and dashing. Eberle presented facts in a cool
and practical manner, Harrison paraphrased them in his characteristic fervent
style. Eberle was a realist, Harrison was enthroned in a realm of ideas.
Eberle was satisfied to let the subject carry him; Harrison carried his subject
victoriously to the final issue. The two men were totally unlike. In Eberle's
writings the subject retained its full value even without the personality of the
lecturer. In Harrison's writings the absence of the personal equation, of the
fervent manner and the inspiring presence of the author left the subject bare
and cold. This explains the singular fact that his two volume work on "Ma-
teria Medica" was a total failure. Harrison's success as a teacher was the
output of his brilliant and seductive personality. In this respect he resembled
his great successor of recent years, Jas. T. Whittaker, who was a magician
only when he could be seen and heard. Harrison contributed many short
papers on a variety of subjects to the contemporaneous medical press. He
published a booklet "Essays and Lectures" which are readable. Some of his
addresses delivered before the medical classes on special occasions are worth
perusal. A few^ quotations will serve to illustrate Harrison's character as a
medical man.

In discussing the objects of medical societies, Harrison said before the
Medical Convention of Ohio May 28, 1844 :

"Gentlemen — The science of medicine has been greatly indebted for its advancement
to that liberal spirit which binds men together in consentient effort to promote each
others improvement. This social kindliness belongs to man in all the phases of his
being; it is exhibited by the child in the thoughtless gaities of its existence; it is seen
in the various combinations of political partisanship, and with controlling influence it
mingles with the adorations which the frail children of earth pay to their supreme and
universal Father. It is this spirit of social sympathy operating upon our professional
views and interests, which has called us together this day."

Harrison's suggestions for the removal of pessimism and malcontent from
the ranks of the profession are :

"1. A diligent study of the science of medicine. 2. A determined will to become
eminently useful in the profession. ?,. An earnest interest in the progress of medicine,
4. The cultivation of a benevolent regard for the sick. 5. A dignified self-respect. 6.
A high conception of the moral and intellectual excellence of the profession; and a
firm belief in the guardian care of Heaven."

197

In his Introductory Lecture before the class dehvered November 3, 1847,
Harrison pleads for better preliminary training of medical students. He says
that a classical education should be required of every student of medicine.
Harrison's discourse on "The Responsibilities of the Medical Profession,"
delivered in the Louisville Hospital, August 27, 1831. could be profitably read
by every doctor and student of medicine today. It is a veritable apotheosis
of truth and noblesse in medicine.

During his connection with the Aledical Department of the Cincinnati Col-
lege Harrison was one of the editors of the "Western Journal of Medicine."
In 1847 he became one of the associate editors of the "Western Lancet."
Harrison was president of the ^Medical Convention of Ohio in 1843, chairman
of the Committee on Medical Literature in the American Medical Association
in Baltimore in 1848. The following year at the meeting in Boston he was
elected vice-president of the American Medical Association.

In therapeutics Harrison was an advocate of what was at that time called
"solidism." It was thought that drugs were absorbed en masse and produced
their effect directly on certain organs and tissues. The blood and nervous
system do not figure at all. This was Galen's idea, revived and modernized by
Friedrich Hoffmann, professor in Halle about 1700, who is the founder of the
solidistic school of therapeutics. His name is perpetuated by "Hofifmann's
Anodyne." Harrison in adopting the theory of solidism retrogressed consid-
erably because his famous predecessors, John Eberle and James C. Cross,
were only conditional solidists. Eberle taught the physiological action of
some drugs and indulged in very clever speculation concerning the function
of the blood and nervous system in connection with drug action. Harrison's
retrogression to the solidism of the eighteenth century probably contributed
considerably to the failure of his book on "Therapeutics."" In addition to this,
Harrison was never original. He reproduced splendidly, but could not pro-
duce. Old Nathaniel Chapman had framed Harrison's mind. Chapman's
curious ideas about materia medica were a part of the therapeutic gospel which
Harrison expounded. In his youth Harrison was a great admirer of Charles
Caldwell, of Transylvania fame, who had the faculty of using more words to
say nothing than any other American medical writer of the last century.
Caldwell was distinctly a man of prejudices, very voluble and with a mar-
velous facility for elocjuently getting away from any subject he was discussing.
The influence of this man on Harrison's impressionable and strongly imitative
temperament was not beneficial. Harrison became a hidebound solidist and
with all his ardor and systematic mind advocated a dead issue in medicine
all his life.

LANDON C. RIVES was born in Nelson County, Virginia, in 1790. His
family were cultured and educated people who gave young Rives all the oppor-
tunities for acquiring a good preliminary education. At the age of eighteen
he graduated from William and Marv College in his native State and entered

the Medical Department of the University of Pennsylvania to study medicine.
He graduated with high honors in 1821, whereupon he returned to his native
county and practiced his profession for eight years. In 1829 he moved to
Cincinnati and, owing to the polish and urbanity of his manners, he soon
became a very popular physician. When Drake organized the Medical De-
partment of the Cincinnati College, he offered the chair of obstetrics to Rives.
The latter accepted the proffered professorship and remained with the school
until its dissolution in 1839. His popularity as a refined and scholarly gen-
tleman made him a tower of strength in the defense and support of "Drake's
College," as the institution was generally called. Professionally he was prob-
ably the weakest of that faculty of giants. This was not due to a lack of
scholarship or intellectual strength. These he possessed but he lacked in-
dustry, that indispensable factor in the makeup of a successful teacher. He
was satisfied to discharge the duties of his chair to the best of his ability.
Beyond that he had no ambition. Surrounded as he was by men of tre-
mendous ability who were working day and night for the good of the school
and their own professional advancement, his lack of industry became much
more a subject of comment. In addition to this he was not fond of writing,
quite the opposite of Drake, Gross and Harrison whose great reputation was
largely made with the pen. With the exception of a few short papers which
he contributed to the contemporary medical press, Rives has left no specimen
of his authorship. After the downfall of Drake's school Rives continued in
practice in Cincinnati, commanding the patronage of the best people of the
city. In 1849 he was asked to fill the chair of materia medica in the Medical
College of Ohio made vacant by the sudden death of John P. Harrison. The
following year the chair of obstetrics was assigned to him after the expulsion
of M. B. Weight, Thos. O. Edwards taking the chair of materia medica.
Rives who was by nature a man of fine instincts and feelings, severed his
connection with the turbulent Ohio College. During the term 1853-'54 he
lectured in the Cincinnati College of Medicine and Surgery on surgical and
pathological anatomy. He resigned at the end of the term. He continued
until the time of his death (1870) to be one of the foremost and most gen-
erally respected physicians in the Middle West. He was the father of Edward
Rives and the grand uncle of Landon Longworth, both subsequently connected
with the faculty of the Medical College of Ohio. A brother of Dr. Rives,
William C. Rives, gained distinction in the diplomatic service as minister of
the United States to the Court of France.

WILLARD PARKER, who during a long and extremely useful life, rose
to one of the highest places among American surgeons, practicallv began his
career as a surgeon and teacher of surgery in the Medical Department of the
Cincinnati College and can, therefore, aptly be considered a product of the
West and more especially of Cincinnati. He came from splendid revolutionary
stock. He was bom in Ilillsboro. X. H., in ISOO, and grew U]) on a farm near

lit!)

Chelmsford, Mass., where his father had settled when the boy was five years
old. Young Parker received his literary and medical education at Harvard
where he became the devoted friend and pupil of John C. Warren, of Boston,
that brilliant and versatile surgeon. Through Warren's example and influ-
ence Parker became fond of surgery. He was the first interne in the newly
founded Massachusetts General Hospital after he had served two years as
house surgeon in the United States Marine Hospital at Chelsea. He was
twenty-six years old when he took his degree of B.A., was interne in the
Massachusetts General Hospital from 1828-'29 and graduated in medicine in
1830 from the Harvard School. As a student of medicine he had a reputa-
tion for his anatomical knowledge and delivered a course of lectures on
anatomy in the medical school at Woodstock, Vt. In 1830 he was made pro-
fessor of anatomy in Berkshire Medical College, of Pittsfield, Mass. When a
vacancy occurred in the chair of surgery, Parker was appointed to fill it. In
1835 he went to Europe for study and to recuperate his health. In 1836 he
accepted the chair of surgery in the Cincinnati College, and thus became the
successor of Horatio B. Jameson who had returned East after the first session
of the school. Parker's record as a surgeon and teacher was in keeping with
the work done by his brilliant colleagues in the other chairs, Drake, Gross, etc.
He was a dashing and fearless operator and an eloquent and scholarly lec-
turer. His competitor at the Medical College of Ohio during the first session
was Alban G. Smith (Goldsmith) who, while not without ability, seemed to
make no impression as a surgeon. He was at that time probably too busy
with medical politics to pay much attention to the scientific requirements of
his chair. His record in Cincinnati is referred to elsewhere. He was no
match for the brilliant Parker who was much devoted to surgical science and
never missed an opportunity to place himself prominently before the profes-
sion. He wrote a good deal for the medical journals, was a faithful attendant
at the meetings of medical societies, and, as a result of his activity, was soon
among the best known surgeons in this part of the West, even rivalling the
great Mussey who came to Cincinnati in 1837. Parker's health failed about
the time of the dissolution of the Medical Department of the Cincinnati Col-
lege and he decided to return East where the chair of surgery in the College
of Physicians and Surgeons in New York had been ofifered him. In accepting
the offer he, strangely enough, became the successor of his old rival A. G.
Smith who after leaving the Medical College of Ohio had become professor
of surgery in the New York school. Parker held this chair for thirty years
and was admittedly one of the great American teachers of surgery. It will
be remembered that he was the preceptor of that prince of Western surgeons,
G. C. Blackman. Parker was the founder of the first surgical college clinic
in this country (1837) which he opened in conjunction with his work in the
Cincinnati College. In 1845 he was appointed surgeon to Bellevue Hospital,
in 1856 surgeon to the New York Hospital and in 1865 president of the New
York State Asylum for Inebriates, in the latter position succeeding the dis-

200

ting-uished Valentine Mott. Parker, like most of the great physicians of the
early times in this country (Drake, Mnssey, etc.), was a practical student of
the alcohol problem and accepted the above appointment because he saw great
opportunities for doing humanitarian work. In 1870 Parker resigned his
chair and became clinical professor of surgery, serving at the same time as
consulting surgeon in nearly every New York hospital of any prominence.
He was personally an immensely popular man. His appearance at meetings
of medical societies, especially towards the end of his life, was always the
occasion of a demonstration. He was a large, handsome man, graceful and
dignified in his conduct. He died in 1884 in New York.

His contributions to surgery were numerous and valuable. He was the
first man in this country who wrote on the surgical treatment of appendicitis
(1867). His classical treatises on "Concussion," "Cystotomy for the Relief
of Cystitis," and "A New Operation for Lacerated Perineum" made a deep
impression in Europe.

In 1870 Princeton made him an LL.D. Many foreign and American
scientific bodies elected him to honorary membership. The "Willard Parker
Hospital for Contagious Diseases" (New York) perpetuates the memory of
this distinguished pioneer of surgical science.

JAMES B. ROGERS was a member of a most extraordinary family of
scientists and naturalists. His father was Dr. Patrick Kerr Rogers, a Scotch-
Irishman, who came to this country towards the end of the eighteenth cen-
tury and in 1802 graduated in medicine from the University of Pennsylvania. In
the same year his son James was born. Doctor Rogers, Sr., took up his resi-
dence in Baltimore and gave his son the best educational advantages. In
1819 James entered William and Mary College in Virginia, where his father had
become the professor of natural philosophy. In 1821 James began his medical
studies in the University of Maryland and took his degree in 1822. During
his student days he became well acquainted with Horatio G. Jameson who
offered him a few years later the chair of chemistry in Washington Medical
College. Rogers had begun to practice medicine but abandoned it to accept a
much more congenial occupation, that of superintendent of the Chemical
Works of Tyson and Ellicott in Baltimore. In 1835 Rogers came to Cin-
cinnati in response to the invitation of Daniel Drake who was anxious to fill
the chairs in his new school with the best men obtainable. In Cincinnati
Rogers met his old friend Jameson who had accepted the chair of surgery in
Daniel Drake's College. Rogers in the chair of chemistry was a revelation.
To his youthful enthusiasm and brilliant scholarship he added a personality
of great force and the sort of eloquence that could made even as dry a sub-
ject as chemistry interesting and fascinating. Rogers rivalled Drake and
McDowell who were the acknowledged orators in the school. Strangely
enough, Rogers ten years previously had refused the chair of chemistry in
Washington Medical College in Baltimore, giving as a reason his total unfit-

201

ness for a lecturer's chair. He felt embarrassed and timid before the class,
could not speak coherently and, for this reason, declined Jameson's offer.
Jameson coaxed him and reasoned with him, very much like Socrates with the
timid Alcibiades. Finally Rogers yielded to Jameson's persistent plea and
appeared before the class in Washington Medical College. He soon found
that he had no difificulty in addressing the class and before the end of the
term was considered a most eloquent lecturer. This was the same J. B.
Rogers who ten years later kept the students in Drake's College spellbound
with his eloquent discussions of chemical lore. Rogers remained in Cincin-
nati until 1839. During the summer months he assisted his brother William
in making a geological survey of Virginia. In 1S40 he joined his brother
Henry in a geological survey of Pennsylvania. In 1841 he lectured on chem-
istry in the Philadelphia Medical Institute and became a warm friend of John
Bell, afterwards a professor in the Medical College of Ohio. For a short
time he was professor of chemistry in Franklin College, Philadelphia. In
1847 his great talents and achievements were rewarded by the professorship
of chemistry in the University of Pennsylvania. He became the successor
of the distinguished Robert Hare. He took a deep interest in all things per-
taining to the welfare of the profession and, with his friend John Bdl,
assisted in the organization of the American Medical Association. He edited
a number of standard works on chemistry. He was universally respected and
beloved on account of his generous and warm-hearted temperament and his
sunshiny and yet dignified conduct. He died in 1852. His brother, Flenry D.,
became professor of natural philosophy in the University of Glasgow. An-
other brother, William B., was one of the founders and the first president of
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Still another brother, Robert E.,
became the successor of James B., in the University of Pennsylvania and later
was professor of chemistry in Jefiferson Medical College. Samuel D. Gross
says of James B. Rogers that he was a marvelously gifted man, a veritable
Demosthenes before the class, modest and amiable in his conduct, with a
wealth of sunshine in his nature but never much money in his pocket.

JOHN LEONARD RIDDELL who for one year shared with James B.
Rogers the responsibilities of the chair of chemistry and at the same time gave
courses in botany, was born in Leyden, Mass., in 1807. After graduating
from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, N. Y., he attended Worth-
ington College, Ohio, and served for a few months as professor of chemistry
in the newly founded Medical Department of the latter. The Medical Depart-
ment of Worthington College was subsequently transferred to Cincinnati
under the name of the Cincinnati Eclectic Institute. In 1835 Riddell came to
Cincinnati and taught at Drake's College. In 1836 he went to New Orleans.
For a period of twenty-nine years he held the chair of chemistry in the Med-
ical Department of the University of Louisiana. At the time of his death,
1865, he was considered by many to be the foremost American scientist. He

202

was the inventor of the binocular microscope. He discovered a new botanical
genus, the RiddelHa, which was named after him. He pubhshed a compre-
hensive work on "The Flora of the Western States" (1836), advocated the
organic nature of miasm and contagion as early as 1836, wrote extensively on
metallurgy and numismatics, made extensive investigations concerning the
microscopic characteristics of the blood in cholera and yellow fever. For
many years he held the post of melter and refiner at the United States Mint
in New Orleans. While connected with the Medical Department of the Cin-
cinnati College his title was adjunct professor of chemistry and lecturer on
botany.

203

CHAPTER XI.

THE MEDICAL COLLEGE OF OHIO.

(Third and Fourth Decades.)

THE reorganization of the Ohio faculty in 1837 and the collapse of
Drake's school in 1839 opened a new era in the history of the school.
The trustees had rewarded those who had stood by the school when
its destinies' were in the hands of the Legislators. Wright and Kirtland were
made professors, Robert Thompson and Wm. M. Awl, both of Columbus,
were made doctors of medicine honoris causa. The man who managed the
affairs of the college was John Shotwell, able and popular, but not big enough
to seek his triumph in the welfare of the school. He wanted to be the maker
of policies and the dictator of the school. Mussey and Moorhead had both
passed the age of restless ambition. They did not interfere with him or his
schemes. Kirtland was a stranger and too much interested in scientific work
to care for any advancement that might come to him by toadying to Shotwell.
He resigned in 1842 to seek a more congenial atmosphere. Harrison and
Lawson were both internists and were not in the way of Shotwell's surgical
ambition. Harrison was a remnant of Drake's school and, therefore, hardly
in a position to assert himself. Lawson was indifferent. Whenever things
were not to his liking, he went elsewhere to lecture. The Lexington and Louis-
ville schools were glad to take him whenever he cared to come. He was a
good teacher and the Ohio trustees were always glad to get him back. The
man in the faculty who openly opposed Shotwell's dictatorial conduct was
Wright, who was seconded by Locke. The latter was the idol of the students
and the most highly respected member of the faculty. He had a national
reputation as a scientist. Locke loved the college and disliked the much
younger Shotwell because he did not trust his motives. Shotwell had the
board of trustees under his thumb through his friend J. L. Vattier. Some
of the trustees could not be whipped into line, but they were in the hopeless
minority. Such were the conditions in the third decade. That the dove of
peace did not hover over the meetings of the professors can readily be
understood.

There were extraneous influences that disturbed the healthy growth of
the school. A dangerous rival had risen in Louisville, the Louisville Medical
Institute. Drake and Gross were members of the Louisville faculty. Jedediah
Cobb was also there. Charles Caldwell, famous as an author, John Esten
Cooke, the distinguished teacher of materia medica : Henry Miller, widely

204

known as a g^'necologist of ability ; L. P. Yandell, an eloquent lecturer on
chemistry, were the other members of the Louisville faculty. They built up a
large school in a comparatively short time. That the Medical College of Ohio
and Transylvania University lost many students through the success of the
Louisville school, is plain.

Two new schools had sprung up in Cincinnati and added to the general
confusion, mainly by keeping up a vigorous agitation with reference to the
clinical advantages of the Commercial Hospital. One was the Physio-Medical
College conducted by the very able, but gushing, fussy and erratic Alva Curtis.
The other new school was the Cincinnati Eclectic Institute. In addition to
all this, the charges of neglect against the Ohio professors who were attending
the patients in the Commercial Hospital, were again brought by public and
press, and emphasized by indignation meetings and by vehement denuncia-
tions in the public prints. The agitation against the college was as active as
ever hi Columbus. Those trustees who constituted the minority and quite a
few physicians who aspired to be professors in the school, added their share
to the general discomfort and unrest in the faculty.

In spite of all these untoward circumstances the good work of the faculty
was apparent in the constantly increasing attendance. During the session
1844-'45, 177 students had matriculated at the Medical College of Ohio. The
evident prosperity of the school fanned the smoldering ashes of jealousy and
opposition into an open flame. The enemies of the school seemed more
anxious than ever to embarrass the school. The city council memorialized the
Legislature to turn the Medical College of Ohio over to the City of Cincin-
nati. Letters were sent to the Legislature from every part of the State de-
manding an investigation, some of them calling for the sale of the college
and a distribution of the proceeds among the other institutions of the State.
The answer of the trustees of the college was a formal appeal to the Legisla-
ture for an appropriation of $15,000 to rebuild the college. This was not in
entire accord with Shotwell's intentions. Instead of asking favors of the
Legislature and, in this way, becoming more dependent on the State, Shotwell
aimed to make the college independent and self-governing. He informed the
trustees that the professors would advance the money and accept a mortgage
on the property. The trustees, believing that the offer was made in good
faith, accepted it. Shotwell's next move was to have himself appointed ad-
junct professor of surgery. This irritated Mussey and he threatened to
resign. The trustees realized that a most uncomfortable situation had been
created which would eventually result in an open rupture. Some of them
suggested to get rid of both Mussey and Shotwell. The chairs of anatomy
and surgery were offered to Cobb and Gross who were teaching in Louisville.
Both declined. Mussey and Shotwell, allied in the protection of common
interests, resorted to a clever flank movement. They induced Daniel Drake
to apply for the chair of practice. They figured out that the glamor of his
name and the power of his personality would fortify their own positions,

205

strengthen the school and please the outside world. In this they were not
mistaken. By declaring all the chairs vacant, a rearrangement of the faculty
was made possible. Drake became professor of practice, IMussey and Shot-
well, respectively, assumed the chairs of surgery and anatomy. To prevent
the officious Shotwell from meddling with the demonstrator of anatomy, the
trustees decided to make the latter independent of the faculty and directly
responsible to the board of trustees. Shotwell felt the sting of this arrange-
ment. The session passed ofif without any improvement in the internal con-
ditions of the school. Drake, disappointed and disgusted, resigned at the end
of the term. His resignation caused a tremendous sensation in Cincinnati
where he was very popular among the great masses of the people. Forty-two
local physicians protested against his resignation and asked the trustees to
persuade him to remain. A week after Drake had resigned, a letter bearing
the signatures of fifty-three local physicians was received by the trustees,
asking for dismissal of the whole faculty. IMussey, Bayless and Shotwell
had resigned before the end of the session. The school seemed to be totallv
demoralized. Two weeks after Drake had handed in his resignation, the
whole faculty was dismissed by the trustees. Again an attempt at improve-
ment was made by reorganization. In less than one year subsec|uent to the
beginning of the session 1849-'50, there were twenty-five changes in the
faculty of the Medical College of Ohio as a result of resignations, new ap-
pointments and reorganization and rearrangement of the old chairs and their
incumbents. The moral effect of this confused condition on the profession
can readily be imagined. The Medical Department of the University of Penn-
sylvania had, in the sixty years of its existence, experienced but thirty-four
changes in its faculty, only nine more than the Ohio College in twelve months.
Under these conditions the chairs in the Ohio College frequently went beg-
ging. Prominent men like Gross, Flint, Cartwright, Willard Parker, G. W.
Norris, Thos. W. Colescott, Benj. W. Dudley and his son E. L. Dudley, of
Transylvania, flatly refused to have anything to do with the Ohio College.
Those outsiders, who did accept, did not remain long, for instance Bell, Bay-
less, Baxley and others.

The root of all the evil was the unfortunate system whereby the trustees
were elected by the Legislature every three years. The scramble for appoint-
ments, the promises made, the political affiliations, all contributed towards
making the trustees a board of meddlers. The prevailing thought was to
dictate to the faculty. Then there was the strife among the professors. Shot-
well in his lectures on anatomy was constantly invading the field of surgery
which annoyed Mussey and gave rise to long and serious discussions during
the faculty meetings. The difficulty was adjusted by a resolution accurately
defining Shotwell's and Mussey's chairs.

Shotwell's death in 1849 did not by any means restore order. A good
account of the troubles of the Ohio College is given in a "Memorial" pub-
lished by M. B. Wright who was the storm center during the embroglio of

206

1850. lie oi)enly antagonized A'attier who, as secretary of the hoard of
trustees, was practically the dictator of both trustees and faculty. In his
"jNIemorial" Wright informs us that Drake's resignation was prompted by
the latter's digust with Vattier's methods who had established a system of
espionage whereby he was enabled to watch the doings of every man in
the College. Men who did not do his bidding were blacklisted and hounded.
Wright speaks of a ring in the board of trustees the purpose of which was to
sustain V'attier as the dictator of the college, ostracize his opponents socially
and ruin them professionally. Wright deplores the absence of cordial feeling
and co-operation among Cincinnati doctors for the general good. Vattier
had by no means smooth sailing. In the Spring of 1849 the students of the
college met and in open meeting condemned the narrow policy of the trustees.
Certain reforms were declared to be absolutely necessary. Honest John Locke
whose loyalty to the college could not be questioned, addressed a communi-
cation to the trustees full of bitter truths. This letter eventually led to Locke's
dismissal from the school. Dr. Thos. O. Edwards publicly declared that he
looked upon the entrance of any man into the Ohio College as the acceptance
of his professional death-warrant. He favored the organization of a new
school. In 1850 the Methodists tried to open a medical school in Cincinnati
as the Medical Department of Wesleyan University, Delaware, Ohio. A bitter
controversy ensued in the religious and medical journals. If the champions
of the Methodist medical school had succeeded in getting control of the Com-
mercial Hospital on equal footing with the Ohio College, their new school
would have gone into operation in 1850. Tom Edwards who was an experi-
enced politician, urged the organization of the new school. Later on he pro-
posed to make the Ohio College the Medical Department of Wesleyan Uni-
versity which would have placed the Ohio school under the trustees of the
Wesleyan school. A'attier was perturbed because of Edwards' attitude. In
order to put him out of the wa}-, he offered him a chair in the Medical Col-
lege of Ohio. Edwards fell into the trap and his opposition ceased.

In 1850 the struggle between \'attier and Wright became acute. Wright
in an open letter addressed to Dr. Robert Thompson, of Columbus, Ohio,
vehemently condemned the annual report of the trustees. He had three sup-
porters in the board of trustees, Messrs. Tefft and Ball and Doctor Mount.
The latter was the president. During his absence from the city Vattier called a
meeting of the trustees and brought charges against Wright. He produced a
dozen letters from local physicians in which Wright was roundlv abused.
These letters had come in response to a circular which \'attier sent out. He
had, of course, been careful in not sending his circulars to any but enemies of
Wright. The latter's positive character had made him quite a few enemies in
the profession. Vattier succeeded in his scheme. Wright was dismissed from
the school. A ludicrous incident of the meeting was the display of feeling and
indignation on the part of Vattier who informed his colleagues that one of
their number, Mr. Tefft. was an enemy to the school and to the science of

207

medicine because he had recently employed a homoeopathic physician in
his family. In order to convince the profession of the purity and unselfish-
ness of his motives, Vattier issued an open letter to the physicians of the
State of Ohio in which some very unconventional statements are made about
M. B. Wright. The latter followed this open letter with a manifesto which in
point of peppery invective left nothing to be desired.

There was still another factor that added to the confusion in the college.
There were many young men in the city who were anxious to be medical
teachers. These younger men were a constant menace to the stability of the
faculty because most of them were willing to accept an appointment under
any and all conditions. Most of these aspirants were able and ambitious,
and not without experience as teachers. Some of them had had private
classes in one or two branches. Thos. Wood gave private dissecting courses
in the Ohio Dental College (on College Street) to medical and dental stu-
dents. A. H. Baker who in 1851 chartered a new college, conducted quizz-
classes in all branches in 1850. A more pretentious enterprise was a private
medical school conducted by Chas. L. Avery, E. K. Chamberlin, J. F. White,
J. A. Murphy, J. B. Smith and J. A. Warder. Others had banded together
and had made up a faculty called the "Medical Institute of Cincinnati" which
in 1850 issued quite a pretentious announcement. Their lectures began in
March and continued for sixteen weeks. The trustees of the Medical College
of Ohio allowed them the use of the lecture rooms and permitted the pro-
fessors of the college to co-operate with them in the college and in the Com-
mercial Hospital. The most conspicuous lecturers in the "Institute" were
W. W. Dawson (anatomy and physiology), George Mendenhall (obstetrics
and diseases of women) ; Chas. W. Wright (chemistry), who became pro-
fessor of chemistry in the Ohio College in 1853; Thomas Wood (surgery),
subsequently a member of the Ohio faculty, and C. G. Comegys (thera-
peutics), who became a medical teacher of great prominence. Similar insti-
tutions (preparatory courses, private classes, summer schools) had sprung
up periodically. In 1844 Mendenhall, Woodward, Wood, Warder and others
opened a City Dispensary and gave regular courses. As early as 1837 an
independent summer school existed in Cincinnati, conducted by young men
who were not connected with any college. The "Institute" of 1850 was in
reality the forerunner of the Miami Medical College. The "Institute" was
crystallized into a college when Reuben D. Mussey stepped out of the Ohio
College and furnished the nucleus of prestige necessary to a new school.
Those members of the Institute faculty who did not become Miami profes-
sors, were immediately absorbed by the Ohio College. The only exception
was Dawson who continued giving private courses in anatomy until 1861
when he also became a professor in the Medical College of Ohio. A medical
institute similar to the Cincinnati Institute existed in Dayton, Ohio, in 1853.

Once every year the Legislature through its "Standing Committee on
Medical Colleges and Societies" issued a report in which the perpetual trou-

208

bles of the Medical College of Ohio formed a conspicuous part. These
reports bristled with sarcastic references to the medical profession, to fighting
and wrangling doctors, to quackery in and out of the profession and some
other subjects concerning which laymen are not supposed to know anything.
The condition of the only State institution for medical learning, the Medical
College of Ohio, was in 1850 practically hopeless. No one thought that the
seemingly inevitable end could be averted. In this hour of distress Vattier
decided to arouse new interest and infuse new enthusiasm for the college
by throwing the weight of his political influence on the side of those who
had urged the erection of a new building for the college.

MEDICAL College of Ohio (1852)

A most important meeting of the trustees was called by Vattier, February
22, 1851. Thos. O. Edwards, now a member of the faculty, was authorized
to go to Columbus, aid in making certain changes in the charter and get per-
mission to secure a loan for the erection of a new building. Edwards was
successful. A special committee was authorized to procure a loan of $20,000
by issuing forty bonds of $500, the capital to be paid back in ten years. Sub-
sequently twenty more bonds were issued. To help in paying the interest on
these bonds each professor was taxed $300 annually which again gave rise
to friction. The plans for the new building were drawn by Walter and Wil-
son, architects, and were approved. Within one year the building, a Gothic
structure of imposing appearance and considered the finest and most prac-
tical edifice of its kind in this country, was ready for occupancy. It contained
two large amphitheaters, each capable of accommodating between five and six

hundred students, rooms for clinics, library, museum, laboratories, dissection
and private apartments for the faculty. This historic building which was erected
at a cost of $50,000 was the home of the Medical College of Ohio during the
aetas aurea of the latter. Within its halls the mighty voices of the past,
those of Blackman, Wright, Bartholow, Graham, Whittaker, Conner and
Reamy were heard and the giants of those days were greeted with tumultuous
applause by five hundred students gathered ' from the length and breadth of
the continent. A thousand ties of sentiment and recollection bind the alumni
of the college to the good old building that was for forty-six years a land-
mark of the city. The building was razed in 1896. The day on which the
work of destruction was begun, was dark and dreary, with an occasional
rainfall. Sadness was in the very atmosphere. The leaden clouds in the
heavens seemed to betoken death and destruction. The glories of the past
vanished with the old structure. But to return to our narrative.

The physicians of Cincinnati in 1852 were determined to support the re-
organized faculty against those trustees who were considered meddlesome.
A memorial signed by John A. Murphy, W. W. Dawson, A. S. Dandridge,
Geo. Mendenhall and forty others of similar standing asked for the resigna-
tion of two trustees who had submitted a minority report to the Legislature
in which many sarcastic references to "fussy, discordant and jealous doctors"
occurred. The storm in the tea kettle finally subsided and all was again
serene. One of the offending trustees, Hon. Flamen Ball, remained a trustee
for some thirty more years and his death was lamented by every friend of
the college. It was a singular coincidence that Drake, the father of the col-
lege, died in the same year when its proud home was ready for occupancy.
The forced retirement of Locke was a pathetic incident of the year 1852.

The opening of the new building seemed to pave the way for a strong and
prosperous career of the college. The organization of rival schools (Cincin-
nati College of Medicine and Surgery in 1851, Miami Medical College in
1852) had a wholesome effect. The fourth decade in the life of the college
witnessed the advent of two men who were towers of strength, George C.
Blackman (1855) whose reputation was second to none as a scholar and a
surgeon, and James Graham (1855) who was a peerless teacher and a born
peacemaker. In 1853 the college clinic was established. Graham's services
as the conciliatory member of the faculty were in constant demand after
Blackman had gotten fairly acquainted. New men were added and others
eliminated. One or two resignations marked the end of every term. In
this respect conditions had not changed. But in one respect the situation was
materially different. Even if some of the professors did not live in harmony
with each other, they were all tremendously able men after 1855 and showed
considerable esprit de corps when the interests of the college were concerned.
The year 1857 was signalized by two commencements, two complete sessions
having been held. The same year witnessed the absorption of the Miami
Medical College by the Ohio school, four of the Miami professors (Foote,

210

Judkins, Mendenhall, Comegys) being added to the Ohio faculty to take the
place of four Ohio professors who had resigned, (Tate, Marshall, Armor,
Warder). The ad eimdem degree was conferred on all Miami alumni who
applied for the Ohio diploma. In 1859 it was decided by the trustees to
allow one student from each Congressional District of Ohio to attend gratu-
itously, the appointment being left to the Congressman of each District.

The end of the fourth decade was marked by many tempestuous faculty
meetings in which Blackman, a veritable Jupiter tonans, took his stand against
the whole faculty, most of whom were afraid of his temper. The appear-
ance of Comegys invariably affected Blackman like the proverbial red rag
the bull. During the session 1859-'60 Blackman appeared before the class
and expressed his opinion about all his colleagues generally and some of them
specifically. The faculty demanded an apology. Blackman, of course, re-
fused and repeated the performance before the class. The faculty appealed
to the trustees, who refused to interfere. The faculty threatened to resign
in a body if Blackman was not removed. The trustees accepted the resigna-
tions of Comegys, Murphy, Mendenhall, Lawson, Richardson, Foote and
Judkins. Graham unwillingly joined the retiring professors because he did
not approve of Blackman's action. Blackman triumphantly held the fort.
This was the situation at the beginning of the fifth decade (1860).

The men who were particularly active in the board of trustees were
William Mount, John P. Foote and Flamen Ball. Their names deserve to
be remembered. J. L. Vattier would have done better if he had been less
of a politician. He was the friend of Shotwell and the sworn enemy of
Wright. This accounts for the many difficulties in which he was involved.
He instigated the dismissal of John Locke which was a disgrace to the col-
lege. Locke was not pliable enough. This was the crime for which he was
expelled. A picturesque figure in the college was William DeBeck, the first
janitor in the new building. He is the grandfather of David DeBeck, a dis-
tinguished oculist, for many years connected with the Medical College of
Ohio and now practicing in Seattle, Wash.

The number of matriculants in 1842 was 360 in the University of Penn-
sylvania, 220 in Jefferson Medical College, 200 in Transylvania University,
180 in the Louisville Medical Institute. All the schools had experienced a
decrease in the attendance, in part due to the financial stringency of that year.
There were eight regular medical colleges in the South and West at that
time. The following year (1843) the Louisville Medical Institute had 230
students, Transylvania University 214, University of Pennsylvania 400, Jef-
ferson ^ledical College 300.

A number of small schools started up about this time: Medical Depart-
ment of Laporte University, Indiana, with 27 students, Kemper College Med-
ical School (founded by J. N. McDowell), St. Louis, Mo., with 75, Cleve-
land Medical College with 65, Willoughby University with 48 students. In
1850 the Cleveland Medical College (Western Reserve) had 255 students and

21!

agreed to accept promissory notes, thus encouraging a questionable credit
system ; Starling Medical College had 151 students in 1850 and a new building
in course of construction ; the Medical College of Evansville, a very self-
confident upstart, had 39 pupils and claimed to be practically the best medical
school in America; Jefferson Medical College claimed 516 students, the Med-
ical Department of the University of New York 411, the University of St.
Louis 112, the University of Louisiana 175. It is but fair to state that most
of these figures published in the journals of those years should be taken cum
grano salis. It seemed to be the proper thing to exaggerate figures. The
published number of the matriculants in the Medical College of Ohio was
always at least 30 per cent larger than the actual number entered on the books.
This was the customary modus operandi with practically all medical schools
in those days, especially in the West. The announcements issued by the
schools, impress the reader of today as being strangely at variance with the
unwritten laws of tact and taste. They read like the advertisements of a
merchant praising his wares. Every professor is eulogized as absolutely the
foremost exponent of his branch in the country. The "Western Lancet"
(1850) condemns this practice as being foolish, improper and unprofessional.
In 1856 the Medical College of Ohio did not issue an announcement of lec-
tures and catalogue of students. Times were hard and competition very
close. A. H. Baker's College of Medicine and Surgery, practically a free,
school, was an unfair competitor. All these circumstances prepared the con-
solidation of the Ohio and Miami Colleges in 1857.

The fees charged in 1850 were $84. The authorities of the College
steadfastly refused to adopt the tactics of some of the rival schools that tried
to attract students by lowering the fees. Rush Medical College had reduced
the fee for one course of lectures to $35. Evansville Medical College in due
deference to the temperance-hysteria which was epidemic in this country at
that time, ofifered to credit any student with one-half of his fee if he would
take the pledge — "a grand scheme for converting medical students into hypo-
crites" ("Western Lancet," 1850, p. 655). It is interesting to know that N. S.
Davis, the founder of the American Medical Association, was at that time an
avowed advocate of free medical schools.

In most of the Western schools of those days two courses of five months
each were required for graduation. In the smaller colleges there was a ten-
dency towards shortening the length of the term. In the East six months
constituted a term. The question of higher medical education agitated the
professional mind in those days as much as it does today. There were not a
few who urged the possession of the baccalaureate degree as being a neces-
sary requirement of matriculation in a medical school.

The history of the college in its relation to the individuals who were its
principal figures between 1840 and 1860, will be better understood by studying
the part which these men played with reference to and their personal attitude
towards the school.

212

Daniel Oliver Thomas O. Edwards

H. Willis Baxley

John Bell " O. \V. Bavli-.

DANIEL OLIVER, while he occupied a medical chair in Cincinnati for
but one session, is entitled to notice because he was during" his professional
career acknowledged one of the best educated and most versatile physicians
in this country. He was born in Salem, Mass., in 1787, and received his lit-
erary education at Harvard. He finished his classical course at Harvard in
1805 and did post-graduate work at Dartmouth (M.A., 1807). He attended
the Medical Department of the University of Pennsylvania and graduated in
medicine in 1810. Dartmouth conferred the ad eundeni degree of Doctor
of Medicine upon him. He was appointed lecturer on chemistry at Dart-
mouth in 1815 and remained with the institution for twenty-one years.
During this period he held different professorships. From '1820 he lectured
on practice. In 1825 he included physiology and materia medica. In 1836
he also lectured on medical jurisprudence. He resigned his medical profes-
sorship in 1836 and for two years filled the chair of mental philosophy. His
successor in the chair of practice was John Delamater. In 1840 he followed
his friend, R. D. Mussey, to Cincinnati and for one term lectured on materia
medica and pathology in the Medical College of Ohio. His health failing, he
returned East and located in Cambridge, Mass., in the expectation of be-
coming a member of the faculty of the Harvard Medical School, as soon as
his health would permit. He did not improve, however, but grew rapidly
worse and died in 1842 of cancer of the throat.

Oliver was a classical scholar of national reputation. He was well versed
in French, German and Italian and was considered a logician and philosopher
of great ability. He was fond of music and played on several instruments,
particularly the piano. He was a modest, reserved and dignified man, deeply
religious and a biblical scholar of note. He wa« the author of a widely read
text-book of physiology and at the time of his death was engaged in pre-
paring a book on pathology. In conjunction with Dr. J. Pickering, of Dart-
mouth, he edited a Greek dictionary which was the standard in this country
for many years.

NOAH WORCESTER (Worchester) was born in Thornton, N. H., in
1812. He attended Harvard University, getting his degree in 1832. He
taught at the Dartmouth Medical School and the Cleveland Medical College.
While teaching at the latter institution he wrote "A Synopsis of the Symp-
toms, Diagnosis and Treatment of the More Common and Important Diseases
of the Skin. With sixty colored figures." This book which, I am inclined
to think, is the first treatise on dermatology ever published in this country,
was a pretentious looking 8vo volume of 202 pages. During the session
1842-'43 Worcester held the chair of physical diagnosis and pathology at the
Medical College of Ohio. He was a shrewd and energetic man who rapidly
attracted a large clientele in this city. He shared offices with R. D. Mussey
and was the latter's confidential friend. He died in Cincinnati in 1847.

LEONIDAS MOREAU LAWSON came from Nicholas County, Ken-
tucky, where he was born September 12, 1812. He received a fairly good
general education in the schools of his native county, and at the age of
eighteen began to read medicine as a "student-apprentice.'' After he had
studied medicine in this way for two years, he was given a practitioner's
license for the First Medical District of Ohio. He moved to Mason County,
Kentucky, and practiced there for three or four years. In 1837 he attended
the Medical Department of Transylvania University and received his medical
degree the following year. Three years later he moved to Cincinnati and
founded the "Western Lancet" which appeared for the first time in 1843 and
continued under his charge for thirteen years. Lawson sold it in 1855 to
Dr. Thomas Wood. In 1844 he was ofifered a professorship in Transylvania
University. In order to equip himself properly for the duties of his new
position he went to Europe and studied in the clinics of Paris and London.
He located in Lexington and lectured at Transylvania for two terms. In
the meantime the "Western Lancet" continued to appear in Cincinnati under
his editorial management. The rivalry of the Medical College of Ohio and
Transylvania University placed him in a very awkward position because he
belonged to the faculty of Transylvania and yet was the editor of a medical
journal which was issued from the home town of the Medical College of
Ohio. He maintained a tactful neutrality and managed to keep the good
will of both faculties. In doing so, he displayed that remarkable self-posses-
sion and diplomacy that were characteristic of his dealings with the profes-
sion and with his colleagues all his life. In 1847 John T. Shotwell con-
cluded that Lawson would be a useful man in the Medical College of Ohio,
and induced him to accept the chair of materia medica and pathology. Law-
son came to Cincinnati, managed to maintain agreeable relations with every-
body, weathered the storm of 1850 and finally, in 1853, became professor of
practice. The following two sessions he spent in Louisville, lecturing in the
Kentucky School of Medicine, and again showed his great diplomatic ability
as editor of the "Western Lancet," which was being published as before in
Cincinnati. In 1856 he resumed his position as professor of practice in the Med-
ical College of Ohio. He died of tuberculosis in 1864. Strangely enough, the dis-
ease, that killed him, had given him his greatest professional reputation. He
did much of his best work in the study and analysis of diseases of the lungs
and in 1861 published his much admired work on the subject named. As an
authority on physical examination of the chest he had a national reputation.
The articles on the diseases of the lungs which he published in the "Western
Lancet," at different times, were of historical import because they contained
the first systematic presentation in this country of the uses of the stethoscope
and other auxiliaries in physical diagnosis. As early as 1844 he had edited
and published "Hope's Pathological Anatomy."

Lawson was a man of medium height, rather ordinary in appearance, cool
and collected in his manner, more like a business man than a professional man

215

in his demeanor. He had a distinctly practical mind, clear and forcible. His
command of language was good and sufficiently easy although never brilliant
or rhetorical. His calm, unimpulsive, methodical manner frequently bordered
on monotony. He was at all times a practical utilitarian that subordinated
high motives and ideals to the necessities of existing circumstances and
exigencies of his own benefit and comfort. He was a silent but close observer
of the drift of things. With his ear always to the ground, he was comfort-
ably carried by the sentiment of the majority. As a teacher his intensely prac-
tical mind made him a valuable member of the faculty. His work as a
medical editor was of great service to the profession because of the frigidly
practical manner in which he handled problems of professional life. His
papers, articles and editorials were models of conciseness of thought and
expression and compare favorably with the voluble and diffuse productions
of not a few medical writers of later days.

GEORGE W. BxWLESS was the son of a prosperous merchant in
Washington, Mason County, Ky., and was born in 1816. His father wanted
the son to become a business man but finally consented to the son attending
Augusta College. After young Bayless left the school he entered the office
of Drs. Talliaferro and N. T. Marshall as a student apprentice. These two
gentlemen who afterwards became distinguished practitioners and teachers of
medicine in Cincinnati, were at that time practicing in Washington, Ky.
After one year's apprenticeship Bayless in 1837 matriculated at the Louisville
Medical Institute and took his first course of lectures. The following year
he became a pupil in the University of Pennsylvania and graduated in 1839.
He returned to Louisville and began to practice. In Louisville he became the
friend and protege of Daniel Drake who had just moved there. Through
Drake's influence Bayless became the assistant of Jedediah Cobb as demon-
strator of anatomy in the Louisville school and subsequently for three terms,
upon Drake's and Cobb's recommendation, professor of anatomy in the Med-
ical College of Ohio (1849-'50 and 1853-'55). In 1857 he was appointed
professor of physiology and pathology in the Kentucky School of Medicine.
In 1863 he was made professor of physiology in the University of Louisville.
In 1865 he reached the goal of a lifelong ambition : he was elected professor
of surgery in the University of Louisville, a place made famous by the labors
of such men as Gross and Palmer. He died in 1873. The premature demise
of this excellent man and physician caused sorrow throughout the whole
Middle West, where his integrity and purity of character and his scientific
attainments were known and appreciated by hundreds o^ his friends and
former pupils.

JOHN BELL, who held the chair of practice in the Medical College of
Ohio after Drake's return to Louisville and left the chair to make room for
Drake when the latter came back for the second time to his first and only

216

love, the Medical College of Ohio, was born in Ireland in 1796 and came to
this country in 1810. His parents settled in Virginia where young Bell spent
five years amid hard work. In 1817 he graduated at the University of Penn-
sylvania where he had been the favorite pupil of Nathaniel Chapman. He
located in Philadelphia and began his career as a medical teacher in the
Philadelphia ' Medical Institute which was affiliated with the University of
Pennsylvania as a summer school of clinical medicine. Bell, previous to his
accepting the chair of practice in the Medical College of Ohio, had done a
great deal of literary work which had gained for him a vast reputation. His
papers on "Baths and Mineral Waters," "Health and Beauty," "Longevity,"
"Hydrotherapy" and "Dietetics" were well known to American medical
readers. "Stokes' Lectures on the Practice of Physic" had been re-written and
annotated by him. For about thirty years he had been the friend and
protege of Nathaniel Chapman and for about fifteen years the associate of
W. W. Gerhard, that brilliant investigator, who was the first physician to
differentiate between typhus and typhoid fever. Thus it will be seen that
Bell was a man of some consequence when he, as the result of an extremely
disagreeable controversy, left Philadelphia in 1851 and took up his residence
in Cincinnati. The aging Chapman had resigned his chair in Philadelphia
and John Bell was the logical successor, at least this is what John Bell
thought. The trustees of the University of Pennsylvania thought otherwise.
John Bell was beside himself and vented his ire in the approved fashion of
those days. He published a pamphlet in which he said some very unkind
things about trustees and thoroughly unbosomed himself about their favor-
itism and total lack of appreciation. Before the dust, which his very acrid
pamphlet had raised in Philadelphia, had had a chance to settle. Bell was
already on his way to Cincinnati. He lectured at the Medical College of
Ohio during the sessions of 1851-'53 and left a record of close attention to
duty and broad scholarship. That Bell looked upon his work in Cincinnati
as only temporary and incidental, is evident from the fact that he resigned
after the second term and returned to Philadelphia. He was at that time
fifty-seven years of age, a trifle superannuated, full of the grievances of
approaching old age and not in the best of physical condition. Bell had left a
magnificent private practice in Philadelphia which he hoped to regain upon
his return. In this he failed. He spent the last twenty years of his life in
comparative seclusion, writing for medical journals and feasting on the mem-
ories of an honored career. Noteworthy productions of his pen were
"Comb's Treatise on the Physiological and Moral Management of Infancy;
edited and annotated by John Bell," an essay on "Cholera" written conjointly
with D. F. Condie, an exhaustive treatise on "The Mineral and Thermal
Springs of the United States and Canada" and a classical paper on "Variola;
Its Modification and Treatment." It is interesting to know that the "Code of
Ethics" of the American Medical x\ssociation was, in its original form, tlie
work of John Bell.

217

Personally John Bell was a typical gentleman of the old school, pure-
minded and full of lofty aspirations. His beautiful character is shown by
his tender filial devotion towards his aging parents whose happiness and com-
fort were ever uppermost in his mind. He cared for them with unfaltering
loyalty until their death. Drake had much respect for Bell's ability and in-
tegrity. In one place he refers to "Our John Bell." This suggestive ap-
pellation really has a double significance. It conveys Drake's tender regard
for Bell and incidentally emphasizes the identity of the American John Bell
in contra-distinction to the John Bell of Edinburgh, who was the idol of his
many American pupils, notably Ephraim McDowell, Kentucky's famous son.

THOMAS O. EDWARDS was born in Williamsburgh, Md., in 1810, was
educated at Canonsburgh, Pa., read medicine in Hagerstown, Md., and re-
ceived his medical degree from the University of Maryland in 1831. In
1836 he located in Lancaster, Ohio, and soon acquired a large practice. In
1846, after a spirited canvass, he was elected to the thirtieth Congress. He
took a lively interest in the politics of the State and was on several occasions
the lobbyist and representative of the Medical College of Ohio during the
sessions of the Ohio Legislature. His work on behalf of the college was
rewarded by his appointment to the chair of materia medica in the Medical
College of Ohio. In 1855 he resigned and moved to Iowa. During the
Civil War he served as surgeon of the Third Regiment Iowa Volunteers. At
the battle of Pittsburgh Landing he was wounded and, after getting his hon-
orable discharge, he returned to Lancaster, Ohio, where he continued in
practice until 1875 when he moved to Wheeling, W. Va. Here he died the
following year. Edwards' record as a teacher in the Medical College of
Ohio is indififerent. He was not a man of great ability in medicine, either as a
teacher or a practitioner. He was a loyal supporter of the Ohio College, and,
in serving the interests of the school, did some clever work in watching the
trend of legislation and guarding the movements and forestalling the schemes
of the enemies of the school. As a member of Congress he did some excel-
lent work in the interests of legislation pertaining to pure foods and drugs.
His son, Thomas O.Edwards, Jr., was assistant to the chair of anatomy in 1873.

