The History of the Medical Department of Transylvania University Part 2

Dudley, published by the late Lunsford P. Yandell, M. D., in the _American Pract.i.tioner_, 1870, these are stated to be the only writings of our late distinguished surgeon; but Doctor Dudley subsequently published three elaborate and highly valuable surgical papers, to wit:

1. _On the Treatment of Aneurism_, published in the _Transylvania Journal of Medicine_, edited by Professor Ethelbert L. Dudley, July, 1849.

2. _On the Treatment of Gunshot Wounds._ Ibid., December, 1849.

3. _On the Treatment of Fractures by the Roller Bandage._ Ibid., 1850.

This journal was a bi-weekly publication, the successor of the old _Transylvania Medical Journal_ above mentioned.

These were the latest productions of Doctor B. W. Dudley. Engaged as he continually was in a daily round of engrossing surgical and medical practice, lecturing twice a day in the Medical School during its sessions, there was left to him but little time for the record or promulgation of his ample experience by his pen.

As a medical pract.i.tioner also he was original. He was among the first to discard the lancet in his treatment of disease. He used instead small doses of tartar emetic, or more recently, of ipecacuanha frequently repeated, with low diet; or cholagogue purgatives combined with ipecacuanha, etc. He confined himself to but few medicines, but in the application of these, and of diet and regimen, his clear and correct judgment was usually apparent. Polypharmacy he despised. New remedies were looked upon by him with incredulity and suspicion.

Quinine, iodine, and other novelties in his time never were accorded approbation by him.

As a man and a citizen he was eminently liberal, charitable, magnanimous, public-spirited, and energetic. He bound his friends to him with the strongest ties and treated his hostile enemies--who were few--with a cordial hatred. His sense of honor and personal dignity was very delicate and high. No one so deeply despised a mean action.

No one so readily forgave an injury which was confessed.

An exemplification of his character was given in 1817-18. A difficulty having originated between himself and Doctor Drake, in relation to the resignation of the latter and some matters connected with a post-mortem examination of an Irishman who had been killed in a quarrel, sharp pamphlets pa.s.sed between them and a challenge to mortal combat from Dudley to Drake, which the latter declined, but which was vicariously accepted by his next friend, Doctor William H. Richardson. A duel resulted in which, at the first fire, Richardson was seriously wounded in the groin by the ball of Dudley, severing the inguinal artery.

Richardson would have speedily bled to death--as it could not be controlled by the tourniquet--but for the ready skill and magnanimity of Dudley. He immediately asked permission of his adversary to arrest the hemorrhage, and by the pressure with his thumb over the ilium gave time for the application of the ligature by the surgeon of Richardson--thus converting his deadly antagonist into a lifelong friend.

Notwithstanding Doctor Dudley had contributed tens of thousands to public improvement and to private charities, and never regularly kept accounts against his patients, he acquired a considerable fortune. His latter days were pa.s.sed in the society of his children and grandchildren in the household of his son, the late William A. Dudley, surrounded by all the comforts which a large competency and a devoted family could provide. Thus, in the quiet of domestic retirement, pa.s.sed away the last days of a most active and eminently useful and distinguished life.[20]

The annals of the earlier efforts to establish medical education and a medical college in connection with Transylvania University--the first in the whole West and the second in the United States--are meager and unsatisfactory.

As already stated, the first Medical Professors in this University--Doctors Samuel Brown and Frederick Ridgely (1799)--no doubt taught and lectured occasionally to such students as were present. The files of the old _Kentucky Gazette_ show that Doctor James Fishback, who was unanimously appointed to the chair of Theory and Practice of Medicine in Transylvania in 1805, advertised to lecture, and did probably lecture on these subjects. But he resigned in 1806. Doctor James Overton, who had been appointed to the chair of Materia Medica and Botany in 1809, said in his letter of acceptance (on the occasion of his reappointment in the reorganization of the Medical Faculty in 1817) that he "had engaged for some time in giving lectures on Theory and Practice in this town," etc.

According to the best recollection of the late Doctor Coleman Rogers--for a long time before his death a resident in Louisville--the Medical College of Transylvania University was reorganized in 1815 by the appointment of the following Faculty:

Doctor Benjamin W. Dudley, Professor of Anatomy and Surgery.