HENRY WILLIS BAXLEY was born in Baltimore in 1803, and received
his literary education at St. Mary's College of his native city. He attended
the University of Maryland and received his degree in medicine in 1821:. He
located in Baltimore and became in 1826 physician to the Baltimore General
Dispensary. He held the position for three years. In 1831 he was appointed
physician to the Maryland Penitentiary. In 1834 he became demonstrator
and in 1837 professor of anatomy and physiology in the University of Mary-
land. He resigned in 1839 and founded the Baltimore College of Dental Sur-
gery, the first dental school in the world. For one year he taught anatomy
and physiology in this institution. From 1842 to 1847 he was professor of

218

surgery in Washington Medical College, of Baltimore. In 1849 he was
appointed physician to the Almshouse. In 1850 he became professor of
anatomy in the Medical College of Ohio as successor to John T. Shotwell.
In 1852 when Jedediah Cobb returned from Louisville with Daniel Drake and
again filled the chair of anatomy, Baxley was elected professor of surgery,
taking the place of Reuben D. Mussey who had helped to found the Miami
Medical College and had become its first professor of surgery. Baxley re-
signed in the Spring of 1853 and returned East where he devoted himself
to the practice of surgery and to literary pursuits for which he was eminently
fitted. In 1865 the United States Government made him Inspector of Hos-
pitals. After he had finished his Government work he went to Europe and
remained there for ten years. He died in Baltimore in 1876, shortly after
his return from Europe.

Baxley was a surgeon of ability. He was probably the first man in the
United States to operate for strabismus and one of the first to remove the
entire lower jaw. He had a wide reputation as a joint surgeon. He was a
skilled microscopist. He possessed literary ability of a high order. In 1865
he published a volume on "What I Saw on the West Coast of North and
South America and on the Hawaiian Islands." In 1875 a London publisher
brought out two volumes by Baxley on "Spain's Art-remains, Art-realities,
Painters, Priests and Princes." Baxley was an erudite man with a keen and
vigorous mind. He had a restless disposition and was fond of change. His
incumbency of the chair of surgery in the Medical College of Ohio would
have probably been less short-lived if the conditions of the school, especially
of the faculty, had been more conducive to earnest effort and scientific work.
The end of the session 1852-'53 witnessed the exodus of Baxley, Cobb, Locke
and Rives. Drake had died at the beginning of the term. Edwards and
Lawson were the only professors left.

ASBL'RY EViVNS became professor of surgery in the Medical College
of Ohio at a time when a professorship in the institution seemed to ofifer no
temptation to surgeons of repute. The chair had in turn been ofifered to men
of reputation in Lexington, Louisville and other places. No one seemed
willing to exchange a certainty for the uncertainties of a position in the
demoralized Ohio College. H. Willis Baxley who filled the chair of surgerv
during the term 1852-'53 was glad to get away at the end of the term. He
had kept aloof from factions and factional fights and was on speaking terms
with everybody when he returned East in 1853. L'nable to find a successor
for the distinguished Easterner, the trustees ofifered the chair to a local man
who had a good reputation as a surgeon and promised to develop into a first-
class operator. His name was Asbury Evans, a general practitioner in Cov-
ington, Ky., who was well thought of by the profession of his town. He
was born in Mount Washington, Bullitt County, Ky., in 1817. He received
a fairly good education and liecame one of the first matriculants in the newly

219

founded Louisville Medical Institute. In 1840, the year made memorable by
Daniel Drake's removal to Louisville to become a member of the Institute
faculty, Evans graduated. He served his Alma Mater for one or tv^o terms
as demonstrator of anatomy and eventually located in Covington as a general
practitioner. He was instrumental in organizing the physicians of Campbell
and Kenton Counties. As a member of the Two Counties Medical Society
he was very active and contributed many papers of value. The surgical char-
acter of the subjects he discussed in his papers indicated his leaning towards
surgical work. He discussed "An Anomalous Case of Horny Excrescences,"
''Hydatid of the Liver," "Indications for Trephining," etc. Some of his
papers can be found in the files of the "Western Journal of Medicine and
Surgery" and the "Western Lancet." In 1853 he accepted the chair of sur-
gery in the Medical College of Ohio. He served two terms. That his ap-
pointment was not intended to mean a permanent, but merely a temporary
incumbency, was generally understood. While he was filling the chair to the
best of his ability, the trustees had not interrupted their negotiations to find a
surgeon of great reputation, to counterbalance the distinguished name of the
surgeon of the Miami Medical College, R. D. Mussey. Through Gross the
trustees found George C. Blackman and elected him. Evans resigned in the
Spring of 1855. He was in poor health and died of pulmonary tuberculosis
in 1858 in Covington. His assistant during his two terms of service was
MILTON T. CAREY, born in Hardin, Ohio, in 1831, a member of the class
of 1853, Medical College of Ohio. Carey was twice elected coroner of Ham-
ilton County (1857-1859), accompanied the Forty-eighth Regiment Ohio Vol-
unteer Infantry as its surgeon during the war, took part in the battle of
Shiloh, was captured, subsequently paroled and sent home He re-entered the
service and remained on duty until the end of the war when he was again
elected coroner. He was a useful, public-spirited citizen, an active politician
and a very successful physician. He died in 1901.

SAMUEL G. ARMOR was born January 39, 1819, in Washington
County, Pennsylvania. When he was eleven years of age, his parents moved
to Ohio and sent the boy to Franklin College. He attended the Missouri
Medical College, of St. Louis, and graduated in medicine in 1844. While he
was studying medicine, he was the pupil of Joseph N. McDowell, Daniel
Drake's bother-in-law, who founded the Missouri Medical College. Armor
practiced in Rockford, 111., for a short time. In 1847 he delivered lectures
on physiology and pathology in Rush Medical College. In 1849 he became
professor of physiology and general pathology in the Medical Department of
Iowa University. The following year he lectured on natural philosophy in
Cleveland University, a newly founded institution, now extinct. In 1853 he
competed for the prize offered by the State Medical Society of Ohio for the
best paper on the subject: "Zymotic Theory of the Essential Fevers." He won
the prize. His prize essay attracted the attention of the trustees of the

220

Medical College of Ohio who offered him the chair of physiology and path-
ology, which he accepted. The following year he was transferred to the
chair of practice and held this chair until 1857 when he resigned to enter
general practice in Dayton, Ohio. His resignation was prompted bv a
desire to please his bride who w^as a Dayton girl. He soon tired of practice
and gladly accepted an offer in 1858 to fill the chair of pathology and clin-
ical medicine in his old Alma Mater, the Missouri Medical College. Three
years later he moved to Detroit where he shared offices with Moses Gunn,
subsequently professor of surgery at Rush Medical College. Armor while
practicing in Detroit filled the chair of practice and general pathology in the
University of Michigan. In 1866 he became professor of materia medica.

Samuel G. Armor

AsBURV Evans

therapeutics and general pathology in the Long Island Medical College,
Brooklyn, N. Y. Two years later he took the chair of practice and became
dean of the faculty, succeeding the elder Flint. He remained with the last-
named institution until the time of his death which occurred October 27,
1885. He was buried in Dayton, Ohio. His widow, Mrs. Mary T. Armor,
was for many years president of the Ohio Humane Society, Cincinnati, Ohio.
In 1872 Dr. Armor was made Doctor of Laws — honoris causa — by Franklin
College. Doctor Armor was a medical teacher by vocation. He possessed
all the elements which go to make up the successful professor of medicine :
intense love of the subject, a fine presence, a pleasing voice and delivery and
boundless enthusiasm which was magnetic. During the earlier years of
his career he was restless and fond of change. He wanted to see other people
and other towns. This accounts for his frequent removals from place to
place, from college to college before he finally became permanently anchored
in the East. While he wrote extensively for the medical journals, his repu-
tation rested mainly on his excellent qualities as a teacher of medicine. One

221

of his best efforts was his valedictory to the class of 1857 of the Medical
College of Ohio. It is a splendid exposition of the philosophy of medicine.
Doctor Armor said :

"Our science is not made up of doctrines — speculations — theories. It has no fanciful
vagaries or abstract medical doctrines or speculations to defend. It is only a mass of
facts, and he who best interprets these facts, is the best physician. Hence, I affirm, its
votaries work in the only true direction of a safe and rational progress. Where facts lead
them, there they go, unmindful of any creed, or doctrine, or school. Legitimate medical
science, therefore, to be consistent with itself, should at all times inculcate a frank and
liberal readiness to concede all that is definitely proved or reasonably sustained, and this
spirit will, I hope, ever continue to animate the cultivators of our time-honored and noble
profession."

"Between rational medical science, therefore, and the varied forms of quackery, this
is our diagnosis : The latter rests upon a speculation, a theory, or a doctrine ; the former
upon fact. One is bound down by an immitigable creed ; the other has none. The one,
imprisoned within the narrow limits of vegetable power, allows some of the most valued
remedies of our materia medica to lie in idleness, which might have changed the trembling
chances of life; the. other teaches its votaries to seek their remedies wherever they {nay
find them — in the treasures of earth and air and sea. With one is slavery to creeds ;
with the other is liberty to select whatever remedy God places in our hands. The one
inverts the eternal law of the human mind, by making fact depend upon faith ; the other
makes faith depend upon fact."

"It has been well and ably argued by an eminent member of our profession, that it
is this universality of legitimate medicine that begets the varied forms of quackery. To
the weak and ignorant mind a creed is necessary; it leans upon it for protection from
its own imbecility; or, in case of that form of intellect which loves the marvelous, and
is given over to an excess of refinement, it seeks an anologue in medicine, and finds in
the subtle nothingness of Hahnemann the twin sister of its own spiritual tendencies."

"It is a curious phase of mental philosophy, that innate differences of intellect — the
comparative strength of the reasoning, perceptive, or imaginative faculties — govern their
owner in the choice of a medical system. It has been said that seven-eighths of the
followers of Swedenborg are also devotees of Hahnemann, and all must have noticed a
similar proclivity in Spiritualists of the present day. It is, at any rate, sufficiently evi-
dent that medicine is not exempt from the influences which govern systems of belief."

"An important inference may be reached from this view of the question, namely,
that legitimate medicine is unsuited to the peculiarities of certain minds, and will never
obtain their confidence. I came, then, gentlemen, to announce to you the unpleasant,
but I verily believe logical sequence, that quackery is immortal ! — immortal as the varying
phases of the human intellect. We may never hope to see the day when it will have no
more wondering worshipers at its shrine."

"Why, then, waste our energies in a useless and eternal warfare with quackery?
Let the medical men learn to cultivate their profession, multiply its facts, adorn the
pages of its literature, add to its dignity, and still more to its usefulness, and let quackery
take care of itself."

Doctor Armor was a medical teacher first, last and all the time. He
exemplified in his life the immutable fact that a man can not teach and prac-
tice medicine at the same time without being either an inferior teacher or a
poor practitioner of medicine.

A practicing physician who depends upon his practice for a living, should
not be a medical teacher because his work as a teacher would alwavs be a

side issue. He could not possibly do full justice to it. The medical teacher
should not compete with those who practice. His field of operation should
be the lecture room, the public hospital, the laboratory. The teacher should
have nothing- to do with medicine as a business. Natural aptitude and edu-
cational qualification should be his equipment. A suitable salary should give
him the mental repose and concentration which the cultivation of medicine as
a science requires. The problem of medical education in Cincinnati and else-
where will not be solved until medical teachers are made to fit chairs instead
of chairs being expected to fit the occupants.

THOMAS WOOD, surgeon, inventor, journalist, litterateur, poet, pic-
turesque and unique character, was the type of the gifted and lovable men
that gave Cincinnati much of her glory as a medical center. There is not
one of the older members of the profession today whose eyes do not brighten
up at the mention of "Tom" Wood, whom everybody loved and respected.
There was a suggestion of strength in the makeup of these men of bygone
days. The secret of their power as leaders and models of men seems to have
been buried with them. Their wonderful skill in controlling and inspiring
men seems to be one of the lost arts.

Thomas Wood was born in Smithfield, Jefferson County, Ohio, in 1814.
His father was a well-to-do farmer who gave his son all the educational ad-
vantages which the schools of his vicinity afforded. Young Wood took his
medical degree at the University of Pennsylvania in 1839 and spent three
years as an interne in an asylum for the insane, conducted by the Quakers in
Philadelphia. He located in his native town after his return from the East
and remained there until 1844 when, after a trip to Europe, he decided to
move to Cincinnati. He soon acquired a reputation as a fearless and re-
sourceful surgeon. In 1850 he was lecturer on surgery in the Cincinnati
Medical Institute, a Summer school which was conducted by such men as
L. M. Lawson, George Mendenhall and others. In 1853 he became the suc-
cessor of Wm. H. Cobb, the son of the great Jedediah, as demonstrator of
anatomy in the Medical College of Ohio. In 1855 he was appointed pro-
fessor of anatomy. In 1857 the chair of anatomy was divided between Wood
and Jesse Judkins, the former teaching surgical anatomy, while descriptive
anatomy was assigned to the latter. In 1858 microscopy was added to Wood's
subject. Things did not just suit Wood and he resigned in the Spring of
1859, one year before the great climax which consisted in every professor
with the exception of Blackman resigning. When the war broke out. Wood
offered his services to his country and took an active part in the medical and
surgical work in the field and in the hospitals. After the battle of Shiloh
he contracted blood poisoning and had to have one thumb removed to save
his life. After the war he lectured on surgery in the Cincinnati College of
Medicine and Surgery.

223

As a surgeon Wood's reputation was second only to that of Blackman.
He performed the first hysterectomy in Cincinnati and for a number of years
had the largest record of operations of this kind in the Middle West. He
performed a hip joint amputation October 2, 1871 in the new Cincinnati
Hospital. It was the first operation in the institution which two hours before
the operation had been formally dedicated and opened, Dr. M. B. Wright
delivering the introductory address. After a terrible wreck on the C. H. &
D. Railroad, which occurred October 20, 1880, Doctor Wood took charge of
the injured and had the misfortune of being infected. After fully thirty
days of suffering he died, a martyr at the post of duty.

Wood led a very active professional life. He lectured on anatomy in
the Ohio Dental College for a number of years. He was a liberal contributor
to the medical press and edited the "Western Lancet" after L. M. Lawson
had retired from the editorial chair. His style was always original, virile and
incisive. What he wrote, was clear-cut and to the point. His manner of
presentation was characteristic of the man, impulsive, sometimes delightfully
humorous, at other times suggestive of a sledge hammer. Wood tried his
hand successfully at novel writing. His "Legend of the Great Mound" was
published in a Cincinnati weekly in 1849. In his earlier years Wood was
as ready and skillful in the use of his fists as he was in wielding the pen.
In 1853 when a public meeting of the physicians of the city was held for the
purpose of discussing the alleged mismanagement of the Commercial Hos-
pital, the Ohio College was denounced on all sides. The friends of the Miami
College and the Cincinnati College of Medicine and Surgery did their best
to add to the embarrassment of the college. M. B. Wright, who at that time
was at loggerheads with the Ohio Faculty, made a caustic and denunciatory
speech against the Ohio College. The cause of the latter seemed lost. At
this moment Wood who had but recently become a professor in the Ohio
College, sprang to his feet and openly challenged Wright to an immediate
fisticuff engagement then and there to settle the matter. Wright who him-
self had a reputation along pugilistic lines, replied that he did not care to
disgrace the meeting, but that he was ready to accommodate Wood after the
meeting. Fortunately friends interfered. This incident illustrates Wood's
emotional temperament and his loyalty to the Ohio College.

Wood invented an instrument called the "Lineal Mensurator" for which
he was granted a patent. The purpose of the instrument was to enable anyone
to find the exact number of square feet in any piece of ground, however
irregular in outline. The instrument consisted of a small glass, in the shape
of a wedge, possessing the power of refracting the rays of light at a certain
angle, thereby causing the image of any object to appear at a small distance,
either to the right or left, above or below the real object, according as the
glass was held.

Wood was immensely popular among the people of Cincinnati, mainly
on account of his rugged, honest manner and his kindness to the poor. An-

224

other accomplishment— last, but not least — of this versatile man was his
poetical talent. He left quite a number of unpublished poems, many of
which are well conceived and beautifully written. Some are humorous, a
few are didactic, but most of them were inspired by his admiration for and
devotion to woman. Wood, like all good men, loved the ladies and apos-
trophized them in many well-worded poetic effusions.

JOHN A. WARDER was for twenty years one of the most eminent
physicians in Cincinnati and had at the time of his death risen to national
prominence as a naturalist. He was born in Philadelphia in 1812 and ab-
sorbed a deep love for and interest in Nature when a boy in his father's
house, where Audubon and other famous naturalists were daily visitors. In

I HOMAS Wood

John A. Wardkr

1830 the family moved to Springfield, Ohio. In 1834 young Warder re-
turned to Philadelphia to attend Jefferson Medical College. He graduated
in 183G. The following year he located in Cincinnati and began to practice
his profession. During his residence in Cincinnati he was not only an en-
thusiastic and successful member of the profession, but a public-spirited and
energetic citizen. He was for several years a member of the School Board
and gave much of his time and labor to the problems of hygiene and sani-
tation in the schools. He traveled extensively to study problems of school
construction, methods of instruction and educational systems, and worked
incessantly to introduce the best and most advanced ideas in the schools of
Cincinnati. Pie was an active member of most scientific societies in this
part of the country, especially the Cincinnati Natural History Society and
served as a member of the Ohio State Board of Agriculture. He was a
practical landscape gardener and helped in the establishment of that beautiful
sample of landscajje gardening, Spring Grove Cemetery. As early as 1850

225

he suggested and designed a park system for Cincinnati and, with all his
energy, helped in the popularization of flowers, lawns and trees for the in-
telligent decoration of homes. In 1853 he enriched botanical science by his
description of the Catalpa Speciosa, one of the most beautiful and valuable
forest trees, as a separate species. To the profession he gave his translation
of Trousseau and Belloe's "Laryngeal Phthisis." Most of his writings per-
tained to botany and practical forestry. The latter subject was particularly
dear to his heart. As a scientific as well as a practical exponent of forestry
he became a national figure. In 1873 he was United States Commissioner to
the Vienna Exposition and submitted an official report on forests and for-
estry which gave a tremendous impetus to the forestry movement in this
country. His practical papers on hedging, pomology, vineyard culture and
similar subjects have lost none of their value since they were written. In
1857 he left Cincinnati and moved to North Bend, Ohio, where he estab-
lished a home surrounded by a model garden and farm. In this little para-
dise, in the closest communion with Nature, he sought and found the happi-
ness which he had looked for in vain in the society of man. Men are to be
envied who can make realities out of the ideals of rustic peace and content-
ment so beautifully pictured by Horace (Ep. 11).

John A. Warder was a loyal friend of the Medical College of Ohio at a
time when the institution urgently needed help and support. He held the
chair of chemistry and toxicology during three terms (185-i-'57). His active
and useful life came to a close in 1883. He rests in North Bend beneath the
soil for whose appreciation and cultivation he had done so much. He was
the last one in that noble line of great naturalists like Drake, Kirtland and
Locke that have added so much lustre to the history of the Medical College
of Ohio.

T. N. MARSHALL was born in Augusta, Ky., in 1809. He received
his literary education at Augusta College, a reputed classical school of those
days. He graduated in 1829 and came to Cincinnati to attend lectures at the
Medical College of Ohio. He took his second course in the University of
Philadelphia where he received his degree in 1833. He located in Au-
gusta, but, in search of a larger and more promising field, came to Cincin-
nati in 1841 with Dr. Talliaferro, his friend and preceptor. He was a cul-
tured and very ambitious man who soon attracted a large patronage. In
1853 he was asked to fill the chair of obstetrics and diseases of women and
children in the Medical College of Ohio, thus becoming the successor of the
distinguished Landon C. Rives. Marshall was a popular and very able
teacher whose work during four sessions helped materially to restore the
reputation of the school which had begun to suffer owing to the continuous
internal entanglements. Marshall was an enthusiast who was thoroughly in
love with his work and knew how to inspire the students. He was by far
the most eloquent man in the faculty. During the session 1857-'58 Mar-

226

shall's health began to fail. He moved to a farm in Kentucky in the Spring
of 1858, but grew rapidly worse. He died June 7, 1858. His successor in
the college was George Mendenhall.

GEORGE CURTIS BLACKMAN whose claim to the foremost place
among the many who have wielded the scalpel in the Ohio Valley, during
the first century of the latter's history, has never been questioned, was a
product of New England, having been born in Newtown, Conn., April 31,
1S19, as the second son of Thomas Blackman who was for years judge of
the Surrogate Court. It seems a strangely suggestive coincidence that the
same year gave birth to the great school whose master surgeon he was
destined to become. He came from sturdy Puritan stock and, like his fathers,
spent his life a ceaseless toiler, poor in purse but rich in the achievements

George Curtis Blackman

of brain and heart, leaving to posterity the priceless legacy of an honored
name and the example of a career of unparalleled brilliancy.

Little is known concerning Blackman's childhood and early adolescence.
His preliminary education was obtained at preparatory schools in his native
town, in Bridgeport, Conn., and in Newbury, N. Y. He was a precocious
youngster, fond of reading and study. He entered Yale College in 1834.
At the age of nineteen he became a student at the College of Physicians and
Surgeons of the City of New York, graduating from the latter institution
in 18-JO. While at College he was a student in the office of Willard Parker
wh(t a few years previously had been associated with Drake, Gross and others
in the Medical Department of the Cincinnati College. Blackman returned to
his native town to practice his profession, Init ultimately located at New-
burgh, (Jrange County, New York. lie soon ac(|uiro(l the reputation of being
the best read physician in that vicinit}-.

His thirst for knowledge awakened in him the desire to visit England
and the Continent. With seventy-five dollars in his pocket he started out on
his voyage. When he arrived in London, the Mecca of his long-cherished
hopes, to sit at the feet of great masters and see and hear what was going
on in and near one of the world's great surgical centers, he was rich, indeed,
in the things that count in the world of ideals, in the realm of intellectual
achievements, but his pockets were empty and his stomach painfully void.
Is it not a bitter irony of the existence of clay born man that the loftiest
flights of genius and the greatest achievements of intellect, in their influence
on the trend of human affairs, are mere bagatelles compared to the cadaverous
eloquence of a gnawing stomach or a torpid liver? It is, indeed, pathetic to
think of Blackman, unquestionably one of Nature's favorite children, pur-
chasing two or three dry rolls a day to satisfy the importunate pleading of an
empty stomach, while his soul was drinking deeply from the Pierian spring.
He carefully kept his plight from his teachers who had learnt to respect the
young American's vast knowledge. Some of his teachers were among the
most famous surgeons of the day, notably Sir William Fergusson, of St.
Bartholomew's Hospital. Mr. George Pollock, of St. George's Hospital,
was very fond of Blackman and showed his great regard for him in many
ways. One day, it was during an unusually severe Winter, Blackman did
not put in an appearance at St. Bartholomew's. Another day came and still
another, Blackman did not appear. His teachers, particularly Sir William
Fergusson, were anxious about him and instituted a search. They found
him in a cheap lodging house in an ice cold room, snugly enfolded in his
bed clothes and absorbed in study. He had not left the house on account of
the cold weather and, being too poor to buy fuel, had spent his time in bed,
with his books to keep him company. His English friends were deeply
touched by this display of heroic devotion to science amid the bitterest priva-
tions and did everything in their power to relieve his wretched condition. In
view of such heroism who would begrudge Blackman the honored place
which his contemporaries, but more especially posterity, have accorded him
among the teachers and masters of surgery in America?

In his youth he was of frail build and frequently suffered from attacks of
bronchial trouble and pleurisy. Assiduous application to his medical studies
while at college had impaired his health considerably, and much apprehen-
sion was felt by the many who knew and esteemed the indefatigable young
physician. It, was thought that he was suffering from consumption of the
lungs. Young Blackman decided that a change in his environments and
habits was imperatively necessary for the restoration of his health. He made
application for the position of ship surgeon, and, having received the appoint-
ment, spent the five subsequent years of his life in the service of the old
Collins Line, whose steamships were the first to make regular trips between
New York and Havre (France). His health improved steadily. During his
long trips across the Atlantic he devoted much time to becoming familiar

228

with the Hterature of surgery, as presented by the contemporaneous text-
books and journals of the United States, England and France. He was a
lover of the French language and by continuous practice acquired great
dexterity in its use. He was an omnivorous reader and student. His ever-
increasing enthusiasm in his favorite line of scientific work, backed up by a
splendid preliminary education, a keen native intellect and an unfailing
memory, made him a master at a time when most men have hardly become
conscious of an inclination in any special direction. The five years spent on
board the Collins steamships developed that fine surgical instinct that was so
characteristic a trait of Blackman's subsequent career. His zeal knew no
bounds. In New York he would gather up all the new books and journals
that he could procure. By the time he arrived in Havre, the contents of
those books and journals had become a part of Blackman's ever working,
never-resting mind. Blackman's was not a mere bibliographic mind. He
did not store facts and figures away as a dead ballast to a burdened brain.
His mind breathed the very soul of life into them. They were living quan-
tities within him, with definite relations to all other facts and figures that had
preceded or would follow them. Upon his arrival in Havre he would hurry
to Paris, ransack the shops and publishing houses for surgical books. Laden
with his newly acquired treasures he would return to his ship and to his
studies. He made nearly forty trips of this kind, not including two or three
trips to South America on a sailing vessel.

When Blackman returned to his native land and located in New York,
he began a career of unparalleled productiveness as an operator and more
especially as a writer. He became a regular contributor to the leading med-
ical journals of the country and by his incisive and forceful style, his ver-
satility and resourcefulness, and his never failing familiarity with the lit-
erature of surgical art and science, attracted the attention of the leaders of
surgical thought in all parts of the world. He became in a very short time
one of the most widely quoted surgical authorities in the United States. Sir
William Fergusson, whose treatise on practical surgery appeared in
1853, refers to Blackman frequently in his great work. Dr. Samuel D. Gross
who was at that time teaching surgery in Louisville, quotes Blackman freely
in his treatise on the "Urinary Organs." Dr. Reuben D. Mussey regarded
Blackman, even as early as 1854, "an operator of the first stamp who has but
few equals." Dr. Willard Parker, his erstwhile preceptor, who, in the Medical
Department of the Cincinnati College had been the colleague of the peer-
less Drake, and became one of the most distinguished teachers of surgery
of his time as the incumbent of the chair of surgery at the New York Col-
lege of Physicians and Surgeons, considered Blackman, then a general sur-
geon in New York, the best all-around surgeon of his age in the United
States. What had Blackman, then hardly thirty-five years of age, done to
merit the good will and esteem of the foremost surgeons of his time? His
habits as a practitioner of surgery were those of the student of surgery of

229

years gone by. He worked and studied incessantly and was ever on the
alert lest even the slightest new thought should escape his watchful eye.
He entered with his whole heart and soul into his work and the latter, in
return, became a part of his inner self. He believed in his work because he
believed in himself. No man whose thoughts and actions are animated by
the spirit of truth emanating from the soul within, can possibly fail. Therein
lies the secret of Blackman's remarkable rise in a comparatively short time.
Added to his altruistic love of surgery was his great admiration for the good
work of others. In 1853 he translated Mdal's "Treatise on Syphilis, a most
remarkable work of that time. Blackman's frequent visits to Paris caused
him to become a great admirer of the great French surgeon, Velpeau. whose
epoch-making work on "Operative Surgery" was enjoying a world-wide
popularity. Blackman translated the work and adapted it to the wants of
American surgeons. There are not a few that consider Blackman's Amer-
ican edition of Velpeau, in three large volumes, the translator's greatest claim
to recognition.

Blackman's reputation at that time was not entirely earned by his literary
labors. He was recognized as a bold and brilliant operator. He had per-
formed all the more ordinary operations and had done quite a few that chal-
lenged the admiration of so critical a gentleman as Samuel D. Gross. While
Blackman's career as a surgeon of national prominence began with his ap-
pointment to the chair of surgery at the Medical College of Ohio, he had
previously tied both carotids in one patient, had resected the upper and lower
jaws, had twice trephined the spine and had successfully performed Bras-
dor's operation for aneurism of the innominate artery. Considering the time
when these operations were performed, no one can deny the skill and darmg
of this young surgeon who confidently marched in the advance guard of the
pioneers and helped to blaze the way for future surgical progress.

In 1854, owing to the resignation of Asbury Evans, the chair of surgery
in the Medical College of Ohio became vacant. The frequent changes in the
personnel of the faculty had injured the school considerably. Then there
was the growing discontent among the profession, many members of which
were in sympathy with the seceding professors who, under the leadership of
the distinguished Mussey, had withdrawn from the mother school and had
established a rival institution (Miami Medical College). The friends of the
Medical College of Ohio realized that a surgeon and teacher of the first
rank would have to take the vacant chair at the Ohio school in order to
counteract the great magnetism of Mussey's name. Samuel D. Gross was
offered the chair but declined. He had become well established in Louis-
ville and had not altogether forgotten his varied experiences in Cincinnati.
He strongly urged the trustees of the Medical College of Ohio to appoint
George C. Blackman, of New York.

Blackman located in Cincinnati in 1855. His position at the Ohio Col-
lege together with the great reputation which had preceded him, at once

230

made him a shining mark in the profession of the Middle West. He easily
acquired an enormous surgical practice. It is generally admitted that Black-
man has never been equalled, much less excelled as a dashing, bold and tre-
mendously self-confident operator by any of his contemporaries or successors
in the West. He was a great surgeon, using the adjective in its absolute
sense, perhaps the only really great surgeon whom the Ohio Valley has seen,
to quote the words of Dr. P. S. Conner who never tired of extolling the
genius of that great surgeon and emphatically stated that no American sur-
geon would have been better qualified to represent American surgery in
Europe with credit to himself and glory to the entire American medical
profession than George C. Blackman. He was the kind of an operator that
could inspire confidence and enthusiasm in his students. He was quick,
fearless, precise, resourceful and seemed to grow with the increasing diffi-
culty and responsibility of his task. He was at his best in the operating
amphitheater with a difficult surgical case before him and five hundred med-
ical students watching him. The annals of the old Commercial and St. John's
Hospitals bear witness to the great surgical skill and working capacity of this
marvelously endowed man. His operations covered the entire field of general
surgery. Like many great operators he disliked the details of the after-
treatment. He was essentially an operating surgeon and as such he excelled.

It is but fair to mention the service he rendered during the war of the
Rebellion in his capacity as brigade surgeon of volunteers, especially after
the battles of Pittsburg Landing and Shiloh. Thousands of wounded sol-
diers were brought to Cincinnati from the battlefields of the South to receive
attention at the military emergency hospitals of which there were quite a
number in and near Cincinnati. Dr. J. C. Reeve, of Dayton, Ohio, was his
assistant and companion on a number of trips to the battlefields. He accom-
panied Blackman when the latter went to Pittsburg Landing on a chartered
steamer which brought many wounded soldiers to Cincinnati. Many opera-
tions were performed on board the hospital ship by Blackman, Doctor Reeve
giving the anaesthetic. Blackman one day caught a negro waiter exacting a
tip from a soldier. Without regard to the military regulations, he proceeded
to kick the negro the whole length of the deck. Blackman did splendid work
on behalf of his country but never succeeded in changing his mind about
military discipline which he utterly and absolutely despised. He served on
the stafif of General Nelson and afterwards on that of General McClellan.

As a teacher Blackman displayed all the wonderful resourcefulness which
familiarity with the literature of surgery had given him. He was not a
successful teacher for students whose minds were untrained, and, therefore,
unprepared. He would have made an ideal teacher for physicians doing post-
graduate work. His wonderful control of the whole subject of surgery and
the rapidity wnth which he would evolve principles and crystallize them into
facts, drawing his illustrations and deductions from the whole domain of
surgical science, made his lectures appear fragmentary and unsystematic.

231

Blackmail was apt to take too much for granted in his listeners, expected them
to link the loosely connected parts of his argument, and thus shot over the
heads of immature students. His discourse was scholarly, his reasoning
rapid, his characterizations terse. From this it would appear that he was a
better clinical than didactic teacher.

In discussing surgical topics before the class, he was at his best when
inspired by the case before him. Then he would develop a marvelous re-
sourcefulness as an extemporaneous speaker. He disliked the hum-drum of
didactic lectures, with their cut-and-dried order of subjects. At times he
showed a strange timidity before going into the lecture room. This was in
peculiar contrast with his magnificent appearance as an operator with a
difficult operative case before him.

As a man Blackman possessed many traits that endeared him to his sub-
ordinates and to the profession. To his friends he was fair-minded, warm-
hearted and loyal. Coupled with these characteristics were other less de-
sirable traits that one, however, could expect to find in a man of quick
impulses and a fiery temperament. Physically he was a big, square, heavy-
set, substantial man with a solid tread. His complexion was dark-colored,
his forehead broad and low. He had a heavy suit of coal black hair which
he would toss back from his face in a moment of impatience as a lion would,
his mane. His face was massive and square, his chin heavy-set and firm.
His eyes were dark, large and lustrous. He had a deep, rich voice and a well
nigh inexhaustible vocabulary which he used with the consummate skill of
the accomplished scholar. "Working under tremendous nervous pressure at
all times, he was easily . irritated and under these circumstances hard to
handle. The constant drain on his vital energy made him crave stimulation.
Thus he became a ravenous consumer of large quantities of tissue-building
foods and stimulating beverages. His stomach eventually became the shrine
at which he worshiped. That his digestive apparatus frequently revolted and
made him suflfer all the physical discomfort and mental anguish of severe
bilious attacks, was not surprising. Under these conditions he often was
ill-tempered, violent, dictatorial, jealous, suspicious or melancholy. His as-
sociates in the faculty found him a hard man to get along with, all on account
of his unbalanced temperament. He could not tolerate the yoke of exacting,
conventional discipline. One or the other of his colleagues was always up in
arms against the uncompromising Blackman and his variable moods. In
1860 he took his stand against all his colleagues and refused to surrender.
They all resigned and left him in the possession of the fi^ld. Professor Gra-
ham seems to have been the only member of the faculty whose friendly rela-
tions with Blackman remained undisturbed even during the trying times of
1860. Doctor Bartholow did not seem to possess the gift of adaptability in
dealing with his irascible colleague. The serio-comic controversy between
Bartholow and Blackman in 1866 which was precipitated by Blackman bring-
ing the charge of plagiarism against Bartholow, created much excitement

232

among the friends of the two principals. Bartholow had published an ar-
ticle in the Cincinnati Journal of Medicine on "Progressive Locomotor
Ataxia," only recently differentiated from other forms of disease, the article
being accompanied by a statement that the author (Bartholow) had made
liberal use of the prize essay of M. Paul Topinard on the same subject.
Blackman, on a previous occasion, had been much annoyed by Bartholow's
sarcastic reference to the "Handbook of Military Surgery" written by Trip-
ler and Blackman. Bartholow had hinted at plagiarism having been com-
mitted by Blackman and Tripler and had referred to Messrs. Guthrie and
McLeod's "Surgical History of the Crimean War" as the source whence
Tripler and Blackman had liberally borrowed the contents of their hand-
book. Blackman was aching for a chance to even up old scores with
Bartholow, and published a pamphlet in which he opened the flood gates of
his sarcasm at the expense of Bartholow and the latter's alleged plagiarism.
Bartholow's admission that liberal use had been made of M. Topinard's
paper, Blackman met with the incontrovertible statement that there was a
world of difference between a liberal and a literal use of a reference. Bar-
tholow in defense published a pamphlet in which he refers to Blackman's
"vanity, egotism, self-assertion, jealous impertinence, meddling" and states
that "Blackman had been quarreling with everybody, including God Al-
mighty, and that the cause of the present difficulty was Blackman's insane
envy of Bartholow who had won the Jewett and Russell prizes, etc., etc."
The undignified spectacle of two members of the same faculty abusing each
other coram publico was finally brought to a close by the other members of
the faculty, who insisted upon the matter being promptly adjusted.

There is no doubt that Blackman in moments of morbid excitement said
and did many things that he afterwards deeply regretted. He was not a
well man. This accounts for his' variable moods. He was morbidly sensi-
tive and frequently brooded over fancied troubles. Again he was genial,
cheerful and even gay and playful. He could not tolerate restraint or con-
tradiction. His self-confidence seemed to grow during the performance of a
difficult and bloody surgical operation. Yet he fainted one day in the lower
amphitheater of the college when a vivisection was performed on a pigeon.
In the practical affairs of life he was as helpless as a child. He did not
seem to know or appreciate the value of money. Thus he often found him-
self in very distressed circumstances. When he died, after a long illness,
July 17, 1871, of a complication of stomach and liver troubles, he left his
family destitute. With a little practical sense he might have died a wealthy
man. He was buried from his residence on Glenwood Avenue, Avondale,
and laid to rest in beautiful Spring Grove.

In many ways Blackman showed an unobtrusive and modest temperament
which his antagonists, however, never had a chance to observe. While on a
visit to New York in the sixties he was the recipient of many attentions at
the hands of the profession. He was the guest of honor at a banquet which

233

was attended by nearly every surgeon of prominence in New York. Black-
man was called upon to speak but asked to be excused. When, however, one
of the speakers, in referring to Ephraim McDowell, questioned the priority
of the latter's operation and gave credit to Mr. John Lizars, of Edinburgh,
Blackman could not sit still any longer. He arose and in his own inimitable
style gave the history of McDowell's work so completely and in so master-
ful a manner that the entire audience jumped to its feet and cheered Black-
man to the echo. He had spoken over an hour and without preparation.
When the surgery of the West and its glorious records were questioned, the
thought of self was consumed by the fire of patriotism. He thought of the
West that had made him great and to whose glory he himself had contrib-
uted so liberally.

Blackman was a prolific writer and much esteemed as such. Gross and
other authors of surgical works quoted him frequently. His edition of Vel-
peau was a monumental work. The "Handbook for the Military Surgeon"
which he brought out (1861) in conjunction with Dr. Chas. S. Tripler, a
surgeon in the United States Army, who had for three years lectured on
military surgery in the Medical College of Ohio, was a small but practical
work. It was published by Robert Clarke & Co., Cincinnati, Ohio. For
about a year Blackman edited the "Lancet." At the end of one year he aban-
doned the editorial work, the "Lancet" being consolidated with the "Observer"
("Cincinnati Lancet and Observer," Drs. Mendenhall, Murphy and Stevens,
Editors). Blackman's parting words when he laid down the editorial quill,
were characteristic of the man and of the situation by which he was con-
fronted. He complains of the lethargy and lack of local patriotism on the
part of the profession and adds : "The impression prevails throughout the
country that the Queen City has been sadly victimized by the selfish cliques
which exist in the ranks of the profession and too many have been disposed
to exclaim when their attention has been directed to her medical institutions
and medical literature: 'Can anything good come out of Nazareth?' " — Black-
man's writings (articles, papers, case reports, etc.) are scattered through the
columns of journals in the East and West (1848-1871), particularly the "Am-
erican Journal of the Medical Sciences." At the time of his death he was
engaged with the Hon. Stanley Matthews of the United States Supreme
Court, in preparing an exhaustive work on "Legal Liability in Surgical Mal-
practice." For several years previous to his death he was collecting and
preparing material with a view of issuing a work on the "Principles and
Practice of Surgery."

Blackman's position among the many brilliant men who occupied chairs
in the Medical College of Ohio is perhaps best characterized in the words
of James T. Whittaker who, twenty-five years after Blackman's demise,
referred to him as "the most gifted child of genius the college has seen since
the days of Daniel Drake."

234

Samuel D. Gross, in a very sympathetic letter to the widow of Doctor
Blackmail, speaks as follows of the great surgeon : "As a great operator, a
distinguished teacher and an able writer Doctor Blackman had few equals in
this country or in Europe. To the Medical College of Ohio and to the pro-
fession of the great West his loss is irreparable. Other men may occupy
his place but, I fear, none will be able to fill it."

JAMES GRAHAM. The stage and the clinical lecture room have seem-
ingly nothing in common. Yet, the central figures in both places, the
great actor and the master of medical teaching, play strikingly similar roles
in the drama of life. The actor portrays man in his joyful and his melan-
choly moods, in his passions and gentler emotions, in his frailty and in his
strength. The teacher of clinical medicine likewise sketches man in all these
variable phases of mental and physical being that go to make up human
life. The actor reveals the evolution of all that is human. The clinical
teacher exposes the pulleys, the ropes, the levers and all the rest of the
minute machinery by means of which the human element in the individual is
evolved and the wheels of human temperament and character are made to
go 'round. Both the actor and the clinical teacher are mighty carriers of the
truth and as such typify the most exalted forms of humanity. Their subject
is life, their object truth. They bring to the living the message of life.
When their own career is ended, there is nothing that binds them to the gen-
erations that follow. The actor is forgotten because the message which he
announced is hushed in the silence of his tomb. A great clinical teacher has a
thousand claims to the generation in whose midst he towered. When he
passes to the Great Beyond, the footprints left by him in the sands of time
are quickly washed away by the tide of forgetfulness. The spoken message
dies with those who heard it.

James Graham was both an actor and a great clinical teacher. He im-
personated on the stage of his own uneventful life a character so marvelously
original and wonderfully great that the survivors of the generation that
heard, saw and knew him, are still captivated by the magic of his name. He
taught clinical medicine as no one before or after him has taught it. This
fact still inspires those who were his pupils. But we, the younger men who
know him only from hearsay, feel nothing beyond a certain interest which
the enthusiasm of our elders inspires in us. What a pity that such a teacher
could not have written as he spoke, that he could not have wielded his pen
as masterfully as he used his tongue ! Graham left no written legacy of his
greatness. The actor's fate is oblivion, unless, perchance, he is an actor like
Shakespeare who left an heritage that will remain precious until the end of
time. Graham taught and enthused those who sat within hearing of his
voice. He gave a distinct character to a whole generation of doctors who in
turn helped to shape the evolution of medical thought in the West. Theirs

235

was the harvest which he had prepared for them and for us. This is reason
enough why he should not be forgotten.

The following attempt of a short autobiographical sketch was found
among Graham's papers after his demise. It tells in his own quaint, modest
way the story of his early childhood. He writes :

"I was born in New Lisbon, Columbiana County. Ohio, on the 28th day of May,
1819. My parents were poor, but very respectable. My father, George Graham, was
born in County Down, Ireland. His mother's maiden-name was Nelson, and she is
said to have been related to Lord Nelson. My mother was Eliza Branch, born, I think,
in the city of New York, of parents whom I well remember as being well educated,
proud and aristocratic in bearing."

"In my early boyhood I do not remember that I was rated for anything more than a
bright and wiry child, with great quickness and smartness of mind. I could learn my
lessons at school with little labor, but my nervous temperament was such that I could
not stand the restraint and confinement of the school room, and hence I sought every
opportunity to play truant. I think it doubtfid if I ever went to school six consecutive
days in my life. I got most of my education, which, in that day, consisted principally
in reading, writing and ciphering, at the old log schoolhouse on Sharp's Hill in New
Lisbon. My father kept what in early days was called a grocery store. He sold
bread, cakes and beer, and had on one side of the shop a small stock of dry goods, iron
and nails, etc., My father dying, the family was left to provide for itself. I went
with an engineer^ Cooper, to make surveys and 'lay out work', for the contractors on
the Sandy and Beevus Canals. I was then but a mere boy, got a dollar a day, and yet
managed to lay up some $300 in money. Our expenses were but light, for when we had
eaten, irregularly, twenty-one meals at a house, we paid for them $1.50."

"With the money thus earned and saved, I commenced the study of medicine with
Doctor McCosh. After a year, I commenced practice with Dr. Geo. Fries, then at
Hanover, but subsequently a prominent physician and surgeon of this city. He was a
rabid Democrat, and had been elected by that party a member of Congress, and to the
office of Treasurer of Hamilton County. When the war broke out, he was a bitter
copperhead, and I a Republican. We quarreled at this. I left his office and residence,
and never spoke to him afterwards. I at once sought an office at 119 West Seventh
Street. The rent was very cheap, but I was so very poor that I bought crackers and
cheese for the sake of economy, and ate them in my back room. Very soon I got a
large practice and had an income beyond my wants."

Graham neglects to state that he received some of his literary education
at Jefferson College, Washington County, Pa., and that he received his med-
ical degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 18.11. The Dr. George
Fries he refers to, was his brother-in-law. Fries was a very capable physi-
cian and surgeon. He removed an ovarian cyst through a two inch incision
in the abdominal wall at a time when operations of this kind were considered
most extraordinary. The case referred to was operated upon about 1852.
It attracted attention all over the country. Dr. Fries died in 1866.

After a few years of practice in his native town Graham moved (1849)
to Cincinnati where Fries was already located. Graham came to Cincinnati
to fortune and to fame unknown. When the Cincinnati College of Medicine
and Surgery was founded by A. H. Baker and B. S. Lawson, they made
Graham a member of their faculty. J. T. Whittaker tells us that the youthful

236

looking- Graham was very, timid and awkward. The announcement of his
appointment prompted the students of the other medical schools to attend his
first lecture in a body. That their intentions were not the most respectful
can readily be imagined. They prepared to give him a reception such as only
medical students in the West are capable of enacting. They went down
armed with paperwads and such other missiles of juvenile aggression. They
came pouring in at the door. Doctor Graham was just at his desk, and was
stopped by the noise. For a moment he was thoroughly confused, then,
straightening himself, he begged for a few moments' attention. Forthwith
he commenced his subject and, as stimulated by the opposition, he continued
his lecture. He poured' out such a stream of simple eloquence as won every
heart. Cheer after cheer went up as he closed. The whole class was won.

Jamks Graham

George Fries

In 1855 he became professor of materia medica and therapeutics in the
Medical College of Ohio. In 1859 clinical medicine was added to his chair.
In 1864 he became professor of practice. He held the chair for ten years,
became an emeritus professor in 1874, and died, after a lingering illness,
in 1879.

There is abundant testimony to show that Graham was a most extraordi-
nary bedside instructor. During his lifetime no American teacher of clin-
ical medicine was thought to be his superior and very few Europeans were
considered his equals as bedside teachers. There w^ere more scholarly men.
more thorough pathologists, more impressive speakers, and yet he was the
prince of them all, when it was a question of presenting a clinical problem
to the uncultured country student fresh from the plough, or to the educated
college graduate, instructing, pleasing and interesting both with equal ease.
Graham stood up before his class straight as an arrow, his face plainly
showing that his very soul was afire with the subject in hand. "He had a

287

keen insight," says J. T. Whittaker, "a woman's intuition, a fine instinct
which enabled him to fix upon the disease at once, and he had, as only the
children of genius have, the gift of making the most difficult subject plain
and simple to the commonest understanding." J. S. Billings says that Graham
was "slender, graceful, of light complexion, a shrewd and rapid reasoner, a
marvelous diagnostician, a most eloquent lecturer, a man who would have
made a great lawyer or politician, who was fascinating to those whom he
honored with his friendship, often sarcastic and a scofifer, yet generally ready
to help, a man who did not write, whose fame is altogether local, whose best
work was in clinical teaching and in holding the faculty together."

In his private life James Graham was a unique and somewhat eccentric
character. Dr. C. M. Wright, in an interesting memoir of Graham, speaks of
his first visit to Graham's office in company with Colonel Pugh, who was a
close friend of Doctor Graham :

"Graham lived a bachelor life in a little two-story house on Seventh Street near
Race Street. The street door opened conveniently into the front room of the little
house. This front room was the office of the great doctor. When we rang the bell, a
sound came from within, made up of the loud barking of a big dog and the shouting
of a man. The dog was an immense pointer named Otto, the doctor's companion and
friend. The voice was the doctor's roaring at Otto and shouting to us to come in.
We entered. Otto growled and jumped upon the lounge and settled down. The doctor
remained as he was. He was seated in a common office chair tilted back against the
side of the mantelpiece with his feet drawn up and fixed on the front of the chair.
This position made of his knees a good table for holding a large medical book. He
had on a short knit jacket or Wamvius, considerably worn. In his mouth he held a long-
stemmed meerschaum pipe. He glanced at the Colonel and resumed reading in his
book. The Colonel went through the form of a polite introduction. The doctor grunted.
Conversation was rather difficult under the circumstances although the Colonel managed
to make a few pleasant remarks. Suddenly the doctor took the pipe from his mouth.
With a laugh and a sneer he pointed to some holes in the three-ply carpet on the
floor. Looking at me with condensed sarcasm, he said : 'Those holes were worn by
patients.' "

"I met the doctor again and learnt to love him and Otto. In less than a year from
our first meeting, we were all rooming together and were daily companions. When
the doctor was called away from the city for a day or two, as he frequently was in
consultation, Otto and I missed him, and as the night wore on and Otto could not
contain his feelings and would set up a long, drawn-out howl, I learnt to shout at
him and imitate the picturesque and lurid language to which he was accustomed from
his master. I had the genuine satisfaction to know that my efforts were successful
by the pounding of his tail on the office floor below."

"Medical science has made great strides forward since the days of Graham, but are
the men, the medical men of today greater than those of a half century ago? Have
we a man in this town today who, without scientific apparatus of precision, and only
depending on his senses of sight, hearing and touch, can make a surer diagnosis or a
more certain prognosis of a disease than some of the old doctors among whom Graham
was a prince? He could stand before a class of three hundred eager medical stu-
dents or before a house full of learned members of a medical society and with the
eloquence of a Henry Clay absorb every attention and picture disease and treatment
with such vivid word-painting that the listeners felt as if they had been carried to

the bedside and seen and felt and known all that could be experienced by patient and
physician. Are there such men in Cincinnati today?"

In an odd genius like Graham one would expect to find the human ele-
ment well marked. The above mentioned dog possessed a foremost place
in the great physician's heart. Even after the dog had long outlived his
years of usefulness, he continued to be the doctor's friend and companion.
He spent his time on a rug directly in front of the fireplace in Doctor Gra-
ham's office, half asleep most of the time and responding to his master's
friendly greeting with a faint wag of his shaggy tail. One day Reuben
Springer, the founder of the Cincinnati Music Hall, stepped into the office
and, noticing the aged canine, remarked : "That dog is quite old." "Yes,"
replied Doctor Graham with a fond look in the direction of the dog's resting
place. "He is not a very attractive looking animal." "No, he is not." "He
is not of much use to you, is he?" "Not any more, poor old fellow." "Why
don't you kill him and get rid of him?" Doctor Graham remained silent
for a few moments. Finally with a sigh he arose, and, as though he wanted
to change the subject, said: "Mr. Springer, how is your mother?" "Not
very well. The good old lady is getting up in years." "At one time she was
quite active, taking care of your household, was she not?" "Yes," replied
Springer, "she was quite a busy person around the house.- But now she is
old and helpless. She sits in her rocking chair all day." Doctor Graham
had knelt down beside his old dog and was stroking the dog's back. Turning
to Mr. Springer he said : "Well, Mr. Springer, why don't you kill the old
lady and get rid of her?"

Doctor Graham never married, but experienced at least one romance in
his life, the object of his afifection being a buxom young widow who lived
with her father, an irascible old gentleman. Doctor Graham and the old
gentleman frequently got into an argument that usually terminated in the
old man getting excited and roundly abusing the doctor. One evening the
old man in a fit of anger ordered his daughter's admirer out of the house.
The doctor left, vowing he would never return. The next day the young
woman called at Doctor Graham's office. She was heartbroken. "Jimmy,"
she said amid a flow of tears, "what will become of us now?" "My dear,"
replied the doctor, "cheer up. I will always think as much of you as I have
in the past. I will marry you, but not until you and I can truthfully offer
up this prayer : 'Our father, who art in heaven !' " The old man unfor-
tunately did not bid adieu to this mundane sphere for many years and the
happy union was not consummated.

At the time when Geo. C. Blackman, the master-surgeon of his day, died.
Doctor Graham was sick in bed. The lucky man upon whom, at least as far
as the selection made by the trustees was concerned, the mantle of the dis-
tinguished surgeon had fallen, called on Doctor Graham and informed the
latter that the trustees had selected him (the speaker) to fill Professor Black-
man's shoes. Graham looked him over every carefully, grunted several times

239

and finally remarked : "My dear fellow, I am glad to know that you are to
get into Blackman's shoes. You will be very safe and comfortable in them,
because I am sure that, when you stand up in them, no one will be able to
see even the top of your head." The original version of Graham's answer
is a trifle more forcible than the one quoted, the one given probably ex-
pressing the sentiment as well as any other.

One evening Graham's dog was sick and announced this fact to the neigh-
borhood by occasional long, drawn-out wails. Graham was sitting in front
of his office when the Hon. Wm. S. Groesbeck, the famous defender of
Andrew Johnson in the latter's impeachment case, happened along. Groes-
beck stopped to talk to Graham when Graham's dog let out a more than
ordinarily plaintive lamentation. Groesbeck remarked that the howling of
the dog was a nuisance and suggested to Graham to get rid of the dog. He
thus unintentionally had touched Graham's most sensitive spot. ''Mr. Groes-
beck," Graham remarked, "you don't understand dog language, do you?"
"No, doctor, I do not," was Groesbeck's reply. "Well, I want to tell you
that my dog is sick and is suffering pain. He is telling us in his own lan-
guage how bad he feels, and I assure you that every word my dog is saying, is
absolutely true. This is a good deal more than people could say about you.''

Graham once was called as an expert witness in a murder case, the plea
of the defense being insanity. Graham had visited the prisoner and talked
to him for fifteen minutes. When he was asked on the witness-stand whether
he considered the accused man sane or insane, he unhesitatingly said that, in
his opinion, the prisoner was sane. The lawyer for the defense arose and
excitedly said : "Dr. Graham, how can you pronounce this man sane when
you have only spoken to him for fifteen minutes?" "My dear sir," replied
Graham, "I have not talked to you for fifteen minutes and yet I would not
hesitate to pronounce you sane."

During his last illness Doctor Graham was visited by Dr. W. Woodward,
one of his former pupils, who invited the sick man to take a drive with him
out into the suburbs and get a bit of fresh air and sunshine. The ride was
thoroughly enjoyed by Doctor Graham. They were on their way home
when the sun was setting. Doctor Graham silently gazed at the Western
sky where the torch of the day was slowly sinking into its bed of fire, amid
the solemn stillness of a serene summer evening. The white clouds that
seemed suspended beneath the azure canopy of heaven and the faint outline
of the hills that skirted the distant horizon, reflected in delicate shadings and
lines the rosy tints of the Western firmament. The old doctor looked at
the glorious scene, oblivious to his surroundings and as in a trance. Finally
with a sigh, he turned to his companion and said: "How inexpressibly beau-
tiful this picture is! How small we miserable creatures of the earth are,
compared to Him who painted this incomparable scene !" It was Doctor
Graham's last visit to the shrine of Nature.

240

Graham was without a doubt one of the greatest lecturers that have ever
stood before a medical class in this country. By way of a befitting conclu-
sion, I beg to reproduce a case report as given by Graham in a lecture on
hysteria. For this bit of delightful realism I am indebted to Dr. C. A. L.
Reed, who heard Graham deliver this lecture. Said Graham :

"In the earlier clays of my practice up in Columbiana County I was called one bitter
cold night to go several miles in the country to see a patient who was reported to be
dying. When I arrived, I found a young woman lying on her back in the middle of
the floor, surrounded by her anguished family. But, gentlemen, a furtive glance from
the patient's eye, at the very instant of my entrance, told me the nature of her malady.
By that token I knew that she had hysteria. But I did not betray her secret. On
the contrary, I proceeded with due solemnity to examine her pulse, and to try to
examine her pupils and her tongue, but I couldn't pry open either the eyelids or the
mouth. Then, turning to the anxious mother, I said :

"Madam, have you a syringe?"

"A what, doctor?"

"A syringe. Madam — a squirt gun."

The men folks were despatched to the barn and presently returned with one of
those enormous pewter syringes employed about farms for veterinary purposes. The
formidable implement was handed to me with many glances suggestive of doubts and
misgivings. I took it, examined it carefully and deliberately then turning again to the
mother, asked :

"Madam, have you some turpentine?"
"Oil of turpentine?"
"Yes; that will do."

Another trip was made to the barn and a large black bottle, all gummy around
the stopper, was produced. I opened it. The turpentine odor pervaded the close atmos-
phere. Everybody looked interested. I got some hot water and soaked up the piston
and tried the syringe by sucking it full of water which I discharged with such force
that it hissed and splashed all over one side of the room. Everybody looked alarmed.

"What are you going to do?" tremulously asked the now frightened mother.

"Madam !" I replied with stern dignity, "it is my intention to give that patient an
injection of turpentine!"

"And, gentlemen, would you believe it ! That lovely young woman arose with a
bound from her unconsciousness and fled into the darkness as sensible to the sugges-
tion as a dog would have been to the reality !"

JOHN H. TATE, the father of the Cincinnati Hospital Library, was
born in Charleston, W. Va., in 1815. At the age of eighteen he left home
and made his way to Hanover, Ind., mostly on foot. At Hanover he attended
school and subsequently went to Cincinnati to begin the study of medicme
in the office of John Moorhead, "Old Hydrarg." Tate attended the Med- '
ical College of Ohio and received his degree in 1837. After serving in the
Commercial Hospital as interne for one year, he opened an office at Third
and Broadway where he continued in practice until the time of his death in
1892. He was appointed professor of physiology, hygiene and medical juris-
prudence in the Medical College of Ohio in 1856, succeeding S. G. Armor.
He held this chair for two terms. In 1865 he drew up a bill to amend the
regulations governing the Commercial Hospital, with a view of setting aside

241

the fees paid by the medical students of the city for chnical instruction.
The money thus collected was to be used in the establishment and main-
tenance of a medical library in conjunction with the hospital. The bill was
approved by the Cincinnati Academy of Medicine and passed the Legisla-
ture. The present large collection of medical books and publications in the
hospital is the result of John H. Tate's plan. Tate was for many years
connected with the staff of the Cincinnati Hospital and with the faculty of

John H. Tate

the Cincinnati College of Medicine and Surgery in the capacity of obstetri-
cian. He was a pioneer in clinical midwifery. He was a frequent con-
tributor to the medical journals especially the "Western Lancet." His son,
Magnus A. Tate (born 1867, graduate of the Medical College of Ohio 1891)
is (1908) professor of obstetrics in the ]\Iiami Medical College.

ROBERT L. REA came from Rockbridge County, Virginia, where he
was born in 1827. At seventeen he was farming in Indiana and trying to
get an education by borrowing books and burning the midnight oil. He
began to practice medicine in 1851 in Oxford Ohio, after having read under
an old practitioner for three years. Finally he took a regular course at the
Medical College of Ohio and graduated in 1855. Eor one term he was dem-
onstrator of anatomy, after a year spent in the Commercial Hospital as resi-
dent physician. He returned to Oxford in 1857 and lectured at Miami Uni-
versity on anatomy and physiology. In 1859 he was appointed professor of
anatomy in Rush Medical College, Chicago, III, and rose to considerable
prominence as a medical teacher. He was one of the founders of the College
of Physicians and Surgeons in Chicago. He died in 1908.

242

SAMUEL B. TOMLINSON was prosector of surgery during the term
1855-'56. He is the scion of a distinguished EngHsh family. He was born
in Philadelphia in 1829, received his education at the old and famous
Farmer's College, the predecessor of the Ohio Military Institute, College
Hill, Ohio, studied medicine under Thomas Wood, graduated from the Med-
ical College of Ohio in 1855 and was Blackman's assistant during the latter's
first term. He served in various capacities during the war and has been
engaged in general practice since the close of the war.

CHARLES S. TRIPLER who, while not a regular member of the Ohio
faculty, lectured on military surgery during the three sessions preceding the
outbreak of the Civil War, was a surgeon in the regular army and was sta-
tioned at the Newport Barracks. He was born in 1806, graduated at the
New York College of Physicians and Surgeons and entered the medical
service of the army in 1830. He was a surgeon in the Mexican war under
General Scott. During the Civil War he was a medical director of the
Army of the Shenandoah under General Patterson and subsequently of the
Army of the Potomac under General McClellan. He died in 1866. Black-
man was his staunch friend and admirer. It was through Blackman's influ-
ence that Tripler lectured at the Medical College of Ohio. The "Hand-
book for the Military Surgeon" was the joint product of Blackman and
Tripler. The latter was considered one of the ablest and most learned med-
ical officers during the war. For years he was the official representative of
the medical service of the army at the meetings of the American Medical
Association. He was elected vice-president of the latter in 1859 at the Louis-
ville meeting.

JOHN LORING VATTIER was the son of a Frenchman who had come
West with General St. Clair's army. He was born October 31, 1808, in a
little house at the corner of Front Street and Eastern Row, now Broad-
way, where now stands the mouldering pile of the once famous hostelry, the
Spencer House. Young Vattier received a good preliminary education and
eventually went to work in a drug store with a view of studying medicine.
In 1827 he matriculated at the Medical College of Ohio and received his
degree in 1830. During the summer months he devoted his time to steam-
boat traffic. He was a clerk on the "Alexander Hamilton" when this boat
made the first through trip on record between Cincinnati and St. Louis.
After his graduation Vattier opened an office in Aurora, Ind., but soon
returned to Cincinnati and embarked in the wholesale drug business (Ramsey
and Vattier). In 1836 the firm was dissolved and Vattier again began the
practice of medicine. For awhile he was associated with John T. Shotwell.
The intimacy of the two men became a large factor in the affairs of the
Medical College of Ohio, Shotwell being the manipulator of the faculty and
Vattier the manager of the board of trustees. The two men fought for

243

common interests and stood shoulder to shoulder in fighting antagonistic ele-
ments in the faculty. The logic of events made M. B. Wright the sworn
enemy of A^attier, as he was of Shotwell. Outside of the eminent men who,
as members of the faculties of the Ohio College, became identified with the
history and prestige of the school, Vattier is by far the most conspicuous
figure in the history of the Medical College of Ohio. The part he played is a
trifle hard to define. He had no professorial ambition, as far as we know.
He wanted to be in a position to hold the reins, to control the trustees and
through them the professors. He was a skillful political manipulator and an
equally strong partisan. That he was a staunch friend of the Ohio College,
seems certain. That his judgment was always good and his unyielding policy
always productive of desirable results, he himself later in life questioned.
When his old enemy, M. B. Wright, was laid to rest, Vattier paid a beau-
tiful tribute to the fallen hero of many a good battle and admitted that the
ardor of youth and the stimulus of ambition had prompted many things in
his own conduct that he would gladly efiface if he could. Vattier led an
extremely busy life. He was always prominently identified with the doings
of the profession. In the forties he was a member of the faculty of the
Cincinnati Medical Institute, a Summer school of medicine, and was asso-
ciated with Wood, Warder, Mendenhall and other ambitious young men in
the management of the City Dispensary, a policlinic which was attached to
the Institute. Later on A'attier in conjunction with Taliaferro founded the
Hotel for Invalids, corner Broadway and Franklin. He was a trustee of the
Commercial Hospital and the Longview Asylum. He was most active, how-
ever, as secretary of the trustees of the Medical College of Ohio. In 1867
he was elected president of the Cincinnati Academy of Medicine.

Vattier was a practical and very influential politician. Under President
Jackson he served as commissioner of the surplus fund and assisted in the
division and distribution of accumulated federal funds to the States in pro-
portion to their electoral representation. In 1851 he was elected to the Ohio
Senate and took part in the framing of the Constitution of Ohio. The
Bureau of Statistics in the ofifice of the Secretary of State, one of the most
useful parts of the administrative machinery of the State, was planned by him
and established under his direction.

Vattier planned and started to build a street railway system for Cincin-
nati. Wednesday, September 14, 1859, was a day of honor for Vattier. The
first street car ran over the route of the Cincinnati Street Railroad Company
from Fourth and Walnut to Ninth and Central Avenue, and the whole town
turned out to see it and cheer for the father of the enterprise, John L. Vat-
tier. Unfortunately the enterprise was a financial failure and the company
was dissolved. The City Council which consisted then, as it does now, of
men who look upon a public office as a private gain, harrassed the company
with so many unreasonable demands, conditions and restrictions that aban-
donment of the enterprise was inevitable. Vattier made the mistake of

24-t

trusting to the local patriotism of the councilmen and their dictators. If he
had appealed to them with the aid of the American eagle displayed on round
pieces of silver or gold, he might have secured the fifty-year franchise which
many years later was cheerfully tendered to a corporation that understood
the psychology of Cincinnati politicians much better. The latter-day Oc-
topus believes with Philip of Macedonia that no wall is so high, no patriot-
ism so exalted and no politician's ideals are so elevated that an ass loaded
down with gold could not easily and comfortably step over wall, patriotism,
politicians, ideals and all.

Vattier was postmaster of Cincinnati under the administrations of Pierce
and Buchanan. As a Mason Vattier was a national figure. A'attier Lodge,
organized in 1S66, was named after him. In 1878 he was elected president

WiixiAM Mount

John h- Vattier

of the Alumni Association of the Medical College of Ohio. At the alumnal
meeting in 1880 he was the recipient of much attention and honor. He died
January 13, 1881.

An interesting episode in his life pertains to the "Society of the Last
Man." In 1832, when the cholera was prevalent, especially in Cincinnati,
Doctor Vattier and six other gentlemen, namely, Dr. J. M. Mason, Wm.
Disney, Jr., Wm. Stanberry, H. L. Tatem, J. R. Mason, and Fenton Lawson,
were together one day and the question came up as to whether any of those
present would fall victims to the ravaging disease. This suggested the idea
of their forming a club to meet annually on the 6th day of October, pledging
themselves to be present, have a dinner, and if any one were absent on ac-
count of death, there should be seven plates laid nevertheless. A bottle of
wine was purchased, a cabinet made, the bottle placed therein, the lid locked,
sealed with wax, and the key thrown away. A drawer was also in the cabinet
in which to keep a record of attendance and of the absentees, the dates of

245

their deaths, also their biographies, the cabinet being held by different ones,
changing annually. By agreement, when the sixth man died, on the next
anniversary, the last man was to have the dinner as usual with plates placed
for his six dead companions, and he was to break open the lock, open the
bottle and drink in remembrance of his beloved former confreres. The sixth
man, Fenton Lawson, died in 1855, and Doctor Vattier, the last man, outlived
him twenty-six years. The compact was faithfully carried out and the cab-
inet is now in possession of the Ohio Historical Society.

WILLIAM MOUNT was born in Armstrong County, Pennsylvania, in
1799, and came to Ohio with his parents in 1812. He was a student appren-
tice in 1817 and 1818, took one course at the Transylvania University and
graduated at the Medical College of Ohio in 1826. He began to practice in
Newtown, near Cincinnati, moved to Dayton and finally located in Cum-
minsville, a suburb of Cincinnati. He was a devoted lover of medical science
and a practitioner of great skill. For several years he was in charge of the
Hamilton County Lunatic Asylum in Lick Run. He was a great friend of
Daniel Drake and served as a trustee of the Medical Department of the Cin-
cinnati College (Drake's College). For thirty years he was a trustee of the
Medical College of Ohio. In 1866, while on one of his periodical visits, he
was run over by a wagon in Philadelphia and killed instantly. He was
sixty-seven years old at the time of his death and had gone East to visit
clinics and hospitals and hear a few lectures on new things in medicine.
Gross, whose guest he was during this ill-fated visit, considered him a most
extraordinary man and physician.

246

CHAPTER XII.

THE MEDICAL COLLEGE OF OHIO.
(1860— 1D09.)

THE problem of reorganizing the faculty without eliminating Blackman
was by no means an easy one. Every member of the faculty with
the possible exception of Graham, was up in arms against Blackman.
The trustees finally decided to create chairs of clinical medicine and clinical
surgery and appointed Graham and Blackman to fill them. This arrange-
ment would have kept Blackman away from the college, because his work
would have been confined to the Commercial Hospital. The other members
of the new faculty were Lawson (medicine), J. Davis (anatomy) J. P.
Judkins (principles of surgery), Mendenhall (obstetrics), Comegys (physi-
ology), Murphy (materia medica), Foote (chemistry) and Richardson (dis-
eases of women and children). An iron clad rule was adopted to enjoin the
professors from speaking ill of each other. Graham and Blackman accepted
the new arrangement. The rest of the faculty again promptly resigned. The
trustees were disgusted and, in turn, resigned in corporc. The Governor
accepted their resignation and the next day re-appointed them. They met
and organized, appointing Blackman professor of surgery, and Graham pro-
fessor of medicine, M. B. Wright professor of obstetrics and Mr. Chas.
O'Leary professor of chemistry. The latter had taken a course in medicine
at the Long Island Medical College, and was lecturing on chemistry at ]\It.
St. Mary's Seminary, a Catholic institution on Price Hill, Cincinnati. He
filled the chair of chemistry for one term. He subsequently located in Prov-
idence, R. I., and rose to considerable eminence as a physician The appoint-
ment of the remaining professors was left to the four mentioned. They
elected J. F. Hibberd, of Richmond, Ind., professor of physiology and path-
ology; John C. Reeve, of Dayton, Ohio, professor of materia medica; L. M.
Lawson, professor of theory and practice; J. P. Judkins, professor of anat-
omy; John S. Billings demonstrator of anatomy. The latter entered the med-
ical service of the army and W. W. Dawson took his place in the college.

The Civil War which afifected all lines of business and professional ac-
tivity in this country, directed thought and energy into new channels and in
this way, indirectly brought an era of comparative quiet to the college. With
the exception of one of the periodical protracted wrangles with the hospital
trustees, who always had considerable fault to find with some of the attend-
ing physicians and surgeons, especially with M. B. Wright, who had lost none

247

of his old time belligerent spirit, nothing disturbed the tranquility of normal
conditions for at least four sessions. The outcome of the hospital row was
that the hospital was opened to the students from all medical colleges. Cen-
sors appointed by the Ohio State Society attended the examinations in 1861.
Comegys re-entered the faculty in 1862. Wright had some misunderstanding
with him and enlivened the faculty meetings with some of his picturesque
protests. The college clinic was at that time in good running order and was
quite a feature of medical education in Cincinnati. About that time the
question of medical co-education was earnestly agitated by some factions.
The Medical College of Ohio at that time placed itself on record as being
positively opposed to the admission of women to the study of medicine. In
1867 the college building was purchased by Joseph C. Butler, one of the
founders of the Good Samaritan Hospital, and leased to the faculty. Some
of the new men who entered the faculty in the sixties were Roberts Bar-
tholow, Theophilus Parvin, Wm. H. Gobrecht, P. S. Conner, Samuel Nickles,
Chauncey D. Palmer and W. W. Seely. It was men of this type that ushered
in the halcyon days of the Medical College of Ohio. When in 1870 at the
semi-centennial of the institution M. B. Wright, in an historical address, re-
viewed the career of the college, there was assembled on the stage of the
old Pike Opera House the most powerful and homogeneous faculty that the
Ohio College has ever had. Professionally and educationally that faculty
was the climax of a half a century of struggles and — withal — of brilliant
achievements. With Blackman and Graham in the two principal chairs, with
Bartholow in that of materia medica, with Conner and Whittaker teaching
anatomy and physiology, it would be difficult to concentrate more uniform
strength in one corps of medical teachers. At the close of the Civil War,
the aetas aurea of the Medical College of Ohio began and lasted approx-
imately twenty-five or thirty years. One by one the witnesses of the past
glory have dropped away, not the least of them the old building on Sixth
Street with its solemn gothic front, its dirty interior and its thousand cher-
ished memories of learning and eloquence, and of the frolic and pathos so
characteristic in the rough and ready life of the Western medical students of
yesterday.

In 1872 the Ohio College graduated a class of ninety students, seven more
than the University of Pennsylvania. The following table shows the rela-
tive position of different medical schools in 1872 in regard to the size of their
graduating classes:

Miami Medical College 67

Jefferson Medical College 114

Bellevue Hospital Medical College 129

Medical College of Nashville 84

University of Pennsylvania 83

College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York 78

Rush Medical College, Chicago 77

248

University of the City of New York 75

Medical Department University of Buffalo 34

Cleveland Medical College, Ohio 34

Medical Department of Georgetown College 20

Medical College of Virginia 12

National Medical College, Washington 7

In 1878 there were about 800 medical students in Cincinnati. About 350
of these were Ohio matriculates. The number of students from the West
had been gradually increasing while the schools in the East, notably those in
Philadelphia, had experienced a corresponding decrease in the attendance of
Western students. The time-honored hegemony of the Eastern schools had
finally been conquered by Western talent and genius. The following year
the number of graduates broke all records. The graduating class numbered

121. For several years before and after, it was never less than 100. The
era of unparalleled prosperity and prominence was the creation of that race
of giants that rose and began its mighty labors in the ten years following the
close of the Civil War. In the lives and services of these great men there is
something of almost epic grandeur. All of them have passed to the Elysian
fields. Reamy and Conner were the last of the Old Guard to heed the final
summons. With them vanished the last remnants of an age that produced
not only great physicians but great men.

In 1871 Bartholow suggested to buy the college building and present it
to the University of Cincinnati for its medical department. Graham, Dawson
and Bartholow were appointed a committee to interest the citizens of Cincin-
nati in the plan. The scheme aroused no enthusiasm and was dropped. Fif-

249

teen years later the Medical College of Ohio became nominally the Medical
Department of the University of Cincinnati. This arrangement in reality
meant nothing. It imposed no obligations and conferred no rights, either as
far as the college or the university was concerned. The Cincinnati College of
Medicine and Surgery and the Miami Medical College had also been "affil-
iated" with the university. A closer affiliation which seemed to have the
appearance of a definite relationship was effected April 27, 1896, when the
trustees of the university and the faculty of the Medical College of Ohio
signed an agreement, provisionally merging the college into the university. The
college gave up its charter, agreeing to operate under the charter of the uni-
versity. The latter gave the college a new home in the old McMicken Uni-
versity Building. The trustees of the university were to be the governing
body. After eight years of the new regime the president of the university,
Howard Ayres, characterized the condition of the Medical College of Ohio
and the medical situation in Cincinnati in his annual report very clearly and
pointedly.

"In the case of our Medical Department," he remarks, "the University of Cincinnati
gets no advantage from the relations which it now sustains with it, very largely because
of the lack of subordination of its affairs to the direction and authority of the University
Board of Directors coupled with the lack of co-ordination and co-operation with the
other departments of the University. The idea of complete autonomy, as conceived and
carried out in these departments, operates to the detriment both of the departments and
of the university at large."

"The high aims of the university can not be attained nor the opportunities for the
growth in this community seized upon and utilized under such a system of separation.
This department loses much and gains nothing from this arrangement and the university,
by this segregation of interests, is prevented from reaching that solidarity of organiza-
tion of purpose and of method which is absolutely indispensable to any large and per-
manent success. About thirty years ago there were in attendance in the medical colleges
in the City of Cincinnati between seven and eight hundred students, most of them
enrolled in the three large colleges. In 1901 only eighty new non-resident students
were received in all the medical schools of this city. In 1902 only forty-four new
outside students entered the two largest schools, which number was exactly repeated
in 1903."

"Formerly the students coming to Cincinnati for a medical course hailed from all
States surrounding Ohio, and many of the distant Southern States, but at the present
time the non-resident attendance upon the medical schools in this city is almost entirely
from Southern Ohio. From its geographical position and its trade relations, Cincinnati
should, in the opinion of many persons competent to judge, be a great educational
center. At one time before the foundation of the University, the youth of a large
territory looked to Cincinnati for a medical education. This is no longer the case."

"Doubtless the reasons for the decline of Cincinnati as a center of medical edu-
cation are several, among which and possibly the most important of which is the neglect
on the part of the Cincinnati medical schools to keep up with the developments in edu-
cation as represented by the stronger medical schools of the United States."

". . .In the case of the Medical Department, the university owns the charter and
the property of the school, and gives it rent-free quarters in one of the buildings. In
all other respects the Medical Department is not an organic part of the University and
by its relation to the university adds no strength but develops some points of weak-

250

ness. . . . The clinical and pathologic school is likewise a paper affiliation. ... It
would be by far better for the university to terminate all these connections and rela-
tions, unless these schools can be made organic parts of the university. . . . The
present condition serves only to promote and perpetuate inefficient organization, lack
of initiative or corrective power and it serves to maintain lack of harmony and co-opera-
tion between the several faculties and the governing body. So long as the present
status lasts, private interests will not be, and could hardly be expected to be, subordinated
to the good will of the institution. . . . The university will never grow as it should,
until the several departments are put upon a co-ordinate basis with the same rights and
privileges and with similar duties and responsibilities. ... If this can not be done
with the professional departments mentioned, or if, for any reason, it is undesirable
to attempt it under the present government, then the form of the organization of the
university and of its Board of Control as well as the relations of the university to the
public, if these be the source of the difficulty or the disturbing elements in the situation,
should be changed without delay in order that out of the educational material at hand
an institution may be built up which shall be a university in fact as well as in
name. . . .The present condition can not be made to work smoothly or harmoniously,
and will effectually prevent the attainment of the educational goal desired by all friends
of the university without exception."

The attempt to bring the period of decadence to a close was made in 1908
when the faculties of both the Miami and the Ohio College agreed to terminate
the existence of their respective colleges after the session of 1908-'09 and
allow the University of Cincinnati to absorb the two schools as its Medical
Department in name as well as in fact. This consolidation of the two schools
under a new name was practically effected according to the plan suggested
by Howard Ayres in his report of 1904. The present president of the uni-
versity is Charles W. Dabney, formerly connected with the University of
Tennessee. It will be his task to weld the elements of strength heretofore
scattered by discord and weakened by strife, into an instrument of power
for good. The last decade in the life of the Medical College of Ohio recalled
in some respects the struggles of the early thirties and early fifties. "No
splendid edifice can be reared by sinister and discordant architects!" (Drake).

If the lessons of the recent past are heeded, if the ambition of the indi-
vidual is tempered by love of science and by civic patriotism, if the unit is
willing to be absorbed by the totality of the purpose embodied in the whole,
then Medical Cincinnati may rise again in all her old-time glory, an imperish-
able monument to the great Daniel Drake, whose genius hovers about the
old town, where Western medicine was born and grew into a vigorous
adolescence and heroic manhood.

The incumbents of the principal chairs during the long career of the ]\Ie(l-
ical College of Ohio have been :

Anatomy — Jesse Smith, Jedediah Cobb, John T. Shotwell, G. W. Bayless,
H. W. Baxley, Thomas Wood, J. P. Judkins, W. W. Dawson, Wm. H.
Gobrecht, P. S. Conner, L. R. Longworth, Joseph Ransohoff, J. L. Cilley,
A. V. Phelps. The latter has been secretary of the college for a number of
years and enjoys a well-merited reputation as a teacher of anatomy.

251

• Physiology — Daniel Drake, Jesse Smith, Jedediah Cobb, John T. Shot-
well, L. M. Lawson, S. G. Armor, J. H. Tate, C. G. Comegys, J. F. Hib-
berd, W. W. Dawson, E. Rives, J. T. Whittaker, F. Forchheimer, B. K.
Rachford, A. C. Poole, Wm. Mnehlberg, E. M. Baehr. During the term
1878-'79 C. J. Funck was assistant to the chair of physiology. He is still
practicing in Cincinnati and should be remembered on account of his almost
encyclopedic knowledge of medicine and collateral sciences.

Chemistry — Elijah Slack, Thomas D. Alitchell, John Locke, Chas. W.
Wright, John A. Warder, H. E. Foote, Chas. O'Leary, Nelson Sayler, Roberts
Bartholow, P. S. Conner, Samuel Nickles, H. A. Clark, F. Forchheimer, Jas.
G. Hyndman, A. C. Poole, Wm. H. Crane, E. B. Reemelin. Crane was one
of the most talented of the younger members of the profession. He died in
1906 during a meeting of the Academy of Medicine. He was reading a paper
on milk analysis when sudden death claimed him. He expired at the post
of duty at the beginning of a hopeful career, almost the Solonic ideal of a
happy death.

The Univkrsitv of Cincinnati

Materia medica — B. S. Bohrer, E. Slack. Josiah Whitman, C. E. Pierson,
John Eberle, J. C. Cross, M. B. Wright. Daniel Oliver, J. P. Harrison, L. M.
Lawson, Thos. O. Edwards, James Graham, J. C. Reeve, Th. Parvin, Roberts
Bartholow, Samuel Nickles, B. K. Rachford, A. C. Poole.

Practice — Daniel Drake, Jedediah Cobb. John :\Ioorhead, John Eberle,
J. P. Kirtland, J. P. Harrison, John Bell, L. M. Lawson, C. G. Comegys,
James Graham, Roberts Bartholow, James T. Whittaker, F. Forchheimer.

^«ro-m'— Jesse Smith, John D. Godman. Jedediah Cobb, James M.
Staughton, Alban Goldsmith, R. D. Mussey, H. W. Baxley, Asbury Evans,
G. C. Blackman, W. W. Dawson, P. S. Conner. Joseph Ransohofif.

252

Obstetrics — Daniel Drake, John Moorhead, Josiah Whitman, John F.
Henry, M. B. Wright, L. C. Rives, N. T. Marshall, George Mendenhail, M. B.
Wright, Th. Parvin, C. D. Palmer, T. A. Reamy, E. G. Zinke.

Gynecology — Daniel Drake, John Moorhead, Josiah AMiitman, John F.
Henry, M. B. Wright, L. C. Rives, N. T. Alarshall, George Mendenhail,
B. F. Richardson, M. B. WVight, Th. Parvin, C. D. Palmer, C. L. Bonifield.

The Medical College of Ohio, after the session 1908-'09, will be, nom-
inally and actually, extinct. Among the men who belonged to the teaching
force of the venerable institution during fhe last session of its career, were
some good types of practitioners and teachers. It is to be hoped. that the new
Medical Department of the University of Cincinnati will at last furnish the
soil uppn which ambition, ability and individual worth can develop and
flourish. Able incumbents of additional chairs during the session 1908-'09
were: Brooks F. Beebe (mental diseases), S. C. Ayres, "(ophthalmology),

Howard Ayers

Chas. W. Dahxev

H. J. Whitacre (pathology), C. A. L. Reed (clinical gynecology^), A. H.
Freiberg (orthopedic surgery), R. Carothers (clinical surgery), J. W. Rowe
(clinical obstetrics), Philip Zenner and H. H. Hoppe (neurology), B. F. Lyle
(diseases of the chest), A. G. Drury (hygiene), and J. E. Greiwe (practice
and physical diagnosis). The loss of prestige of the Medical College of Ohio
was largely the result of injudicious management on the part of the oligarchy
in control. There was no dearth of talent in the faculty. The misfortune
was the narrow policy of the managers who seemed to follow the example
of John T. Shotwell, of inglorious memory.

The Medical Department of the University of Cincinnati will begin its
career in the Fall of 1909, ninety years after the birth of the Medical College
of Ohio. H the leaders of the new school are imbued with but a part of the
unselfish spirit which animated the immortal Drake when he laid the founda-

253

tion of the grand old school, the future will be safe. The past has shown that
ability and esprit dc corps can build up a great medical school. Let Daniel
Drake's great school arise like a phoenix and forevermore be loyal and true
to the ideals of that great man, unswervingly maintaining its station :

. . . Like the northern star

Of whose true-fixed and resting quality,

There is no fellow in the firmament.

The following sketches refer to men who were conspicuous in the life of
the Medical College of Ohio since 1860.

JAMES F. HIBBERD was born of Quaker ancestry in New Market, Md.,
in 1816. He attended a classical school in Alexandria, Va., and began his
medical studies in 1839 at Yale College, where he took one course of lectures.

John C. Reeve

James F. Hibberd

He began to practice in Salem, Ohio, in 1840, and remained there until 1849
when he took a course at the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons,
and accepted the appointment of surgeon on the steamship "Senator," plying
between New York and San Francisco through the Straits of Magellan. He
remained in California until 1855, practicing medicine and engaging in busi-
ness. In 1856 he resumed his medical studies in New York and finally, in
1856, located in Dayton, Ohio. After a few months he moved to Richmond,
Ind. During the term 1860-'61 he was professor of physiology and general
pathology in the Medical College of Ohio. He was one of the first in this
country to teach the principles of Virchow's cellular pathology. Hibberd died
in 1903.

What James F. Hibberd has been to the cause of legitimate medicine in
Indiana, and, in fact, in the West, is a matter of history. As early as 18B5

254

the American Medical Association elected him vice-president. He has in turn
filled the presidential chair in the medical societies of his town, his county, his
State and saw his labors rewarded when in 1893 the American Medical Asso-
ciation elected him its president. He presided at the San Francisco meeting
in 1894, surrounded by a thousand recollections of the scene of his first success
in the early fifties.

Hibberd has left many papers on a variety of subjects. A notable effort
of his was his paper on "The Part Taken by Nature and Time in the Cure of
Disease," with which he in 1868 won the prize offered by the Massachusetts
Medical Society. Between 1860 and 1866 Hibberd published numerous papers
on the new pathology. His paper on "Inflammation in the Light of Cellular
Pathology" (Indiana State Medical Society Transactions 1862) was a remark-
able production, considering the time when it was written. Hibberd was all
his life an indefatigable worker in the interests of public health, medical edu-
cation and of progress in any and every direction. Early in his career he
assisted in the formation of the Ohio State Medical Society. That he was a
man of courage, is evident from the stand he took in 1863 in the controversy
caused by Surgeon General Hammond's circular concerning the abuse of
calomel in the military hospitals. The medical profession of Cincinnati con-
demned Hammond in a public meeting held May 27, 1863, in the lecture room
of the Medical College of Ohio. Hammond was denounced as an "autocrat
in medicine" and was accused of favoring sectarianism. Hibberd, in the face
of a large and excited assembly, stood up and gallantly defended Hammond.

JOHN C. REEVE, who at the present writing (1909) is the Nestor of
the profession in Montgomery County, Ohio, universally beloved and re-
spected as an exponent of the highest ideals of professional life, was born
in England in 1826. He came to this country at an early age and had to
make his own way as an apprentice in a printing office. In 1851 he received
his degree from the old Cleveland Medical College (now the Medical De-
partment of the Western Reserve University). For about two years he prac-
ticed in Dodge County, Wis., and went to London in 1853 for further study.
The Summer of 1854 he spent at the University of Gottingen, Germany.
Upon his return to America he located in Dayton, Ohio. In 1860 he was
appointed professor of- materia medica in the Medical College of Ohio. Black-
man, who was very 'fond of him, took him with him on his numerous trips
to the battlefields of the Civil War where Reeve saw and assisted in most
of the surgical work done by the great surgeon. The unsettled condition of
things prompted Reeve to resign his chair after one term, notwithstanding
the inducements held out by his friend Blackman, who wanted Reeve to
remain in Cincinnati as his associate in professional work. Doctor Reeve
has since resided in Dayton, Ohio, as one of the representative surgeons of
the State. Gross quotes him in his "Surgery" (5th ed., vol. II., p. 398).
Im 1859 Reeve published his translation of Flouren's "History of the Dis-

255

covery of the Circulation of the Blood." His contributions to the knowledge
of anaesthetics and anaesthesia at a time when the subject was comparatively-
new and by no means well understood by the general profession, were valu-
able, in fact epoch-making. His first paper on the subject appeared in 1867
(Am. Journal of the Med. Sciences), and was in the nature of a monograph.
Later Reeve published a paper in the "Lancet and Clinic" giving an account
of the symptoms and sensations produced by self-administration of bromide
of ethyl. The latter had just then been introduced to the notice of the pro-
fession. Reeve and his friend Thad. A. Reamy were for many years the
only Western members of the American Gynecological Society.

WILLIAM W. DAWSON was the son of John Dawson, one of the
earliest settlers of Berkeley County, Virginia. The father originally came
from Pittsburg. He had located in Darkesville, A'a., and engaged in manu-
facturing. Here Wm. Dawson saw the light of day in 1828. He was one of
eleven children, an older brother being John Dawson, w4io gained distinction
as a progressive and learned physician, and at one time was one of the
strongest teachers of medicine in the West, being connected with Starling
Medical College, Columbus, Ohio. When Wm. Dawson was two years old,
the father moved to Greene County, Ohio. Young Dawson received his early
education in the country schools of Greene County. He developed a great
aptitude for natural history, especially geology and mineralogy, and drifted
into medicine at an early age. His brother John who, before he became a
professor in Columbus, was practicing in Jamestown, Ohio, gave him his first
instruction. William finally attended the ]\Iedical College of Ohio and gradu-
ated in 1850. He spent a year as an interne in the Commercial Hospital and
manifested great zeal in his professional work, as is evident from the care-
fully prepared clinical reports which he contributed to the "Western Lancet"
at that time. A very creditable paper was his graduation thesis oh "Concus-
sion of the Brain" which was published in the "Western Lancet," and shows
the practical mind of the young author. In 1851 Dawson began his career
as a medical teacher. Cincinnati at that time had a Summer school of medi-
cine, called the "Medical Institute of Cincinnati." Its session began in March
and continued for sixteen weeks. The faculty consisted of L. M. Lawson
(pathology and clinical medicine), Chas. W. Wright (chemistry), George
Mendenhall (obstetrics and gynecology), Chas. A. Downes (surgical anatomy
and minor surgery), Thomas Wood (surgery), and C. G. Comegys (materia
medica). Dawson was added to the stafif as lecturer on descriptive anatomy
and physiology. In 1853 he became professor of anatomy in the newly
founded Cincinnati College of Medicine and Surgery and continued as such
for three years. After the reorganization of the Medical College of Ohio in
1861 Dawson was appointed professor of anatomy and physiology, succeed-
ing Jesse P. Judkins. In 1864 W. H. Gobrecht, assisted by W. W. Seely,
took the chair of anatomy, while C. G. Comegys lectured on physiology.

256

Dawson dropped out of the didactic teaching staff and confined himself to
clinical teaching at the Commercial Hospital as one of the surgeons of the
institution In 1871 when the peerless Blackman was laid low by the hand
of death, Dawson was elected professor of the principles of surgery in the
Medical College of Ohio. He held this chair until 1887 when he was suc-
ceeded by Phineas S. Conner, but continued to lecture on clinical surgery.
Dawson's best work as a teacher of surgery was done in the amphitheatre
of the Good Samaritan Hospital where he enjoyed great popularity among
the students, especially towards the end of his career. The annual contests
in bandaging, surgical drawing and in dissecting, given by Dawson, were
always looked forward to with great interest by the students of the Ohio
College.

Dawson was always deeply interested in the affairs of the profession.
He was president of the Cincinnati Academy of Medicine in 1869 and presi-
dent of the Ohio State Medical Society in 1871. His Presidential Address
delivered before the State Society is an interesting document, remarkable for
the terseness and force of its style and for the unusual amount of common
sense contained. It was published in the "Cincinnati Clinic'' (June 22, 1872).
His statistical researches into death from chloroform possessed a great deal
of practical value. The crowning event of Dawson's life was his election
to the presidency of the American Medical Association in 1888 when the asso-
ciation met in Cincinnati. Dawson's contributions to the literature of the
profession consisted in many case reports which all bore the imprint of his
personality : brief, pointed and practical. In discussing the purely clinical
features of a case, he was at his best. Towards the close of his busy life he
was strangely at variance with the completely altered character of surgical
practice. He was still the surgeon of old who with the aid of common sense
and experience was circumventing the problems of surgical pathology. Daw-
son died in 1893.

Among the men who made medical Cincinnati famous, Dawson will
always occupy an honored place. He was a tower of strength to the Medical
College of Ohio. His career as a medical teacher illustrates the tremendous
influence of individwality and tradition. As an exponent of surgical science
Dawson was the equal neither of his great predecessor nor of his distinguished
successor. Yet there is a glamor to his name that gains in brilliancy as the
years roll on. He impersonated a type, a character that was clear and dis-
tinct, never blurred or stencil-made. The medical history of Cinciimati was
made by men of type, by men who did not develop according to a prescribed
pattern, but grew away from the stereotyped and conventional plan and im-
personated a design, a character of their own. This is one of the lessons of
the past.

Dawson's assistant during the first two years of his incumbency of the
chair of . surgery was Charles Kearns (born 1836) who graduated from the
Medical College of Ohio in 1863. He has risen to considerable prominence
as a surgeon. He is practicing in Covington, Ky.

257

T. A. Reamv

W. W. Dawson

\V. W. Seelv

Th. Parvin

Wm. H. Gobrecht

258

J. I,. CiLLEY

THEOPHILUS PARVIN was born in 1829 in Buenos Ayres, where his
parents were temporarily residing. He came to the United States at an early
age and received his academic education at the University of Indiana, gradu-
ating in 1847. He spent three years in New Jersey teaching, and matricu-
lated at the University of Pennsylvania where he graduated in medicine in
1852. After serving as an interne in Wills Hospital in Philadelphia for one
year, he practiced in Indianapolis for nine years. He was elected to the presi-
dency of the Indiana State Society. He accepted the chair of materia medica
in the Medical College of Ohio in 1864. In 1867 he assumed the chair of
medical and surgical diseases of women. In 1869 his chair was changed to
that of obstetrics and diseases of women and children. He resigned in 1870
and went to Indianapolis as professor of obstetrics and gynecology in the
College of Physicians and Surgeons of Indianapolis and in the Medical Col-
lege of Indiana after its consolidation with the previously named school. In
1882 he was called to the University of Louisville, but remained there only
one year to accept the appointment of professor of obstetrics, gynecology and
pediatrics in Jefferson Medical College. His career as the master-obstetrician
of this country is familiar to the medical profession of the United States.
In 1879 he presided over the Atlantic City meeting of the American Medical
x\ssociation. During the last quarter of the nineteenth century he ranked un-
doubtedly among the greatest living authorities on midwifery. His classical
work on obstetrics ("Science and Art of Obstetrics") was enthusiastically
received by the profession of this country. It unquestionably occupies the
same position among obstetrical books as Gross' monumental work among
surgical books and Bartholow's "Materia Medica" among works on thera-
peutics. Not the least admirable feature of Parvin's book is his simple, yet
elegant diction. Parvin was a scholarly man but at the same time a splendid
teacher, a combination rarely found. This is what makes his writings doubly
valuable. They not only present their subjects in a perfect, masterly fashion,
but with that ease and simplicity which characterizes, the great teacher. His
American edition of Winckel's Gynecology was likewise a masterstroke. His
smaller writings are scattered through the columns of numerous journals.
He was one of the founders of the American Gynecological Society. The
honors which were showered upon Doctor Parvin at home and abroad have
been commensurate with his exalted rank in the medical profession of this
country. He died in Philadelphia in 1898.

Personally Parvin was a cultured and high-minded gentleman. As a
practitioner in Cincinnati he was not particularly successful. He was of a
retiring disposition and had a certain noblesse about him which was fre-
quently misinterpreted. He was an aristocrat at heart, a nobleman by nature.
Nothing was more foreign to him than the reserve of snobberv. Such is the
estimate which Wm. H. Taylor places on Parvin.

Some of the Introductory Lectures which Parvin was in the habit of
delivering at the beginning of the Winter terms, deserve to be preserved

259

as beautiful monuments of a great physician who was an equally good man.
One of them, entitled "Conduct of the Medical Student" (delivered before
the class at Jefferson in 189-i) is a remarkable plea for personal, civic and
professional virtue. Another one ("Religion in Its Relation to Medical
Students," Philadelphia, 1895) attested to Parvin's deeply religious nature
which was probably inherited, his father having been a minister. A few epi-
grammatic quotations from the two lectures named will throw a character-
istic light on the psychological makeup of Parvin, the man :

"The end of lust is snicide!" . . ."Why should there be two standards of morality,
one for men and one for women?" . . . "May there not be scars upon the soul more
lasting even than those of the body?" . . . "Let your ears be deaf to the music that
lures to destruction, your eyes be blind to the beauty of the Siren !" . . . "By the
honor you bear your father or his memory, by the love of your mother, the purity of
her womanhood, by her blessed prayers which are hovtring like good angels over your
head, by a sister's farewell kiss, nay more, in the name and behalf of her who some
day shall be nearer and dearer to you than father, mother and sister, I beseech you : Let
no courtesane's caress ever pollute your lips. Make chastity the law of your life !" . . .
"Religion is as necessary for the soul of man as food is for his body !" . . . "What
creed shall you embrace? Yonder is the rainbow, lifting its sublime arch to the heavens,
and resting its base in the distant, dim horizon. What richness of beauty in its various
colors, defying the art of man to reproduce upon canvas. There are the phenomena,
but what is the noumenon, the underlying reality, the essential cause? Light. There
could be no rainbow if the sun did not shine. Does it require too great exercise of
the imagination to find in this decomposed light, variously refracted and reflected by
rain-drop prisms, a partial picture of religious organizations and creeds? There is the
blue of Presbyterianism, the purple of Episcopacy, the indigo of the Baptist, the orange
of Methodism, the yellow of Congregationalism, yea, the scarlet of Roman Catholicism.
Yet, by-and-by, when all clouds are gone from human minds, when all errors of Scrip-
tural interpretation become impossible, and human reason, divinely guided, discovers
only perfect truth, will the unity of the church, for which the Saviour prayed, be accom-
plished; then there will no longer be rays of light with their various colors, but re-united,
they will make the earth splendid in glory and perfect beauty."

ROBERTS BARTHOLOW. that strange child of genius, who was
thought by his contemporaries to be the very embodiment of cold cynicism,
while he was, strangely enough, the fervent apostle of faith and warm
optimism in the very department of medical knowledge where nowadays
cynicism, pessimism and hopeless agnosticism are the rule, was a native of
Maryland, having been born in the town of New Windsor, November 18,
1831. Every one knows Goethe's famous stanza :

"My father gave me dignity,

Of thought and word and bearing ;
My mother gave me jollity,
Each joyful fancy sharing."

Goethe was more fortunate than young Bartholow in whose father's
veins flowed the blood of the stern, austere and inflexible French Huguenots
while the blood legacy from his mother's side was the cold, matter-of-fact

260

temperament of her English ancestry. Thus we can readily understand the
peculiar makeup of Bartholow, who never had an intimate friend or even a
close associate. A frigid dignity, a chilly reserve and an uninviting manner
which was not lacking in a suggestion of cynicism and sarcasm, stood during
his whole life between the man and the world at large, or, more particularly,
between him and the smaller but more exacting world of professional asso-
ciates.