Doctor Coleman Rogers, adjunct to this chair.

Doctor James Overton, Theory and Practice.

Doctor William H. Richardson, Obstetrics, etc.

Doctor Thomas Cooper (Judge Cooper), of Pennsylvania, to the chair of Chemistry, Mineralogy, etc.

Doctor James Blythe, then acting President of the University, was to give chemical instruction. Doctor Cooper and Doctor Rogers did not accept this appointment. According to Doctor Rogers' recollection a regular course of lectures was not delivered by this Faculty, although Doctors Dudley and Overton probably both lectured or taught "as they previously had done."[21]

Doctor Dudley's own recollection, as detailed to the present writer, was also that he and Doctor Overton, as well as Doctor Blythe, lectured in 1815-16 to about twenty students, of whom the late Doctor Ayres and the yet surviving Nestor of Transylvania graduates, Doctor Christopher C. Graham, of Louisville--now almost a centenarian[22]--were in attendance as pupils. Very little can now be ascertained, from existing records, of the character of Professor James Overton, M. D. Doctor Christopher C. Graham, in a recent letter to the writer, gives some of his reminiscences of him in the following language: "Doctor Overton was a small, black-eyed man, very hypochondrical and sarcastic (notoriously so), and yet quite chatty, humorous, and agreeable; telling his cla.s.s many funny things.... He was well educated for his day and plumed himself especially on his Greek." Doctor Overton removed from Lexington to Nashville, Tennessee, in 1818.[23]

[Ill.u.s.tration: DOCTOR JAMES OVERTON.

From a Portrait made in Philadelphia before 1815.]

The late Doctor Ayres, of Danville, and latterly of Lexington, informed the writer that, in 1815, Doctor Dudley, having recently returned from Europe, was invited by himself and other medical students to demonstrate to them in anatomy and surgery. Learning _that he would lecture to them if a cla.s.s were formed_, they made up one of from twenty to twenty-five, and Doctor Dudley lectured to them on anatomy and surgery in "Trotter's Warehouse,"[24] a house situated on the south-east corner of Main and Mill streets, opposite the site[25] of the old original Lexington block-house. In the next winter, he recounts, he lectured to about fifty or sixty students, some of whom were from Ohio. Doctors Overton and Blythe, one or both, also lectured in both winters.

This may be said to be the real beginning of the successful career of the Medical Department of Transylvania University, and of that of Doctor Dudley as a medical professor.

The _Kentucky Gazette_ of March 10, 1817, contains a card published by a committee of the medical students of Transylvania, signed David J.

Ayres, Thomas J. Garden, and Charles H. Warfield (committee of the medical cla.s.s), headed a "Tribute of Grat.i.tude," in which they return grateful thanks to their professors, Doctors B. W. Dudley, James Overton, and the Reverend Doctor Blythe, for the ability, fidelity, and perseverance with which they had taught. A further proof that a medical session was held in the Transylvania School in 1816-17.

Many circ.u.mstances in these early times favored the establishment of a medical college in Lexington. Not only had that city been recognized for many years as a great center of public education for the whole State--made so by the location in it of the State's University, "Transylvania"--but it was also at that time the great metropolis of the West. The country around it, though fast becoming settled and improved by enterprising pioneers, had not as yet been provided with roads, or good means of communication with older settlements. To ascend the Ohio River and cross the Alleghany Mountains to Philadelphia, where the only other medical school then existed, was a tedious and laborious undertaking, not devoid of danger.

The celebrated French botanist, F. A. Michaux, who visited this country in 1802, was obliged to walk most of the way over the mountains to Pittsburg. Descending the Ohio River in a canoe and landing at Limestone (now Maysville), he consumed two days and a half on horseback on his journey from that place to Lexington, having been obliged to leave his baggage behind. The late Professor Charles Caldwell records, in his remarkable _Autobiography_, that as late as 1820, when he set out from Lexington for Europe to purchase books and apparatus for the Medical Department of Transylvania, he was compelled to travel from Lexington to Maysville on horseback, with his baggage on a pack-horse conducted by a servant on a third horse. "The animals were all powerful and active,"

but "so deep and adhesive was the mud that they did not reach Maysville--only sixty miles distant--until an early hour on the fourth day," although diligence on his part was not wanting. Students of this region had to overcome very great difficulties when they set out in search of instruction in the medical schools of Philadelphia.