Bartholow's father had decreed that the boy should follow a professional
career, and, accordingly, gave him all the advantages of academic preparation
at Calvert College (now New Windsor College), Maryland, where the young
student received his baccalaureate degree in the arts in the year 1848. Young
Bartholow left his Alma Mater with a splendid record of diligence and schol-
arship. He had shown especial aptness in the languages and excelled all his

Roberts Bartholow

fellow students in the ease and perfection with which he mastered the Latin
and Greek classics. The institution where he received his academic education
was under the management of a religious brotherhood and, like all schools of
this character, noted for the methodical thoroughness of the instruction given,
especially in the cultivation of correct style and elegant diction. Here is
where the foundation was laid to that splendid scholastic and belletristic mas-
tery which made Bartholow the peerless wielder of the pen. Bartholow
became an adept in the use of French and German while at Calvert College.
He also devoted himself with much zeal to the study of chemistry and fre-
quently in after-life referred to the great advantages he had enjoyed in
this respect. While a student, he acted for a while as assistant instructor of
chemistry.

He took up the study of medicine at the ^Medical Department of the Uni-
versity of Maryland and graduated after completing a three years' course.

2()1

For a year or two after getting his medical degree, he did post-graduate work
in the cHnics and hospitals of Baltimore and finally applied for the position
of assistant surgeon in the regular army. He passed a splendid examination
and was assigned to the expedition which in 1857 was sent out by the United
States Government to restore order in the Far West where the fanatic Mor-
mons under Brigham Young and the belligerent Indians were giving rise
to no end of trouble. For four years Bartholow remained at one or the
other post in the West, the monotony of army life being occasionally relieved
by the ever-troublesome Comanches and Apaches. The young surgeon de-
voted his leisure time to the study and investigation of the febrile diseases
that prevailed in the Western country. In conjunction with his medical
studies, he gave much attention and time to cjuestions of meteorology and
botany.

In 1861, when guns were trained on Fort Sumter and the long and bitter
struggle between the North and South was announced by the roar of those
guns, Bartholow was stationed at Fort Union, New Mexico. When the orders
of the Federal Government were received at Fort Union, all but two of the.
officers of the garrison embraced the cause of the South. They were all
Southerners and seceded with the rest of the people of the South. Bartholow
was one of the two officers who remained loyal to the flag and in September,
1861, reported in Baltimore under orders of the Government. He remained
in Baltimore one year in charge of one of the military hospitals. The fol-
lowing year found him in Fort Schuyler, New York, where he was on duty
as surgeon in charge of a large hospital. Here he wrote, by order of his
superior officers, "A Manual of Instruction for Enlisting and Discharging
Soldiers," which became the official handbook for the United States Govern-
ment Recruiting and Discharging Stations. Another well-received product
of his pen at that time was a book on "The Qualifications for the Medical
Service." In 1863 Re was ordered to Washington, D. C., as one of the sur-
geons of the Lincoln General Hospital. He wrote many valuable reports and
papers on sanitary and hygienic subjects for the benefit of the medical service
in the field hospitals. In 1864 he was in charge of the general military hos-
pital in Nashville, Tenn.

From 1857 to 1864 he had been uninterruptedly in the service of his
country and had served his country with all the zeal of the conscientious
physician and dutiful soldier. In 1862 he had married without, however,
being able to enjoy the blessings of domestic happiness. He yearned for his
little fatherless family, and, accordingly, resigned his position in the army.
He located in Cincinnati. Doctor Roelker, who enjoyed a large and influ-
ential clientele, took an interest in the young and capable newcomer and
helped him to get a foothold and build up a practice. Bartholow, shortly
after his arrival, was offered the chair of chemistry at the Medical College
of Ohio and accepted it. The chair of chemistry for three terms had been
filled by Mr. Nelson Sayler, an attorney, who subsequently rose to great

262

eminence in his profession. The splendid training Bartholow had received
in the laboratories of Calvert College, now came in good stead. In spite of
the objections raised by certain conservative persons who preferred a pro-
fessional chemist to a practicing physician in the chair of chemistry, he made
a splendid showing in his work. He taught chemistry in its relation to
medicine and introduced new and startling methods of study. He was pro-
gressive, resourceful and enthusiastic, full of his subject and determined to
win out. As a side issue he continued his studies and researches in sanitary
science. With an iconoclastic disregard for precedent he invaded the unctious
sessions of the Cincinnati Academy of Medicine which were then, as they
frequently are now, solemn occasions for mutual incense-ofiferings where any
disturbance of convention and deviation from the noiseless tenor of long-
established tradition were and are looked upon as sacrilegious. Nothing
reveals the true mettle of a man better than a self-dependent disregard for
petrifactions, a hatred of that conservatism which is synonymous with stag-
nation and consequent decomposition. Bartholow found in the placidly
trancjuil meetings of the academy the opportunity for the development and
display of his peculiar gifts of fearless analysis and criticism. His practical
work in sanitary science during the cholera epidemic of 1866 was of a high
order of merit.

Bartholow soon acquired an extensive practice. He connected himself
with a number of hospitals and gained a reputation as a clinical teacher of
medicine. In 1866 he took charge of the cholera hospital and acquitted him-
self in a most creditable manner. In 1869 he became professor of materia
medica and worked in his new field with all his characteristic energy. He
revolutionized the methods of teaching therapeutics by substituting demon-
stration for explanation and by illustrating the action of drugs by experi-
ments on animals.

Bartholow at this time was wonderfully active and productive. He took
care of an immense practice, lectured at the college on materia medica, ful-
filled the duties of numerous hospital positions, started the "Clinic," a new
medical journal, wrote for many outside journals, published several small
books (among them one on "Disinfection," another on "Spermatorrhea," an-
other on "Hypodermic Medication," the latter being a bold and original
treatise) wrote three prize-essays (for the Russell-prize on "Disinfection,"
for the Fiske-prize on the "Bromides," for the prize offered by the American
Medical Association on "Atropia"). The crowning effort of all this tireless
energy and ceaseless toil was his book on "Materia Medica and Therapeutics,"
that monument of therapeutic optimism which since its first appearance has
been a source of information and inspiration to thousands of American phy-
sicians. Sixty thousand copies of this great work have been sold. It was
truly the work of a master who has done more towards directing the current
of therapeutic thought of American physicians into optimistic channels than
any other writer on materia medica. He is the second reallv great writer on

2()3

therapeutics that Cincinnati may claim as her own. John Eberle, crude,
forcible and severely logucal, Roberts Bartholow, accomplished, optimistic and
always authoritative, represent a combination that is typical of practically
the highest and best achievements of American medicine during the last
century. While Eberle was more or less a product of his own time, reflecting
the rudimentary state of knowledge of the first half of the nineteenth cen-
tury, Bartholow was a leader along the new paths which he had blazed.
Because of this fact, he will outlive his famous predecessor.

In the enunciation and defense of new truths Bartholow was incisively
positive even to the point of brutality. His splendid academic training, backed
up by a vast amount of observation and experience, gave him the advantage
in contests with most men. He was fearless and merciless. This is what
raised hosts of enemies for him. He fought with weapons of analogy, logic
and sarcasm up to the point of extermination. His intense nature could not
tolerate concessions. It is not surprising that he was not popular in the
vulgar sense of the word. The truth is never popular, especially if it is car-
ried into the camp of the enemy with the irresistible force of superior men-
tality. It is the men of Bartholow's type who give to the profession that
virile quality which is so rare in these molluscoid days of ours.

That Bartholow's temperament did not permit much of a lull in the
doings of the Ohio faculty is not surprising. There was at least one other
member of the faculty in those days who was of Bartholow^'s mettle intel-
lectually and never went out of his way to avoid a good fight. This man was
the inflammable Blackman. He was Bartholow's natural enemy and never
did anything to disabuse the minds of the profession in regard to this fact.
Blackm:an's attack on Bartholow on account of the latter's literal and not
liberal use of a French essay on locomotor ataxia caused much excitement at
the time. Blackman's pamphlet was entitled : "Literary Larceny or Prize
Essaying Made Easy and Taught In a Single Lesson." The incident is re-
ferred to elsewhere.

Bartholow, within a few years, had risen to a position of great prominence
in the American medical profession. His labors were appreciated and re-
warded far and near. Mount St. Mary's College made him a Doctor of
Laws. The College of Physicians of Philadelphia, the American Philosoph-
ical Society, the Royal Medical Society of Edinburgh and the Society of
Practical Medicine in Paris conferred Fellowships upon him.

A most sensational incident in his career was his experimentation on the
brain of a living human subject which evoked a storm of criticism and con-
demnation in this country and Europe. The incident is well described by
Dr. James W. Holland, of Jefiferson Aledical College, Philadelphia, Pa., in
the latter's splendid "Memoir of R. Bartholow." Doctor Holland says :

"In 1874 Bartholow published in the 'American Journal of the Medical Sciences'
a report which has a retrospective interest and also illustrates his enterprise as the
forerunner of all who operate on the human brain. His candid article has been re-

264

published by the anti-vivisectionists as a highly significant tract and references to it
are still seen in their literature. The circumstances are these : The valuable results
, flowing from the experiments made by Hitzig and Ferrier upon the functions of the
brain in animals had made a decided impression upon those seeking data for greater
certainty in therapeutics. No one had as yet made similar experiments upon the brain.
A case came under Doctor Bartholow's care of rapidly extending epithelioma of the
scalp with exposure of the dura mater. To the ardent investigator this was a timely
opportunity provided by Nature, and not to make use of it for extending the bounds
of knowledge, would be to fail in his duty. With the full consent of the hopeless
patient, who knew that life must soon be extinguished by the spread of the cancer,
electric stimulation was applied directly to the posterior lobes of the cerebrum by needle
electrodes. The results were confirmatory of those obtained in the lower animals by
Hitzig and Ferrier^ but at the time of the experiments, and for some hours after,
there were complications which denoted that the knowledge was gained at the expense
of some injury to the brain. The patient's death some days later was ascribed to
extension of the cancer producing a thrombus of the longi'tudinal sinus. Doctor Bar-
tholow got little credit for his daring in invading the sacred organ or his candor in
reporting the whole affair. He was censured by medical journals at home and abroad.
To his critics he replied that he had no reason to expect that the faradic current would
prove electrolytic and that the tissues would not escape damage; that the celebrated
case of recovery, after a crowbar had passed through the brain, had been considered
as proof that the brain was tolerant of injury, but that his recent case having proved
the contrary, it would be criminal to repeat such experiments. The editor of the 'British
Medical Journal' expressed the opinion that the apology of Doctor Bartholow dis-
armed further criticism. Since that time the whole science of cerebral surgery has
been developed upon the assumption that the antiseptic method gives plenary indulgence
for that form of sacrilege."

In 1879, when Bartholow was in the zenith of his powers as a teacher and
author, and enjoying what was thought to be the largest and most lucrative
practice in Cincinnati, Jefferson Medical College, of Philadelphia, was casting
about for a successor to Dr. John Biddle, late professor of materia medica
and therapeutics. The appointment was offered to Bartholow who accepted
it. He was at that time professor of practice in the Medical College of Ohio,
having five years previously (1874) become the successor of the great clin-
ical teacher, James Graham. It has often been a matter of speculation why
Bartholow was so readily induced to accept the Philadelphia offer. There is
no doubt that the passing away of most of the associates of his early labors,
like Blackman, Graham and Wright, had left him comparatively isolated
among his younger colleagues. Bartholow represented a strange mixture of
traits of mind and heart. There is such a thing as a companionship of oppo-
sition which holds men together who respect each other because of the af-
finity of their mettle. When the antagonist is gone, the spirit of active
opposition, the life-element of some minds, is hushed and a void with a death-
like stillness is left behind. Some say that Bartholow aspired to the highest
scientific position in American medicine and that a post at some Eastern col-
lege would be the necessary stepping-stone. Be that as it may, Bartholow,
not in the best of health and perhaps tempted by the prospect of a few years
of comparative leisure and chance to recuperate, moved to Philadelphia, and

205

began his new labors as the associate of J. M. DaCosta, the distinguished
chnician, who shared the medical clinic with Bartholow at Jefferson. Thus
Cincinnati paid an old debt to Philadelphia when Bartholow became the
incumbent of the chair which John Eberle years ago had vacated to become a
professor in Cincinnati.

The splendid reputation which preceded Bartholow was fully sustained
by his work as a teacher of medicine in Philadelphia. The great effort of his
Eastern career was the publication of his "Practice of Medicine," a monu-
mental work in which he reproduced the lectures he had delivered at the
Medical College of Ohio. The work was received with much favor by the
profession. It has been translated into the Japanese. Bartholow was an
associate editor of the "Medical News" and a much-sought-after lecturer and
consultant. In 1893 he gave up his active college work and spent most of
his time at his summer home in Buzzard's Bay, Mass., in the enjoyment of
well-merited fame as one of the foremost physicians of his time. His health
was gradually failing. He suffered from diabetes which eventually was com-
plicated by a mental breakdown. After a long illness he died at his Philadel-
phia home May 10, 1904, at the age of seventy-two.

"In his personal appearance," says Dr. J. N. Holland, "there was an air of distinc-
tion, due in part to his dignified demeanor and his careful dress. Of medium height
and weight, his bearing was reserved and lacking in geniality. While his professional
expertness was of undoubted value to society, as an unremitting student, with the habit
of seclusion, the social life had few charms for him."

"His cool and somewhat cynical manner gave no intimation of his alertness and
mobility. With mental powers always in light marching order, he was ready for
lecture, consultation, post-mortem, or critique, able to cope with any adversary that
his aggressive energies might arouse. The secret of his material success won without
the arts that make for popularity must be found in his mental capacity, industry, and
resolution, qualities which united in one brain always give to the possessor ascendency
over others."

Bartholow's work in Cincinnati was productive of much good to the med-
ical life of the city. With the versality and resourcefulness of a Humboldt
he combined the aggressiveness and peppery temper of a Benvenuto Cellini,
always ready to stir things in the interest of life, activity and progress. In
his eyes persons did not exist, except as far as they were carriers of ideas and
principles. He did not love men nor did he fear them. He was too much
himself to toady to the mighty ones or to suppress those beneath him. He
despised the provincialism in medicine which has been such a curse in the
latter-day history of medicine in Cincinnati. He recognized but one criterion
in medicine, that of truth as shown by analysis. In therapeutics he was
broad and ever mindful of the purpose of all therapy, to-wit : to be a means
to the end. He did not care whence a therapeutic suggestion came, provided
it could stand the crucial test of analysis. The electro-therapeutic room
equipped by him in the Good Samaritan Hospital and exhaustively described

266

in the "Clinic" (1872) was far ahead of his time and would be a credit to
anyone even today. His notions about galvanism are interesting because
novel and original. He gave the Eclectic school credit for doing the best
research work in botany and pharmacology. His ever-alert mind gleaned and
culled everywhere and at all times. He adopted as his motto:
"Quidquid agis, prudenter agas et respice finem!"

He always proceeded with care and forethought, his mind's eye riveted
on the final purpose of all therapeutic and clinical work, to-wit : to add to
our positive knowledge of everything pertaining to the treatment and cure of
disease. When all that can be said about Bartholow has been told, we are
bound to recognize his exalted position as the bearer of one of the most dis-
tinguished names in the annals of American medicine.

RICHARD W. SAUNDERS, for a time associated with Geo. C. Black-
man, was born in 1835 of English parents who were living in Bologna, Italy,
and afterwards moved to Florence where young Saunders received his lit-
erary education which was completed at the University of Pisa. At Pisa he
graduated in medicine. He continued his studies in Vienna, Paris and
London. At the latter place he became a Fellow of the Royal College of
Surgeons. In 1858 he entered the medical service of the English army.
He was stationed at Fermay, near Cork, Ireland, in Calcutta, India, Bengal,
Cawnpore, during the Sepoy uprising, Alexandria, Cairo, Suez, Aden and
Ceylon. He took tropical fever and was ordered to England. He made
the trip from Ceylon via the Cape of Good Hope and St. Helena in 119 days.
After his recovery he was sent to Halifax, N. A., and later to Montreal.
He resigned his position in 1865. He had wooed and won one of Kentucky's
fair daughters and, in deference to her wishes, came to Cincinnati to prac-
tice his profession. Here he entered into a partnership with Blackman, which,
however, was not of long duration. He was a mild-mannered European
gentleman who certainly was not qualified to be the running mate of Black-
man, a veritable Jupiter tonans. Saunder's health was not good and com-
pelled him to retire from practice at a comparatively early age. He spent
several years in Europe. Upon his return he lived in retirement in New-
port, Ky., indulging his love of natural history and of art to the utmost. He
was an expert botanist, a connoisseur of art, a lover of literature and a
linguist of extraordinary ability. The Italian Government decorated him in
recognition of his services as Italian Consul in Cincinnati. Saunders was one
of the best educated and most highly polished men that ever practiced medi-
cine in Cincinnati. He was prosector of surgery at the Medical College of
Ohio 1865-'66. He died in 1881.

2f)7

CHARLES O. WRIGHT, oldest son of the distinguished M. B. Wright,
was born in Columbus, Ohio, in 1835 and came to Cincinnati when his father
was appointed a professor in the Medical College of Ohio in 1838. Young
Wright began the study of medicine under W. W. Dawson in 1855, but
gave up his medical studies the following year to engage in a commercial
pursuit in California. The spirit of adventure once aroused gave him no
rest. For three years he wandered from place to place. He visited the
Sandwich Islands, China, Japan, Siam, India and Africa. After three years
he returned to Cincinnati and became a student of medicine at the Medical
College of Ohio. He graduated in 1862 and immediately entered the medical
service of the army as assistant surgeon of the 35th Regiment Ohio Volun-
teer Infantry. He was captured at Chickamauga and spent almost two years
in Libby Prison at Richmond, Va. He was exchanged and rejoined his
regiment when he took sick and was compelled to return home. In 1864 he
served as an interne in the Cincinnati Hospital. The following year he was
appointed prosector of anatomy in the Medical College of Ohio, but resigned
at the end of the term. For a short time he was dermatologist to the Good
Samaritan Hospital. He died in 1889.

SAMUEL NICKLES, for thirty-three years a teacher in the Medical
College of Ohio and revered by thousands of physicians who can not forget
the conscientious devotion to duty, the plain honesty and dry, quaint humor of
"Old Sammy Nickles," was born in Cincinnati in 1833, the child of Swiss-
German immigrants. His father died, leaving the family in dire distress.
Samuel was compelled to work in order to help in the support of his mother
who had three children besides himself. In his spare moments and late at
night, when others of his age were spending their time amid fun and frolic,
young Nickles could be found in his poorly furnished but neatly kept room
with a book or two and a dim candle-light as his only companions. He
studied and worked incessantly to get an education. He had made up his
mind to study medicine and at the age of twenty-one matriculated at the
old Eclectic College of Medicine and Surgery getting his degree in 1856.
In 1859 he graduated from the Eclectic Medical Institute. He at once entered
general practice. During the war he was assigned to duty as surgeon of the
81st Regiment Ohio Reserve Militia. When the war was over, he took a
course at the Medical College of Ohio and was granted a degree at the end
of the term (1865). He was appointed demonstrator of anatomy the same
year. In 1869 P. S. Conner who had been professor of physics and medical
chemistry, was made professor of surgical anatomy, and Nickles became his
successor in the chair of physics and medical chemistry. In 1871 the chair
was changed to that of chemistry and pharmacy. In 1874 R. Bartholow
became the successor of J. Graham in the chair of practice and Nickles was
appointed professor of materia medica, succeeding Bartholow. In 1898,
after thirty-five years of faithful service, Nickles resigned his chair and
retired from practice. He was president of the Academy of Medicine in 1885,

268

Nickles's principal contributions to medical literature are to be found in
the "Reference Handbook of the Medical Sciences." In the third volume are
contained his papers on cholagogues (p. 28), diuretics (p. 543) and emetics
(p. 809), in the fourth volume papers on expectorants (p. 48) and hypnotics
(p. 813) ; in the fifth volume on laxatives (p. 468) ; in the sixth volume on
purgatives or cathartics (p. 809) ; in the seventh volume on tonics (p. 805).
Other papers of value are on digitalis (Am. Journal Med. Sc, Vol. 58,
p. 410) and on the diuretic action of calomel (Ohio Med. Journal, Vol. III.,
p. 117).

In 1868 he translated Emil Siegle's "Treatment of Diseases of the Throat
and Lungs by Inhalation" (2d ed.), a book of 136 pages. The translation
was published by R. W. Carroll & Co., Cincinnati. Ohio.

Nickles did his best work in the lecture room where his deliberate manner
and systematic mode of procedure were well adapted to the subject of materia
medica. His knowledge of the subject was vast and thoroughly digested. In
addition to his profession he was much interested and well read in German
literature. After his retirement (1898) he spent his time in communion with
the great naturalists and philosophers, especially Ernst Haeckel, whom he
revered almost to the point of worship. Like his great idol he was an agnostic
of the optimistic type. He died in 1908.

As a medical teacher Nickles, like Blackman, Graham, Wright and the
other giants of those days, did not impersonate a stereotyped copy or a
mediocre reproduction of some model or type. Samuel Nickles did not fit
into a prescribed mould. He was a type, not a stereotype. The generation
which gave him to the profession was a generation of great teachers and
leaders because it was a generation of individualities.

WM. WALLACE SEELY was born in Muskingum County, Ohio, in
1838. His literary education was obtained at Phillip's Academy, x^ndover,
Mass., and Yale College. He graduated at Yale in 1862, admittedly the best
all-round Yale graduate of that year. He excelled in literature and in the
sciences and was a versatile athlete. He studied medicine at the Medical
College of Ohio, graduating in 1864. The following year he filled the posi-
tion of demonstrator of anatomy. In 1865 a chair of ophthalmology and
otology was created and Seely was appointed to fill it. He resigned in 1899.
During his service as a member of the faculty he served as the latter's secre-
tary for a number of years. He was dean of the faculty from 1881 to 1900.
He died suddenly in 1903.

Seely was a man of great ability. As an oculist he enjoyed a vast reputa-
tion. He was a wonderfully dexterous operator and, during the early part
of his career, a frequent contributor to the literature of his specialty. Seely
was liberally endowed with wordly goods, which fact redounded to the dis-
advantage of the profession because it deprived the latter of the work which
this brilliant man would have given to medicine, if the attractions of social

209

position had not absorbed so much of his time and enegy. His persistent
advocacy of the yellow oxide of mercury ointment in ophthalmology has
become thoroughly identified with his name.

WM. H. GOBRECHT, popular teacher of anatomy and editor of an
American edition of Erasmus Wilson's Anatomy, was a native of Philadel-
phia, where he was born in 1828. He graduated at the Philadelphia Central
High School in 1846 and at the Medical Department of the University of
Pennsylvania in 1849. He was a Fellow of the College of Physicians of
Philadelphia. From 1858 to 1861 he was professor of anatomy in his Alma
Mater. His excellent edition of Wilson's Anatomy appeared in 1858. In
August, 1861, he enlisted and served as a surgeon of the 49th Pennsylvania
Volunteer Infantry until January, 1863. From March, 1863, to October,
1865, he was on duty in Covington, Ky., and Cincinnati, Ohio, as surgeon of
the United States Volunteers and a member of the Army Medical Examining
Board, also at Camp Dennison and Johnson's Island, Ohio, being brevetted
Lieutenant-Colonel for faithful and meritorious service. In 1865 he became
professor of anatomy in the Medical College of Ohio and filled this chair for
ten years. In 1878 he accepted the appointment of professor of anatomy in
the Fort Wayne College of Medicine, Indiana, and served in this capacity
until 1882, being at the same time one of the associate editors of the Fort
Wayne Journal of Medicine. From 1882 to 1885 and again from 1890 to 1893
he served as one of the medical attachees of the Pension Bureau in Wash-
ington. He died in the latter city in 1901. His assistant at the Medical
College of Ohio from 1867 to 1870 was J. O. A. Hudson, who subsequently
located in Meigs County, where he died in 1875.

PHINEAS SANBORN CONNER whose name is a synonym for the
Periclean age in the history of the Ohio College, was born at West Chester,
Pa., August 23, 1839. When he was two years old, his parents removed to
Camden County, North Carolina, and three years later to Cincinnati. His
father, Dr. P. S. Conner, Sr., was a practicing physician, a man with a
modest, retiring disposition, well-informed but averse to display of any kind.
He died in Cincinnati in 1854. The mother was a most extraordinary woman,
energetic, brainy and scholarly. It was this mother who moulded the char-
acter of the son. The latter developed under the spell of his mother's influ-
ence and, throughout his illustrious career, has drawn no small share of
strength and inspiration from her memory. In 1855 yotmg Conner entered
Dartmouth College and graduated in 1859. He attended lectures at the Med-
ical College of Ohio 1859-'60 and at Jefiferson Medical College 1860-'61. He
graduated at Jefferson in 1861. During his student days and after graduation
he saw much practical work, first at a retreat for the insane at Hartford,
Conn., where he was stationed as apothecary and assistant physician, and later
on in some of the New York Hospitals. In November, 1861, he passed the

270

Army Medical Board and entered the service of the Government as acting
assistant surgeon on the staff of the Columbia Hospital, Washington, D. C.
In April, 1862, he was commissioned assistant surgeon of the United States
Army. He remained in the service until August, 1866, having served in
various capacities in the Washington hospitals, in the Department of the
Gulf, at Fort Columbus (New^ York Harbor) and in the Department of North
Carolina. He was brevetted captain and major in the United States Army
"for faithful and meritorious service during the war."

The war being over, Conner located in Cincinnati and dispelled the weary
hours of vigil which make up the largest portion of every young man's first
year in practice, by filling the chair of surgery in the Cincinnati College of
Medicine and Surgery. In this position he succeeded Thomas Wood, who
had held the chair for two terms following the death of A. H. Baker, founder
of and first professor of surgery in the college. Conner's associates in the

P. S. Conner

college were D. D. Bramble who had just entered the school and was occupy-
ing the chair of anatomy ; R. R. Mcllvaine, who was teaching physiology ;
R. C. Stockton Reed, professor of materia medica; B. S. Lawson, professor
of practice; E. Buckner and Thos. Carroll, who divided the chair of obstetrics
and gynecology, and — last but not least — the great Daniel Vaughn, professor
of chemistry, who took a deep interest in young Conner and befriended. him
in many ways. In 1868 Conner was appointed professor of physics and
medical chemistry in the Medical College of Ohio, succeeding Roberts Bar-
tholow who had been transferred to the chair of materia medica. In 1869
Conner became professor of surgical anatomy. In 1875 he was appointed
professor of clinical surgery in Dartmouth College, his duties at the latter
institution requiring his presence during the Spring and Summer months.
In 1887 he became professor of surgery at the Medical College of Ohio.

271

He severed his active connection with the college in 1905 when he resigned
and yielded his chair to his successor, Joseph Ransohoff. Some of his best
work as a teacher of surgery was done in the amphitheaters of the Cincin-
nati and Good Samaritan Hospitals. He was a member of the Examining
Board which was appointed by President McKinley after the Spanish-Amer-
ican war to investigate the medical management of the army during the war.

Conner has contributed liberally to the literature of surgery. He was
one of the associate editors of Keen and White's American Text-book of
Surgery. To Ashhurst's International Encyclopedia of Surgery" he con-
tributed monographs on "Gunshot Wounds" and "Injuries and Diseases of
Muscles, Tendons and Fasciae," to Pepper's "System of Practical Medicine"
one on "Tetanus," to Dennis's "System of Surgery" one on "Gunshot
Wounds."

In the "Clinic," the official organ of the Medical College of Ohio, the
following papers appeared :

"Excision of hip." 1871. I., 205, 219. "Hernia cerebri." 1S72. II., 301-303. "Dry
earth as a surgical dressing." 1872. III., 109. "The anatomists after Vesalius." 1374.
VI., 145-151. "Exsection of portions of the supra- and infra-orbital nerves for the
relief of tic douloureux." 1874. VII., 97-99. "Resection of metatarsus, anterior tarsus
and parts of astragulus and os calcis. Recovery with useful foot." 1875. IX., 73-77.
"Pophteal aneurism. Amputation." 1875. I., 185. "Webbed fingers." 1875. IX.,
29-31. "Strangulated femoral hernia in the male." 1875. VIII.. 73. "The 'Bavarian'
plaster dressing in the treatment of fractures, especially of the lower extremity." 1875.
IV., 133. "Pistol wounds of the heart." 1876. X., 255-257.

The following papers appeared in the "Lancet and Clinic" and "Lancet-
Clinic" :

"Subcutaneous osteotomy for the relief of vicious ankylosis of knee." 1878. L, 1-4.
"Tracheotomy with the thermo-cautery." 1879. II., 2(51. "Cancer: has it a constitu-
tional or local origin?" 1879. II., 381-333. "A case of strangulated hernia; operation;
persistence of stercoraceous vomiting ; death ; autopsy." 1880. IV., 25. "Nascent oxygen
in the treatment of wounds, ulcers, etc." 1880. IV., 51. "Bromide of ethyl." 1880.
IV., 395. "Fracture of the lower end of the radius: how is it produced?" 1881. VI..
371-373. "Clinical lecture on primary venereal ulcers." 1881. VI., 165-171. "Clinical
lecture on femoral hernia." 1881. VI., 49-51. "Scirrhus in the male breast." 1381.
VI., 524. "Tetanus, its symptomatology and pathology." 1882. IX., 534-537. "Deformities
of the fingers. 1882. IX., 439. "External perineal urethrotomy." 1882. IX., 1. "Ele-
phantiasis of the vulva." 1883. X., 108. "Comminuted fracture of the knee-joint."
1883. X., 108. "Punctured wounds of the skull." 1884. XII., 1-4. "Vesical explora-
tions." 1885. XIV, 737. "Chronic cystitis." 1886. XVI., 445-447. "Caries of the
tarsus." 1888. XXL, 671-676.

The following papers appeared in the "Journal of the American Medical
Association" :

"The medical service of the U. S. Pension Bureau." 1886. VII., 570-572. "Case of
sarcoma of the scalp." 1888. XL, 233. "Address on surgery delivered at the fortieth
annual meeting of the American Medical Association, Newport, R. L, June 27, 1839."

272

1889. XIII., 15-10. "Fracture lower end of the radius." 1894. XXIII.. 54. "Address
at the closing exercises of the Army Medical School, April 1, 1898." 1898. XXX.,
941-944.

In the transactions of the American Surgical Association the following
papers were published :

"Excision of the tarsus with a report of two successful removals of the entire tarsus."
1883. I., 285-305. "Willard Parker (1800-1884). Obituary." 1885. II., 39. "Trau-
matic cephalhydrocele with a report of two cases." 1885. II., 55-63. "The etiology of
traumatic tetanus." 1885. III.. 315-334. "Moses Gunn (1822-1887). Necrology." 1888.
VI., 27. "Surgical treatment of tumors of the bladder." 1890. VIII., 21-38.

The transactions of the Ohio State Medical Society contain the following
papers :

"Surgical applications of carbolic acid." 1876. III., 325. "On the use of plaster of
Paris roller in the treatment of club-foot." 1879. XXXIV., 121. "External perineal
urethrotomy." 1882. XXXVTL, 81-85. "Vescical explorations." 1885. 73-78.

The following papers appeared in various journals:

"Meckel's ganglion and the propriety of its removal for the relief of neuralgia of
the second branch of the fifth pair of nerves." Am. J. Med. Sc, Phila. 1870. IX., 359-
373. "Foreign body in air-passages ; tracheotomy ; expulsion after sixteen days." Am. J.
Med. Sc, Phila. 1877. XXIV., 595. "On injuries of the hand." Med. News & Libr.,
Phila. 1879. XXXVIL, 65-69. "On the use of the actual cautery (the thermo-cautery
of Paquelin) in the treatment of carbuncle." Med. News, Phila. 1882. XII., 648. "Ex-
vision of the tarsus." Phila. Med. Times. 1882-'83. XIII., 607-609. "Fracture of the
neck of the thigh-bone." Fort Wayne J. Med. Sc. 1885-'86. V., 69-73. "The etiology
of traumatic tetanus." Med. News, Phila. 1885. XLVIL, 88-90. "Strangulated hernia
with a report of 33 herniotomies." Med. News, Phila. 1886. XLIX., 621-623. "Hos-
pitals for the sick; their construction and management." Proc. Nat. Confer. Char.,
Boston. 1886. 237-250. "Specimen of myxosarcoma of the scalp." Semi-monthly J.
Proc. Path. Soc, Phila., Wilmington. 1886. I., 14. "Legal Medicine." Proc. Alumni
Assn. M. College of Ohio, Cincinnati. 1888. 33-36. "The late manifestations of syphi-
lis." Trans. Cong. Am. Phys. & Surg. 1891. New Haven. 1892. II., 78-93. "Stab
wound of the chest." International Clinic, Phila. 1891. II., 106-110. "Tubercular dis-
ease of the tarsus ; operation." International Clinic, Phila. 1891. II., 110-112. "Essen-
tials and non-essentials in medical education." Bull. Acad. Med., Easton, Pa. 1892.
129-136. "Late syphilis." Med. News. Phila. 1892. LX., 85-92. "Operative treatment
of cancer of lips, tongue, floor of mouth and pharynx." Ann. Surg., Phila. 1895. XXII.,
445-450. "Dartmouth men in medicine" (pamphlet). "Historical address at Dartmouth
Centennial" (pamphlet).

For fully twenty-five years Conner was the commanding figure in the old
Ohio College. He was typical of its best traditions and scholarship. He was
one of the last survivors of a generation of teachers that made Cincinnati a
great medical center. Like his associates Conner was an individuality that
at all times stood out in characteristic bold relief, neither conventional nor
stencil-made, but always an original well-defined type. It was men of this kind
that loomed up and drew the attention of the whole country to the town

within whose walls these giants had arisen : Blackman, Graham, Bartholow,
Seely, Dawson, Whittaker, Conner, Reamy and others. It was said of the
son of Peleus, that his armor was too large and heavy for any of his Myrmi-
dons to don. What will posterity say of Conner and his followers? To
hundreds of physicians throughout the Western country one of the cherished
memories of their student days is the Agamemnon-like pose, the intense
nature and supremely self-confident air of that born chieftain, P. S. Conner.
He was always himself, fair and square, ruggedly honest, sometimes wrong
in his judgment, but always right at heart. Posterity will recognize a trinity
of great surgeons that have shed imperishable luster upon the Ohio College,
R. D. Mussey, G. C. Blackman and P. S. Conner. Dartmouth College showed
her appreciation of her illustrious alumnus as early as 1884 when the ven-
erable Alma Mater of Mussey and other famous men conferred upon Conner
the degree of Doctor of Laws. Conner died March 26, 1909. The last few
years of his life were embittered by failing health and by the loss of his wife
and his son. It is safe to predict that many years will pass before a
man will arise in Cincinnati who will take the place of P. S. Conner as a
power for good in the profession, morally and educationally. To the Medical
College of Ohio his forced retirement at a critical time in its history proved
to be a calamity in more senses than one.

CHARLES S. MUSCROFT was born in Sheffield, England, in 1820.
He came to this country when he was two years old. His father was one of
the colonists who were to take part in the community experiment at New
Harmony, Ind. On his way to New Harmony he was detained in Cincinnati
and decided to remain here. He became one of the founders of the Ohio
Mechanics Institute.

Young Muscroft was raised in Cincinnati. He began the study of medi-
cine under Chas. L. Avery and graduated at the Medical College of Ohio in
1843. He devoted himself to the practice of surgery. He was one of the
founders of St. Mary's Hospital and for many years its surgeon and the
chief of its staff. During the war he was assigned as surgeon to the 10th
Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry and later on appointed medical director.
From 1867 to 1869 he was prosector of surgery at the Medical College of
Ohio under G. C. Blackman. For several years he served on the staff of the
Cincinnati Hospital. He was at one time health officer of the city. He
died in 1888. His son, C. S. Muscroft, Jr., (born 1853) graduated at the
Miami Medical College in 1875, was police surgeon in 1880, coroner in 1882
and has served on the staff of St. Mary's Hospital.

Muscroft, while not a voluminous writer, gave to the profession a number
of papers of great value and at least two that were of historical import. One
of these referred to bloodless amputation at the hip-joint which he was the
first surgeon in this country to perform. The method of preventing hemor-
rhage consisted in the introduction of a needle and pressure by torsion. The

other paper ("Exsection of Ulna") is quoted by Gross in his Centennial His-
tory of Medicine in America. In this work three Cincinnati surgeons are
mentioned : Mussey, Blackman and Muscroft. In 1876 Muscroft was elected
president of the Cincinnati Academy of Medicine. Muscroft is the author
of the sketch of the "Life and Services of Geo. C. Blackman" m the Trans-
actions of the American Medical Association (1873).

EDWARD RIVES was the son of Landon C. Rives, Drake's associate
in the Medical Department of the Cincinnati College. He was born in Cin-
cinnati in 1833. His education was obtained at the University of Virginia.
He began the study of medicine in his father's office and matriculated at the
New York College of Physicians and Surgeons, where he was the student of
Willard Parker, his father's erstwhile colleague in the Cincinnati College.

Edward Rives

Landon R. Longworth

He graduated with high honors and entered Bellevue Hospital as an interne,
subsequently serving in the Randall Island Children's Hospital for two years.
His first experience as a practicing physician was gained in the mountains
of Virginia where he had formed a partnership with Dr. L. C. Rives, Jr.,
an older brother. When the war broke out, he entered the medical service of
the army of the Confederacy as brigade surgeon in Pickett's Division of
the Army of Northern Virginia. He served throughout the war and left a
magnificent record behind as a medical officer of ability, skill and loyalty to
duty. He was considered the peer of any surgeon in the Confederate serv-
ice. He filled the chair of physiology in the Medical College of Ohio during
the session 1869-'70. In his class work he had the assistance of his brilliant
nephew, Landon R. Longworth. Rives was presumably the first man in this
country who used the magic lantern as a means of illustration before the class,
especially in the demonstration of microscopic slides, in the preparation of

275

which he was a master. His splendid skill as a surgeon was recognized in
1872 when he was appointed on the staff of the Cincinnati Hospital. His
health failing, he moved to Hillsboro, Ohio, where he died in 1883. Through-
out his whole life he was the type of an educated and cultured professional
gentleman, such as might be expected in the progeny of the fine old Virginia
stock from which he sprang.

JAMES T. WHITTAKER. The life work and services of this splendid
type of the modern physician might befittingly be expressed in three words.
He was a gentleman, he was a scholar, he was an idealist. Whatever Dr.
Whittaker was to his friends, to his patients, to his students, to his home
town or to the cause of medicine, it was the product of that happy combina-
tion : the instinct of the gentleman, the latitude of the scholar and the never-
lagging, soul-stirring, magnetic love of the profession and its ideals. As a
man he was amiability itself, as a physician he embodied the concreteness of
scholarship in its broadest sense, as an example to the younger men he
was a constant inspiration. The very association with him seemed to arouse
ambition and enthusiasm. Up to the very last when he lay, weary and wan,
upon his bed of anguish, a sufferer from incurable disease, his interest in
the profession he loved and the Medical College of Ohio in whose behalf
he had worked so long and faithfully, never lagged. I would like to banish
from my memory the sight of that noble sufferer in the last days of his
illness. Yet, amid the signs of approaching dissolution, when the shades of
eternal night were creeping over his emaciated frame, he thought of the
science he had loved so well and the work that was still to be done.

His brow was sad ; his eye beneath
Flashed like a falchion from its sheath,
And like a silver-clarion rung
The accents of that unknown tongue :
Excelsior !

James T. Whittaker was born in Cincinnati ]\Iarch 3, 1843. His father
moved to Covington, Ky., when the son was still quite young and there the
delicate, frail-looking, fair-haired lad attended the public schools. He was a
bright boy, eager to study and learn, and was always at the head of his class.
When he was twelve years of age he attended the High School in Covington
and was a zealous student. To strengthen his frail body he bravely took
part in the athletic games of the stronger boys. Among his fellow-students
at that time were two boys who later in life became distinguished members
of the medical profession of Cincinnati, John C. Cleveland and A. G. Drury.
In 1859 he went to Oxford, Ohio, and became a student at Miami University.

Doctor Drury, in his "Memoir of Whittaker," tells about the patriotism
of the young student who had hardly outgrown his "roundabouts." "In
August, 1862, the Confederate Army under General Bragg entered Ken-

276

tucky in an attempt to capture Louisville, and thus hold the State. After the
battle of Richmond, Ky., fought August 30, 1862, Kirby Smith's corps of
Bragg's army was sent to capture Cincinnati. The records show this city to
have been comparatively unprotected. There was indeed mounting in hot
haste. Volunteers from the city and adjacent territory were mustered in.
Old citizens well remember the 'squirrel-hunters." The Forty-first Regiment
Kentucky Volunteer Infantry, was mustered into service September 4, 1863.
James T. Whittaker's name appears on the register as a private. He was
mustered out with the regiment on the 4th of October following, the emer-
gency for which it was called, having passed. During this time he served
in the trenches which encircled the city south of Covington, and while on
duty received a flesh wound in the arm. After his discharge he returned to
Miami University where he graduated in 1863."

Jas. T. Whittaker
Immediately after his graduation Whittaker entered the service of his
country as surgeon's steward on the U. S. S. "Reindeer" and resigned April
15, 1865, with the rank of Acting Assistant Surgeon. He attended the Uni-
versity of Pennsylvania (Medical Department) in 1866, the Medical College
of Ohio during the session of '66-'67, graduating in medicine from the latter
institution in 1867. For one year he served as Chief Resident Physician in
the Commercial Hospital. The following year he spent in Europe, where
he attended the clinics and lectures of great masters such as Virchow,
Frerichs and DuBois Raymond. October, 1869, he returned to Cincinnati
and plunged at once into practice and college work. After serving as a
quizz-master in practice and obstetrics and getting his first experience as a
lecturer,- he was appointed professor of physiology in 1870. The following
year clinical medicine was added to his chair. When Roberts Bartholow left
the city to go to Philadelphia in 1879, Whittaker became professor of prac-
tice. He held the chair until the time of his death in 1900.

During the whole of his long and honorable career as a member of the
faculty of the Medical College of Ohio, Doctor Whittaker was a frequent and
authoritative contributor to the literature of his profession. The monographs
on "Asthma, Acute and Chronic Bronchitis and Whooping Cough" (Hare's
System of Practical Therapeutics, Vol. II.), "Diseases of the Heart and
Pericardium" (Twentieth Century Practice, Vol. IV.), "Meningitis" (Hand-
book of the Medical Sciences, Vols. II. and IV.), "Diseases of the Lungs and
Pleura" (Sajous's Annual of the Universal Medical Sciences, 1892-'94) are
valuable on account of the vast amount of material digested. In the bib-
liography of tuberculosis he was posted as no xA.merican physician of his
time. He was the first and most loyal American pupil and supporter of
Robert Koch in the latter's labors on behalf of the etiology, biology and
therapy of tuberculosis. As the editor of the "Clinic" from 1871 to 1876 he
championed the best interests of the profession with all his splendid resources
of style and scholarship.

Whittaker was admittedly one of the most scholarly American physicians
of his time. His learning was vast, thorough and wonderfully diversified
even outside of medicine. Aided by a marvelous memory and inspired by
enthusiastic love of scientific truth and progress, he was at once the apostle
of all that was good and noble in our profession, and, in his whole makeup, a
living example of what he championed. With three hundred and more med-
ical students sitting before him as though they were fascinated by the magical
presence of that unassuming but carefully attired little man with the inex-
haustible vocabulary, there was no doubt that the hypnotizing element was
not so much what he said, but hozv he said it and above all the fact that he
said it. His voice was not that of an orator but rather that of an accom-
plished conversationalist. His lectures were delightful because he was a
delightful man. They were interesting because he drew from a never-failing
fount of information with the aid of an ever-ready and always pleasant com-
mand of language. His lectures were entertaining rather than instructive.
In the words of Thomas C. Minor, "he was persuasive rather than argumenta-
tive." His lectures were primarily a flow of soul and incidentally a feast of
reason. The aesthetic element, rather than the philosophic, predominated.
He neither possessed the methodical precision of Bartholow nor the plastic
realism of Graham. The elements of his strength were the charm of his
presence and. the magic of his mentality. He was not a producer of new
ideas in medicine, but knew how to interpret and transmit the ideas of others
with the aid of that wonderful sum-total of forces that gave him his own
peculiar strength. In this respect he resembled his distinguished predecessor,
John P. Harrison. From what has been said, it would appear that the failure
of Whittaker's "Theory and Practice of Medicine" (1893) was not at all
surprising. A book that has hardly anything in its method or plan to give
it a well-defined identity in this age of medical book-making, is bound to fall
stillborn from the press. If Whittaker could have added his own personality

278

to his work, it would have been a veritable book of magic in medicine. Whit-
taker, like his predecessor Harrison, was a polished, cultured and immensely-
popular teacher and yet the books written by the two men on the practice of
medicine, caused hardly a ripple in the current of medical literature. Whit-
taker's "Lectures on Physiology" (1879) were written in the pleasing,
rambling style of the litterateur and belong to the class of books which fol-
lowed in the wake of Buechner's "Kraft und Stofif" which was their classical
prototype. W^hittaker's pleasing style and versatility appear to best advan-
tage in his novel "Exiled for Lese Majeste" (1898) which is well worth perusal.
What, then, is Whittaker's claim to a high place in the medical annals
of Cincinnati, or, for that matter, of the West? First of all, he was a gen-
tleman as fine and well-bred as ever graced the profession of medicine.
Secondly, he was the possessor of a marvelous scholarship, amazing in its
immensity. Thirdly, he embodied a form of scientific altruism that is alto-
gether too rare in this material country of ours. Whittaker was a truth-
seeker who loved the truth for its own sake. He was a teacher who incul-
cated the greatest, the best and most enduring lessons of scientific idealism
and of humanity by the irresistible force of his example. He was an enthu-
siast with all the shortcomings of the sanguine optimist. He yearned for
the pilot who would land him safely in the harbor of truth and knowledge
where there would be no more mysteries to fathom and no more questions
to ask. Mehr Licht! embodied the craving of his soul. His whole life was
a paraphrase of this greatest of all epigrams. Thousands of American physi-
cians owe their love of medicine and humanity to that little gentleman whom
they never tired of hearing. The association with him during my own
interneship at the Good Samaritan Hospital is the most cherished memory of
my professional life.

Whittaker was a splendid German scholar. A little occurrence that in-
cidently illustrates the witty side of his nature, is not unworthy of being
recorded. Two Cincinnati physicians who had a patient at the Good
Samaritan Hospital and were waiting for Doctor Whittaker who was to see
the case in consultation, had an argument in regard to the gender of the
German word "Kind." When Whittaker entered the room, they drew him
into the discussion. With an ironical twinkle in his eye he remarked: "I
have seen some children that were masculine and others that were feminine,
but in regard to the child, you gentlemen are talking about, I would not for
the world want to offend either one of you by taking sides. I prefer to
maintain a neutral position."

Whittaker and his magnetic personality will never be forgotten by those
who had the privilege of attending his lectures at the Medical College of
Oliio. Nature only now and then creates the like of James T. Whittaker.

For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place

The flood may bear me far,

I hope to see my Pilot face to face,

When I have crossed the bar.
279

CHAUNCEY D. PALMER was born in Zanesville. Ohio, in 1839,
began his medical studies in the office of John Davis and graduated from
the Medical College of Ohio in 1862. For two years he was stationed as
assistant surgeon at Camp Dennison, Ohio. In 1870 he succeeded Th.
Parvin in the chair of obstetrics and diseases of women and children. In
1872 when a rule was adopted that no member of the staff of the Cincinnati
Hospital should be connected with any medical college, Palmer resigned his
chair in the college in order to retain his position in the hospital. When, a
few months later, the rule was rescinded, he re-assumed his chair, dividing
it with T. A. Reamy who taught obstetrics. Palmer retained the chair of
gynecology until 1906 when he resigned. He has been a liberal contributor
to the literature of his specialty. Probably his best paper is that on the
"Differential Diagnosis of Pregnancy and Abdominal Tumors" in the
American Text-book of Obstetrics. He has enriched the armamentarium
of obstetrics and gynecology by an obstetrical forceps, a speculum and a
dilator.

J. L. Cleveland

Chas. C. Muscroft

JOHN L. CLEVELAND was born on a farm in Kenton County, Ken-
tucky, in 1841. In 1854 he entered the district school in Covington, Ky.,
in 1855 the high school from which he graduated in 1859. He continued
his studies at Centre College, Danville, Ky., at Miami LTniversity, Oxford,
Ohio, and took his bachelor's degree at Centre College in 1863. For two
years he studied theology in Princeton. In 1865 he began his medical course
at the Medical College of Ohio, graduated in 1868, served one year in the
Commercial Hospital and entered general practice. From 1870 to 1874 he
was demonstrator of anatomy in his Alma Mater. For one term (1872-73)
he lectured on gynecology. In 1882 he was elected president of the Academy
of Medicine. He was professor of practice in the Laura Memorial College.

280

He died in 1906. Doctor Cleveland was a scholar of wide culture, a physi-
cian of great skill and very popular as a consultant. He was one of the
most valuable members of the profession on account of his vast and thor-
oughly digested medical learning.

THADDEUS ASBURY REAMY was born in Frederick County, Vir-
ginia, in 1839. When he was three years old, his parents settled on a farm
in Muskingum County, Ohio, about ten miles from Zanesville. Young
Reamy was raised like most farmer boys. In the Summer he worked as a
farmhand, in the Winter time he attended a country school. When he
reached the years of manhood, he taught school. In 1853 he graduated
from Starling Medical College, Columbus, Ohio, and located in Mount Ster-
ling, subsequently moving to Zanesville, Ohio, where he practiced for eight
years. In 1858 he was elected professor of materia medica in the Cincin-
nati College of Medicine and Surgery. He held this chair for two years.
From 1860 to 1863 he was a member of the General Assembly of Ohio,
having been elected from Muskingum County. In 1861 he passed the Army
Medical Board and was commissioned surgeon of the 122d Regiment Ohio
Volunteer Infantry. His military career came to an end within six months
when the Secretary of War ordered him to report to the Governor of Ohio
who gave him his discharge from the army that he might take his seat in
the Legislature. During the year 1863 he served as surgeon in a military
camp near Newark, Ohio. In the same year he was elected professor of
gynecology in Starling Medical College. He resigned this chair in 1871
upon his removal to Cincinnati and acceptance of the chair of obstetrics,
gynecology and pediatrics in the Medical College of Ohio. He held the
chair of obstetrics until 1887 when he resigned and became professor of
clinical gynecology. He retired from active work in 1906. Some of his
best clinical teaching was done in the amphitheatre of the Good Samaritan
Hospital. He was the first to give clinical class instruction in obstetrics in
Cincinnati.

Reamy in his palmy days was the ideal teacher. He had a splendid
physique, fine intellectual and yet kindly countenance, a sonorous voice and
an animated delivery. He was a natural born orator who knew how to
inspire and enthuse the large classes that assembled in the Good Samaritan
Hospital in the seventies and eighties. The students loved him because his
countenance beamed with earnestness and kindly feeling on the brightest as
well as the lowliest member of the class. It carried conviction with it. He
impersonated a type that is rare because the attributes of mind and heart
which constitute this type, are given to but few. He was earnest, full of
life and enthusiasm. His manner was aglow with human feeling and every
word he spoke rang true. His humor was quaint and naive, strangely at
variance and yet, somehow or other, delightfully in accord with his general
makeup. Like all his great contemporaries he was built on large lines and

281

always acted the part. He was a pillar of strength to the Medical College
of Ohio and left a vacant chair when he retired from the school which he
had so long adorned. He died March 11, 1909.

Reamy's assistants at the college were James L. McMechan (1876-1878)
and Giles S. Mitchell (1878-1880). The former (born 1847) graduated
from the Medical College of Ohio in 1868 and has been in general practice
since that time. Mitchell is referred to elsewhere.

LANDON RIVES LONGWORTH, whose untimely death deprived the
Medical College of Ohio of more than merely a teacher of medicine, was
through his mother the grandson of Landon C. Rives, that distinguished
obstetrician, who was Drake's associate in the Cincinnati College. He was
born December 25, 1846. Seldom was there a child born that had at the
time of its birth so many assurances of subsequent happiness, success and
usefulness. Landon Longworth came from illustrious ancestry and inher-
ited an abundance of everything that is worth while: brains, artistic tem-
perament, character, lofty ambition, and — last, but not least — a comfortable
allowance of the world's goods, that useful element in the exercise of the
art of savoir vivre. Getting his baccalaureate degree at Harvard in 1867 he
looked around to see what avenue through life he wished to choose. Not
like Hercules, who had but two paths to choose from, Landon Longworth
had every path opened unto him that human existence could provide and
many more which human inclination might choose to blaze. In 1868 he went
to Europe to study art under Hans Gude, and under this master's inspiring
direction became a painter of no mean accomplishment. With his heart
afire he returned to his native land where the dance around the golden calf
allows people no time or inclination to worship at the shrine of the Muses.
Longworth felt the chilling solitude of an artistic temperament in this coun-
try and decided to study medicine. Medicine is universal in its psychic adapt-
ability. Depending on the individual interpretation and impersonation, it is
capable of raising the soul to the heights of Olympus or lowering the heart to
the level of the things that are earthy. It may be a science, a handicraft, a mere
business, depending on the man who is a Galen, a Vesalius or a — Shylock.
When Landon Longworth took up the study of medicine in 1870, he aimed
for the highest, because he was a high-born child of genius. His first pre-
ceptor was Dr. Edward Rives, his uncle, who had been a teacher in the
Medical College of Ohio. After a preliminary course in the Ohio College,
Longworth went to New York and became a student at the College of
Physicians and Surgeons. He graduated at the head of his class in 1873
and continued his studies in Austria and Germany, paying special attention
to microscopy. In 1874 he returned to Cincinnati and became demonstrator
and eventually professor of anatomy at the Medical College of Ohio and
pathologist to the Good Samaritan and Cincinnati Hospitals. He was an
enthusiastic microscopist, devoted much time and labor to photography,

282

invented a new electric arc-light and incidentally was a musician that ranked
with the best. This wonderfully gifted and versatile man was laid low by
the hand of death on January 14, 1879, before his career had fairly begun.
For the college his death was a calamity. If he had lived, the mantle of the
intellectual and professional leadership would have eventually fallen upon
him and the traditions of the old Ohio College would have been preserved
in all their glory by the clean hands, the superior mind, the scholarship and
character of Landon R. Longworth.

H. A. CLARK was born in Portsmouth, England, in 1844. He was
brought to this country when he was six years old. In 1864 he enlisted in
the army. After a short service he received his honorable discharge on
account of ill health. He attended Starling Medical College, Columbus,

H. A. Clark

Nelson Sayler

Ohio, and graduated in 1869. He was appointed physician to the Ohio
Penitentiary but resigned when he w^as offered the demonstratorship of
chemistry in the Medical College of Ohio (1873). The following year he-
became professor of chemistry. He resigned in 1877 and accepted the chair
of anatomy in the Medical College of Fort Wayne, Ind. There he had
some difficulty and being a man of quick impulses, he resigned then and
there and went to Eureka, Kansas, to work as a clerk in a drug store. After
a year or two he started a newspaper and lost everything he had. He moved
to Severy, a small town near Eureka, and began to practice medicine. Here
he died in 1882. He was a wonderfully gifted man, but ill-balanced and of a
sour, pessimistic temperament.

JONATHAN L. CILLEY, born 1838, graduated from the Miami Med-
ical College in 1866 and served one year in the Commercial Hospital as an
interne. His preliminary education w^as obtained at Harvard University

283

where he received his baccalaureate degree in 1853. He made an excellent
record as a medical officer during the Civil War. In 1871 he assumed the
post of demonstrator of anatomy in the Miami Medical College, and held
it for seven years. In 1879 he was appointed demonstrator of anatomy in
the Medical College of Ohio, receiving the ad cundern degree of Doctor of
Medicine from the latter institution in 1880. In 1889 he was made adjimct
professor of anatomy. He resigned in 1899 and moved to Brooklyn, N. Y.,
where he died in 1903. From 1875 to 1880 he taught physiology in the
Ohio College of Dental Surgery. He held the chair of anatomy in the
Woman's Medical College and lectured on plastic anatomy in the Cincinnati
Art School. Cilley was a good anatomist and quizz-master. and was very
popular with the students.

FREDERICK FORCHHEIMER was born in Cincinnati in 1853. He
graduated from the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons at the
age of twenty and went abroad where he devoted special attention and study
to pediatrics. In 1876 he was appointed demonstrator of morbid anatomy
and of histology in the Medical College of Ohio. In 1877 he succeeded
H. A. Clark in the chair of chemistry. In 1879 he became professor of
physiology and clinical lecturer on diseases of children. In 1900 he suc-
ceeded Jas. T. Whittaker in the chair of practice. Upon the resignation of
P. S. Conner he became dean of the faculty. In 1907 appeared his text-book
of practice ("Prophylaxis and Treatment"). He has contributed liberally
to the literature of pediatrics. His position as an able exponent of the
latter subject is generally recognized. Not the least of his accomplishments
is his mastery of the violin.

JAMES G. HYNDMAN was born in Cincinnati in 1853. He attended
Woodward High School and began the study of medicine under the precep-
torship of James T. Whittaker. He graduated at the Medical College of
Ohio in 1874, having served on the house staff of the Cincinnati Hospital
for two years previous to his graduation. He entered private practice and
incidentally translated papers from the German and French for the "Clinic,"
a weekly publication issued in the interests of the Medical College of Ohio.
Eventually he became J. T. Whittaker's associate in editing the "Clinic."
In 1876 he was appointed assistant to the chair of practice (Bartholow), in

1879 lecturer on medical chemistry and clinical lecturer on laryngology, in

1880 professor of medical chemistry. For many years he was secretary of
the Medical College of Ohio and in this way became personally known to
hundreds of physicians in all parts of the country. His unfaltering loyalty
to the ideals of the old Ohio will be remembered for many years to come.
He was one of the translators of Ziemssen's Encyclopedia of Medicine. He
died in 1904.

284

JOSEPH RANSOHOFF was born in Cincinnati in 1853. He graduated
from the Medical College of Ohio in 1874, served as an interne in the Cin-
cinnati Hospital, went abroad for a number of years, receiving a Fellow-
ship of the Royal College of Surgeons, of London, in 1877. In 1879 he
became the successor of Landon Longworth, as professor of descriptive
anatomy, succeeding the distinguished P. S. Conner in the chair of surgery
in 1902. The following year he became a trustee of the University of Cin-
cinnati, thus assuming a position of control with reference to the institution
of whose teaching staff he was a member, an arrangement which Daniel
Drake, eighty years previously, had designated as being "ill-advised and a
fruitful source of abuse." Ransohoff's term expired in 1907. Ransohoff
was an efficient teacher of descriptive anatomy and did good w^ork as in-
cumbent of that chair and as clinical lecturer on dermatology.

T. 'LOUIS BROWN was an Englishman by birth. He was born in
1835, came to this country at an early age and spent many years at the
hardest kind of manual work. In spite of all the difficulties which poverty
put in his way, he acquired an education by denying himself every kind of
pleasure and by burning the midnight oil. He graduated at the Medical
College of Ohio in 1872 and w^as demonstrator of anatomy from 1872 to
1878. He died in 1900. Brown was an odd genius, talented, versatile and
thoroughly original. He could design and build a house and do any kind
of mechanical work. He was a practical pharmacist, a naturalist, an astron-
omer, an expert microscopist, a musician, an actor, and, withal, the most
delightful and lovable of men.

FREDERICK KEBLER was born in Cincinnati in 1855 and graduated
from the Medical College of Ohio in 1876. He was appointed instructor in
histology in 1879. Four years later he was put in charge of the microscopic
laboratories, and, in addition to his work therein, lectured on hygiene. In
1887 he became adjunct professor of practice. He resigned in 1895 and
died two years later, wrecked in body and mind. In spite of his uneventful
career, pursuing the noiseless tenor of his way as a zealous teacher and
devoted friend of the students, the name of Frederick Kebler will never be
forgotten by those who had the privilege of knowing this excellent man
who by nature was fitted for everything that was great and good. Within
the memory of living man the Medical College of Ohio never had a better
teacher than was Frederick, or, as his friends called him, Fritz Kebler. His
very presence radiated warmth and inspiration. He came from an ill-starred
family and he himself drifted about on the ocean of life like a rudderless
ship. This was the cruel irony of Fate. That royal homage, which is
contained in the word "gentleman," w^as never more befittingly bestowed
than upon Kebler, and there was no one who ever disputed the fitness of
the appellation in his case. During his connection with the ^Medical Col-

285

F. Kebler

Walter S. Christopher

CD. Palmer

Samuel Nickles

Jas. G. Hyndman

286

Jas. M. French

lege of Ohio Kebler's personality and influence over the student body were
among the most vahiable assets of the school. He was

A combination and a form, indeed,
Where every god did seem to set his seal
To give the world assurance of a man !

In the history of medical education in the Middle West Kebler's name
should be linked with those of Jedediah Cobb, John Locke, James Graham
and others, most of whom left no written legacy of their scholarship, and
made few, if any, contributions to science, but helped to form the character
of the profession by their teaching and by their example.

WALTER S. CHRISTOPHER was born in Newport, Ky., in 1859. He
attended the Medical College of Ohio and graduated in 1883. In 1885 he
was appointed demonstrator of chemistry and assistant clinician in the
pediatric department. These subordinate positions were out of all propor-
tion to his capacity and scientific fitness. Dissatisfied with his surroundings,
he left Cincinnati, in 1891 to assume the chair of practice in the University
of Michigan. The prospects of larger clinical possibilities prompted him in
1893 to accept the chair of pediatrics in the Chicago Polyclinic and later on,
in addition thereto, a similar position in the Chicago College of Physicians
and Surgeons. Christopher in a short time rose to the highest rank as a
specialist in children's diseases and as a teacher of pediatrics. He was a
clinician of extraordinary attainments, a thoroughly scientific thinker, a clear
and systematic teacher and an original investigator. Mayor Carter Harri-
son, Jr., recognizing Christopher's extraordinay fitness, appointed him - a
member of the board of education. In his new position Christopher's work
was of epoch-making importance. He created the Child-study Department
in the educational management of Chicago's schools and did work of en-
during value in establishing this new department on a scientific basis. The
reports of this department published by the Chicago Board of Education,
bear eloquent testimony to Christopher's originality and thoroughness. His
studies of nutrition and disturbances of metabolism in childhood are too
well known and appreciated to require any comment. Christopher was an
ideal teacher, personally a nobleman by nature, and, owing to the splendid
sum-total of attributes of mind and character embodied in him, immensely
popular in the profession. He died in 1905. Being the incomparably able
exponent of a new and important departure in educational work, his untimely
death was in the nature of a national loss.

JAMES MAGOFFIN FRENCH was born in Iberia, Morrow County,
Ohio, in 1858. His father and grandfather were Presbyterian ministers.
When James was twelve years old, he came to Cincinnati with his parents.
In 1878 he received his baccalaureate degree in the arts from Westminster

287

College, Pennsylvania, and became a student in the Medical College of Ohio.
He graduated in 1880, and, having served as a resident physician in the Good
Samaritan Hospital for one year, began to practice in Cincinnati. In 1887 he
was appointed demonstrator of pathology and lecturer on morbid anatomy.
In 1895 he was made a lecturer on medicine. He resigned in 1903 and moved
to San Diego, Cal., on account of ill health. He had been the editor of the
Ohio Medical Journal (Journal of the Medical College of Ohio) and a con-
tributor to the Reference Handbook of the Medical Sciences. His greatest
service to the cause of medicine was his book on "Practice," which is de-
servedly popular with the profession, and is, without a doubt, the most
valuable contribution which has been made by a Cincinnati author to medical
science since the days of Roberts Bartholow. French was in frail health
all his life and undoubtedly shortened his days by his close attention to
study and to his practice. He was of an austere, cheerless temperament, an
indefatigable student and a conscientious practitioner. As a teacher he was
dry and uninteresting. At heart he was a good, well-meaning man who de-
served more sunshine than life had in store for him. He had a wealth of
well-digested medical knowledge which was stored in a mind, naturally
systematic and logical. Whatever he wrote, was well-defined, clear-cut and
unincumbered with non-essentials. He possessed the gift of analysis in a
high degree and had a splendid sense of proportion in gauging the perspective
of a subject seen from the reader's point of view. This is what made his
text-book of practice so popular with the profession. French died of tuber-
culosis in San Diego, Cal, in 1907.

288

CHAPTER XITI.

THE CINCINNATI COLLEGE OF MEDICINE
AND SURGERY.

(Baker's College.)

ONT Alarch 7, 1851, a charter which bore the signature of John F. i\Iorse,
Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Charles C. Converse,
Speaker of the Senate, was issued by the Legislature of Ohio, by
virtue of which charter A. H. Baker, C. S. Kauffman, Peter Outcalt, Jacob
Grafif, Jos. K. Smith, Jos. Draper, Wm. Cameron, Wni. B. Dodds, Cornelius
Moore, Martin Tilbert, Stanley Matthews, O. M. Spencer and Robert Moore
were constituted a "body corporate and politic to be known by the name and
style of the Cincinnati Medical and Surgical College" and duly authorized
to confer the degree of Doctor of Medicine. Strangely enough, the insti-
tution for which the charter was obtained never went into operation, at
least its legal name, the "Cincinnati Medical and Surgical College," was
never applied to the institution which derived its legal existence and status
from the aforesaid charter. For fully forty years diplomas were issued by
the "Cincinnati College of Medicine and Surgery" which had no legal exist-
ence because no charter had ever been granted to an institution of that name.
After four decades the mistake was discovered by an accident and rectified.

The Cincinnati College of Medicine and Surgery was the creation of one
man who, like Drake, suffered from that delusion which makes its victim
crave a chair in a medical college, or, in its severer form, causes the unfor-
tunate sufferer to found a medical school as a proper stage-setting for his
(real or imagined) genius. When Drake retrospectively and not without
some humor uttered these words of self-criticism, he had reached the even-
tide of life. He looked back and smiled at the follies and errors of the days
gone by. That mighty delusion was at that time to him "ein iiberwundener
Standpunkt," as the Germans would say. To liken Alvah H. Baker, the
founder of the Cincinnati College of Medicine and Surgery, to the great
founder of the Medical College of Ohio and of the Medical Department of
the Cincinnati College, is justified by the intention to make the creation of
Baker's ambition appear in the most charitable light. In no other sense
would it be possible to find even the suggestion of an analogy between these
two men and their "delusions."

Baker was ambitious and energetic. He was convinced that the glory
and revenue derived from a medical school would amply compensate for
labor and time spent. He made up his mind that he would be the school,

289

especially as far as the glory and the revenue were concerned. He started
out by renting a building at the southwest corner of Longworth Street and
Western Row (Central Avenue), which he fitted up as a medical college
with a hospital attachment. He assumed the deanship and the chair of sur-
gery. Benj. S. Lawson, Registrar, was professor of practice. R. A. Spencer
was the anatomist, Charles W. Wright the chemist. The remaining profes-
sors were James Graham (materia medica), J. Sidney Skinner (pathology),
Edward Mead (obstetrics and diseases of women and children). Charles W.
Wright (not related to M. B. Wright) had been connected with the "Med-
ical Institute." James Graham, subsequently a giant among medical teachers,
was a young beginner, "to fortune and to fame unknown." Baker,' in "dis-
covering" Graham, showed what a splendid judge of men he was. Edward
Mead was probably the best educated man in the first faculty of Baker's
school.

CixciNXATi College oe Medicine and Sukgekv (LS."ii-l.s71 )
The fees were fixed at $10 for each professor, $5 for matriculation, $10
demonstrator's ticket, $25 graduation fee and $5 hospital ticket. The hos-
pital referred to in the last item is the Commercial Hospital. Baker profited
by Drake's fight (1835 to 1839). After a four years' struggle Drake suc-
ceeded in getting the Legislature in 1839 to open the portals of the Commer-
cial Hospital to the students of any regular school of medicine. Baker took a
decided stand, basing his claim on the legislative act of 1839 and obtained
the hospital privilege for his students without any struggle.

The personnel of the faculty was constantly changing under Baker's re-
gime. Some of the early professors remained but one term, several of them
not even a full term. Baker was a hard taskmaster. He expected his asso-
ciates in the faculty to work for glory while he pocketed the proceeds. In
addition to this he was an arbitrary manager whose will was supposed to

290

be supreme law for every individual in the school. These were the factors
which militated against the school during Baker's lifetime. It was only after
his death that the oppobrium which had clung to the school was removed,
largely through the efforts of the many excellent men who filled the chairs,
especially in the seventies and later. During the second session (1852-'53)
Elijah Slack, the first professor of chemistry in the Medical College of Ohio
(1819-1830), filled the chair of chemistry. Another man of prominence w^as
Pliny M. Crume, of Eaton, Ohio, who taught obstetrics for a few sessions.
He was one of the founders of the Ohio State Society. E. S. Wayne and
Geo. W. Gordon were strong men, the former a pharmacologist and chemist
of national reputation, the latter closely identified with the early history of
the American Medical Association. W. W. Dawson and Thad. A. Reamy
were among the early professors. In the sixties P. S. Conner lectured on
surgery for one term. The first decade in the life of Baker's school was an
interrupted chain of internal and external troubles, largely attributable to the
selfish and domineering manner of the founder of the school. Baker wanted
to be surgeon to the Commercial Hospital. \Mien he failed in his attempt
to get the appointment, he refused to let his students purchase hospital tickets
and began to harrass the hospital management in every imaginable manner.
In order to break up the other two schools (Ohio and Miami) Baker made a
free school out of his institution. A long and bitter controversy and endless
confusion were the result of Baker's attitude. The merger of the Ohio and
Miami Colleges (1857) was indirectly brought about by Baker. His school
was probably best characterized by Robert R. Mcllvaine, the father of the
Cincinnati Academy of Medicine, who taught physiology in Baker's school
for a short time. His characterization refers to the school while under
Baker's management :

"The Cincinnati College of Medicine and Snrgery was conceived in sin and born
in iniquity. The best that can be said of it is that it is a normal school for medical
teachers. No one goes there to teach but those who are ambitious to learn how to
teach in a better school."

In 1854 Baker's college building was the scene of one of the most fiendish
crimes in the history of the West. The story of the Arrison Infernal Ma-
chine is thus related in Greve's History of Cincinnati :

"One day in June, ]8o4, a fine-looking stranger called upon Dr. A. H. Baker to
make inquiries as to a medical student named Isaac H. Allison. After stating that he
expected to see him in less than a week, he took his departure. Baker spoke of the
matter to Allison, who said that he supposed the man was a gambler who, because of a
previous difficulty, maintained a grudge against him. Nothing more was seen of the
man and the occurrence passed from the minds of both Baker and Allison. On June
26. about nine o'clock in the evening, a man answering the description of the stranger
stopped a couple of boys on Longworth Street and employed them to carry a box to
Mr. Allison, who was the steward of the Marine Hospital at the southwest corner of
Western Row and Longworth Street. He cautioned them not to shake the box for
fear of damaging the contents. The boys took the box and left it at a haberdasher's

291

named Stockton, whose store was in the building of the Marine Hospital. The box
was wrapped in brown paper and tied with a cord. Attached to it was a card, ad-
dressed to Mr. Allison, Marine Hospital, corner of Western Row and Longworth Street,
Cincinnati. The clerk who received the box carried it to Dr. John W. Baker, who
was seated at the door of his office in the same building, with the request to hand it
to Mr. Allison. Doctor Baker was busy for the moment and laid the box on the
table. Doctor Cummins casually picked up the box and shook it. It was about a
foot long, six inches wide and weighed from 10 to 15 pounds. As he shook the box,
he heard a hard substance rattling inside. A moment later Doctor Baker started with
the box upstairs. At the head of the stairs he met Allison's wife, who was the matron
of the hospital, and handed the box to her. She took it to her room and gave it to
her husband. Allison sat down upon a chair and after untying the strings and taking
off the paper commenced pulling off the sliding top of the box and immediately a ter-
rific explosion took place. The two Drs. Baker, hearing the report, at first supposed
that it was thunder. They then heard the ceiling falling and the walls tremble and
the screams from the Allisons' room. They immediately rushed in and found the room
filled with dust of the falling plaster and powder smoke. The bedclothes were on fire
and Mrs. Allison ablaze. Doctor Baker tore the clothes from her body and soon
succeeded in extinguishing the fire. Allison was then heard calling for help. The
room was absolutely dark and a light was hastily procured. Then Allison was seen
crawling on his hands and knees towards the window. His clothes were burning and
the whole front of his body torn out so that his entrails protruded from his abdomen.
He was picked up and carried into an adjoining room and Mrs. Allison, who was seen
to be badly injured, was carried to a room in the first story. It was learned at once
that Allison could not live. To inquirers he stated that it was evident that the box
contained a torpedo and that he suspected a man named Arrison of the crime. There
were found in his legs 22 balls, slug shots and pieces of iron. His abdomen, hands and
face were dreadfully burned and both his eyes burned out. After suffering intense
pain for a little over an hour, he died in great agony at half past twelve. Mrs. Allison
was so wounded in one arm that it was found necessary to amputate it. Her other
hand, as well as her shoulders, face and breast, were badly burned. Both Allison and
his wife were young and attractive people of good family and were possessed of many
friends. Mrs. Allison died the following day, after suffering great agony. The noise
of the explosion was so great as to be heard all over that part of the city. A special
police force was assigned to search for the murderer and a reward was offered for his
apprehension. It developed at once that the box had been made about four days before
by McCullough & Hively on Fifth Street. After it was finished, the person who had
ordered it brought it back to have it made larger. A description of this person cor-
responded with that of the man who gave the box to the boys and also to that of the
purchaser of some fulminating powder at Saulsbury's drug store. This person named
Arrison was a fellow-student of Allison in the college. During the temporary absence
of Doctor Baker, he had been appointed assistant surgeon in the hospital at which time
he had a slight controversy with the steward, Mr. Allison. From this came a challenge
which, however, was not accepted. A little later in a dispute about a book, the lie
was given and as a result Allison knocked Arrison down. The latter had given out
on the Saturday evening previous that he was about to go to his home in Iowa, but
was seen in the city on the following Monday. Apparently the murderer had little
scruple about human life, for he told the boys to whom he gave the box he carried, to
stay and see the prettiest thing they had ever seen in their lives. The object of this
was, of course, to prevent their appearing against him. Arrison had disappeared, how-
ever, and could not be found. An accident disclosed his whereabouts. He wrote to a
friend in the city asking if the excitement had subsided and if the police were still
on his track. This letter was by accident delivered to a person other than the one

292

to whom it was addressed, who turned it over to Marshall Ruffin. Ruffin and another
officer at once started for Iowa where they found Arrison. At first he denied his
identity and made an efifort to get a revolver, but he was handcuffed and brought to
Cincinnati for trial. He was tried for the murder of Allison and for some strange
reason escaped the death penalty, being sentenced to the penitentiary for ten years.
At the end of his term he had the impudence to return to the city. A movement was
started to try him for the murder of Mrs. Allison, and he prudently left the city and
returned to Iowa."

Baker's career as the head of a medical college was beset with endless diffi-
culties and hardships. The dearth of clinical material was a serious draw-
back. The clinical lectures at the Commercial Hospital made his school
depend on outside talent and constantly reminded his students of the short-

ClNCINN.\TI COIvLEGK OF MEDICINE .A.ND SURGERY (1872-

comings of their Alma Mater. Baker reduced the fees until, in 1857, in
order to kill his competitors, he made a free school out of his institution. In
1852 he decided to give two complete courses in one year, enabling any stu-
dent to get his degree in twelve months. This plan had been unsuccessfully
tried by Transylvania University. Baker offered all kinds of inducements
in his mad rivalry to attract students. That under these conditions irregu-
Urities occurred, is hardly surprising. In 1855 he granted diplomas to
twenty-six applicants. Of these thirteen were honorary, ;. c, they were con-

ferred on persons who had not attended lectures. These were the circum-
stances that engendered a condition of instabiHty in the faculty. Good,
conscientious men refused to sanction methods of this kind. Strong men
would not put up with Baker's domineering way. Thus the personnel of the
faculty was constantly changing. The character of the school improved
after 1865 and — barring a few setbacks that were occasioned by the period-
ical wrangles which are or seem to be unavoidable in the normal life of a
medical school in this country — continued to improve steadily. The school
reached its climax of quality probably in 1890, although the general makeup
of the faculty was creditable up to the time of the dissolution of the college
in 1901.

In 1872 the school moved into a building which for many years had been
used by the Sisters of Charity for school purposes. It was located at No. 164
George Street, and was well adapted to the wants of a medical college. Here
the school enjoyed considerable prosperity. In 1893 the college was moved to
Vine Street, between Liberty and Green Streets. The increasing difficulty of
obtaining eligible students in sufficient number to meet the expense involved
in conducting a thoroughly modern medical school and competing successfully
with numerous rival schools led to the abandonment of the Cincinnati Col-
lege of Medicine and Surgery, as it has of many others. In the half century
of its existence it gave to the profession many excellent practitioners, and, in
its didactic stafif, evolved some truly great teachers. A turning point in the
history of this school was the re-organization of the faculty in 1882. This
re-construction followed an embroglio in which most of the trustees and pro-
fessors were involved. It recalled the early days in the life of the Medical
College of Ohio when upheavals were the order of the day. R. C. Stockton
Reed, Chas. A. L. Reed and J. A. Thacker brought charges of incompetency
and total unfitness against the trustees and charges of illiteracy, indecency
and deceitfulness against some of the professors. The result was a good-
sized row in which practically everybody was involved. The atmosphere was
cleared and the school continued under improved conditions.

The fees charged in 1868 were $20 for one course of lectures. In 1873
the lecture fee was increased to $25. During the last fifteen years of the
life of the school the average fee was $40 for one session, not including
charges for matriculation, graduation, etc.

The Cincinnati College of Medicine and Surgery established medical co-
education for women in Cincinnati. It admitted female students in 1883 and
in the three years following conferred the degree of Doctor of Medicine on
seven women. In 1886 a separate department for women was created under
the name of "The Woman's Medical College of Cincinnati,'' and continued
as such as a part of the Cincinnati College of Medicine and Surgery until
1890. In the latter year a charter was obtained for the Woman's College
and the latter established as an independent institution. The first course of
lectures (1890-'91) was delivered in the Lancet Building. Later on a build-

294

ing was leased on West Eighth Street (old number 263). Notwithstanding
the increasing patronage and the very creditable work done by the faculty,
it was decided to abandon the school in 1895 in favor of the Laura Memorial
College, the latter absorbing the Woman's College. The Woman's College
during its eight years of existence had been attended by over one hundred
female students. The professors were, with few exceptions, members of the
faculty of the Cincinnati College of Medicine and Surgery. During the last
year Geo. A. Fackler was the dean of the faculty. He held the chair of
materia medica. Leonard Freeman, now of Denver, Col., was the professor
of surgery; C. A. L. Reed taught gynecology; W. E. Kiely, practice; Wm.
H. Wenning, obstetrics; T. P. White, physiology, and J. L. Cilley, anatomy.
In 1890 a dental department was organized in conjunction with the Cin-
cinnati College of Medicine and Surgery, and Gustave S. Junkerman placed

^>*v-

Cincinnati College uf Medicine and Surgery (1Si)3)

at the head of the new department, which began operations with a class of
thirty-six dental matriculants. At the end of the term ten dental students
graduated. During the second session much friction occurred between the
dental department and the trustees of the medical department. The final
result was an open rupture which eventually led to the secession of the dental
professors, notably G. S. Junkerman, who organized an independent dental
college, the Cincinnati College of Dental Surgery, on Court, near Plum, which
has been in successful operation since 1893.

The following sketches include the most prominent teachers who were
connected with the Cincinnati College of Medicine and Surgery.

ALVxA-H H. BAKER was born on a farm in Chester County, Pennsyl-
vania, in 1806. His early educational advantages were scant. He came to
Plattsville, Ohio, in 1820 and opened a country school. While teaching, to

295

B. v^. J.AWSOX

Ai.vAH H. Baker

John A. Thacker

J. W. Underhill

J. B. A. Risk

296

W. P. Thornton

save up enough money for a medical education, he pursued his studies in
mathematics and in Latin. In 1830 he matriculated at Jefferson Medical
College and graduated the following year. One of his teachers at Jefferson
was Daniel Drake, who lectured there during one term. In 1833 Baker began
to practice in Alexandria, Preble County, Ohio. After three years he moved
to Eaton and finally, in 1846, to Cincinnati. He took a lively interest in the
troubles of the Medical College of Ohio, and, failing to get a place in the
faculty of the school, went out of his way to embarrass the school, especially
in the controversy concerning the control of the Commercial Hospital. In
1851 he was ready to participate in the organization of the Miami Medical
College, and again failing in his ambition, appealed to the Ohio Legislature
for a charter of a new school, the "Cincinnati College of Medicine and Sur-
gery." The origin of the school was Baker's insatiable ambition to be a pro-
fessor of surgery. While practicing in Preble County he had done some
creditable work as a surgeon and was generally considered the best all around
surgeon in that section of the country. Before coming to Cincinnati he lec-
tured on surgery in the Indiana Medical College for one term. In conjunc-
tion with some of his personal friends, notably Dr. Pliny M. Crume, of
Eaton, Ohio, he founded the "Cincinnati College of Medicine and Surgery."
He became its professor of surgery, delivering didactic lectures ^vith great
enthusiasm until the time of his death, July 30, 1865. In order to provide
clinical material for demonstration he waged a most bitter warfare against
the Medical College of Ohio and contributed a liberal share to the general
confusion in medical affairs in the fifties. That his position as the com-
petitor of two masters like Mussey and Blackman was not an enviable one,
can readily be understood, x^s a teacher of surgery he was crude and lacked
the polish of the college-bred physician. Native genius which frequently
supplants education he did not possess. He was energetic and had a singular
charm of personality by means of which he grappled his friends to his soul
with hoops of steel. He was extreme and intense in his likes and dislikes
and would adhere to a once chosen position with a stubbornness that could
not be swayed by argument nor broken by force. He was stately and dig-
nified and very jealous of the homage which he thought was due his posi-
tion. In his younger days he was a smart dresser, and never failed to im-
press the countryfolk of Preble County with his glossy black silk hat, pol-
ished boots and latest cut of coat and trousers, with manners to match.

Baker did a great deal for the profession as an indefatigable and prac-
tical organizer. He presided over the Medical Convention of Ohio, 1847.
He was one of the twelve physicians who in 1848 applied for and obtained
papers of incorporation for the Ohio State Society. Baker took a very prom-
inent part in the preliminaries and personally appealed to an old friend and
neighbor, the Hon. Joseph S. Hawkins, of Eaton, Ohio, who was at that
time Speaker of the House of Representatives of Ohio, and enlisted this
gentleman's good will and support. To get a charter for a medical organi-

297

zation at that time was by no means a simple matter. There had been so
much wranghng' in the ranks of the profession and disagreement involving
the Legislature and even the laity, that the law-makers in Columbus were
always glad when a session passed without some new outbreak among the
doctors. Baker was a persistent and yet popular lobbyist. He did most
of the preliminary work in founding the State Society. He was a regular
attendant at its meetings and was always very much in evidence, especially
in legislative matters. In conducting his college, popularly known as "Baker's
School," he proved himself a shrewd and successful manager. He was a
good judge of men and seldom made a mistake in choosing a young man for
some important position in the school. It was only when the young element
asserted itself and Baker imagined his exalted position to be at stake, that
trouble arose. This fact explains the many changes in the personnel of the
professors that were characteristic of the Cincinnati College of Medicine and
Surgery during Baker's management. The only man that held out was B. S.
Lawson who had no surgical ambition and was otherwise a mild-mannered
and unobtrusive gentleman. There is no doubt, however, that Baker was a
figure to be reckoned with in Cincinnati in his day, mainly on account of his
aggressive, pugnacious temperament, which kept his adversaries from resting
on their oars.

BENJAMIN S. LAWSON, one of the founders of the Cincinnati Col-
lege of Medicine and Surgery and its first professor of practice, was born
in Virginia, in 1800. His early education was scant. He came to Cincin-
nati and graduated at the Medical College of Ohio in 1830. He entered the
Commercial Hospital and remained as an interne for one year. In 1851 he
assisted in the organization of the Cincinnati College of Medicine and Sur-
gery and became its professor of theory and practice. He held this chair for
twenty years. He died in 1886. During his unusually long professional ca-
reer he enjoyed a large patronage. He was distinctly a typical physician of
the old school, dignified and thoroughly conventional in his conduct and con-
sistently conservative in his therapy and ethics.

EDWARD MEAD was a native of England, but came to this country
at an early age. He took up his residence in Columbus, Ohio, where he
began to study medicine under the direction of the distinguished Robert
Thompson, whose name has been mentioned in connection with the early
struggles of the Medical College of Ohio. ]\Iead finally matriculated at the
Medical College of Ohio and graduated in 1841. He moved to Chicago
where he had charge of an asylum for the insane and lectured in the Med-
ical Department of Illinois College. In 1851 he returned to Cincinnati to
assume the chair of obstetrics in the newly founded Cincinnati College of
Medicine and Surgery. During the second term he lectured on mental dis-
eases and medical jurisprudence. He started the "American Psychological

298

Journal" in 1853 and issued five numbers of it. It bears eloquent testimony
to his ability and erudition. He resigned at the end of the second Winter-
term, thoroughly convinced that medical teaching is not always an unalloyed
boon. ]\Iead was a man of high ideals in medicine. This probably accounts
for some of his troubles during his association with A. H. Baker. He re-
mained in Cincinnati until 1869. He conducted a sanitarium ("Retreat for
the Insane") beyond College Hill and later on in S. Mt. Auburn. He
moved to Boston and devoted his time to practice and literary work. While
on a vacation trip in 1893, the steamer was wrecked in the Azores and he
was drowned. Mead was the author of the report on medical education
published by the Illinois State Convention in 1844, and contributed to the
report on preliminary education adopted by the National Medical Conven-
tion which met in New York in 1846. A significant utterance occurred in
his farewell address to the students of the Cincinnati College of Medicine
and Surgery :

"Quacks may vaunt — they may increase and multiply upon the face of the earth.
Colleges may vacillate — become iniquitous, engender dissent, pander to prejudice, feed
vanity, seek pelf; but the true science of medicine stands forth in its spotless purity, a
beautiful superstructure, enduring as the rocky sea-girt isle that has through ages with-
stood the lashing billows of the foaming ocean in its maddened fury."

THOMAS W. GORDON was connected with the Cincinnati College of
Medicine and Surgery during the early years of its existence. He lectured
on chemistry and for two or three years on materia medica. During the
Civil War he served as surgeon of the 97th Regiment Ohio Volunteer In-
fantry. He died in Georgetown, Ohio, in 1900, eighty-one years old. He
was one of the strongest supporters of the American Medical Association in
the early years of its career.

ROBERT CURRAN was born in Huntington County, Pennsylvania, in
1806. The family drifted to Perry County, Ohio, when he was ten years
old. At thirteen he was left an orphan. In spite of many hardships he
acquired an education, mainly through Dr. Wm. Maclay Awl, who was his
warm friend. The latter subsequently rose to great distinction as the first
superintendent of a State Asylum for the Insane in Ohio (see biographical
sketch of M. B. Wright elsewhere in this book). Young Curran studied
under Dr. Awl from 1828 to 1830, took one course at the Medical College of
Ohio and obtained a license to practice. After practicing in Indiana for a
number of years he took another course of lectures at the Medical College
of Ohio and graduated in 1837. From 1848 to 1852 he was professor of
physiology in Asbury University, Greencastle, afterwards Indianapolis, during
the term 1852-'53 professor of physiology in the Cincinnati College of Medi-
cine and Surgery, from 1853 to 1857 physician to the Indiana State Prison.
Ill health compelled him to seek rest and to resign the chair of materia medica

299

in the Kentucky School of Medicine to which he had been elected shortly
after he left Cincinnati. He finally located in Jeflfersonville, Ind., and died
there in 1872. At the time of his death he was one of the most distinguished
members of the profession in Indiana, particularly conspicuous as a member
of the State Society.

DANIEL VAUGHN. Scientific altruism, as exemplified in the life and
work of many a European scholar, is a phase of human existence that seems
to have no place on American soil. Science for the sake of science, knowl-
edge for the sake of knowledge, without the expectation of returns in silver
and gold, is a species of philosophy that Americans ordinarily classify under
the head of a mental aberration, a more or less advanced stage of lunacy.
Scientific altruism is the purest and most exalted form of human freedom.

Daniel Vaughn

And yet, it is foreign in the land of the brave and the home of the free.
We rant and rave, shouting the battle-cry of freedom and amid all the glamor
of our free institutions and the clamor for human ideals, many an apostle
of liberty of the mind and freedom of the soul, remains a slave to the lowliest
form of servitude. Abject poverty is the grim master of his body until the
unshackled soul is liberated by the hand of death. Such was the weird life
history of Daniel Vaughn, known and honored the world over as one of the
great American thinkers and scientists.

Daniel Vaughn (or Vaughan) was an Irishman by birth. He first saw
the light of day at Glenomara, County Clare, Ireland, about the year 1820.
Very little is known about his early history. In after life Vaughn never dis-
cussed it or anything pertaining to it. He had the advantages of a good
education. An uncle of his was a Roman Catholic priest who afterwards
became a bishop. This man took a keen interest in his nephew and gave him
every opportunity to become proficient in the classics and in all the other

300

branches taught at classical schools in Europe. When Daniel was eighteen
years old, he was to go to a theological seminary in Cork. He was to study
for the priesthood. Daniel who had not been consulted in the matter, took
the money which his good uncle advanced him and started out. In Queens-
town he saw ships destined for distant ports and after a little struggle be-
tween his love of independence and the severe sense of duty which his early
training had developed in him, he boarded an American liner and started for
the new world, ready to carve out an existence and a future for himself.
After setting his foot on American soil, he wandered about a great deal. He
visited Virginia and other Southern States. In Kentucky he made the ac-
quaintance of a Colonel Stamps, of Bourbon County, who took a great deal
of interest in the young Irishman and offered him a home and suitable em-
ployment. Vaughn became the teacher of Colonel Stamps's children, and,
being successful, opened a regular private school which was attended by the
children of the neighboring families. It was a classical school because he
taught Latin, Greek, mathematics, geology, astronomy, etc. For awhile, he
taught Greek at a college in Kentucky. He was an indefatigable student all
the time, devoting every leisure hour to scientific reading. His intense thirst
for knowledge suggested to him the advantages of living in a large town
where books could be much more easily obtained. He finally decided to come
to Cincinnati and left his Kentucky friends who had learnt to love their
earnest and dutiful teacher and were loath to lose him. He located in Cin-
cinnati in 1850 and soon made a reputation as a lecturer on scientific sub-
jects. He occupied the chair of chemistry in the Cincinnati Eclectic Insti-
tute for one term, and, in addition to his college work, filled engagements to
lecture before schools, academies, teachers' institutes and colleges in all parts
of Ohio and the neighboring States.

In 1850 he wrote one of his earliest and best papers on a scientific sub-
ject. He had but recently taken up the study of human and plant physiology
in conjunction with certain biological researches in which he was interested.
The paper referred to was entitled "Chemical Researches in Animal and
Vegetable Physiology" and was published in the Eclectic Medical Journal,
December, 1850. Judging from the comments and criticisms in the contem-
poraneous journals, Vaughn's paper elicited a lively discussion and gained
for its author a great reputation as an original thinker and logical reasoner.
The interesting feature of Vaughn's paper is the assumption that the phe-
nomena of life in the animal as well as in the vegetable body are chemical
processes and are due to a form of electrolysis. Vaughn explained the ex-
istence of a dormant force, akin to galvanic electricity, in the organic cell
which, therefore, was made to appear in the role of an electric generator,
its stored-up energy or electrical force being synonymous with cell-vitality or
the activity of the vital principle. He illustrates the point by a direct analogy
between the digestive process in plants (circulation of their juices and evolu-
tion of oxygen) and the conduct of voltaic electricity. He then applies his

801

theory to the activity of the hfe principle in the animal body and explains
the electrolytic character of respiration, digestion, metabolism and other vital
phenomena. Vaughn's paper was a remarkable specimen of scientific rea-
soning. A'irchow was theorizing and experimenting along the same lines a
few years later, as was also Draper, who was the leading American physi-
ologist of his time. Vaughn was in advance of Dubois-Raymond and Claude
Bernard, whose experiments in cell-physiology are well known. The Eclectic
Institute where Vaughn was teaching chemistry at the time, showed its
appreciation of his remarkable work by making him (honoris causa) a Doctor
of Medicine in 1855. His work in experimental physiology obtained for him a
Fellowship in the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Among the schools he visited for the purpose of delivering lectures were the
Normal School, at Lebanon, Ohio, the Mechanics' Institute, Cincinnati, Ohio,
and Miami University, Oxford, Ohio.

Vaughn's work soon attracted attention in Europe, especially in England,
where the scientific journals, notably the "Journal of the British Association
for the Advancement of Science," published his papers and articles. Many of
his papers appeared in Silliman's Journal, whose editor was the distinguished
professor of physics at Yale, and in the "American Philosophical Journal."
His most important papers were :

Researches in Meteoric Astronomy. (Report of the British Association. 1854.)

Secular Variations in Lunar and Terrestrial Motion. (British Association for the
Advancement of Science, 1857.)

On the Light of Suns, Meteors and Temporary Stars. (British Association for the
Advancement of Science. 1857.)

On the Effects of the Earth's Rotation on Atmospheric Movements. (British Asso-
ciation for the Advancement of Science. 1859.)

Chemical Action of Feeble Currents of Electricity. (Proceedings of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science. 1351.)

On the Growth of Trees in Continental and Insular Climates. (British Association
for the Advancement of Science. 1859.)

On Luminous Meteors and Temporary Stars. (The London, Edinburgh and Dublin
Philosophical Magazine. 4th series. Vol. XVI.)

He wrote extensively on astronomy and had the satisfaction of success-
fully attacking the nebular hypothesis of the great astronomer, Laplace.
Many scientific bodies in Europe recognized the merit of his work in as-
tronomy by conferring honorary memberships upon him. Not the least of his
many achievements was his phenomenal linguistic ability. He was an ac-
complished French, German, Italian and Spanish scholar, not to mention his
complete mastery of Latin and Greek. As a mathematician, he ranked among
the leaders in this country.

In 1860 he accepted the appointment of professor of chemistry in the Cin-
cinnati College of Medicine and Surgery. The twelve years of Vaughn's
activity in this institution form the brightest chapter in the checkered career
of "Baker's School." During that time another of Cincinnati's intellectual

302

giants began his career as a teacher in a subordinate position at the Cincinnati
College. This fledgling was Phineas S. Conner, whose remarkable gifts
Vaughn soon recognized. He took a warm and friendly interest in the much
younger Conner who always referred to this fact with great pride. Doctor
Conner told a characteristic story about Vaughn's total absorption in his own
world of thought. Vaughn had called for a foreign letter in the old Post-
office (Fourth and Vine). The letter brought the announcement of an Hon-
orary Fellowship being conferred upon him by some scientific society in
France. While he was walking along, reading the letter, he took a misstep,
landing on his back in the gutter. It had been raining and the streets were
covered with slush. Lying in the dirt did not seem to bother Vaughn in the
least. Undismayed he finished reading his letter, then slowly emerged from
the mire and walked on. In 1872 Vaughn resigned his position with the Cin-
cinnati College of Medicine and Surgery. He lectured at various places in
Lexington, in Louisville, etc. His Cincinnati friends lost track of him. Only
occasionally one would notice him bending over a book in the Cincinnati
Public Library, with a woolen shawl drawn over his head, oblivious to his
surroundings. He hardly ever spoke to anyone. He seemed wrapped up in
his own thoughts. He had grown suspicious and fearful of people. He
slowly seemed to waste away, his form was stooped, his eye hollow, his cheek
sunken and shrivelled. The world, at least the small world in Cincinnati, had
forgotten the man whose illustrious name was spoken with respect in all
European countries. One day in 1879, it was on April 1, the profession of
the city was startled by the news that in the building at the southeast corner
of Sixth and John Streets, in a cold, cheerless room containing a broken chair,
an old bedstead and a pile of rags, an emaciated old man, covered with dirt
and prostrated from pulmonary hemorrhage, was found by a neighbor. It
was Daniel Vaughn and the world suddenly remembered the brilliant scholar
of years gone by. Willing hands and tender hearts brightened the last few
days of the poor sufferer who was placed in the care of the good Sisters of the
Good Samaritan Hospital. On April 6, his martyrdom came to an end and
his noble soul gained its freedom. Daniel Vaughn, among hundreds of thou-
sands of his townsmen, will be one of the very few, whose name will survive
this century. Can anyone fathom the depth of this man's martyrdom, alone
in a cold room, sick in body and soul, with nothing to eat and without even
one human being to hand him a cooling drink for his feverish lips? His only
companion was a well-worn Bible, covered with finger-marks and candle-
drippings. He perished from starvation in a land of plenty, and in a city
blessed with prosperity. He died in the faith of his fathers, a devout Roman
Catholic. John Uri Lloyd, the author of "Etidorhpa," has paid the following
beautifully pathetic tribute ("Etidorhpa," 10th ed., p. 160) to the memory of
Daniel Vaughn :

"Daniel Vaughn was fitted for a scientific throne, a position of the higlicst honor ;
but, neglected by man, proud as a king, he bore uncomplainingly privations most bitter

303

and suffered alone until he finally died of starvation and neglect in the city of his adop-
tion. Some persons are ready to cry : 'Shame ! Shame !' at wealthy Cincinnati ; others
assert that men could not give to Daniel Vaughn, and since the first edition of 'Eti-
dorhpa' appeared, the author has learned of one vain attempt to serve the interests of
this peculiar man. He would not beg. and knowing his capacities, if he could not
procure a position in which to earn a living, he preferred to starve. The only bitterness
of his nature, it is said, went out against those who, in his opinion, kept him from such
employment as returns a livelihood to scientific men ; for he well knew his intellect
earned for him such a right in Cincinnati. Will the spirit of that great man, the tal-
ented Daniel Vaughn, bear malice against the people of the city in which none who knew
him, will deny that he perished from cold and privation? Commemorated is he not by a
bust of bronze that distorts the facts, in that the garments are not seedy and unkempt,
the figure stooping, the cheek hollow, and the eye pitifully expressive of an empty
stomach? That bust modestly rests in the Public Library he loved so well, in -which he
sufifered so uncomplainingly, and starved so patiently."

Was Daniel Vaughn's life a failure? Viewed from the standpoint of
material estimation, it was not a worldly success. Yet, who would say that
the life of any man who added to the sum-total of human knowledge, and,
therefore, of human happiness, was lived in vain? Daniel Vaughn was not
of the world, at least not of the thoughtless, frivolous, ephemeral world. He
was a denizen of that realm where the breath of life is infused by the love
of truth, where the pulses quicken in the search after knowledge, where the
concepts of birth, life and death are lost within the confines of eternity and
the individual is absorbed and yet perpetuated by the Mind Universal. In
this realm Daniel Vaughn lived the life of a nobleman, a prince among men.
He has not lived in vain, —

"Denn wer den Besten seiner Zeit gelebt,
Der hat gelebt fiir alle Zeiten !"

J. B. A. RISK, born in Georgetown, Ky., in 1823, attended Transylvania
University and graduated from its medical department in 1848. He located
at Morgan Station, Pendleton County, Kentucky, and in the course of forty
or more years of practice became one of the most prominent physicians in
the Southwest. He lived and practiced at Falmouth, Ky., during the latter
part of his life. He was connected with the Cincinnati College of Medicine
and Surgery from 1864 as a lecturer on almost every branch. His best work
was done in the chair of obstetrics, gynecology and diseases of children which
he filled for five years during the sixties. He retired in 1885 but continued
to serve the college as a member of its board of trustees. He died in 1891
at Falmouth.

DANIEL S. YOUNG, picturesque character, surgeon, artist, inventor,
was born in New York in 1827. He graduated in medicine at the Albany
Medical College, New York, in 1855, and located in Cincinnati. During the
war he was surgeon of the 21st Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry. After
the war he lectured on surgery in the Cincinnati College of Medicine and

304

Surgery, succeeding A. H. Baker, the founder of the college, who died in
1865. He contributed some valuable papers on military surgery to the "Cin-
cinnati Journal of Medicine" which was edited by G. C. Blackman. The
beautiful colored illustrations which accompany these papers were Young's
work, who was an expert draftsman, painter, engraver, lithographer and
wood-cutter. Young was engaged in writing a Surgical History of the Civil
War but abandoned the work when the War Department announced the
preparation of such a work by the Surgeon General's Office. Young was
for some years connected with the surgical staff of the Cincinnati Hospital.
He enjoyed a wide reputation as a surgeon and an obstetrician. He died
in 1902.

Dan Young, as he was generally known, was a versatile man. Years ago
he discovered that zinc plates might be used for engraving. He never
thought of patenting his invention. H he had, he might have amassed mil-
lions. He was a master of the art of etching and modelling. Some beau-
tiful samples of his work are to be found in the Library of the Cincinnati
Hospital. He was a violin-maker whose products excited the admiration of
connoisseurs everywhere. There was hardly any kind of handiwork in which
Young did not excel. In making splints or dressings of any kind he was
as quick as he was resourceful and artistic. That he possessed the eccen-
tricities of genius to a very liberal extent, it is but natural to suppose. Black-
man had a Very high regard for Young as a surgeon.

Young in 1867 reported a case of gangrene of the heart, a pathological
curiosity. In 1880 he made a drawing within twelve hours after the shooting
of President Garfield, showing the exact location of the bullet. The autopsy
made many weeks later proved the correctness of Young's diagram.

THOMAS CARROLL was born in County Down, Ireland, in 1795. His
parents came to America in 1804 and settled in Columbiana County, Ohio,
where young Carroll grew up amid the hardships of pioneer life. He man-
aged to attend Transylvania University, and, having received his degree in
medicine, returned to the home of his parents to practice medicine. In 18-11
he decided to locate in Cincinnati where he eventually became one of the
leading physicians. He was professor of gynecology in the Cincinnati Col-
lege of Medicine and Surgery from 1867 to 1868. He died in 1871. He

contributed many papers of value to the current journals.

CHARLES WOODWARD was born in Philadelphia, in 1803. He at-
tended Princeton University, receiving the degree of A.B. in 1825, and
matriculated as a student of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.
He graduated in 1828 and began the practice of medicine in Cincinnati. He
lived here until the time of his death in 1874. In 1857 he was elected presi-
dent of the Ohio State Medical Society. For a short time he was the
incumbent of the chair of ])hysiology in the Cincinnati College of Medicine

305

Thomas Carroll

Joseph Aub

W. A. ROTHACKER

Charles Woodward

W. T. Talliakerro

306

James II. Buckner

and Surgery. Considering- the quiet and comparatively uneventful life of a
man like Charles Woodward who was naturally of a modest and retiring
disposition, it is difficult to estimate the influence of his professional activity
on the trend of medical affairs during his life. He gave tone, dignity and
high respectability to medical practice and impersonated in all his dealings
the type of the perfect professional gentleman. He was immensely popular
in the profession and exercised a wholesome influence because of his tactful
and conciliatory temperament. For many years he commanded what was
considered the largest general practice in Cincinnati. P. S. Conner spoke
of Charles Woodward as the best type of a general practitioner Cincinnati
has ever had.

W. T. TALLIAFERRO (popularly known as Dr. Tolliver) was born
in the South where the name of Talliaferro has been a familiar one for more
than a century. Col. Nicholas Talliaferro whose father was an Italian by
birth, served with distinction in the W^ar of the Revolution, and after the
war settled in Kentucky. Doctor Talliaferro, son of Colonel Talliaferro,
saw the light of day in Newington, Orange County,- Virginia. He enlisted
as a volunteer in Ball's Kentucky Light Dragoons who in the war of 1813
formed part of the left wing of Gen. Wm. H. Harrison's army. Later on
he became a sailor and took part in the battle of Lake Erie under Commodore
Perry. He again enlisted in the army and was present at the engagement
of Moravian Town, Canada, in 1813. His patriotic services were rewarded
by a purse of $700 and a gold medal from the State of Kentucky. He began
to study medicine as a student apprentice in x\ugusta, Ky., and in 1818
attended lectures at the LTniversity of Pennsylvania. He located in Wash-
ington, Ky., and in 1823 operated successfully for cataract on a boy five
years old who had been blind from birth. This was one of the first cataract
operations in the West. To qualify himself still better for practice, he took a
course at the University of New York in 1824. Subsequently he located in
Maysville, Ky., and performed many cataract operations which attracted wide
attention in the West and South. A story is told of a Mr. Hutchcraft who
was a wealthy and influential man and had become blind. He had been a
patient of B. W. Dudley, of Lexington, Ky.," had consulted the most renowned
physicians in the East and in Europe and had returned home unimproved
and thoroughly disheartened. His friends urged him to consult Dr. Tallia-
ferro who told him that his case was by no means hopeless. Mr. Hutch-
craft, in keeping with an agreement made, deposited five thousand dollars to
be paid over to Dr. Talliaferro if the treatment should be a success. Mr.
Hutchcraft regained his sight and the doctor received his fee. Doctor Tallia-
ferro realizing the necessity of a more central and accessible location, moved
to Cincinnati in 1841. Together with Drs. Vattier, Strader and Marshall
he established a hospital at the southwest corner of Franklin Street and
Broadway which was known as the "Hotel for Invalids." and was the second

307

regular hospital in Cincinnati, the first one being the Commercial Hospital
founded by the State of Ohio at the instigation of Daniel Drake in 1820.
The "Hotel for Invalids" was a notable institution in its day. Doctor Tallia-
ferro was connected with it for a number of years. Some of the best physi-
cians of the city were in attendance during the twenty-five or more years of
its existence. It was considered a well-appointed institution of its kind. It
attracted patients from all over the country, most of whom came to see
Doctor Talliaferro, whose cataract operations had made him famous through-
out the West and South. In 1850 Doctor Talliaferro formed a partnership
with his nephew, Philip J. Buckner, who had been a noted surgeon in Ken-
tucky and located in Cincinnati at his uncle's earnest solicitation. P. J.
Buckner (born in Augusta, Ky., in 1800, made an honorary Doctor of
Medicine by the Medical College of Ohio in 1837, a surgeon of great ability)
died in 1853, leaving a son, Wm. Buckner (born at Georgetown, Brown
County, Ohio, in 1824, graduated at the Medical College of Ohio in 1848,
practiced in Georgetown, Hamilton, Chicago and Cincinnati, died in 1857 in
Hillsboro, Ohio) who became Doctor Talliaferro's partner. For awhile
Talliaferro was associated wnth L. M. Lawson. From 1861 his son-in-law,
James H. Buckner, shared his practice. Although advanced in years. Doctor
Talliaferro was induced to accept the chair of ophthalmology in the Cincinnati
College of Medicine and Surgery and filled it for a number of years. He
died March 22, 1871. He was a unique character, much beloved on account
of his quaintness and originality. In his special work he was a pioneer
endowed with that degree of common sense and native talent which erudition
and scientific culture per se can never supplant.

JOSHUA W. UXDERHILL was born in Kingston, Md., in 1837. He
was raised by a childless couple, his mother having died when he was three
years old, and his father having left for parts unknown and never being
heard from any more. Young Underbill grew up amid the hardest kind of
toil. After working hours, instead of resting his tired body, he sat up and
studied incessantly. Eventually he drifted to Ohio and took up the study
of medicine. He began to practice in Burnettsville, Ind., in 1860. He re-
ceived his degree at the Cincinnati College of Medicine and Surgery in 1865.
The following year he took the od eundem degree at 'the New York Bellevue
Hospital Medical College. During the Civil War he saw active service, first
as a private, then hospital steward, then assistant surgeon and finally sur-
geon of the 46th Regiment Indiana Volunteer Infantry. He was present at
the capture of New Madrid, at the capture of Memphis, at the skirmishes
on the St. Charles River, and witnessed the destruction of the steamer
"Mound City" and the scalding to death of nearly her entire crew. He was
in the battles of Port Gibson, Champion Hills and in all the engagements
that led to the capture of Vicksburg. He was with Sherman during the

308

siege of Jackson, Miss., and accompanied his regiment on various sanguinary
expeditions in Louisiana and other Southern States.

In 1866 he was appointed demonstrator of anatomy in the Cincinnati Col-
lege of Medicine and Surgery, in 1872 lecturer on medical jurisprudence, in
1879 professor of materia medica, in 1880 professor of obstetrics. He was a
Fellow of the American Gynecological Society, one of the founders and in
1879 president of the Cincinnati Obstetrical Society. In 1870 he was elected
Coroner of Hamilton County and for years was a most useful member of
the school board.

Underbill was one of the most brilliant men in the local profession. He
was a tireless student and a scholarly writer. Some of his papers on medical
jurisprudence and obstetrics are among the best extant. They were pub-
lished in the "American Journal of Obstetrics," the "Obstetric Gazette," the
"Cincinnati Medical News," and the "Lancet and Clinic." He died, a total
physical and mental wreck, in 1888.

GEORGE E. WALTON was born in Cincinnati in 1839. He graduated
from Bellevue Hospital Medical College in 1864. He entered general prac-
tice in Cincinnati in 1867, after spending two years in Europe. He has
contributed liberally to the literature of the profession. He is an authority
on balneology, climatology, etc. He published extensive monographs on "The
Mineral Springs of the LTnited States, Canada, and Spas of Europe," and
"The Health Resorts of Europe and America." For a time he lectured on
practice in the Cincinnati College of Medicine and Surgery. He is living in
Daytona, Fla.

Jx\MES H. BUCKNER was born in Burlington, Ky., in 1836. He at-
tended the public schools in Covington and afterwards the literary depart-
ment of the Cincinnati College. In 1857 he was a student at Dartmouth
College. He graduated at the Medical College of Ohio in 1861 and entered
the medical service of the army. He was on duty on the gunboat Cairo.
Shortly after the fall of Fort Donelson he took seriously ill and was sent
home. He had married a step-daughter of Doctor Talliaferro and became
the latter's partner in practice. In 1862 he was appointed demonstrator of
anatomy in the Medical College of Ohio and held this position for one term.
In 1866 he was appointed professor of physiology in the Cincinnati College
of Medicine and Surgery. After Talliaferro's death in 1872 he took the
chair of ophthalmology in the same institution and served on the staff of the
Good Samaritan Hospital. In 1873 he became a member of the staff of St.
Mary's Flospital. In 1878 he was elected president of the Cincinnati Academy
of Medicine. In 1882 he accepted the chair of ophthalmology at the Toledo
Medical College and iille<l it for one term. He died in 1906.

309

DAVID D. BRAMBLE was born in Montgomery, Hamilton County,
Ohio, in 1839 and received his early education in Farmer's College, College
Hill, Ohio. For a number of years he taught school and finally took up the
study of medicine. He attended the Medical College of Ohio and graduated
in 1862. After serving one term as interne in the Commercial Hospital, he
entered general practice. He became a member of the faculty of the Cin-
cinnati College of Medicine and Surgery in 1866, assuming the chair of
anatomy. In 1872 he was elected professor of surgery and dean of the
college. In 1881 he became professor of genito-urinary surgery, George B.
Orr assuming the chair of general surgery. Bramble remained the incum-
bent of the chair of genito-urinary surgery until 1893 when he retired from
the school. He has been in active practice of his profession for nearly fifty
years.

WILLIAM A. ROTHACKER, one of the most gifted medical men that
ever came from a Cincinnati medical school, was born in Cincinnati in 1854.
He received his medical degree from the Cincinnati College of Medicine and
Surgery in 1877. He served as an interne in the Cincinnati Hospital and
became pathologist to the institution in 1878, succeeding the brilliant Landon
R. Longworth. He was professor of pathology in the Cincinnati College of
Medicine and Surgery for a number of years. In the Miami Medical Col-
lege he lectured on pathological anatomy from 1884-85 and during the fol-
lowing term on principles of surgery and general pathology. His knowledge
of normal and morbid structures was phenomenal. He was a plain, unas-
suming man and immensely popular with the students. He edited an "Atlas
of Gynecology" (by E. A. Martin and J. P. Maygrier). About the year
1890 he disappeared from view. Misfortune of diverse kinds had overtaken
him and blighted the existence of the man whose future at one time seemed
more promising than that of any young physician in Cincinnati. He died
in 1896.

GILES S. MITCHELL was born in Martinsville, Ind., in 1852, took his
baccalaureate degree in the arts at the University of Indiana in 1873 and
graduated at the Medical College of Ohio in 1875. He became the assistant
and associate of Thad. A. Reamy, his father-in-law. He spent nearly three
years in Europe (1876-'78). After his return he rapidly rose to a position
of prominence in the profession. He was Doctor Reamy's assistant in ob-
stetrics at the Medical College of Ohio from 1879 to 1883, and in 1884
became professor of materia medica in the Cincinnati College of Medicine
and Surgery, remaining with the school until the time of its dissolution in
1902. He also held the chair of obstetrics in the Woman's Medical College
from 1887 to 1895. He was for several years gynecologist to St. Mary's
Hospital and the Presbyterian Hospital. He was president of the Cincinnati
Academy of Medicine in 1884, and presided over the section of gynecology

310

of the Pan-American Medical Congress in Washingtbn in 1893. In addition
to being an excellent practitioner he was a very public-spirited citizen. His
premature demise occurred in 1904. He was a brother-in-law of James G.
Hyndman, for many years secretary of the Medical College of Ohio.

W. P. THORNTON was born in Highland County, Ohio, in 1817. After
an unsuccessful attempt to study for the ministry at Wabash College in 1837,
he matriculated at the Medical College of Ohio and began the study of
medicine. He graduated at the University of Pennsylvania in 1839, and, in
an adventurous mood, went to Mississippi, where he practiced for five years.
He moved to Cincinnati in 1846, and became one of the leading physicians
in a short time. He was fo'r years connected with the Cincinnati Hospital and
the Cincinnati College of Medicine and Surgery. He was one of the first
Cincinnati physicians to go to Europe for study. In 1878 he retired from
practice, and spent the remainder of his life on his beautiful country home in
College Hill, where he died in 1883.

M. B. GRAFF was born in Cincinnati in 1841. He attended Woodward
High School and graduated in medicine at the Cincinnati College of Medicine
and Surgery in 1862. He entered the army but had to return home on
account of failing health. In the Fall of the same year he made another
attempt to serve his country and was on duty for about ten months on the
gunboat "City of Memphis," squadron of the Mississippi. In the Fall of
1863 he entered the Medical Department of the University of Pennsylvania
and took his degree in 1864. He returned to his native town and practiced
medicine until 1877 when he died of tuberculosis. For three Winters pre-
ceding his death he was demonstrator of anatomy in the Cincinnati College
of Medicine and Surgery.

R. C. STOCKTON REED who was at the helm during the palmy days
of the Cincinnati College of Medicine and Surgery, was born in Franklin,
Ohio, in 1825. He attended two courses of lectures at Starling Medical Col-
lege but took his degree at the Cincinnati College of Medicine and Surgery
in 1860. He began to practice at Wolf Lake, Ind., in 1852, and moved to
Stockton, Ohio, in 1861. The following year he was elected professor of
materia medica in his Alma Mater, succeeding Thad. A. Reamy, who had
held the chair for two years. Reed continued as professor of materia medica
until 1892 with the exception of two sessions (1880-1882). In 1882 State
medicine was added to his subject. In 1893 he removed to California but
returned a few years later and is living in his old home in Stockton, Ohio.
Much of the success of the Cincinnati College of Medicine and Surgery was
due to his judicious management.

311

R. C. Stockton Reed

James C. Culbertson

Daniel S, Young

Max Thorner

Giles S. Mitchell

312

MARION L. AMICK was born in Scipio, Ind., in 1843. He attended
Hanover College but interrupted his studies to serve his country during the
Civil War. He graduated from Hanover in 1867 and two years later received
his degree in medicine from the Cincinnati College of Medicine and Surgery.
He was connected with the institution named in the capacity of demonstrator,
later professor of anatomy until 1882, professor of neurology until 1892 when
he retired. He died in 1904.

CHARLES ALFRED LEE REED, son of R. C. Stockton Reed, was
born at Wolf Lake, Ind., in 1856. He attended Miami University, Oxford,
Ohio, and studied medicine at the Cincinnati College of Medicine and Sur-
gery, graduating in 1874. He did post-graduate work in Dublin, Birming-
ham and London and began to practice in Fidelity, 111., subsequently moving
to Hamilton, Ohio. In 1887 he located in Cincinnati. His work as a med-
ical teacher began in 1876 when he became professor of pathology in his
Alma Mater. He resigned after one year. In 1882, while practicing in
Hamilton, he was appointed to the chair of gynecology and abdominal sur-
gery. He filled this chair for nearly twenty years. In 1902 he was made
professor of clinical gynecology in the Medical College of Ohio. From 1892
to 1902 he was a member of the board of trustees of the University of Cin-
cinnati.

In 1890 Reed was elected chairman of the section of obstetrics and
gynecology at the Nashville meeting of the American Medical Association.
Since that time his career forms a part of the history of the profession of
this country. The Pan-American Congress which convened in Washington,
D. C, in 1893, was planned by him. He was the secretary-general of this
notable gathering which was attended by nearly a thousand delegates, repre-
senting eighteen American countries. In 1896 when the Ohio Legislature
created a Board of Medical Registration and Examination, Reed became a
member of this board. He resigned in 1899. In 1898 he presided over the
meeting of the American Association of Gynecologists and Obstetricians of
which organization he was one of the founders. In 1900 he received the
highest distinction within the gift of the American profession, the presi-
dency of the American Medical Association. He presided over the St. Paul
meeting in 1901. In 1902 he issued his "Text-book of Gynecology." In
1904 he went to Panama in the capacity of Special Commissioner of the
United States Government. His report concerning conditions on the Isthmus
was a remarkable document and efifected many reforms in the management
of affairs. Reed has been honored by medical associations at home and
abroad. He has been an indefatigable worker in the interests of professional
progress. The idea of unifying the whole profession on a broad, liberal basis,
with a view of breaking down the barriers which separate the different
schools in medicine, was first openly expressed by him. It became the key-
note of the policy which has been pursued by the American ^ledical Asso-

313

ciation for the past few years. This modernism in the profession marks a
new era in the history of medicine in this country and is, without a doubt,
the most remarkable achievement in the history of the national association.
Reed has boldly and lucidly drawn the plans according to which the evolution
of professional and social economic problems must take place, if the profes-
sion is to maintain its position of influence amid the rapidly changing con-
ditions of the human family, socially, educationally and economically. With a
view of establishing professional character on a firmer basis than the shaky
foundation of personal opinions about the materia medica, Reed has advo-
cated elimination of materia medica from the list of subjects to be considered
by State Boards, and has persistently emphasized the necessity of a high
standard of preliminary and medical education coupled with freedom of
therapeutic action. The policy of the national association in regard to med-
ical legislation has been and is largely inspired by Reed, whose career, both
at home and in the larger arena of national activity and usefulness, has
hardly reached its zenith, and yet, has been full of achievements of a high
order. It is today the best illustration of the possibilities of Medical Cincin-
nati. His efforts on behalf of French language and literature have been
rewarded by the French Government by membership in the Legion of Honor.

JOSEPH AUB, one of the most distinguished of the earlier Cincinnati
oculists, was born in Cincinnati in 1846 from plain, old-fashioned parents
who had originally come from Bavaria. He graduated from the Medical
College of Ohio in 1866 and, after diligent study and application, took the
degree of Doctor of Medicine for the second time, his second Alma Mater
being the University of Erlangen. In 1869 he became resident physician in
the New York Eye and Ear Hospital under Knapp. He came back to Cin-
cinnati in 1871 and was appointed oculist and aurist to the Cincinnati Hos-
pital. In 1877 he became professor of ophthalmology and otology in the
Cincinnati College of Medicine and Surgery, resigning the chair in 1882.
He was a man of tireless energy and boundless ambition who in a few years
had become one of the leaders in his line of work in the West. As a result
of overwork his health broke down. He died in Cincinnati in 1888, not quite
forty-three years of age.

A memorable surgical feat was a transplantation of skin from the arm to
the eyelid for the cure of ectropion, the flap being over two inches long and
over one inch wide. Aub performed this operation successfully in 1877.
It was the second operation of its kind in this country. Aub was a clean,
painstaking operator, a skillful diagnostician and well versed in the litera-
ture of his branch to which he contributed not a few papers of greatest value.
Aside from lectures and case reports published in the current journals he
contributed his most important papers to Knapp's "Archives of Ophthal-
mology and Otology."

314

JOHN A. THACKER, a master of the pen which he fearlessly wielded
in the interests of whatever he considered right and worth championing, was
the son of a country doctor in Goshen, Clermont County, Ohio. He was born
in 1833. His love of books and of knowledge was a characteristic of him
when he was a mere boy. His father decided that the boy should have edu-
cational advantages commensurate with his natural talents and sent him to
Transylvania University, Lexington, Ky. There the boy acquired a splendid
education, and, having made up his mind that he would follow in the foot-
steps of his father, entered the latter's office to study medicine. Eventually
he became a student at the Miami Medical College and received his degree
in 1856. He spent one year as interne in the Commercial Hospital and sub-
sequently a year in the Lick Run Asylum for the Insane as medical officer in
charge. The latter institution was the forerunner of the present Longview
Asylum. In 1863 Thacker was appointed professor of psychology and dis-
eases of the mind in the Cincinnati College of Medicine and Surgery and
held this chair for ten years. In 1872 Dr. B. S. Lawson resigned the chair
of practice and Thacker was elected to fill it. He resigned in 1878 but again
filled the chair of practice for one term 1882-'83. He died in 1891.

Thacker was an expert microscopist and had a magnificent collection of
microscopic slides. It was said at one time that his collection of diatomes
was the most valuable in this country. The Royal Microscopical Society of
England recognized his eminent qualification for scientific work by conferring
a Fellowship upon him.

Thacker was best known and will be remembered longest as a medical
journalist of superior ability. He had the proper conception of the position
which a medical editor should occupy. He wrote on every subject of interest
to the profession, expressed his views with strength and candor and recog-
nized no idols except truth and honor. He fought rings and ringsters unre-
lentingly without regard to the name or the station of the individual involved.
In 1872 when the fight for the control of the Cincinnati Hospital had grown
more bitter than ever, Thacker wrote editorials on the situation that show at
once his mastery of the pen as well as his clear and logical mind and his
great moral courage. In the "Cincinnati Medical Repertory," which he
founded in 1868, and in its successor, the "Medical News," will be found the
evidences of Thacker's superb fitness for medical journalism. He and
Thomas C. Minor are unquestionably facile principes among the many who
have tried their hands at medical journalism in Cincinnati for fifty years past.
In private life Thacker was a hard-working and thrifty practitioner, who
accumulated quite a fortune through frugal habits and good investments.

JAMES C. CULBERTSON was born at Culbertson's Mills, Miami
County, Ohio, a place named after the large flouring mills built by his father.
He was educated at Monroe Academy and took one course at the classical
school in Philadelphia, known as Jefiferson College (not to be confounded

315

with Jefferson Medical College). To recuperate his health he spent a few-
years on a farm in Butler County which belonged to his father. In 1860 he
began the study of medicine in the office of Dr. John Davis, of Cincinnati.
In 1861 he enlisted as a private in the 5th Ohio A'^olunteer Infantry but was
detailed as hospital steward and as such saw much service in different places,
notably in West Virginia, Maryland, Virginia, Washington City, and finally
in the Fall of 1863, Cincinnati. He was assigned to duty at the Cincinnati
Marine Hospital where his preceptor, John Davis, was in charge at the time.
He utilized his spare time to attend lectures at the Medical College of Ohio.
After a few months his health began to fail and he was discharged on a
certificate of disability. He returned to his father's farm but joined the
service again in May, 1864, with a commission as assistant surgeon of the
3 37th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, remaining with the regiment until the Fall
of 1864, when it was mustered out of the service. He had a chance to
take a position in the Insane Asylum of the City of New York, Blackwell's
Island, and accordingly went to New York where he filled the position of
chief medical officer of the institution named, and incidentally attended lec-
tures at Bellevue, receiving his degree in March, 1865. The following month
he returned to Cincinnati and entered private practice. In 1873 he purchased
from Dr. E. B. Stevens the "Cincinnati Lancet and Observer," which in
1875 absorbed the "Indiana Journal of Medicine." The latter journal was
originally a Cincinnati publication ("Cincinnati Journal of Medicine," edited
by G. C. Blackman and Theophilus Parvin). Doctor Parvin, upon his re-
moval to Indianapolis, took the journal with him and issued it from Indian-
apolis. It was absorbed by the "Lancet and Observer" in 1875. In 1878
Culbertson obtained possession of the "Clinic," consolidated it with his own
journal and renamed the latter "The Cincinnati Lancet and Clinic." In
1881 Culbertson purchased the "Obstetric Gazette" and continued its publi-
cation. About this time he purchased property on West Seventh Street and
erected a building, called the Lancet Building, for the accommodation of his
printing and editorial offices. A hall in the second floor was for many years
the home of different medical societies, notably the Cincinnati Academy of
Medicine. In 1891 Culbertson moved to Chicago and edited the "Journal of
the American Medical Association." He returned in 1892. In addition to
his journalistic enterprises, Culbertson was interested in different industrial
undertakings, particularly the manufacture of fine brick and tile. He was
the inventor of a furnace for the abatement of the bituminous coal-gas
nuisance. His furnace is placed under steam boilers and burns up the gas
and carbon instead of allowing their escape through chimneys. Culbertson
died after a lingering illness in 1908. As a medical journahst he gave much
of value to the profession, especially during the earlier years of his career.
He banished the approved, tiresome, academic style from the columns of his
publications and was thoroughly journalistic in his editorial work. His
little book, "Luke, the Beloved Physician," has had a large sale. For a

316

number of years he held the chair of practice in the Cincinnati College of
Medicine and Surgery.

GEORGE B. ORR was born in Cincinnati in 1841. He graduated from
the Medical College of Ohio in 1869. He assumed the chair of surgery in
the Cincinnati College of Medicine and Surgery in 1882 and in 1889 the
same chair in the Laura Memorial College. He had been assistant to the
chairs of anatomy and surgery in the Medical College of Ohio from 1876
to 1879. His father, Thos. Jefferson Orr, born in \^irginia in 1810, came
to Cincinnati in 1832, graduated from Drake's College in 1837, located in
Utica, Ind., returned to Cincinnati in 1840 and continued in practice until
1869. He died on his farm in Kentucky in 1873.

LAWRENCE C. CARR,. born in 1855, graduated from the Medical Col-
lege of Ohio in 1878 and gathered his first professional experience on the
yellow fever steamer "John Porter." In 1883 he was appointed professor of
obstetrics in the Cincinnati College of Medicine and Surgery. He resigned
in 1887 to volunteer his services during a yellow fever epidemic in Jackson-
ville, Fla. In 1898 President McKinley appointed him surgeon of the United
States Volunteers with the rank of major. He was put in charge of the
General Hospital at Santiago, Cuba. The following year he was appointed
medical inspector and chief sanitary officer for the Eastern division, Cuba.
In 1901 he rose to the position of chief surgeon of the Eastern division. In
1902 he was surgeon in charge of Camp Vicars, Mindanao, P. I. He left
the service in 1903 and made a trip around the world, whereupon he resumed
his practice in Cincinnati.

J. TRL'SH was born in Switzerland in 1837. He came to this country
at an early age. He began the study of medicine at the St. Louis Medical
College, heard lectures at the ^Medical College of Ohio and received his
degree from the first named institution in 1865. He entered the service in
1861 as hospital steward, 16th Illinois Infantry, Quincy, 111., was commis-
sioned assistant surgeon with the rank of first lieutenant in 1862, and accom-
panied his regiment in many engagements, raids and battles under Generals
Negley, Rosecrans and Sherman. He served throughout the Civil War.
winning promotions by attention to and faithful performance of duty. He
received his honorable discharge in 1865 as surgeon with the rank of major.
He has been in active practice since 1865. He entered the Cincinnati College
of Medicine and Surgery in 1872 and has at different times held the chairs
of physiology, obstetrics and practice. He retired from the school in 1893.
As a lucid lecturer and practical teacher he was much esteemed.

MAX THORXER was born in Geestemuende, Germany, in 1859. He
attended the Gymnasium at Oldenburg and studied medicine at the Univer-
sities of Jena, Leipzig, Heidelberg and Munich. At the latter place he took

317

his degree in 1884. After another year of dinical work in Berhn, Paris,
V'^ienna and London he located in Cincinnati and in a short time was recog-
nized as an eminently well qualified laryngologist. He served on the staff
of the Jewish Hospital and subsequently also on that of the Cincinnati Hos-
pital. In 1888 he was appointed professor of laryngology and otology in
the Cincinnati College of Medicine and Surgery. He was one of the con-
tributors to Burnett's "System of Diseases of the Ear, Nose and Throat,''
and in every way an active worker in his specialty. His untimely death
occurred in 1899.

HERSHELL D. HINCKLEY, born in Franklin County, Indiana, in
1847, attended the Medical College of Ohio, graduating in 1867. He con-
tinued his studies at Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland, and the London Hos-
pitals. In 1875 he located at Oxford, Ohio, and built up a large practice. He
was the first health officer of Oxford, organizer of its Board of Health and
author of its health ordinances. He was a trustee of the Miami University
for nine years. The institution recognized the value of his work by con-
ferring upon him the degree of Master of Arts. Professionally he had be-
come identified with surgery and accepted the appointment of professor of
surgery in the Cincinnati College of Medicine and Surgery in 1894. He
became a resident of Cincinnati in that year. He filled the chair named until
1902, when the college was abandoned. For two terms he lectured on oral
surgery and pathology in the Cincinnati College of Dental Surgery. From
1896 to 1907 he was surgeon to St. Mary's Hospital. In the latter year,
owing to failing health, he retired from practice and sought the Horatian
ideal of human happiness on a farm in Butler County, Ohio, close to the
bosom of nature. Beatus illc, qui procul negotiis, etc.

Many other men have been connected with the Cincinnati College of
Medicine and Surgery, especially during the first decade of its existence
when the personnel of the faculty was constantly changing.

The professors of anatomy were R. A. Spencer, C. G. Comegys, W. W.
Dawson, Robert Spencer, Wm. P. Thornton, D. D. Bramble, M. L. xA.mick,
W. A. Rothacker, W. A. Martin, Charles E. Caldwell and W. E. Lewis. The
latter two subsequently joined the faculty of the Miami Medical College, the
former (1890) as professor of descriptive anatomy and later of orthopedic
surgery, the latter (1901) as professor of anatomy. Lewis is considered
one of the best teachers of anatomy in the Middle West. Spencer came
from Monticello, Ind., and had a great reputation as an anatomist.

The professors of physiology were R. A. Spencer, Robert Curran. Charles
Woodward, Chandler B. Chapman, R. R. Mcllvaine, J. H. Buckner, F. B.
Anderson, J. Trush, R. B. Davey, A. B. Isham, Wm. Judkins, J. H. Hazard
and^Tohn M. Shaller.

318

The professors of chemistry were Chas. W. Wright, Elijah Slack, Geo. M.
McLean, E. S. Wayne, J. W. Gordon, Daniel Vaughn, Chauncey R. Stuntz,
J. P. Patterson and Wm. Dickore. Stuntz was for many years a teacher in
Woodward High School. Dickore is an eminent chemist who later on was
connected with the Miami Medical College. McLean was a Princeton man
(1826) who had taught chemistry and natural sciences in Hanover College,
Indiana. He was a graduate of the New York College of Physicians and
Surgeons (1829). He died in 1886.

The professors of materia medica were James Graham, J. S. Harrison,
J. W. Gordon, T. A. Reamy, R. C. Stockton Reed, and A. B. Isham. Har-
rison who had graduated from the Medical College of Ohio in 1848, had
been a professor in the Central Indiana Medical College where A. H. Baker
was associated with him. He subsequently practiced in St. Louis.

The professors of practice were B. S. Lawson, J. A. Thacker, G. E.
Walton, J. Trush, J. C. Culbertson and Wm. E. Kiely.

The professors of surgery were A. H. Baker, Thomas Wood, P. S. Con-
ner, Daniel S. Young, Chas. F. Thomas, D. D. Bramble, George B. Orr, and
H. D. Hinckley. Thomas was a successful practitioner of Covington, Ky.

The professors of obstetrics were Edward Mead, Pliny M. Crume, J.
H. Tate, G. R. Chitwood, J. B. A. Risk, E. Buckner, A. J. Miles, J. Trush,
J. W. Underbill, Chas. A. L. Reed and L. C. Carr.

The professors of gynecology were Edward Mead, Pliny M. Crume, J. H.
Tate, G. R. Chitwood, J. B. A. Risk, Thomas Carroll, A. J. Miles and G.
Mitchell. Chitwood came from Connersville, Ind.

Other men who were connected with the institution in some capacity or
other were J. S. Skinner subsequently a practitioner in Columbus, Ohio ;
J. W. Mighels who wrote good papers on obstetrics for the journals ; G. A.
Gotwald, who practiced near Dayton, Ohio; Lewis L. Pinkerton, a general
practitioner in Carthage, Ohio, who was associated with Drake in the Ham-
ilton County Medical Association ; J. W. Tullis who afterwards practiced
in Troy, Ohio ; J. C. Beck, originally of Indiana, who subsequently became a
nostrum vender; T. A. Pinkney, who was located in College Hill, Ohio, and
B. P. Goode, an excellent general practitioner of Cincinnati, who gave the
profession some valuable statistics on intubation. Many of the early teachers
resided and practiced in other towns but came to Cincinnati to lecture, e. g.,
T. A. Reamy who for two years journeyed all the way from Zanesville to
lecture at the Cincinnati College of Medicine and Surgery.

The impression prevails that the school has not been definitely abandoned,
but that it is only in suspensu temporarily. If the Medical Department of
the University of Cincinnati, the product of the merger of the Ohio and
Miami Colleges (1909), should prove a disappointment, a re-organization of
the Cincinnati College of Medicine and Surgery is likely to be attempted.

319

CHAPTER XIV.

THE MIAMI MEDICAL COLLEGE.

(1852—1857.)

THE circumstances out of which the Miami Medical College was
evolved have already been referred to. The organization of a num-
ber of private medical schools (Summer schools, preparatory schools,
quizz classes) by some of the ambitious young men in Cincinnati, notably the
"Cincinnati Medical Institute" in 1850, had prepared the soil upon which a
new school could spring up and grow. The event which precipitated the
long-expected denouement was the resignation of Reuben D. Mussey from
the Ohio faculty. Mussey's troubles with his ambitious colleague Shotwell
have been spoken of elsewhere. The condition of unrest in the Ohio school,
the constant change in the personnel of the Ohio faculty, the meddling of the
trustees with the business of the professors, all these factors contributed
towards disgusting Mussey with the surroundings. He resigned and — nolens
volens — became the nucleus of a coterie of able and aggressive men who
persuaded him that the psychological moment of starting a rival school had
arrived, and that he was the Messiah for whose coming they had been waiting
for these many years. Mussey was seventy-two years old at the time, had
served the Ohio school thirteen years and was the acknowledged head of the
surgical fraternity in the West. Mussey took the lead in the movement and
the Miami Medical College began its career. The charter of the new school
was granted by the Commissioners of Hamilton County according to a law
which had been passed by the Ohio Legislature the previous winter, author-
izing county commissioners to grant charters when a sufficient amount of
stock had been subscribed.

The first faculty meeting was held in the office of Dr. John F. White, at
the northwest corner of Race and Fourth Streets, July 22, 1852. There was
much enthusiasm when the distinguished Mussey arose and moved to elect
Jesse P. Judkins dean of the new school. Organization was effected by
electing R. D. Mussey professor of surgery, J. P. Judkins professor of sur-
gical anatomy and pathology, Chas. L. Avery professor of descriptive
anatomy, John Davis adjunct professor of anatomy, John F. Wliite pro-
fessor of practice, George Mendenhall professor of obstetrics and diseases
of women and children, John A. Murphy professor of materia medica, ther-
apeutics and medical jurisprudence, C. G. Comegys professor of institutes of

320

medicine (physiology), and John Locke, Jr., professor of chemistry. The
appointment of John Locke, son of the great scientist, was prompted by
sentiment rather than by his particular fitness. John Locke, St., was ignomini-
ously dismissed from the faculty of the Ohio College a few months after the
Miami College had begun its career. Locke's position in the college had
been in jeopardy for at least two terms. Vattier hated him and would have
probably dismissed him sooner if he had been able to find a suitable substi-
tute. Perhaps he was afraid that the Miami faculty would be strengthened
by the accession of Locke. The latter was immensely popular among the
younger men in the profession, and it is more than likely that efforts were
made to persuade Locke to resign with Mussey and join the new school.
John Locke's heart was with the old school that he had helped to build up.

Miami INIivdical Coi.lece (1S5l'-1857)

He remained at his post until told that he was no longer wanted. John
Locke, Jr., was elected professor of chemistry in the Miami College, but he
never served. He remained with his father in the Ohio school in the capacity
of assistant. His place in the Miami school was taken by H. E. Foote.

The building at the northwest corner of Fifth Street and Central Avenue
(Western Row) was remodelled and became the first home of the Miami
Medical College. A dispensary was established in the college building and
clinical lectures and demonstrations given in St. John's Hotel for Invalids,
northwest corner Third and Plum Streets, which was under the professional
control of the Miami faculty. The new school started with thirty-four stu-
dents. The school grew in favor with the profession and enjoyed increasing
patronage. The graduating class in 1853 numbered seven, in 1854 seven-
teen, in 1855 seventeen, in 1856 eighteen, in 1857 thirty-one. The number of

321

matriculants in 1857 was three times as large as that of the first class (1852).
The granting of diplomas was accompanied by much ceremony and was made
very impressive by the offering up of the Hippocratic oath in the following
modernized form:

"In the presence of the trustees and faculty of Miami College, and the people
assembled, I do solemnly pledge my honor as a gentleman, that, in being admitted
to the rights, duties and privileges of the Profession of Medicine, I will faithfully
perform the duties which may devolve upon me as a member thereof, that T will strictly
observe the rules and etiquette, acknowledged by the profession for its government and
more particularly as laid down in the Code of Ethics, adopted by the American Medical
Association, and which has been read and explained to me. This I do with the full
and explicit understanding, that should I knowingly fail in any important particular,
to perform my duties in accordance with this pledge, I hereby concede to the trustees
and faculty of the college (after due notification and a hearing) the power and right
to withdraw from me the diploma granted by them, with all the honors, privileges
and immunities pertaining thereto. In confirmation of which I hereunto affix my
name."

In 1855 Elkanah Williams, the great eye-surgeon, opened an ophthal-
mologic clinic in connection with the college. It was the second clinic of this
character on this side of the Alleghenies, the first one having been conducted
by Daniel Drake and Willard Parker in conjunction with the Medical De-
partment of the Cincinnati College (1835-'39). A noteworthy event of the
year 1856 was the appearance of Alexis St. Martin before the class of the
Miami Medical College. . The man was the famous subject through whom
Dr. Wm. Beaumont made his. gastrological investigations. The man was at
that time fifty-three years old and was the father of seventeen children. He
was presented to the class by Doctor Bunting, of Montreal, June 13, 1856.
Many physicians were present. Doctor Bunting read an account of his case,
and exhibited the opening, together with some experiments. He introduced a
thermometer bulb into the stomach, showing a temperature of 100° Fahr.
A glass tube was introduced and a small quantity of chyle was withdrawn.
St. Martin drank a tumbler or two of water, which he ejected through the
orifice by a simple contraction of the abdominal muscles. R. D. Mussey was
an interested spectator. He was not satisfied to see and smell the excretion
from the man's stomach but insisted upon tasting it.

That the relations of the two rival colleges were by no means amicable,
can be readily imagined. The principal bone of contention was, of course,
the Commercial Hospital where the students of the Miami College received
their clinical instruction from the Ohio professors. This was a source of
great annoyance to the Miami teachers. By political machinations and com-
binations, by appeal to the township trustees and to the Legislature the at-
tempt was made to change the law which gave the Ohio College absolute
control of the Commercial Hospital. Worn out by the long-continued strife,
the Ohio trustees suggested to combine the two colleges and in this way
give the ambitious men in the Miami facultv a chance in the Commercial

Hospital. At first the proposition was met with derision. Within a year
after it had been made, the matter was seriously discussed by the Miami
men. Some of them were disposed to consider the proposition while others
were opposed to it. Two factors finally facilitated the merger of the two
schools. One was the desire of the most distinguished Miami professor to
retire from active work and spend the rest of his life in peace and comfort.
Mussey was aging rapidly, and his retirement or death was only a question
of time. Without him the outlook for the school was gloomy. Then there
was A. H. Baker, the common enemy of both schools. His threat to make a
free school out of the "Cincinnati College of Medicine and Surgery" hastened
the outcome of the negotiations. A re-organization of the Ohio faculty re-
sulted in the election of four Miami professors, Judkins, Comegys, Foote and
Mendenhall, to the chairs of descriptive anatomy, physiology, chemistry, and
obstetrics, including diseases of women and children. The previous incum-
bents, Tate, Armor, Warder and Marshall, retired. Marshall was in ill
health, Warder had repeatedly asked to be relieved, Tate resigned because
he failed in getting the chair to which Mendenhall was elected. Armor left
because he had secured a more desirable appointment elsewhere. Thus, the
Miami Medical College after five years of vigorous existence gave up its
identity and was absorbed by its rival. Within two months after the Miami
College had abandoned its home on Fifth Street and Western Row, a Dancing
Academy was in full swing where once the intricacies of medical and sur-
gical lore had been expounded, and a cheap restaurant was in operation
where, but a few months before, the forced contributions of neighboring
graveyards had aided the student in his analysis of the machinery that is so
fearfully and so wonderfully built. Tempora mntaiitiir!

From 1857 to 1865 the history of the Miami Medical College is that of
the Medical College of Ohio.

The men who founded the Miami Medical College were among the ablest
members of the profession. They were amply capable of coping with their
rivals in the Ohio school and possessed the esprit dc corps that was absent
in the Ohio College. R. D. Mussey started his career in Cincinnati as a
professor in the Medical College of Ohio, to which he gave more than twice
the number of years of service which he spent in the corresponding chair in
the Miami Medical College. It is right, therefore, that a sketch of this
remarkable man should have been given in a chapter devoted to the Ohio
College. To tlic latter he gave not only longer, but better service. While
in the surgical chair of the Ohio College, he was in the full enjoyment of his
great powers as a surgeon and teacher. To the Miami College he gave his
great name, although there is no doubt that he was not the Mussey of old.
The other founders of the Miami Medical College were mostly young men,
some of whom like Avery, Davis, etc., had received their early training as
teachers in the Medical College of Ohio.

323

JESSE P. JUDKINS, brilliant anatomist, immensely popular teacher,
quaint and original character, was born in 1815 in Mt. Pleasant, Jefferson
County, Ohio. He received his collegiate education in Canonsburg, Pa., and
Steubenville, Ohio, dividing his time between his classical studies and be-
coming an adept in engineering and other technical pursuits. His father and
several of his relatives being physicians, it was but natural that young Jesse
should have turned his attention to medicine at an early age. He matriculated
at the Medical College of Ohio in 1836, graduated in 1838, became demon-
strator of anatomy in 1839 under Shotwell, retaining this position for five
years. He gave private courses in anatomy for a number of years. In 1847
he was elected professor of anatomy at Starhng Medical College, Columbus,
Ohio, and remained in the latter city until 1852 when the Miami Medical
College was organized and Judkins made professor of surgical anatomy and
pathology. A student at Starling College during Judkins' incumbency of
the chair of anatomy was Thad. A. Reamy, afterwards a distinguished med-
ical teacher in Cincinnati, who remembered Judkins as a most eloquent and
enthusiastic lecturer. The year 1853 Judkins spent in Europe. He taught
surgical anatomy in the Miami Medical College until 1857 when the con-
solidation of the Ohio and Miami Colleges took place. Judkins became pro-
fessor of descriptive anatomy in the new school. In 1861 he resigned and
devoted himself to his extensive practice. In 1863 he fell and injured his
right foot. He was confined to his bed for weeks and hardly recovered from
the effects of his injury when, in January, 1864, his brother Robert, a physi-
cian in Highland County, Ohio, to whom he was deeply attached, died. Jesse
Judkins never recovered from the shock. He grew melancholy and morose,
which was all the more noticeable in view of the buoyant and happy disposi-
tion for which he had always been noted. He assisted in the re-organization
of the Miami Medical College in 1865. He was only the semblance of his
former self when he was induced, in the Summer of 1867, to seek rest in
Mackinaw. He returned to Cincinnati in September, 1867, a hopeless in-
valid and died within three months. Judkins, jolly, clever and thoroughly
unconventional, was a unique figure in the medical profession of the city.
He had an enormous following among the laity and was equally popular
with physicians and students. From 1848 to 1859 he shared offices with
Oliver M. Langdon, the distinguished neurologist.

Jesse P. Judkins was the most prominent member of a family of physi-
cians. His half-brother William, was born in Guilford County, North Caro-
lina, in 1788, and began to practice in Jefferson County, Ohio, in 1811.
Twenty years later he removed to Cincinnati where he died in 1861. He
was an exemplary man, a skillful surgeon and a good all-around physician
who was enthusiastically devoted to his profession up to the very moment
of his death. He was known as the "quaker-doctor" because he conformed
to the dress and language of the Quakers all his life. He was a Doctor
Medicinse honoris causa (Transylvania University).

324

William Judkins had three sons who became members of the profession.
The oldest one of the three was David Judkins who was born in Mt.
Pleasant, Ohio, in 1817 and was, therefore, only two years younger than
his uncle Jesse. David Judkins attended Woodward College, and the old
Cincinnati College, graduated at the Medical College of Ohio in 1842 and
served as resident physician in the Commercial Hospital. He died in 1893.
During his long and active professional life he was at all times prominently
identified with the profession. For thirty years he served on the stafif of
the Cincinnati Hospital. When he died, he was president of its board of
trustees. During the Civil War he had charge of military relief stations in
Cincinnati and Vicksburg. The other two sons of William Judkins were
C. P. and William who were well-known and highly respected members of
the local profession. C. P. Judkins died in 1900, Wm. Judkins in 1906.

CHARLES L. AVERY was one of the leading physicians of the city
when he was asked to help in the organization of the Miami Medical Col-
lege. He was a descendant of distinguished ancestry on both sides. His
father was a leading public man, his mother was a L'Hommedieu and be-
longed to one of the pioneer families of the Ohio Valley. Charles L. Avery
was born in 1816 and had the best advantages of education and travel. He
graduated at the Medical College of Ohio in 1836 and located in Cincinnati.
In 1844. he was appointed demonstrator of anatomy in his Alma Mater, but
resigned at the end of the term. His successor was John Davis. In 1853
he assumed the chair of anatomy in the Miami Medical College and achieved
a vast reputation as a teacher. In 1858 the unfortunate man was stricken
with paralysis which eventually made a helpless invalid out of him while
his mind remained unimpaired. He spent several years on his back, a living
corpse. He was relieved by death in 1867.

JOHN DAVIS was born on a farm in Butler County, Ohio, in 1821.
His parents were Welsh people who had emigrated to this country in 1818.
Young Davis was sent to Cincinnati to attend Woodward College. He
studied medicine at the Medical College of Ohio, graduated in 1843, served
one year as an interne in the Commercial Hospital and opened an office on
Vine Street near Twelfth, where the City Dispensary, conducted by Drs.
Mendenhall, Wittier and others, was located. He became demonstrator of
anatomy in his Alma Mater in 1846, resigning in 1852 to become demon-
strator of anatomy in the newly founded Miami Medical College. Chas. L.
Avery who held the chair of anatomy, resigned in 1855, and John Davis
became his successor. When the consolidation of the two colleges took
place, two years later, his connection with the teaching staff of the college
ceased. He, however, retained his position as a clinical teacher in the Com-
mercial, afterwards the Cincinnati Hospital. He was in 1867 one of the
organizers of the Union Central Life Insurance Company and devoted much

John F. White

John Davis

John A. Murphy

George Men den ha li

Jesse P. Judkins

326

Chas. Iv. Averv

of his time and labor to insurance matters. He was for several years a
member of the school board and of the board of trustees of the University
of Cincinnati. He died in 1890.

JOHN F. WHITE, one of the founders of the Miami Medical College
and its first professor of practice, was born in Philadelphia in 1813. He re-
ceived his literary education at Amherst College and his medical training
at Jefferson Medical College. In 1835 he left Philadelphia to become a
surgeon on board of an East India merchant vessel. After a few years he
returned and spent a year in the Philadelphia Hospital in the capacity of
house physician. He finally, in 1844, came to Cincinnati and entered pri-
vate practice. In 1852 he assisted in the organization of the Miami Medical
College. The first faculty meeting was held in his ofifice on the northwest
corner of Fourth and Race Streets, July 22, 1852. He assumed the chair
of practice and held it until the consolidation of the two colleges in 1857.
White was not an eloquent lecturer, but a thoroughly faithful and effective
teacher. As a member of the medical staff of the Commercial Hospital his
work was of the highest order. His clinical lectures were well received by
the students. White died in ISSl, having several years previously retired
from active practice.

GEORGE MENDENHALL was a scion of an old Quaker family of
Pennsylvania. He was born in Sharon, Beaver County, Pennsylvania, but
grew up in Fairfield, Columbiana County, Ohio, where his parents had set-
tled when he was but a few years old. It is worthy of comment that Co-
lumbiana County, Ohio, has given to Cincinnati some of its most eminent
medical men, such as Graham, Fries and others. Young Mendenhall was
fourteen years old when his father died. Mr. Mendenhall, Sr., was a well-
informed man who had given his talented son much attention and time so
that in point of education young Mendenhall was much farther advanced
than the boys of the village who, like him, had attended the village school.
The boy was of frail build and not fitted for any kind of occupation that
would require much physical effort. After his father's death he found em-
ployment in a general store where drugs were handled. The latter fact
aroused his interest in medicine and he devoted much time to reading chem-
ical and pharmaceutical publications. He finally made up his mind to be-
come a physician and took up the study of Latin, continuing it until he had
reached quite a respectable degree of proficiency. At the age of sixteen he
entered the office of a physician in Salem, Ohio, as student apprentice and
prepared himself for a regular course in medicine in the University of Penn-
sylvania where he finally received his degree in 1835. He located in Cleve-
land, Ohio, and remained eight years, returning to Philadelphia for the
Winter (1837-'38) when an interneship in the Philadelphia Hospital was of-
fered to him. While he was a resident of Cleveland, he took a livelv interest

in public affairs and served for three terms as a member of the City Council
of Cleveland. He probably felt that a political career in Cleveland would
not offer the chances for advancement in his profession which he so much
desired, and decided to make a change. He knew of a number of young men
in Cincinnati who had located there without money or friends and yet were
doing well, and he decided to follow their example. He came to Cincinnati
in 1843. Among his earliest acquaintances in Cincinnati were Drs. Vattier
and Warder, the former an energetic man of diversified interests, the latter a
successful practitioner and a scientist of note. These men and others of
similar caliber constituted the attending staff of a public clinic known as the
City Dispensary. Mendenhall became associated with them in the conduct
of it and subsequently also of a Summer school of clinical medicine mod-
elled after the Philadelphia Medical Institute founded by Nathaniel Chap-
man and patronized by physicians who wanted to spend a week in the
Summer brushing up and doing some post-graduate work. This Summer
school in Cincinnati was quite successful for a number of years. Menden-
hall was by this time a very busy physician with a lucrative practice and an
ever-increasing enthusiasm in matters pertaining to the work of his pro-
fession. In 1850 he became associated in the editorial management of the
"Western Lancet," and continued in journalistic work for two years. When
out of the soil of malcontent a new medical school, the Miami Medical Col-
lege, sprang into existence in 1852, Mendenhall became one of its chief
promoters and its professor of obstetrics and diseases of women and chil-
dren. In 1857, after the consolidation of the two colleges, he held the same
chair in the Medical College of Ohio. That the mixture of the Ohio and
Miami elements did not form a homogeneous mass, was soon to be seen.
The old Ohio contingent, led by the intrepid Blackman, was slowly gainmg
the upper hand and making things very uncomfortable for the men who had
been professors in the Miami school. The wrangling in the faculty and in
the board of trustees led to the climax of 1860 which culminated in the
exodus of all the trustees and nearly all the professors, including the entire
Miami contingent. Mendenhall resigned and devoted himself to his con-
stantly growing practice. During the sixties he was second to none in the
extent of his obstetrical work. In 1865 when the Miami Medical College was
reorganized, Mendenhall became its dean and the incumbent of the obstet-
rical chair. He reached the climax of his professional career in 1869 when,
at its meeting in New Orleans, the American Medical Association elected him
president for the meeting (1870) in Washington. At the New Orleans meet-
ing in 1869 he was the American Medical Association's first vice-president.
In 1872 he went to Europe to recover his health which had been failing.
He was received with much courtesy by the London Obstetrical Society and
made one of its Fellows. He returned to Cincinnati in 1873 and died the
following year of paralysis. Mendenhall was very popular with the pro-
fession. He was a well-meaning, kind-hearted man, thoroughly imbued with

828

the ideals of the profession. That the rivalry of the two colleges involved
the individual relations of their professors and re-acted on the professional
and even the private life of the latter, was the circumstance that embittered
many years of Mendenhall's life. His loyalty to the cause of the Miami
College made him the target of much abuse and enmity on the part of quite a
few prominent men in the profession. That in the heat of argument and
warfare many regrettable things were said and done by all concerned, was
an unavoidable feature of the situation. Mendenhall wrote but little. His
reputation rested on his general usefulness as a representative physician and
as a popular clinical teacher of midwifery. His literary efforts are referred
to in the last chapter of this book.

JOHN A. MURPHY was born in Hawkins County, East Tennessee, in
1824. He attended the literary department of the old Cincinnati College, and
in 1843 entered the office of John P. Harrison as a student of medicine. He
attended the Medical College of Ohio and graduated in 1846. He served
one year as interne in the Commercial Hospital and began to practice in
1848. He participated in the organization of the Miami Medical College in
1852 and became its first professor of materia medica and forensic medicine.
He went to Paris and London in 1853. In 1857, after the consolidation of
the Miami and Ohio Colleges, he assumed the chair of materia medica in
the new Ohio College. During the war he was attached to the United States
Military Hospital on Third Street, and also examined recruits in the Second
Congressional District of Ohio. The position of medical examiner at that
time was not a particularly desirable one on account of the odium of bribery
which attached to the office. After the war Murphy took an active part in
the re-organization of the Miami Medical College and assumed the chair of
practice which he held until 1881. From 1881 to 1890 he taught clinical
medicine. He retired in 1890 owing to greatly impaired health. He died,
in 1900. Murphy was one of the founders and associate editors of the "Med-
ical Observer." After the union of the "Observer" with the "Western
Lancet" Murphy became one of the editors of the new journal.

Murphy will always be remembered as the most persistent and loyal
champion of the cause of the Miami College. The welfare of the latter
was the one passion of his life. He loved the Miami College just as John
Locke had loved the Ohio school. In advocating and defending the interests
of the Miami College he was intensely aggressive and uncompromising. He
was naturally of an irritable and belligerent disposition, largely due to a
physical ailment which for the greater part of his life caused him much dis-
tress and suffering. He was for years a member of the Cincinnati Hospital
staff and at the time of his death a member of its board of directors. As a
practitioner he was one of the best known and successful members
of the profession. He was a natural-born organizer and in this way became
one of the earliest and most active champions of organization in the pro-

329

fession. He was always prominently identified with the doings of medical
societies and, nearly up to the time of his death, a regular attendant at the
meetings and participant in the doings of the Academy of Medicine. He
was by nature a man of affairs, full of action and initiative. Much of the
success of the Miami College is due to his loyal and energetic management.

CORNELIUS G. COMEGYS was born at Cherburg (near Dover), Kent
County, Delaware, July 23, 1816. He attended Dover Academy where he
received a splendid classical education. Contrary to the wishes of his family
he did not choose a professional career, but left home to see the country
and finally became engaged in mercantile pursuits in Indiana. His father,
who had risen to great prominence as a politician in his native State, being
elected Governor of Delaware in 1839, persuaded the son to return East and
continue his studies. Young Comegys had in 1839 married a daughter of

C. G. COMEGVS

Governor Tiffin, of Ohio, and with her returned East. Perchance he visited
Philadelphia in 1845 and had the good fortune of becoming acquainted with
William Edmonds Horner, who was a power in the Medical Department of
the University of Pennsylvania and was considered the prince of American
anatomists. Gross categorically states that Horner is the most accomplished
anatomist our country has produced. This learned and famous man had an
almost hypnotic influence over young Comegys who at once decided to. study
medicine under the direction of this great master. He devoted himself to
the study of medicine with much zeal and graduated in 1848. His object
was to remain in Philadelphia, but he soon realized that it was by no means
easy for a beginner to gain a foothold in the home town of his Alma Mater.
He had seen something of the West when he was in business, and finally
decided to locate in Cincinnati, at that time a rising town offering good

330

prospects to young and ambitious men. He came to Cincinnati in 1849 and
practiced here for two years. In 1851 he went abroad for study and observa-
tion. Paris was at that time the Mecca of American physicians. Comegys
also visited London. In 1852 he returned to America and accepted the chair
of anatomy which Dr. A. H. Baker offered him in the Cincinnati College of
Medicine and Surgery. Things did not suit him exactly in the latter insti-
tution. When, a few months later, the chair of the institutes of medicine
in the Miami Medical College was offered to him, he resigned his chair in
Baker's school and became a member of the Miami Faculty. In 1857 the
Miami College was consolidated with the Ohio College, Comegys becoming
professor of the institutes of medicine in the combined school. When in
1860 all the professors and trustees of the Ohio College resigned and left
the belligerent Blackman in full pos.session of the field, Comegys whose cold
dignity never failed to arouse Blackman's ire, resigned with the rest. In
1864 he again became a member of the Ohio College but resigned in 1868.
Ill health was the alleged cause of his resignation. That things did not run
quite as smoothly during these four years as might have been desirable,
can not be gainsaid. Comegys was not a man that made friends readily.
He meant well but was unyielding in the face of opposition. He was frig-
idly courteous and dignified, a man of strong likes and dislikes, rather pre-
cise and exacting in his dealings with others. That such a man should have
been on amiable terms with the moody and inflammable Blackman, the giant
of the faculty, can hardly be believed. Comegys's nervous system suffered a
good deal under the continuous pressure and eventually threatened to col-
lapse. He resigned and devoted himself to his work as a member of the
Cincinnati Hospital staff with renewed vigor. His connection with the staff
of the Cincinnati Hospital started in 1857. He became deeply interested in
many problems of public interest and for years was the best type of a public-
spirited, representative citizen. As a member of the board of education he
typified that disinterested and intelligent appreciation of educational sub-
jects which might have been expected from a cultured and well-informed
physician such as he was. Next to its actual founder, Charles McMicken,
the University of Cincinnati ow^es more to Comegys than to any other man.
He favored and championed the creation of a great medical school in con-
junction with the university. He saw a trend of ideas and paved the way
for things that were inevitable. He realized that the proprietary school in
medicine was doomed and that the European pattern of a university medical
school would be the American medical school of the future. He took a
broad view of the range of activity which an American university should
properly develop. He was distinctly a man of ideas, unfortunately three or
four decades ahead of his time. He was a fervent champion of the rights
and duties of the profession, and was an indefatigable advocate of represen-
tation of the medical profession in the President's cabinet.

331

To the profession he gave much of lasting vahie. His translation of
Renouard's "History of Medicine" was a pretentious effort that elicited warm
praise in this country and England. A meritorious performance was his
translation of Charcot's "Lectures on the Pathological Anatomy of the
Nervous System." He wrote many short papers for the medical journals.
His articles on the pathology and treatment of phthisis attracted much at-
tention. A revolutionary contribution to clinical medicine was his paper on
"Hydrotherapy in the Treatment of Entero-colitis" (1875). Comegys was
one of the founders of the Cincinnati Academy of Medicine. He was a
Fellow of the Philadelphia College of Physicians. At the time of his death
he was one of the best known and most influential members of the profes-
sion in the West. He died in 1896.

332

CHAPTER XV.

THE MIAMI MEDICAL COLLEGE.

(1865—1908.)

WHEN in 1857 the Ohio and Miami Colleges consolidated, four
Miami professors were added to the Ohio faculty. The Miami
College ceased to exist. The following year four more men
who had been identified with the Miami cause, became teachers in the Ohio
College. Thus, eight Miami men were connected with the old Ohio in 1S59,
to-wit : Jesse Judkins, Geo. Mendenhall, H. E. Foote, C. G. Comegys, E. B.
Stevens, B. F. Richardson, J. A. Murphy and Wm. Clendenin. Two ses-
sions passed in comparative peace. In 1860 the Miami contingent with the
exception of Judkins withdrew, leaving the great thunderer, Blackman, in
possession of the field. Judkins followed his colleagues the subsequent
year. Thus, the Miami College, within three years after the merger, became
nothing more than an historical reminiscence. Some of the erstwhile Miami
teachers enlisted in the army, while others pursued the noiseless tenor of a
general practitioner's life. That some of them had become victims of the
"delusion" which Drake refers to, is evident from the fact that private courses
in special lines of work were given by them, especially at St. John's Hospital
which about that time passed into the exclusive control of the Miami men.
The end of the Civil War allowed the thoughts of men to drift into other
than military channels. The suggestion to revive the old Miami was received
with enthusiasm by the friends of the institution. A faculty was organized
in 1865 with three of the original professors (Judkins, Murphy and Men-
denhall) as the nucleus. The other men were Wm. Clendenin, E. Williams,
Chandler B. Chapman, E. B. Stevens, Wm. H. Taylor, B. F. Richardson,
H. E. Foote and Wm. H. Mussey, son of the distinguished R. D. Mussey.
One hundred and fifty-six students matriculated for the first course to be
given by the new faculty. The home of the revived institution was the
building of the Ohio Dental College, on College Street. Encouraged by the
success of the new venture, the professors purchased a large lot on Twelfth
Street near Plum, and erected a building upon it as a permanent home for
the Miami College. The new building was formally opened in 1866 and the
college entered upon a career of increasing prosperity. It showed its strength
when it successfully assailed the Medical College of Ohio in the Cincinnati
Hospital and broke up the monopoly of the rival school as early as 1865.

333

The Miami College grew in professional favor from year to year. In 1866
twenty-six graduates received their diplomas, in 1872 sixty-nine. The man-
agement of the school was firm and vigorous in guarding the interests of the
school and in adapting the policy of the latter to the increasing demands of
higher medical education. The man at the helm was John A. Murphy, erratic
and belligerent, but true and loyal when the interests of his college were
concerned. A number of excellent men helped to give character and tone
to the institution. Strangely enough, the aetas aurea of the Miami College

Miami Medical College (1866-1909)

was synchronous with that of the Ohio school, in spite of the fact that their
rivalry was by no means amicable. The bitterness of their competition was a
bad factor in the medical life of the Ohio Valley, because it communicated
itself to their graduates and alumni who perpetuated the factional strife
beyond the college portals, not infrequently at the expense of the fraternal
feeling which is the mortar of the professional edifice. In 1886 the Miami
College tried the experiment of "affiliation" with the University of Cincin-
nati, but soon saw the absurdity of the arrangement and discontinued it. A
characteristic feature of the Miami Colleg-e has been the tranquil life which
it has enjoyed within its own walls. A splendid esprit de corps has pre-

334

vailed throughout. The Miami College was never a house divided against
itself. The most beautiful evidence thereof is the veneration which all
Miami men bear towards the retired professors, the men who were the
leaders at one time, but after a long and meritorious service left the active
participation in the affairs of the school to younger and more vigorous
men. These retired men assume a new and beautiful position of authority,
almost patriarchal in character. J. C. Mackenzie, Wm. H. Taylor and the
other grand old men of the Miami College are still the leaders of the school
because they are enthroned on an imperishable pedestal erected by love and
gratitude. There is no Belisarius among them.

The incumbents of the original chairs in the Miami Medical College have
been :

Anatomy — Chas. L. Avery, John Davis, H. E. Foote, Wm. Clendenin,
F. W. Langdon, Charles E. Caldwell, J. C. Oliver, W. E. Lewis.

Physiology — C. G. Comegys, Wm. H. Taylor, J. C. Mackenzie, Joseph
Eichberg, Oliver P. Holt, Frank H. Lamb.

Chemistry — John Locke, Jr., H. E. Foote, C. B. Chapman, S. A. Norton,
J. B. Hough, J. F. Judge, Wm. L. Dudley, Dan Millikin, Carl Langenbeck,
W. Dickore, F. B. Sampson. C. B. Chapman had been professor of chem-
istry in the Cincinnati College of Medicine and Surgery. He was a man of
means, who loved science. He left Cincinnati about 1868 and spent the rest
of his life in ease and comfort in Iowa. He died about 1880.

Materia medica — John A. Murphy, E. B. Stevens, Wm. B. Davis, Dan
Millikin, E. W. Mitchell, Julius Eichberg.

Practice — John F. White, John A. Murphy, J. C. Mackenzie, Joseph Eich-
berg, Oliver P. Holt.

Surgery — R. D. Mussey, Wm. H. Mussey, Wm. Clendenin, Thomas H.
Kearney, N. P. Dandridge, E. W. Walker, Chas. E. Caldwell, J. C. Oliver.
Walker (born 1853) graduated from the Medical College of Ohio in 1878,
was demonstrator of pathology in the latter institution (1886) when he was
elected to the chair of surgery and pathology in the Miami Medical College.
Oliver (born 1862) graduated from the Miami Medical College in 1885,
became professor of descriptive anatomy in 1896, professor of surgery in
1901. He is at present the dean of the institution.

Obstetrics — George Mendenhall, Wm. H. Taylor, Magnus A. Tate.

Gynecology — George Mendenhall, B. F. Richardson, Byron Stanton, Ru-
fus B. Hall.

After the session 1908-'09 the Miami Medical College passes out of ex-
istence. Together with the Medical College of Ohio it will be absorbed by
the University of Cincinnati as the latter's Medical Department. At the
termination of the career of the Miami Medical College additional chairs
were held by some very able men. Among them were E. W. Mitchell
(pediatrics), J. A. Thompson (laryngology and otology), F. W. Langdon
(neurology), M. A. Brown (physical diagnosis), E. H. Shields (dermatology

335

and genito-urinary surgery), J. F. Heady (medical economics), C. W. Tange-
man (clinical ophthalmology), J. W. Murphy (clinical laryngology), W. D.
Porter (chnical obstetrics), W. E. Murphy (clinical otology and laryng-
ology), J. M. Withrow (clinical gynecology) and G. A. Fackler (clinical
medicine). The latter is at present president of staff of the Cincinnati "Hos-
pital. John M. Withrow as a member of the Cincinnati Board of Educa-
tion is doing very meritorious work in the interests of the public schools of
Cincinnati.

The following sketches refer to the men who were conspicuous in the
life of the Miami Medical College.

JOSEPH BYRD SMITH was born in New York in 1821. He gradu-
ated at the Medical College of Ohio in 1845 and became resident physician
of the Commercial Hospital for one year. He achieved a vast reputation
as an obstetrician. In 1860 he was appointed on the staff of the Commer-
cial Hospital. When the Miami Medical College was reorganized after the
war, he was elected professor of obstetrics, gynecology and pediatrics, sharing
the chair with George Mendenhall. He died in 1865 before he had a chance
to lecture at the college. B. F. Richardson was appointed in his place. J. B.
Smith was the preceptor of Thomas C. Minor when the latter began the
study of medicine.

HENRY E. FOOTE was born in Cincinnati in 1825. His father was
John P. Foote, one of the most public-spirited citizens Cincinnati has ever
had, author, publisher, patron of the arts and sciences and trustee of the
Ohio College for many years. His son began the study of medicine in the
office of his brother-in-law, John T. Shotwell, graduated at the Medical Col-
lege of Ohio in 1847, served the Commercial Hospital as resident physician,
but resigned before the end of his term, to enter the medical service during
the Mexican War. After a year's absence he returned to Cincinnati and
began to practice. The chair of chemistry in the newly organized Miami
Medical College in 1852 was given to the son of the distinguished John
Locke. After one session Henry E. Foote was appointed in his place. When
the Miami and Ohio Colleges consolidated in 1857 Foote became professor
of chemistry. At the outbreak of the Civil War he was appointed surgeon
of the 13th Missouri Regiment, subsequently known as the 22nd Ohio. At
the close of the war, when the Miami College was reorganized, Foote as-
sumed the chair of anatomy. In 1869 he took the chair of surgery and
special pathology. For a time he was one of the physicians at the Longview
Asylum. Foote was a good operating surgeon and a very popular teacher.
He died of tuberculosis in 1871.

336

WILLIAM HEBERDEN MUSSEY, son of the distinguished Reuben
D. Mussey, was born in Hanover, N. H., September 30, 1818. In his youth
he was frail in body and slow and heavy in mind. His father decided that
the boy should become a business man for which he seemed to have some
aptitude. He was conscientious and dutiful and rather practical in his ways
of thinking. Thus it was that, after getting nothing more than an ele-
mentary education, he became a clerk in a general store in Francestown,
N. H., later on occupying similar positions in Nashua, N. H., and in Boston,
Mass. The work seemed to agree with him. His health improved and, when
hardly twenty years of age, he had achieved a reputation as a level-headed
and shrewd business man. When in 1838 his father moved to Cincinnati to
become professor of surgery in the Medical College of Ohio, William de-
cided to accompany his father. In 1842 William, then twenty-four years of
age, opened a dry goods store in Cincinnati. He was then a well-developed
and healthy young man who, at his father's behest, would often appear
before the medical class to illustrate the beneficent effects of a vegetarian
regime. R. D. Mussey was a practical vegetarian who attributed his son's
splendid development to the fact that the weak and puny infant and boy had
never tasted meat, coffee or alcohol.

The remarkable physical transformation was followed by a peculiar men-
tal change. The successful dry goods merchant began to take an interest in
medicine, and in 1845 began to study medicine in his father's office, gradu-
ating in 1848 at the Medical College of Ohio. The medical instinct was
probably inborn in him. His father was a doctor and a doctor's son. His
mother's father was also a physician. Wm. H. Mussey became his father's
associate for three years. In 1851 he went to Europe and joined other Cin-
cinnatians in Paris who afterwards became distinguished members of the
profession, especially E. Williams, J. A. Murphy and C. G. Comegys. In
1853 he returned to Cincinnati and to his practice. In 1855 he became sur-
geon to St. John's Hospital. In 1864 he was appointed surgeon to the Com-
mercial (Cincinnati) Hospital, and, in the same year, elected vice-president
of the American Medical Association. In 1865 he assumed the chair of
surgery in the Miami Medical College. In 1872 when the trustees of the
Cincinnati Hospital adopted a resolution that no teacher in a medical college
could belong to the medical staff of the hospital, he showed his loyalty to
the Miami College by resigning from the hospital. Subsequently the resolution
was rescinded and Mussey was re-instated. He held the positions at the col-
lege and at the hospital up to the time of his death, August 1, 1882. For
many years Mussey was associated in practice with his friend William
Clendenin.

Wm. Mussey was neither a fiucnt speaker nor a polished writer. He was
an exponent of the practical side of surgery and did his most effective teach-
ing by his work in the operating room and at the bedside. His whole life
long he was at a disadvantage because he happened to be the son of an

337

illustrious man, whose remarkable achievements as a surgeon were of very
recent date. That Wm. H. Mussey never became the equal of R. D. Mussey
as a surgeon, is admitted on all sides. There is no doubt, however, that, in
point of self-sacrificing devotion to duty and earnestness of purpose in all
his work, Wm. H. Mussey was a worthy son of his father. Like the latter
he was a thoroughly good man and a gentleman of truest heart culture. In-
cidentally he had a fine sense of humor and a ready gift of repartee which
his father lacked. It is said that one day Wm. H. Mussey was performing a
rather bloody operation when a friend of the patient, a buxom young woman,
entered the operating room and was horrified at the appearance of things.
"I would never be a surgeon !" she exclaimed, whereupon Doctor Mussey
quietly remarked : "I suppose, you would greatly prefer to become a sur-
geon's mate."

Mussey's fervent patriotism and unfaltering loyalty to the cause of the
Union are matters of historical record. On April 19, 1861, the memorable
day when the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment was mobbed in Baltimore, Mus-
sey wrote to Salmon P. Chase for permission to fit up the deserted Marine
Hospital in Cincinnati for the use of the sick and wounded soldiers. Chase
granted the request on condition that "no expense should be incurred on the
part of the Government." Assisted by a few men and women of means,
Mussey offered to serve his country without pay during the continuance of
the struggle. There being no provision for this kind of gratuitous service,
the Government declined the offer but appointed him Brigade Surgeon of
Volunteers. He served under Gen. Ormsby M. Mitchell on the medical staff
of the Military Hospital at Cincinnati, under General Nelson in the Depart-
ment of Ohio, under Gen. T. J. Wood during the Shiloh and Corinth cam-
paigns, and under Gen. J. T. Wilder in the Army of the Cumberland.

The first meeting of Doctor Mussey and General Nelson, when the former,
having been assigned to the division commanded by the latter, reported to
Nelson, was characteristic of both men. Mussey was not the surgeon whom
Nelson had expected. When Mussey reported to Nelson, the latter gave
vent to his displeasure in a flood of profanity. Mussey replied that he was
reporting under orders, of General Buell, who was the commander of both
himself and Nelson. Nelson continued to grumble and swear. Thereupon
Mussey said : "General, I have reported to you under orders. Do you decline
to receive me in obedience to these orders?" Nelson's bullying ceased at
once, and from that time Nelson was always respectful to him. Nelson's
troops were raw and Mussey had his hands full, teaching them the ele-
mentary rules of military hygiene. In this labor he more than once reproved
ignorant and careless commanding officers for their neglect of men, with a
firmness which admitted of no evasion and a temperance of language which
admitted of no severity of reply.

Mussey served under Gen. O. M. Mitchell (founder of the Cincinnati
Observatory), who became warmly attached to him. On June 14, 1862,

338

Mussey was made a Medical Inspector of the United States Army with the
rank of Lieutenant Colonel. In this capacity he served, under Gen. Q. A.
Gilmore, until July, 1863. For a time he was on duty in Washington, and
after the battle of Gettysburg had charge of a depot of 14,000 wounded men
at Baltimore. After further service as Medical Inspector in the Department
of \\'est Virginia, under Gen. B. F. Kelley, his health being enfeebled as the
result of exposure, hard work, and the effects of an overdose of morphine,
taken by mistake for quinine, Doctor Mussey resigned his commission in
December, 1863, and his resignation went into effect January 1, 1864.

During the entire time of service Mussey had the respect of his superior
officers and the love and confidence of the men under him. The annals of
the Society of the Army of the Cumberland, from which the greater part of
this sketch of Mussey's life is taken, contain a letter written by Gen. J. T.
Wilder to Edward M. Hartwell, Mussey's biographer. The letter reads as
follows :

"No one knew Wm. H. Mussey better than I did in the Winter of 1861-'62. He
was the Medical Director of Nelson's Division at Camp Wickliffe, Kentucky, a sickly
and badly located camp of instruction and drill for a portion of Buell's army. Most
of the men were raw recruits ; the hospitals were overcrowded ; the funeral march was
being played in almost all hours of daylight. My regiment, the Seventeenth Indiana,
having been through the campaign of '61 in West Virginia, was looked upon as being
the veterans, and were constantly on duty drilling and scouting. I was taken down,
while on a scout, and lay, seven miles from camp, very ill, when, one night, at eleven
o'clock Doctor Mussey came into my room, through the wind and rain of a sleety
January thaw, and carefully and kindly examined me. 'You are pretty sick,' he said ; 'I
must look after you myself.' I had gastritis, accompanied by camp diarrhoea, com-
plicated by severe pneumonia, the doctor said. All that night the doctor watched me ;
at daylight he left to look after the hospitals. He came to my side every night, through
the mud, rain and sleet, tireless and sleepless, for three successive nights, until he
effected a change in my case and saved my life. When I was strong enough to talk, I
asked him why he did not send an assistant, rather than wear himself out by such
constant extra duty, that was not required of him. His answer was : 'Earnest men are
scarce in this army. Your life is worth saving at the expense of mine, if need be.
You can not be spared. I can.' He believed I meant to do all my capacity rendered me
capable of. His patriotic, unselfish character is thoroughly disclosed in his reply to my
question. Firm, self-reliant, capable, kind, just to all, he was the best man I ever
knew. To do his duty as he saw it was his highest aim. After my recovery to health, I
handed him $500 as pay for his great services to me. He instantly repelled it, and
said severely: "Your life was not worth saving if you believed me capable of taking
pay for doing my duty." I assured him that the service was entirely out of the line
of his duty and that the money offered was only intended as a recognition of his over-
work in my case. He looked me straight in the eye as he said : 'No man can do more
than die for his country. Every honest soldier proposes to do that in the line of his
duty. Keep your money for your children ; they may need it yet.' "

It was in recollection of his splendid war record that Governor Ruther-
ford B. Hayes, in 1876, appointed him Surgeon-General of the State of Ohio.

Wm. H. Mussey was not only a useful member of the profession, but
likewise a public-spirited citizen. As a member of the Cincinnati Society of

339

Wm. H. Mussey

'\Vm. C1.ENDENIX

Chandler B. Chapman

Henry E. Foote

B. F. Richardson

340

Natural History, of the Board of Education, of the Board of Managers of
the Cincinnati PubHc Library he was always ready to give up money, time
and effort in the interests of the public good. He was deeply interested in
the uplifting of the colored race and did a great deal for the Meharry Med-
ical Collee:e for colored students in Nashville, Tenn.

WILLIAM CLENDENIN, a product of sturdy Scotch stock, was born
on a farm in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, in 1829. After his father's
death, in 1839, his mother moved with her four children to New Castle, Pa.
Here young William received a scant education at the village school, sup-
plemented by such instruction as his good Christian mother was able to give
him. The memory of that splendid mother was the inspiration of Clendenin's
whole life. When he was fifteen years old, he started to make his own way
as a clerk in a dry goods store in Pittsburg, Pa. After one year he returned
to New Castle and decided to adopt a professional career. He became the
student of a local physician until the Fall of 1848, when he matriculated at
the Medical College of Ohio. In 1850 he graduated and settled in Cincin-
nati. Geo. ^lendenhall and the two Musseys became his friends and made
him demonstrator of anatomy in the Miami Medical College in 1856. When
the merger between the Miami and Ohio Colleges took place, Clendenin re-
tained his place as demonstrator. In 1859 he went to Europe and remained
for one year and six months, visiting clinics and hospitals in England and
France. When he returned to Cincinnati, he was offered the chair of anatomy
in the Chicago Medical College. He declined the appointment and had
hardly gotten fairly settled in private practice when the great struggle be-
tween the States began. Clendenin was one of the first Cincinnati physicians
to respond to the call for volunteers. He was appointed Surgeon of Volun-_
teers and assigned to duty in Camp Dennison under General Mitchell. Sub-
sequently he saw service under Generals Rosecrans, Fremont, Sigl and
Thomas. Clendenin was present at the second battle of Bull Run. He had
charge of a military hospital in Washington, D. C, and was appointed x\s-
sistant Medical Director of the Army of the Cumberland, with headquarters
at Nashville. He had charge of all the sick and wounded and was respon-
sible for the management of all hospitals between Louisville and Chattanooga.
He went home on sick leave in 1864. He returned to duty after a few weeks
and was made Medical Inspector of Hospitals. In July 1865 President John-
son appointed him Consul General to Russia. He declined the honor. The
Miami Medical College had been re-organized and had made him a pro-
fessor. In addition to this, Clendenin had decided to enlist in the army of
benedicts and found that the woman of his choice could not be tempted by
the prospects of official life in the Russian capital. These were Clendenin's
reasons for declining the honor-post with which President Johnson desired to
reward his splendid war record.

341

A good story, illustrating the courage of Gen. George H. Thomas ("Pap"
Thomas), Clendenin often told with much glee:

"During the second day's fight at Chickamauga, General Thomas, accompanied by
engineers, members of his staff and several orderlies, repaired to a point selected for
observation, at the foot of a knoll, on the border of a large meadow, beyond which
was a thick piece of woods. The party dismounted, and the Chief having taken his
seat on a log, proceeded to fill his pipe in a very deliberate manner, and was fumbling
in his vest pocket for a match, when a rebel shell went hissing over our heads. The
General continued his search for a match in the inside pocket of his coat without suc-
cess, and at last said to me, who was standing near: 'Have you a match, doctor?'
'No, General,' I replied, but immediately acquainted an orderly with the General's
want, with better results. The chief was in the act of striking it on the sole of his
boot, when another shell burst just beyond us, and threw the dirt over us in a style
that indicated that the rebels had gotten their range, and the next shell would prob-
ably alight in our midst. The pipe was not yet lighted, and the General was pro-
vokingly deliberate, and only suspended operations on the sole of his boot long enough
to look around and say: 'Nobody hurt, I reckon.' Perspiration was now pouring from
the faces of his attendants, for fear another shell would visit them before the General
would be ready to start; but at last, his pipe being in full blast, he mounted his horse,
and the rest of us were not slow to follow him out of the range of the rebel battery."

In 1861 Clendenin had a narrow escape. During the Winter of 1861
Doctor Clendenin was ordered by General Rosecrans, to go down the river as
far as Cincinnati, and report as to the number and condition of the sick and
wounded. On leaving Cincinnati for headquarters, at New River, W. Va.,
he was put in possession of a large sum of money for the commissary,
Colonel Crane, and having proceeded as far as Charleston by boat, was
obliged to ride about forty-five miles alone. When within eight miles of the
camp, he was attracted by the sun's rays on the bayonets of Floyd's army,
who seemed to be executing some movement about two miles distant. Put-
ting spurs to his horse, he soon came upon a small squad of Union cavalry,
under the command of a sergeant of whom he requested a fresh horse and
an escort and was immediately told that it "would be an escort to hell, for
the rebs are picking ofif every one who passes up the road." He procured a
fresh horse, but no escort ; it was a beautiful black creature and remarkably
fleet. He had proceeded only a short distance before the rebel sharp-shooters'
rifles commenced cracking and striking the trees just before and behind him
in a manner that made it exciting both for the horse and its rider, the former
seeming to realize the imminent peril as vividly as the latter, and sped almost
with the fleetness of the wind. Suddenly, however, it was thrown back upon
its haunches. The doctor wa"s thrown forward, but managed to alight upon
his feet, as he was holding by the mane at the time of the accident. The
horse wheeled around violently, and pawed the ground in the most frantic
manner for a few seconds, but finally seemed to recover himself, when our
subject sprang into the saddle and went ofif at a rapid rate. In a few minutes
the faithful creature dropped again, and blood was discovered streanfing
from its face, and some on its chest, plainly indicating that he had been

342

shot in two places. The doctor managed to run between the bullets for
about a mile, when he wound around the side of a hill, and was out of
danger. He finally reached headquarters uninjured, with his money intact.

Clendenin contributed some very able articles to the Aledical and Sur-
gical History of the War, published by the Government. From 1866 to the
time of his death in 1885 Clendenin served the Miami Medical College with
unswerving fidelity as its professor of surgical anatomy, and for a time, of
principles of surgery. One year before his death he became professor of
operative surgery. He was the friend of the students to whom he never
hesitated to open his heart and not infrequently his purse. From 1865 to
1873 he was health officer of Cincinnati, rendering good service during the
cholera epidemic in 1866 and contributing to the framing of the sanitary
laws of the State of Ohio which were passed in 1867. From 1874 to 1883
he was professor of anatomy in the Ohio Dental College. From 1867 to
1870 he was one of the surgeons to the Cincinnati Hospital. From 1874 to
1885 he was Probate Court Examiner of the Insane. He was affiliated with
many enterprises and societies of public interest. Like his friend, Wni. H.
Mussey, he was the type of a dutiful and extremely useful member of the
profession. His name can not be separated from the history of the Miami
Medical College. He died of miliary tuberculosis in 1885.

Clendenin's successor in the Miami Medical College was Frank W. Lang-
don, born in Cincinnati in 1852. He graduated from the Miami College in
1881, became professor of anatomy in 1884 and held this chair until 1901
when Wm. E. Lewis was elected his successor, Langdon assuming the chair
of neurolog>'.

ELKANAH WILLIAMS. The name of this excellent physician is in-
delibly impressed upon the pages of American medical history. No record
of medical achievements in this country would be complete without a refer-
ence to Elkanah Williams, one of the first American physicians who devel-
oped ophthalmology as a distinct line of medical work at a time when its
special character was by no means recognized by the profession at large and
when the men who had the courage to practice it as a specialty were by
many classified as charlatans. Williams, strong in mind and equally cour-
ageous in action, stuck to his post until he forced recognition for himself
and his work. In the building up of the noble edifice of American medicine,
he had a share so conspicuous that no encomium that might be spoken or any
monument that might be erected could possibly add to the lustre of this
early pioneer's name. His work, in and of itself, is a monunicutum aere
perennius.

Elkanah Williams was born December 19, 1822, in Lawrence Countv, In-
diana, where his father, a captain in the war of 1812, had settled some years
previously. Young Williams was fortunate in being given every opportunitv
to acquire a good classical and general education. He attended Bedford

343

Seminary and the State University at Bloomington. At the latter institution
he took a four years' course, leaving it in 1843 to go to Asbury (DePauw)
University, v^here he received his bachelor's degree in 1847. He took up the
study of medicine at the Medical Department of the University of Louisville
and became the pupil and friend of Samuel D. Gross. He graduated in
1850 and practiced for two years in his native county in Indiana. He in-
tended to locate in Cincinnati and do general work. At the suggestion of
his friend Gross he went abroad in 1852. He was particularly interested in
surgery and was a faithful attendant at the famous clinic of M. Nelaton in
Paris. The French physicians were at that time much interested in the re-
cently devised instrument for eye examinations, the work of Hermann Helm-
holtz. It was the ophthalmoscope that finally arrested Williams' mind and
completely absorbed his attention. When he crossed the English Channel in

Elkanah Williams

1853, he carried the first ophthalmoscope with him that had ever been seen in
England. He spent most of his time in the jMoorfield Ophthalmic Hospital
in London as a student of Dixon, Critchett, Bowman and other distinguished
men who were attached to this great institution. The ophthalmoscope which
he had brought with him from Paris made him the center of interest and
gave him unusual opportunities for study and research. In London he pub-
lished the first scientific paper ("Ophthalmoscopic Examinations," Medical
Times and Gazette, 1854). In 1854 he went to Germany to study under the
classical masters of eye surgery, notably the prince of them all, A. von Graefe.
Williams was a young man of great ambition and possessed of a brilliant and
active mind. He spoke French and German fluently. Thus he became a
favorite with the eminent men whose instruction he sought. He returned
to America in 1855 and located in Cincinnati, limiting his practice to dis-
eases of the eye. The profession looked askance at what they considered a

344

bold and needless innovation and Williams soon found out the meaning of
medical conservatism and all the narrowness, bigotry and cruelty which are
contained in this world. Williams was not the kind of a man who could be
overawed by conventionality or discouraged by adversity. He raised his
head higher and prouder and pursued his chosen path with more determina-
tion than ever. His early experience shows that the thought of the profes-
sion not infrequently shapes itself in keeping with any suggestion of utility.
In this respect the public is often the policy-maker of the profession in
ethical and sometimes even in scientific matters. It has been said that in
and of itself the medical profession is not progressive, but, on the contrary,
conservative to the point of lethargy. Every now and then an individual
mind in the profession becomes the carrier of a new idea, of a better method,
of a reform. The greatest enemy and most persistent antagonist of such a
man is the conservative element in the profession itself which it not satis-
fied to wait, to examine, to deal fairly. The history of human knowledge
from the earliest times to the present is a long litany of sorrows endured by
those who rose above the common level and thus became shining marks.
Men who are original in thought and action must invariably weather the
storm of open and covert opposition until the psychological moment arrives
that brings with it the crown of victory for the lonely undismayed pioneer.
The new path having been blazed, it soon becomes a beaten track because
followers are plentiful. This was the experience of Elkanah Williams who
practiced ophthalmology for several years in spite of the objections which were
raised by the great conservative throng in the profession.

Williams was an indefatigable worker. He displayed a phenomenal pro-
ductiveness in enriching the literature of the profession. In 1861 a depart-
ment of ophthalmology was created in the Commercial (Cincinnati) Hospital
and placed in his charge. He served the institution eleven years. In 1865
he was appointed professor of ophthalmology in the Miami Medical Col-
lege, the chair being the first one of its kind in this country. He resigned
in 1887 owing to ill health. During all these years he took care of an enor-
mous private practice. When he died in 1888 in Hazelwood, Pa., he was
easily the most distinguished American oculist, whose name was spoken with
respect even by the master surgeons of the old world.

During the last two years of the Civil War Dr. Williams was one of the
surgeons in charge of the United States Marine Hospital in Cincinnati. In
1862 he appeared before the International Ophthalmological Congress with a
paper entitled "Plusieurs Questions de Therapeutique Oculaire;" in 1872,
at the London meeting, he spoke on "Practical Observations on Different
Subjects." At the New York meeting of the International Ophthalmological
Congress in 1876 he was elected president. In the same year he appeared
before the International Medical Congress (Centennial Exposition, Philadel-
phia) with a paper on, "Pulsating Tumors of the Orbit." The previous year
he had read a paper on "Penetrating Wounds of the Eye" before the Ohio

345

State Medical Society and was elected president of the society. In the year
1868 he published an exhaustive report of a case of "Aneurism of the Orbit,"
accompanied by accurate ophthalmoscopic observations of the retinal circu-
lation before and after 'ligation of both carotids, the operation having been
performed by Dr. H. E. Foote at Dr. Williams' suggestion. The following
year he brought out a new method of treating strictures of the nasal duct.
He contributed a monograph on "Injuries of the Eye" to Ashhurst's System
of Surgery. Other subjects which he elaborated, were keratoconus, inflam-
mations of the corpus ciliare, trachoma with pannus treated by inoculation
with gonorrheal matter, excision of a corneal cicatrix for the relief of neu-
ralgia of the eye and face, parasites in the human eye, obliteration of the
lachrymal sac by the actual cautery, iridectomy in glaucoma, exophthalmic
goitre, fluid cataract, trachoma, construction of the ophthalmoscope and
manner of using it, caries of the orbit, cysts of the orbit, operative methods
in the treatment of diseases of the eye, its parts and appendages, the uses
of brown citrine ointment, sarcoma of the choroid, symptomatology of optic
neuritis, and many more. The remarkable literary productiveness of Doctor
Williams can be appreciated when we consider that from 1856 to 1880 he
published numerous papers, monographs and case reports every year. These
papers covered the whole field of his specialty and represent the most mer-
itorious kind of original work. Doctor Williams was a methodical worker,
thorough in detail and systematic in making use of clinical material. Much
of his work is of classical value in ophthalmology. In 1864 he published
sixteen different papers on as many different subjects. He had no models
to follow, no authorities to quote. He was cultivating a virgin soil and
gave to the profession a truly magnificent harvest. It is to be regretted
that his health failed at a time when he was at the zenith of his professional
usefulness. He had gathered an enormous amount of material which he
intended to give to the profession in the form of a text-book on ophthal-
mology. He was not spared to finish his labors by this last crowning effort
for which he had made a lifelong preparation.

Personally Doctor Williams was one of the most delightful of men. He
was genial and accessible at all times, cordial and courteous without a sug-
gestion of effort. He had a reputation as a good story-teller and an all-
around boon companion. In appearance he was tall, broad-shouldered and
well proportioned. His wit and cleverness were proverbial.

There are many brilliant men that have shed luster on the career of the
Miami Medical College, but no one is so typical of the best which this school
has done as Doctor Williams. In becoming the first incumbent of the chair
of ophthalmology in the Miami Medical College, Doctor Williams opened a
new chapter of medical education which, of course, can never be separated
from the history of the Miami Medical College. The latter had had its
Mussey, Comegys, Murphy and other brilliant men. But they came from
other fields of work where they developed strength and greatness. There is

346

one man, however, whom the Miami College can claim as its own and he
is the peer of any and the superior of many. That man is the father of
Western ophthalmology, Elkanah Williams.

The successor of Doctor Williams in the Miami Medical College was
Robert Sattler, born in Cincinnati in 1856 as the son of an old respected
German physician. He graduated from the Miami Medical College in 1875
and in 1884 became Williams' assistant. Upon the death of his distinguished
chief Sattler was elected professor of ophthalmology. He is the present
incumbent of the chair.

EDWARD B. STEVENS was born in Lebanon, Ohio, in 1823. He re-
ceived his literary education at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, and gradu-
ated in medicine at the Medical College of Ohio in 1846. He located at
Monroe, Ohio, but came to Cincinnati after a few years and with George
Mendenhall and John A. Murphy founded the "Medical Observer" in 1856.
He was the managing editor and continued as such after the consolidation of
the "Observer" with the "Western Lancet." In 1873 the "Lancet and Ob-
server" was sold to J. C. Culbertson and Stevens went to Syracuse, N. Y.,
where the merging of Geneva Medical College into the College of Medicine
of Syracuse University had resulted in the creation of a large medical school.
Its managers were casting about for available talent and offered the chair of
materia medica to Stevens who accepted it. He resigned his chair in the
Miami Medical College, sold the "Lancet and Observer" to J. C. Culbertson
and left for his new field of activity. The new position in Syracuse did not,
however, come up to his expectations. After a few months he returned to
Lebanon, his native town, where he again entered practice and gained a vast
reputation as a gynecologist and obstetrician. He started the "Obstetric Ga-
zette" in 1878 and in its columns did his best work as a medical editor. He
excelled as a terse and sprightly reviewer of current literature. He wrote a
virile Saxon English and possessed a fine critical instinct. In 1860 he was
appointed demonstrator of anatomy in the Medical College of Ohio but re-
signed at the end of the term. His incumbency of the chair of materia
medica in the Miami Medical College began in 1865 and terminated just
previous to his assuming a chair in Syracuse. During the war he was at-
tached to the local military hospitals. He was in poor health and unable to
attend to any professional duties for several years before his death. He
died in 1896.

B. F. RICHARDSON was born in 1817 on a farm in Columbiana County,
Ohio. His early educational advantages were scant. He attended Starling
Medical College and received his degree in 1848. He located in Cincin-
nati and became an obstetrician of great repute. When the Miami Medical
College was re-organized after the Civil War, Richardson was elected pro-
fessor of obstetrics, gynecology and pediatrics, in the place of J. Byrd Smith.

347

N. P. Dandridge

J. C. Mackenzie

A. S. Dandrjdge

Wm. i;. I).

348

Edward B. Stevens

who had originally been elected to fill this chair, but had died before the
term opened. Richardson shared the chair with Geo. Mendenhall who was
the dean of the new faculty and lectured on obstetrics, while Richardson
took up gynecology and pediatrics. He resigned his chair in 1877. He was
an impressive lecturer, full of aggressive virility. The latter quality appears
very markedly in some of his literary work as associate editor of the "Lancet
and Observer." He was a man of great individuality and not afraid to
express his opinions which were always pointed and well-defined. Richard-
son experienced reverses in business late in life and never recovered from
the losses and mental depression involved. He engaged in a manufacturing
enterprise and lost nearly his whole fortune. He died in 1890, broken in
body and spirit.

THOMAS H. KEARNEY was born in Clonmel, Ireland, in 1832, and
received his preliminary education in his native country. He came to the
United States in 1855 and matriculated at the Medical College of Ohio,
graduating in 1858. In 1862 he was appointed surgeon to the 45th Regi-
ment Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and served until the end of the war. During
the term 1866-'67 he was Blackman's assistant at the Ohio College. In 1872
he became professor of surgery and surgical pathology in the Miami Med-
ical College. In 1874 he assumed the chair of principles and practice of
surgery and retained it until 1884. During two sessions (1880-'82) he
added to his duties those of demonstrator of anatomy. He was surgeon to
the Cincinnati Hospital and Health Officer of the city. He was one of the
first in this part of the country to make an abdominal hysterectomy. In
1884 Kearney moved to Knoxville, Tenn., and practiced there until 1896,
when failing health compelled him to give up his professional work. He
resided in Washington, D. C, until 1901 when he died. Kearney was a well-
read man, a cultured gentleman and a surgeon of great ability.

WILLIAM B. DAVIS, brother of John Davis, who is referred to else-
where, was born of Welsh parents in Cincinnati, in 1832. He attended
Woodward College and the Ohio Wesleyan University at Delaware, Ohio,
where he received his baccalaureate degree in 1852. In 1855 he graduated
in medicine at the Miami Medical College. The Ohio College conferred the
ad eundeni degree upon him in 1858. During the Civil War he was sur-
geon of the 137th Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and had charge of a
military hospital in the West End of Cincinnati. In 1872 he went to Europe
for observation and study. Upon his return he assumed the chair of materia
medica which he held until 1888. He died in 1893.

Wm. B. Davis was an authority on insurance matters and their relation
to medicine, having been the medical director of the Union Central Life In-
surance Co., which his brother, John Davis, helped to organize. In 1875 he
read his much-discussed paper on ''Influence of Consumption on Life Insur-

349

ance" before the Ohio State Medical Society. It was one of the earhest
statistical papers on tuberculosis published in this country. Another valu-
able paper was "Functional Albuminuria ; or, Albuminuria in Persons Ap-
parently healthy and its Relation to Life Insurance." It attracted much
attention among insurance examiners everywhere. David read a number of
valuable papers on vaccination, vaccines, infections by vaccine-virus, etc.
His son, Clark W. Davis, is his successor as medical director of the insur-
ance company named above. Wm. B. Davis was a public-spirited citizen
who gave much time and effort to educational and philanthropic enterprises.
A beautiful, artistic window in the Clifton M. E. Church perpetuates the
memory of this excellent physician and useful citizen.

W. K. PERRINE was born in Monroe, Butler County, Ohio. His lit-
erary education was obtained at Jefferson College, Canonsburg, Pa. He
received the degree of A.B. in 1864 and studied medicine at the Miami Med-
ical College. He graduated in 1867 and served as an interne in the Cin-
cinnati Hospital for one year. From 1868 to 1871 he was demonstrator of
anatomy in his Alma Mater. He resigned in 1871 and located in Minne-
sota. His health failing, he returned to his native State, intending to ulti-
mately locate in the South. He began to practice in Mt. Healthy, and died
there in 1879.

JACOB B. HOUGH was born in Camargo, Pa., in 1829. He was edu-
cated at Lebanon Academy, Lebanon, Ohio, and the University of Michigan,
graduating at the latter institution in 1865. He became professor of chem-
istry in his Alma Mater. Two years later he located in Lebanon, Ohio, and
remained here as a practicing physician for a number of years. In 1873 he
moved to Cincinnati and established himself as an analytical and consulting
chemist. In the same year he was appointed professor of chemistry and
toxicology in the Miami Medical College. He filled this chair for six years.
He died in Lebanon in 1897. He was elected vice-president of the Ohio
State Medical Society in 1873.

Hough was a very capable chemist, who published numerous valuable
papers on subjects pertaining to chemistry. He was also a biologist who
did much original work, especially in connection with the subject of spon-
taneous generation. He wrote a practical handbook on chemical testing.

WM. H. TAYLOR was born in Cincinnati in 1836. The old home-
stead of the family was the house on Fourth Street, which was subsequently
occupied by the McGuffey family. Daniel Drake during the last two years
of his life had his office and residence in this house. One of his daughters,
it will be remembered, was the wife of Alexander McGuffey. Young Tay-
lor's childhood days were spent on Mt. Auburn. When the lad was seven
years old, his father perished in a fire. Taylor was twenty-two years old

when he graduated from the Medical College of Ohio. He spent some time
in Europe, where he familiarized himself with Virchow's new pathology, and
acquired considerable dexterity in the use of the microscope. When the
Miami Medical College was re-organized in 1865, Taylor was made pro-
fessor of physiology, pathology and morbid anatomy. In 1872 he became
the successor of Geo. Mendenhall in the chair of obstetrics and continued as
the professor of obstetrics for thirty-five years. By studious application to
the subject and faithful devotion to the interests of his pupils he established a
great reputation as a successful teacher of midwifery. He became a member
of the hospital stafif in 1866. As a practical exponent of the art of obstetrics
his long experience has made him one of the master accoucheurs of this
country. Taylor occupies an enviable position in relation to the alumni and
friends of the Miami College to whom he represents the embodiment of the
best traditions of their Alma Mater. Not the least praiseworthy trait of
this veteran physician's character is his intensely human feeling towards
children. The Children's Home and the House of Refuge have for years
claimed a large share of his time and attention. No amount of pressing
professional business has ever lured him away from these charities that are
so close to his heart. The homage which is ofifered by the grateful hearts
of poor homeless waifs that he has comforted, and the love of hundreds of
physicians whose friend and teacher he has been, are like the gentle glow
of a sunset that hovers about the eventide of a life spent in the interests of
humanity and science, almost the ideal of Solonic happiness.

J. C. MACKENZIE was born in Scotland in 1842. He came to this
country in 1849 and received his education at Herron's Seminary, one of
the famous educational institutions of early Cincinnati. He graduated from
the Medical College of Ohio in 1865. In 1873 he was elected professor of
physiology in the Miami Medical College, succeeding Wm. H. Taylor. He
held the chair until 1881 when he was transferred to the chair of practice.
He resigned in 1894. For a time he was superintendent of the Cincinnati
Hospital. He taught clinical medicine in the Miami College from 1894 to
1899 when he became an emeritus professor. Mackenzie's life reflects his
character, modest, unassuming, and, withal, full of the best quality of man-
hood and professional excellence. His skill as a diagnostician is almost
proverbial.

BYRON STANTON, son of Dr. Benjamin Stanton, of Salem, Ohio,
was born at this place in 1834. He obtained his early education at Friends'
Academy of Salem, and, having begun the study of medicine under his
father, entered the Miami Medical College in 1855, graduating in 1857.
He was an interne at St. John's Hospital and began to practice in Salem.
In October, 1861, he entered the army as Assistant Surgeon of the First Reg-
iment Ohio Light Artillery. In December, 1863, he was made surgeon of the

351

W.M. H. Taylor

Byron Stanton

Thos. H. Kearney

J. B. Hough

Joseph Eichberg

352

1)\N .MlI.l.lKl

130th Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry, with which regiment he served
until May; 1865, except for two months when he was a prisoner in a Con-
federate prison. After May,. 1865, he was in charge of military hospitals at
Cleveland and Detroit and of the Northern Ohio Lunatic Asylum, at New-
burgh, Ohio. The latter position he resigned in 1869 whereupon he located
in Cincinnati. In 1877 he was appointed professor of diseases of women
and children in the Miami Medical College. He resigned in 1900. He has
served as president of the Cincinnati Medical Society, the Academy of Medi-
cine and the Obstetrical Society. He is one of the founders of the American
Association of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. He has been health officer
of the city and trustee of the Cincinnati Hospital. Since 1892 he has been a
member of the Ohio State Board of Health. He has been a public-spirited
citizen and has furnished a practical illustration of the good that a physician
can do outside of his profession, by taking a legitimate and active interest
in the public affairs of the community. It would accrue to the benefit of
both profession and public if there were less politics in the medical profes-
sion and, instead thereof, the medical profession were more in politics. Vivat
sequens!

Upon Stanton's resignation in 1900, his chair was divided into separate
chairs of gynecology and pediatrics, the former being filled by the election
of Rufus B. Hall (born in Aurelius Township, Washington County, Ohio,
in 1849, graduated from the Miami Medical College in 1872, located in Cin-
cinnati in 1888). Stanton's successor in the pediatric department was E. W.
Mitchell (born in 1854, graduated from the Medical College of Ohio in
1882).

JOHN F. JUDGE was born in St. Augustine, Fla., in 1832. His early
education was obtained in St. Charles and St. Louis, Mo. He graduated in
medicine in 1854 from the Eclectic Medical Institute. In 1857 he became
professor of chemistry in the Eclectic school and continued as such until
1874, when he took a course in the Cincinnati College of Medicine and Sur-
gery. He devoted a great deal of attention to chemistry. He taught the
latter for many years in the Cincinnati College of Pharmacy and from 1879
to 1881 in the Miami Medical College. In 1885 he located in Hartwell,
Ohio, as a general practitioner. He died there in 1891. Doctor Judge was
a scholarly man, a good chemist and an excellent teacher.

WILLIAM L. DUDLEY was born in Covington, in 1859. He began the
study of the natural sciences at an early age and entered the University of
Cincinnati in 1876 as a student of chemistry. His work in the laboratory
attracted much attention. Dudley was but nineteen years of age when the
German Chemical Society, of Berlin, made him a corresponding member.
He received the degree of Sc. B. from the University of Cincinnati in 1880
and was at once elected professor of chemistry in the Miami Medical Col-

358

lege. He continued in this position for six years. In 1886 he was appointed
professor of chemistry in Vanderbilt University and dean of its medical de-
partment, Nashville, Tenn. Miami College, in 1886, conferred upon him the
honorary degree of Doctor of Medicine. His successor in the Miami Med-
ical College was Dan Millikin, of Hamilton, Ohio, who held the chair for
two terms. He was followed by Carl Langenbeck, a pharmacist and chemist
of ability, who resigned in 1891 and was succeeded by Wm. Dickore. The
present incumbent of the chair is Fred B. Sampson.

NATHANIEL PENDLETON DANDRIDGE was born in Cincinnati in
1846. He attended Brook's School in his native town and afterwards Kenyon
College. He took one course of lectures at the Medical College of Ohio and
went to Europe where he pursued his studies in the clinics and hospitals
of Vienna and Paris. Upon his return to this country, he matriculated at
the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New York and graduated in
1870. He located in Cincinnati and rose to a high rank as a surgeon. In
1880 he was appointed professor of genito-urinary surgery in the Miami
Medical College. L'lpon the resignation of Thomas H. Kearney, in 1884, he
became professor of surgery. As surgeon to the Cincinnati Hospital and the
Episcopal Hospital for Children his work has been of the highest order and
has made him one of the most conspicuous exponents of latter-day surgery
in Cincinnati. He embodies the best type of the professional gentleman.
His father, Alexander S. Dandridge, who was for many years connected with
the Cincinnati Hospital in the capacity of trustee, was born in Jefferson
County, Virginia, in 1819. In 1843 he located in Cincinnati as a general
practitioner and for years was a popular and much respected member of the
profession. He was a man of gigantic physique and noted for his courteous
and chivalrous manner. He died in 1888.

DAN MILLIKIN was the son of a lawyer who had sought health and
surcease from the drudgery of practice and for years had been leading the
life of a gentleman-farmer near Hamilton, Ohio, where the son first saw
the light of day in 1845. Dan grew up amid the refining influences of a
cultured family and the ease and freedom of the country. In 1863 he gradu-
ated from the high school in Hamilton, and, setting up a den and a labora-
tory, he, according to his own statement, devoted two years to scientific
reading, the monotony of which he managed to dispel by due devotion to
horses, music and loafing in good company. For a few months he studied
chemistry at the Sheffield School of Yale College. In 1866, at the age of
twenty-one, before he had even considered the question of a vocation, he
decided to abide by the biblical admonition and accordingly took unto him-
self a wife. After some journalistic work on the Minneapolis Tribune he
made up his mind to continue his scientific studies and began the study of
medicine at the Miami Medical College. His intention was not to practice

354

medicine, but merely to acquire its knowledge by way of an accomplishment.
Eventually the love of the work itself took full possession of him, and,
upon receiving- his degree in 1875 he located in Hamilton, Ohio, as a prac-
ticing physician. In 1885 his Alma Mater summoned him to teach medical
jurisprudence and hygiene. In 1886 he became the successor of Wm. L.
Dudley in the chair of chemistry. He resigned in 1888 to assume the chair
of materia medica and therapeutics, succeeding Wm. B. Davis. The hard-
ships involved in attending to the duties of his chair while taking care of a
constantly increasing practice in Hamilton, Ohio, prompted him to resign
in 1893. The school whose shining ornament he had been for all these years,
was loth to let him go. The chair of medical jurisprudence which imposed
less onerous duties, was given him and filled by him with signal success.
He has been an emeritus professor since 1899. jNIillikin is the best type of
an erudite professional gentleman, impersonating that catholicity of taste
and versatility of talent which have made him such a conspicuous figure in
the medical life of Southern Ohio. He is a master of the art of conver-
sazione and a post-prandial orator of great ability.

JOSEPH EICHBERG was born in Cincinnati in 1859, and received
his primary education in the public schools and in Woodward High School.
He graduated from the ^liami Medical College in 1879, served one year in
the Cincinnati Hospital in the capacity of interne and went to Europe for
two years. His fondness for pathologic study and research led him to spend
much time in Strassburg where he enjoyed the teaching and was inspired
by the labors of v. Recklinghausen, then in the zenith of his fame as a,
pathologist. Eichberg entered general practice in Cincinnati in 1881 and
became pathologist to the Cincinnati Hospital in 1883. He held this position
for four years when he was made internist to the institution. He was ap-
pointed demonstrator of histology in the Miami Medical College in 1881,
professor of physiology in 1882, professor of practice in 189-4. He served
as president of the Cincinnati Medical Society in 1888 and of the Academy
of Medicine in 1896. His untimely death occurred in 1908. While on his
vacation in the Adirondacks, he was drowned. His demise involved an irre-
parable loss to the cause of medical education in Cincinnati. His well-
balanced mind and splendid educational equipment had long won for him a
conspicuous place among medical teachers in the Aliddle West. He was
eminently well fitted for the chair of practice in the new Medical Depart-
ment of the University of Cincinnati, being admittedly the best internist in
Cincinnati at the time of his death and an equally successful teacher. It
was a bitter irony of fate that such a man should have been called away
from his labors when he was approaching his greatest usefulness to the
profession, and to the cause of medical education. The plan to commem-
orate the name of this splendid man by an adequate endowment of a chair
of physiology in the University of Cincinnati, is a well-merited tribute to

355

his high personal and professional character and scholarship. During the
last years of his life Eichberg was more especially interested in the diseases
of the circulatory system and was preparing a work on this subject. His
contributions to the literature of the profession were in the form of short
practical papers written in his characteristic, pointed and terse style. His
successor in the Miami Medical College is Oliver P. Holt, born in 1861, who
graduated from the Miami Medical College in 1886.

356

CHAPTER XVI.

THE CINCINNATI ECLECTIC MEDICAL INSTITUTE.

ECLECTICISM was one of the outgrowths of the active protesi
against the polypharmacy and heroic drug methods of a hundred
years ago. Doctor Wooster Beach, an energetic man of keen in-
telHgence, (born at Trumball, Conn., in 1794) in 1829 organized a medical
society in New York whose object was the study and practice of rational
drug methods. The members of this society were all regular physicians.
They principally opposed the abuse of the lancet and the indiscriminate em-
ployment of large doses of calomel. Calomel and the lancet were the funda-
mental pillars of practice in those days. Drachm doses of calomel and the
abstraction of ten ounces of blood were nothing uncommon. That there
were many physicians who were opposed to this kind of therapy, is apparent
from the writings of John Eberle, John P. Harrison, Thomas D. Mitchell
and especially Daniel Drake. All these men taught rational moderation in
these methods. How strong the tendency towards milder forms of therapy
was at that time, appears from the writings of James Conquest Cross, a
distinguished professor of medicine in the Transylvania school and later on
in the Medical College of Ohio. Cross was a brilliant and scholarly teacher
whose enthusiasm in the interests of rational therapeutic methods prompted
him to become a professor in the newly founded Memphis (Tenn.) Medical
Institute, which was organized for the purpose of forcing therapeutic re-
forms. This school has by some been classified as an Eclectic institution.
In its announcements the school was represented as being the exponent of
"reform and progress in medical education, practice and legislation." This
movement, in one form or another, was at that time general throughout the
country.

Wooster Beach published his "American Practice of Medicine" (3 vols.)
in 1833. He was decorated by many European sovereigns, even by His Holi-
ness Gregory XVI., in recognition of his work. In his own country he
encountered the proverbial fate of the prophet. He was decried as an im-
postor and a quack, while even his enemies could not deny that he was a man
of ability, of great force of character, and clean and honest in all his deal-
ings. Wooster Beach attracted many young men who placed themselves in
his hands as students of medicine. He called his school the "Reformed Med-
ical College of the City of New York." He had many applicants from the
West and planned to organize a medical school somewhere in the \\'est. In

857

the town of Worthington, Ohio, near Cokmibus, one of the most noted edu-
cators in the United States, Rev. Philander Chase, was principal of a literary
college which had been chartered by the Legislature of Ohio as early as
1808. The friends of the institution, notably Col. James Kilbourne, offered
Wooster Beach the charter and edifice of Worthington College for the estab-
lishment of a medical department. The latter was opened in 1830 with
eight students and Dr. T. V. Morrow, of Kentucky, one of Wooster Beach's
pupils, as dean of the medical faculty. The institution prospered for nine

Cincinnati Kci.kctic Mkdicai, iNSTrrrTi-; (1846

years. In 1839 a riot was precipitated by the finding of a dead body in
the college building, that had been taken from a neighboring graveyard by
the students of the college. Doctor Morrow's house was destroyed by the
infuriated populace. He decided that Worthington was not a favorable soil
for medical teaching and removed to Cincinnati in 1842. He at once took
up his work and gave a course of lectures in the "Hay Scales House," corner
of Sixth and Vine Streets, Cincinnati. The following year lectures were
given in a house on Third Street. In 1845 "Fourth Street Hall" was rented
for the purpose. In the same year a petition, signed by the mayor, most

358

members of the city council and over one thousand citizens, was presented to
the Legislature, asking for a charter. The granting of this charter was,
of course, opposed by the friends of the existing medical schools. Doctor
O'Ferrall, of Piqua, a member of the Senate, succeeded in out-Heroding
Herod by solemning declaring that "medical science had reached the acme
of its perfection and was not capable of further improvement." This was
in 1845. si taciiisses ct philosophus niansisses! The charter was granted
March 10, 1845. The school was called the "Eclectic Medical Institute."
The word "eclectic," while in its application to a therapeutic method a
truism, was added to emphasize the selective character of the therapy to be
taught and followed.

THOMAS VAUGHAN MORROW, the founder of the Cincinnati Ec-
lectic Medical Institute, was considered a remarkable practitioner and teacher
of medicine even by his contemporaries of opposite therapeutic faith. He
was born at Fairview, Ky., April 14, 1804, in the same house in which four
years later (June 3, 1808) Jefferson Davis first saw the light of day. His
ancestors were Frenchmen and spelt the name "Moreau." He studied at
Transylvania University and afterwards at Wooster Beach's school in New
York. He practiced for two years at Hopkinsville, Ky., but got into political
troubles which caused him to leave Kentucky. He was an ardent abolitionist.
Wooster Beach put jMorrow in charge at Worthington. After ten years he
came to Cincinnati and established the Eclectic Institute. He died in 1850
and was buried in the Wesleyan Cemetery, where a handsome monument
marks his resting-place. He will be remembered as the founder of the Na-
tional Eclectic Medical Association. His friend and associate, ICHABOD G.
JONES, collected his numerous papers and articles, and, together with his
own, published them under the name of "Jones and Morrow's Practice of
Medicine." Jones was originally a Maine man, graduated from the I\Iedical
Department of the University of New York in 1830, became professor of ob-
stetrics in Wooster Beach's school, later joined the Worthington faculty,
finally located in Columbus and became physician to the penitentiary. \\'hen
Doctor Morrow died in 1850, Jones became his successor in Cincinnati.

During one session (1845-'46) Wooster Beach, the father of the new
system, lectured at the Cincinnati Eclectic Medical Institute. Another man
of great ability was JOSEPH RODES BUCHANAN, born 1814, in Frank-
fort, Ky., a versatile scholar, teacher, lawyer and physician. Buchanan had
gained a reputation on accoimt of his work in cerebral physiology. Later in
life he became interested in phrenology and tried to establish it scientifically.
He was a strange sort of a man, reserved and dignified, leading a secluded
life and wrapt up in- weird and semi-mystical researches in anthropology,
sarcognomy, psychometry and occult subjects of a religious character. He
was suspicious and restless, constantly at loggerheads witli his colleagues.

359

T. V. Morrow

I. G. Jones

W. S. MERREI.L

R. S. Newton

C. H. Cleaveland

360

He was a brilliant speaker when he was in the mood of speaking-. In 1856
he was forcibly removed and helped to establish a rival school, the Eclectic
College of Medicine. He left Cincinnati in 1856 and spent the remainder of
his life wandering about the country from Maine to California, gratifying
his roaming disposition and changeable inclinations to the fullest extent.
He died in California in 1899. His published essays and papers show him
to have been a man of superior mentality.

In 1846 the new college edifice was dedicated. The school at that time
had 127 students. During the first three years of its existence the school had
428. During the same period of time the Medical College of Ohio had 73,
the Transylvania school 255, Louisville Medical Institute 404. At the latter
institution Daniel Drake was teaching and drawing students from far and
near. During the session of 1849-'50 Dr. Storm Rosa, a homoeopathic physi-
cian, (born 1791 in Coxsaxie, N. Y., died 1864 in Painesville, Ohio) was

vStorm Rosa

made a member of the faculty of Eclectic Institute to lecture on homoeopathy.
The experiment did not- come up to expectations and was discontinued at the
end of the session. It is an interesting fact that the first American homoeo-
paths in the West were those who graduated from the Eclectic Institute
in 1850.

The life of the Cincinnati Eclectic ^ledical Institute during the first five
years of the existence of the school was full of disputes, entanglements and
ruptures that seem to have been the common lot of most medical colleges in
this country. In 1851 a re-organization took place. The Memphis Institute
had closed its doors and five of its professors came to Cincinnati as teachers
in the Eclectic Institute. The latter had an unusually strong faculty for
some years and enjoyed constantly growing classes. Some of the noted
characters among its teachers were :

361

ROBERT S. NEWTON, born in Gallipolis, Ohio, in 1818, who was a
country school teacher until 1836 when he began the study of medicine,
graduating from the Louisville Medical Institute in 1841 and practicing for
four years in Gallipolis and subsequently four years in Cincinnati. In 1849
he became professor of surgery in the Memphis Medical Institute. In 1851
he was called to Cincinnati and was the incumbent of the chair of surgery
at the Cincinnati Eclectic Medical Institute until 1862. He was an eloquent
and scholarly teacher, a splendid debater and immensely popular with the
students. He wielded the pen with much force. In conjunction with John
King he published the U. S. Dispensatory (1852), with Dr. W. Byrd Powell
in 1854 a volume on practice. He edited many important works. In 1863
he removed to New York City and died there in 1881. His best work was
done in the columns of the Eclectic Medical Journal from 1851 to 1862.
The latter journal under his management became a power in medical circles
and represented in its time the best literary efifort of its kind in Cincinnati.
None of the regular publications at that time compare with Newton's Jour-
nal. Among Newton's collaborators was Daniel Vaughn, Cincinnati's best
known and most highly respected scientist during the last century.

ZOHETH FREEMAN, a distinguished surgeon, was born in Nova
Scotia in 1826, came to Buffalo in 1846 where he studied medicine under
Austin Flint and Frank H. Hamilton. He graduated from the Eclectic Med-
ical Institute in 1848. He began his career as a teacher in his Alma Mater
in 1851 and continued to teach until 1872. Ill health compelled him to resign
his chair. He continued in practice until the time of his death in 1898. His
clinical papers were among the most valuable contributions published by the
Eclectic Medical Journal. His son, Leonard Freeman, has risen to con-
siderable eminence as a surgeon in Denver, Col.

GEORGE W. L. BICKLEY, born in Russell County, Virginia, in 1823,
was a picturesque character, brilliant, capable, of adventurous habits and
full of schemes of all kinds. His career was similar to that of the talented,
visionary and unfortunate Joseph Nash McDowell, Drake's colleague in the
Medical Department of the Cincinnati College. Bickley was thoroughly ill-
balanced and erratic, always on the move and endowed with a marvelous
talent for getting into trouble. Some considered him a genius while others
thought him a notorious and dangerous character. He was a globe-trotter,
and spent some six or seven of the forty-four years of his life in Cincin-
nati, lecturing at the Eclectic Institute. His work as a lecturer on materia
medica was eminently satisfactory. He was in Cincinnati from 1852 to 1854
and again from 1856 to 1861, when his second nature, Wanderlust, took him
away to the battlefields of the South. Judging from his articles in the
"Eclectic Medical Journal," he was the equal of any medical writer in the
West at that time. His style reminds one of Drake, rhetorical and of class-

362

ical purity. The life of this strange man reads Hke a romance. He was
left an orphan at twelve, ran away from home to see the world, beat his
way to Europe, tried to trace his family there, returned to America, taught
school, began to practice medicine, wrote a creditable historical work about
Virginia, visited Europe for the second time, became editor of the "West-
American Review," taught materia medica at the Eclectic Medical Institute,
wrote a work on botany, lectured on a thousand different subjects here, there
and everywhere, wrote a popular novel which was translated into German
and French, published a work on materia medica, became a brigadier general
in the Confederate service, went to Europe after the war, lecturing and sight-
seeing, founded the "Order of the Knights of the Golden Circle," a military
order favoring the South and promptly suppressed by the Federal Govern-
ment, and finally died in Baltimore in 1867. He attended medical lectures
wherever he happened to be, Philadelphia, New York, Paris, Edinburgh, etc.
He was a marvelously gifted man who would have been a power for good
if he had had less explosive brilliancy and more common sense. At one time
he thought of overthrowing the Mexican Government and establishing him-
self as emperor. At another time he was about to buy the entire output of
coal in the Dominican Republic and make millions. His schemes were gi-
gantic. His life would be a suggestive subject for a sensational novel.
Under well-regulated conditions he might have become an eminent naturalist.
His taste ran in the direction of the natural sciences and his capacity for
work was phenomenal. The accompanying picture which Dr. H. W. Felter,
the historian of the Eclectic Institute, secured after a long and tedious
search, shows him in the insignia of the Order of the Knights of the Golden
Circle.

CHARLES H. CLEAVELAND was born in Lebanon, N. H., in 1820.
He studied medicine under R. D. Mussey in 1836, and graduated in 1843
from the Dartmouth Medical School. He practiced at Waterbury, Vt., for a
number of years and wrote a great deal for the medical press. In 1854 he
came to Cincinnati and was appointed professor of materia medica. Cleave-
land was not "eclectic" enough in his teaching and practice, and soon found
himself at loggerheads with those who were more orthodox in their faith.
A rupture ensued which led to Cleaveland's expulsion. He and his friends
in the faculty, among them the belligerent Buchanan, organized a rival
school, the "College of Eclectic Medicine," in which he was the professor
of materia medica. He served as a surgeon during the first two years of
the War of the Rebellion and died in 1863. He was the possessor of vast
knowledge and solid achievements. His Pronouncing Medical Dictionary
was popular with the profession for many years.

JOHN WESLEY HOYT was born in Worthington, Ohio, in 1831. He
graduated from the Ohio Wesleyan L'niversity in 1849, began to study law

303

II. p. GatchelIv

364

J. B. vStallo

under Salmon P. Chase and attended the Cincinnati Law School. Through
Hon. J. B. Stallo, who was teaching chemistry at the Eclectic Institute, Hoyt
became interested in medical studies and ultimately gave up the study of
law for that of medicine. He graduated in 1853 and became Stallo's suc-
cessor. His original work in the laboratory of the Eclectic Institute earned
for him a Fellowship in the American Association for the Advancement of
Science. In the rupture which occurred in 1856 he sided with Cleaveland
and Buchanan and became professor of chemistry in the rival school. The
following year he removed to Wisconsin where, for twenty years, he took
a prominent part in politics and in the agricultural development of his new
home. In 1862 he was one of the American commissioners at the London
Exposition. In 1867 he served in a similar capacity in Paris. Napoleon III
decorated him. In 1868 he published a volume on the Educational Systems
of Europe. In 1870 he founded the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts
and Letters. In 1873 he was American Commissioner at the Vienna Exposi-
tion and was decorated by Emperor Francis Joseph. He was Territorial
Governor of Wyoming from 1878 to 1883. In 1885 he was president of the
International Jury of Liberal Arts at the New Orleans Exposition. In 1893
he was one of the presidents at the World's Congress of Religions in Chi-
cago. Professor Hoyt is still living (1909) in Washington. D. C. As a
public man he has left an enviable record. He has been a voluminous writer
on a variety of scientific and economic topics.

WILLIAM BYRD POWELL, born in Bourbon County, Kentucky,
in 1799, graduated from the Literary Department of Transylvania Uni-
versity in 1820. He was for one session a pupil of Daniel Drake who signed
his medical diploma in 1823. The erratic but scholarly Charles Caldwell was
his professor of practice. Caldwell's hobby was brain physiology and sim-
ilar subjects. In 1825 the famous phrenologist, Spurzheim, made a tour of
this country and completely captivated the mind of the impressionable Powell.
The latter had already done some very creditable work in anthropo-crani-
ology. In 1835 he became professor of chemistry in the Medical Col-
lege of Louisiana and a contributor to Drake's Western Journal. In 1843
he began to collect crania from all over the world and amassed the largest
collection on record. He taught at Aiemphis in 1847 and in the Cincinnati
Eclectic Institute in 1852 and 1853. During his lifetime he was considered
non compos mentis on account of his views of psycho-physiology, set forth
in his sensational book on the "Natural History of the Human Tempera-
ments" (1856). Powell died in 1866 in Cincinnati. In his will he bequeathed
his skull to his executor, Dr. A. T. Keckeler, of Cincinnati, with directions
to add it to his craniological collection. His headless body lies in a Coving-
ton, Ky., cemetery. In the history of American scientific research Powell's
name will always receive honorable mention. (Dr. A. T. Keckeler, his friend
and executor, was an exotic product of the medical profession of Cincinnati.

3«5

He was noted for his peripatetic habits which made a hfe-long traveler out
of him. He was known as a "globe-trotter" the world over, while he was a
stranger at home.)

JOHANN BERNHARD STALLO who taught chemistry during the
session of 1849-'50 was not a physician but an attorney. Born in 1823 in
Oldenburg, Germany, he came to this country in 1839, taught German at
St. Xavier College, Cincinnati, chemistry and physics at St. John's College,
New York City from 1843 to 1847 ; chemistry in the Cincinnati Eclectic
Institute 1849-'50, and subsequently became a lawyer of national reputation.
He was one of the ablest and most scholarly Germans that have ever come
to this country. In 1885 he was appointed United States Minister to Italy.
He died in Florence in 1900.

Among the other Eclectic teachers of the early days were J. R. Paddock
(1803-1878), a chemist and botanist of note and widely known on account
of his perfect mastery of the classic languages; B. F. Johnson (1816-1855),
one of the earliest graduates of Worthington College ; A. H. Baldridge
(1795-1874), one of the original Worthington professors, who came to
Cincinnati with Doctor Morrow and taught here for a number of years,
leaving a record as a painstaking teacher and a brilliant writer ; L. E. Jones
(1809-1878), a man of ability, irascible, not dependable, but a writer of
merit, who in 1852 seceded from the Institute, founded a rival school, the
"American Medical College," which was absorbed by the Institute in 1856,
Jones again becoming a professor in the latter; James Kilbourne (1815-
1845) a young man of much promise and versatile talent; Benjamin L. Hill
(1813-1871), an author and teacher of ability with a distinct leaning towards
the system of Hahnemann; Hiram Cox (1798-1867), a graduate of the
Medical College of Ohio, a favorite pupil of James M. Staughton, father of
Judge Joseph Cox; John M. Sanders, a talented naturalist concerning whose
birth and death nothing is known, an author of several text-books of chem-
istry and physics, much esteemed in Europe; William Sherwood (1812-
1871), physician, politician and man of affairs, author of a text-book of
practice.

During the first decade of the existence of the Eclectic Institute the idea
of eclecticism was by no means a clearly defined concept. It was rather a
term of protest or distinction, rather negative than positive in its signifi-
cance. There was much diversity of opinion among the professors who
interpreted the teaching of the new "school" according to their individual
notions. All varieties and shadings of therapeutic practice were represented
from pure Thomsonianism and botanism to the wide therapeutic latitude
of the regular school. Homoeopathy was liberally represented. The text-
books were those of the regular school interpolated and expurgated ad libitum

366

by each professor. John Eberle's "Practice" was extensively used. The
attendance during the first ten years shows that the school was gradually
growing in strength and popularity:
]345-'4G 81 matric. 22 grad.

350-'51

211

matric.

45 grad

S51-'52

212

852-'53

308

70 "

853-'54

292

126 "

854-'55

279

81 "

]846-'47 127 '• 31

1847-'48 220 " 48 "

1848-'49 191 '• 47 "

1849-'50 224 " 65 "

The fees in the Announcement for 1851 were given as $100 for a full
course of lectures; $15 graduation fee and $5 demonstrator's fee.

Not all was peace and tranquility in the faculty, however. Men of mild
temperament who could not stand the pressure of either active or suppressed
warfare, quietly withdrew by resigning their posts. In this way the In-
stitute lost some excellent men. Some of the professors, however, were of
the belligerent type who were not afraid of a fight, verbal or fistic. Per-
sonal animosities were not infrequently the cause of open outbreaks. Then
there were financial involvements, professional entanglements and other
causes of disagreement. The embroglio of 1856 is graphically described by
H. W. Felter in his "History of the Eclectic Institute."

C. H. Cleaveland and R. S. Newton represented two opposing factions
in the faculty. Newton, in elaborating the therapeutic teaching of the Ec-
lectic school, had evolved eclecticism as a "distinct and positive therapeutic
system." Cleaveland had never forgotten the early teaching he had received
at Dartmouth. Newton naturally branded him as a heretic, as a wolf in
sheep's clothing. Cleaveland did not take much stock in Newton's "Eclectic
Concentrations," as the new remedies were called. Furthermore, he never hesi-
tated to say so. In addition to this strictly scholastic controversy the personal
relations of some of the other men were not pleasant. Buchanan was a man
who could not stand contradiction. His disposition of the funds of the
school did not satisfy everybody. He tried to control the organ of the school
the "Eclectic Medical Journal," and, in doing so, encountered the vehement
opposition of Newton and Freeman. The newly prepared "National Dis-
pensatory" precipitated a dispute between its editors. King and Newton.
Thus everybody was at war with everybody else.

In 1856 a new board of trustees was elected. Cleaveland's deeply laid
plot to control the board and oust his opponents Freeman and Newton, failed
because at the last moment L. E. Jones refused to transfer his stock (about
one-third of the total stock issued) to Cleaveland. A wrangle ensued which
finally led to several law suits and injunctions. Everybody seemingly was
determined to get control of the valuable financial and professional inter-
ests represented by the college. Cleaveland finally resorted to physical force,
took possession of the building and barricaded every door and window.
Newton and Freeman with their followers attacked the fort and drove
Cleaveland and his forces from the premises. Cleaveland and his men were

3G7

not so easily to be vanquished. They renewed the attack and in the melee
which followed, knives, pistols, chisels, bludgeons, blunderbusses and other
means of active warfare were freely displayed. On the principal staircase
Newton stood erect inspiring his little host like Leonidas at Thermopylae.
Buchanan and Cleaveland were bravely leading the attack, but each time
they were repulsed by the Spartans under Newton and Freeman. This
surely was a case where doctors disagreed. One night and a day and still
another night passed. Newton and Freeman still held the fort. They had
planted a six-pound cannon in the hall, ready to blow the invading usurpers
into an ignominious eternity. At this juncture the city police under the
command of the mayor arrived on the scene to put an end to the medical
fight which had become the talk of the town. Cleaveland and his hosts went
into winter-quarters at Gordon's Hall (Eighth Street and Western Row or
Central Avenue). They declared their quarters to be the real Eclectic In-
stitute, elected trustees, conducted a regular course and at the end of the
term graduated twenty-nine students. Shortly aferwards a quo zvarranto
proceeding was instituted which resulted in Newton being declared the lawful
treasurer of the board of trustees. The case for Newton was fought by
Judge George Hoadly whose argument ("Eclectic Medical Journal," 1857,
p. 211) was of great legal importance in connection with corporations in
Ohio. That in the fight between Cleaveland and Newton the fault was
nearly evenly divided, seems to be generally admitted. Newton won the
fight because he was in possession of the things under dispute. He had
all the advantages of possession. The defeated antagonist started a rival
school, the Eclectic College of Medicine, which took quarters in the Col-
lege Building on Walnut Street, opposite the Gibson House. Twenty years
previously Daniel Drake had in this identical place conducted a rival school
to fight the Medical College of Ohio. Tempora mutantur! The rival school
was fully the peer of the mother institution. Its professors were the ablest
Eclectics of those early times, men like Cleaveland, Buchanan, King and
Howe. The Eclectic College of Medicine after two and a half years of
rather vigorous existence consolidated (December, 1859), with the Institute.
The latter institution had up to this time graduated 851 students. A note-
worthy feature of its work was the clinical department which Drs. Newton,
Freeman and Newton were conducting with much success at the southeast
corner of Sixth and John Streets. The advent of the Civil War wrought
many critical changes in the management of the school, in the character of
its professors and in the size of its classes. In 1862 the afifairs of the Insti-
tution seemed hopeless. At this juncture a man of great executive ability
stepped into the arena and proved to be the man of the hour. This man,
who is generally conceded to have been the head and backbone of Eclectic-
ism, was John M. Scudder. Under his firm, guiding hand the old Institute
entered upon an era of unexampled prosperity. His name can not be sej)-
arated from that of his faithful friend and collaborator, John King.

.S68

JOHN M. SCUDDER. The pharmacologic achievements of Merrell and
King would have gone for naught, and, therefore, would have been of no
service to the cause of the Cincinnati Eclectic Institute, if at the psychological
moment a man of fine executive ability and organizing talent had not taken
hold of the affairs of the school with a firm and steady hand. Men of this
kind are rare because in their psychic makeup they combine traits that are
apparently incompatible. Inflexible determination is in strange alliance with
a conciliatory diplomacy and a faculty of making concessions. The working
out of a well-defined plan is skillfully adapted to inimical environments and
allowed to transpire with slow haste and amid diplomatic lethargy of the
apparently placid but ever-alert moulder of the policy. Splendid knowledge
of men is combined with an aptitude to supplement their defects, to round
their rough edges by gentle friction, to cater to their weakness without for a
moment sacrificing principles. Such was the mental endowment of John M.
Scudder whose level head and firm hand came into play when the existence
of the Eclectic Institute and the future of Eclecticism were at stake.

John Milton Scudder was born in Harrison, near Cincinnati, in 1829.
At the age of eight he lost his father and had to help in the support of his
widowed mother and two other children. He started to work in a button
factory in Reading, Ohio, and received the princely recompense of fifty cents a
week. When he was twelve years old, he managed to be enrolled as a stu-
dent in the Miami University, of Oxford, Ohio, getting a. fragmentary edu-
cation, and often interrupted his studies in order to make a few dollars by
the work of his hand for the support of himself and his fatherless family.
He was a skillful mechanic and saved up enough money to eventually open
up a general store in Harrison and get married. His ever-active mind finally
turned to medicine. He received his degree from the Cincinnati Eclectic
Institute in 1856, became the teacher of anatomy in the school the following
year, wrote a book on gynecology in 1858, began to formulate his system of
"specific medication" in 1859 as professor of practice, published the princi-
ples of his system in a book of materia medica in 18G0 and advocated his
ideas in a medical journal which he started soon after. Scudder was about thirty
years of age at this time and had already established a formidable record as
an indefatigable worker, a successful physician, original author and a skill-
ful organizer.

Scudder's writings were voluminous and furnished the Eclectic School
with a characteristic and systematic presentation of the various departments
of medical practice from an eclectic point of view. In 1864 he published his
"Eclectic Practice of Medicine," in 1865 a treatise on "Inhalations," in 1866 a
reference book on "Domestic Medicine." in 1867 a book on the "Principles
of Medicine," and also one on "Diseases of Children," in 1871 his well-
known treatise on "Specific Medication," in 1874 a treatise on "\'enereal
Diseases" and a book on "Specific Diagnosis." From 1862 to 1894 he was
editor of the "Eclectic .Medical journal" and contril)uU'(l liberallv to its pages.

3(iy

J. M. vSli lu.

A. J. 1 1 OWE

w. BvRD Powell

K. P'rkicman

J. U. Lloyd

370

K. O. FOLTZ

The relative value of Scudder's writings judged by a purely scientific
criterion is identical with that of Eclectic teaching. He was the great expo-
nent of the tenets of therapeutic faith adhered to and believed by the Eclectic
school. In fact, he li'cis the sehool, because every phase of its life bore the
impress of his powerful individuality. He boldly defined the landmarks of
Eclectic teaching, and made Scudderism a synonym for advanced Eclecticism.
Since Scudder's personality as a medical teacher appears in its most char-
acteristic attitude in his writings, a few quotations from his books may help
to throw some light on the pivotal points upon which hinges the therapeutic
belief of the Eclectic school.

In connection with the subject of "specific medication" he has this to say:

"I take it for granted that the reader will concede that all agents employed as
medicines act either upon function or structure ; and that this action to be curative must
be opposed to the processes of disease. This proposition seems so plain that it requires
no presentation of facts in proof, yet it is well to give it careful consideration, and
arrange such facts as may have come under the reader's observation in its support."

"If the action of a remedy is to oppose a process of disease, evidently its selection
will depend- — first, upon a correct knowledge of the disease; and, second, upon a cor-
rect knowledge of this opposition of remedies to it." "

"It is a law of the universe, that like causes always produce like effects, or, to
reverse it, that like effects always flow from like causes. Therefore, if we can determine
the opposition of a remedy to a process of disease in any given cases, we have de-
termined it in all cases. And, to make use of this knowledge subsequently it is only
necessary that we be able to determine the exact condition of disease, when we very
certainly expect to obtain the same curative (opposing) action from the remedy."

"In describing this action to another, it is necessary — first, that we observe and
group the signs and symptoms of disease, that he may get the exact idea of the path-
ological condition to be opposed. The skill required is in diagnosis, and necessitates a
very thorough re-study of pathology, ignoring, to a great extent, our present nosology.
To facilitate this study, the author has published a work — 'The Principles of Medi-
cine' — which embodies his views, and will serve as a basis for specific or direct medica-
tion. Much that might be deemed necessary in this monograph, will there be found
in its proper connection, and we have not deemed it desirable to separate it and re-
produce it here."

"Many persons are in error in regard to our use of the term s(yecific. They think
of a specific medicine, as one that will cure all cases of a certain disease, according to
our present nosology, as pneumonitis, dysentery, diarrhoea, albuminuria, phthisis, etc. ;
and a person looking at the subject in this light, and guided by his experience in the
use of remedies, would at once say there are no specifics."

"We use the term specific with relation to definite pathological conditions, and
propose to say, that certain well-determined deviations from the healthy state, will
always be corrected by certain specific medicines."

In his private and business relations Scudder embodied the best type of
the shrewd and far-seeing business man. He was a natural organizer and
manager, endowed with a fine business sense, resourceful and diplomatic.
He looked at the problems of cvcry-day life in a cool, impassionate manner,
was never swayed by impulses and, while not without sentiment and emotion,
never allowed himself to be carried away when the interests of his college,

371

the principles of his teaching or the rights of his associates were involved.
He was evenly balanced with a slight preponderance of the practical and
definable element. This happy combination of traits of mind and heart
made him a veritable tower of strength in the Eclectic school. His asso-
ciates and followers swore by him because they believed in him. He was
always truthful and disdained advantages that had to be won by question-
able methods, even if the latter had the approval of custom and habit. As a
successful manager of a medical school he left a record behind which is full
of eloquent lessons for others who find themselves at the helm of a medical
college or institution. Ambition is great, ability is greater, but the greatest
element in the mental equipment of the head of a medical organization of any
kind is truthfulness. A leader must be a man of honor whose very life
portrays a truthful mind. His must be the philosophy that is embodied in
the admonition of Polonius to Laertes :

"This above all : to thine own self be true,
And it must follow as the night the day.
Thou canst not then be false to any man."

Coupled with Scudder's personal integrity was that remarkable fitness
for business and practical affairs. When he took hold of the management of
the Cincinnati Eclectic Institute in 1863, the school was on the verge of col-
lapse, professionally and financially. He systematized the management of
the school, paid all debts, saw to it that the members of the faculty received ■
their recompense promptly and, in this manner,, re-established the credit of
the school and its reputation as an educational institution. He was a splendid
judge of human nature and put the right men in the right places for results.
Thus it was that he made a successful venture out of what seemed a lost
cause when he appeared on the scene. Scudder spent the last few years of
his life in the mild climate of Florida. His health had been failing for a
long time. The machine that had been running under high pressure for so
many years finally began to show the signs of wear. He died of apoplexy
February 17, 1894.

Scudder, like all truly intelligent men, cared little for the petty differences
that separate men in matters of ethics. He rose above the level of the
smaller minds that spend their energy wrangling over accidentals while they
remain oblivious to essentials. In questions of religion he paid no attention
to matters of mere faith. He longed and hoped for a better world although
he did not presume, like some, to have any special information concerning
the plans of God. He cherished the religion of good deeds and pure hearts.
He summarized his religion in a few sentences :

"I am not a Protestant, a Catholic, a Theosophist, a Mohammedan or a Buddhist.
I believe in the Scriptures of all peoples, the religions of all peoples. I believe in
everything that means goodness in all peoples. My religion is right, justice and liberty
for all men, and charity, sublime, world-embracing charity, for all suffering creatures."

372

"There are ways of knowing things supposed to be unknowable other than by
revelation, and its interpretation by those who know less than I do. I know that the
universe is, practically, limitless, and that it is pervaded by sentient life, which people
call God. I know there are millions of globes like ours, with inhabitants and interests
like ours. There is use for all intelligences in this vast number of worlds; and science
has assured me of the fact, that nothing is ever destroyed or lost, neither material nor
force. Is it possible that the intelligence developed in man. the mind, should be an
exception to this?"

"There are other things I do not know, but only hope for. Among these is, where
I shall go when I leave this world. I hope then in God, for I shall yet praise Him;
when or how I do not know; but the good Lord will find my place, and I shall be
satisfied with it. For a man can not reasonably look for more than his right place
and his right work and his just deserts.''

As a man and as a physician, John AI. Scudder exemplified that broad
and human religion that can not be monopoHzed by priest or preacher, church
or temple, that can not be forced into Procrustean beds of Bible or thora.
koran or — code of ethics. Thus, he was not a member of any man-made
church or clan. He was a gentleman. What more can be said?

JOHX KING. It is a profoundly reverential respect which thousands
of physicians, especially members of the Eclectic school, pay to the memory
of John King-. If there are any saints in the Eclectic profession, John King-
must be one, at least he has received the rites of canonization at the hands
of hundreds of his pupils and followers, who revere him as the embodiment
of all those traits that go to make up a good and great physician. This
veneration reflects credit on his pupils and followers in no less degree than it
glorifies him. Abstracting from all petty sectarian diflferences amid which the
psychic spheres of smaller minds revolve, there can be no doubt that John
King was one of the really eminent medical men that spent their lives in
and for the benefit of the people in this part of our country. That he,
together with Wm. S. Alerrell, was the greatest analytical pharmacologist
in the history of medicine in Cincinnati, has never been disputed.

John King was born in New York City, January 1, 1813. On his
mother's side he was a grandson of the Marquis La Parte, Lafayette's
friend and conn-ade. His parents were in comfortable circumstances and
amply able to give- him a thorough classical and scientific education. At
the age of twenty he was a remarkable linguist. He spoke and read French
and German fluently. He was a mechanical genius and in his leisure hours
learnt the art of engraving. He was a good amateur musician and tried his
hand successfully at the art of the playwright. At the age of twenty-five
he graduated in medicine from Wooster Beach's medical school in New
York. After his graduation he devoted many years to practical work as a
botanist, pharmacologist and chemist. In 1851 he became a teacher in the
Cincinnati Eclectic Medical Institute and taught its classes until the time of
his death, which occurred in North Bend, Ohio, in 1893. All through these
forty-two years he was held in almost idolatrous veneration by his students.

373

King discovered and introduced podophyllin (resin of podophyllum),
macrotin (resin of cimicifuga), irisin (oleo-resin of iris versicolor) inde-
pendently of Wm. S. Merrell and established therapeutically many alkaloids
that have been accepted by the pharmacologists of the other schools. Among
the drug agents that King introduced into medical practice were hydrastis
and sanguinaria. The discovery of podophyllin took place in 1835. "In the
Fall of that year, desiring to make an hydro-alcoholic extract of mandrake
root (with the aid of potassa during evaporation) the tincture of the root,
and its subsequently made infusion, were mixed together. In order to save
as much of the alcohol as possible, this mixture was placed in a distilling
apparatus, and when about one-third of the alcohol had been collected by
the distillation, the operation was discontinued on account of approaching
night. Upon opening the kettle the next morning, and stirring up the now
cold mixture, previous to a re-application of heat and continuation of the
distillation, a peculiar substance was found deposited in it, which King at
first thought from its appearance was some foreign material that had found
its way into the liquid and became burnt or injured by the heat during the
distillation of the previous day. While pondering over the matter, and still
undetermined as to the nature ot the deposit, he decided to investigate its
action as a purgative, and accordingly administered about twelve grains to a
patient, not supposing it to have much, if any, medicinal action. But he
was soon brought to know the reverse. In an hour or two after having
taken it, the lady was attacked with hyper-catharsis and excessive vomiting,
which continued for two or three hours before King was notified. He was
truly alarmed at her condition, fully recognized the nature and power of the
resin, as well as his responsibilty in having permitted her to take a sub-
stance concerning the action of which he knew nothing. It was a serious
lesson to him which he had never forgotten. King found her in extreme
pain and distress, cramps in the stomach and extremities, with coldness and
slight lividity of the surface, pulse small and weak, almost incessant vomit-
ing and purging, her condition greatly resembling that of one in the latter
state of Asiatic cholera ; she was apparently sinking rapidly. It is unneces-
sary to occupy time and space with the treatment pursued ; suffice it to state
that by a careful and persistent course of medication she recovered, but,
unfortunately was left with a chronic malady of the digestive organs which,
as far as King knew, was never removed."

King was a voluminous writer. His greatest effort was the "American
Dispensatory" (1S55) which he edited in conjunction with Dr. R. S. New-
ton. This monumental work has passed through eighteen editions and has
recently been revised by John Uri Lloyd and Harvey W. Felter. In 1855
he published a text-book of obstetrics, in 1858 one of gynecology. The
following year he published a "Manual of Practical Microscopy," quite an
ambitious undertaking considering the time in which the book was written.
In 1866 his well-known work on "Chronic Diseases" made its appearance.

374

King's work in pharmacology was of historical moment because it influ-
enced the trend of pharmacological thought and action even among the
non-Eclectic authors. The practical results of his work found their way
into the United States Pharmacopoeia and the writings of such a man