On March 2, 1816, one thousand dollars were appropriated by the Trustees of Transylvania and placed in the hands of Doctor Blythe and John D. Clifford for the immediate purchase of chemical apparatus.

Doctor Blythe, who had been acting President of the University up to this time, resigned and accepted the position of Professor of Chemistry in the Medical Department.

In 1817 the Medical Faculty was further reorganized by the appointment of the late celebrated, talented Doctor Daniel Drake to the chair of Materia Medica and Medical Botany. The organization was then as follows:

Doctor Benjamin W. Dudley, Professor of Anatomy and Surgery.

Doctor James Overton, Professor of Theory and Practice.

Doctor Daniel Drake, Professor of Materia Medica and Medical Botany.

Doctor William H. Richardson, Professor of Obstetrics, etc.

Doctor James Blythe, Professor of Chemistry, etc.

Doctor Drake has stated that twenty pupils attended this course of lectures, and the degree of M. D. was--for the first time in Lexington--conferred on John Lawson McCullough of this city.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DOCTOR WILLIAM H. RICHARDSON.

From a Portrait by Jouett.]

Each professor lectured three times a week, and his ticket was fifteen dollars. During this session ill feelings arose between Doctors Dudley and Drake, leading to the duel between Doctors Dudley and Richardson already described.[26]

Doctor Drake resigned his professorship and returned to Cincinnati at the end of this session, returning subsequently in 1823 to occupy the same chair, to resign it again in 1827. Professor Richardson did not lecture this session. He, not having yet received the degree of M. D., was allowed to be absent.[27]

PROFESSOR WILLIAM HALL RICHARDSON

Taught in the Medical Department of Transylvania until the time of his death in 1844, and was highly respected by his pupils as a practical teacher in his especial chair, notwithstanding he had not the advantage of early educational training. He was a man of great energy and of many admirable traits of character. His pupil, the late Lewis Rogers, M. D., in his address as President of the Kentucky State Medical Society in 1873, thus spoke of his old preceptor and friend:

"Few men ever had n.o.bler traits of character. He was warm-hearted, brave, and a sincere friend. I knew him from my earliest boyhood, and have pa.s.sed away many happy and instructive hours at his magnificent home in Fayette County.[28] His hospitality was profuse and elegant. I listened to his public teachings as a professor with interest and care, because I knew he taught the truth as far as he possessed it. He was not scholarly or graceful and fluent as a lecturer, but he was ardent and impressive, sufficiently learned in his special branch, and had at his command a large stock of ripe experience. I honor his memory beyond most men I have known."

In 1819, a new and brilliant era for the University, and for the Medical Department of Transylvania, was inaugurated by the appointment of Reverend Horace Holley, LL. D., to the Presidency of the University. Doctor Samuel Brown was recalled to the chair of the Theory and Practice of Medicine, which he retained until 1825. Doctor Charles Caldwell was induced to remove from Philadelphia, where he had an official connection with the University of Pennsylvania, and to accept the chair of the Inst.i.tutes of Medicine and Materia Medica here, thus completing the organization with the existing professors, Benjamin W. Dudley and William H. Richardson, and the election of Reverend James Blythe to the chair of Chemistry. The celebrated naturalist, C. S. Rafinesque, was advertised to lecture on Botany and Natural History in this and the following year.[29]

CONSTANTINE SAMUEL RAFINESQUE,[30]

A naturalist, antiquarian, etc., who stated in 1836 "that in knowledge he had been a botanist, naturalist, conchologist, zoologist, geographer, esentographer, physiologist, historian, antiquary, poet, philosopher, economist, and philanthropist; and by profession a traveler, merchant, manufacturer, collector, improver, professor, teacher, surveyor, draftsman, architect, engineer, author, editor, bookseller, librarian, secretary, chancellor, etc."--and believed he could have been any thing, as he "always succeeded in whatever he undertook." This statement gives a key to his life, which was one of great and untiring activity, as well as to his mental character, which enabled him to acquire the reputation of being one of the most learned men of his day. Born in Galata, Constantinople, the son of a merchant, in 1784, after living in France and Italy he came to America in 1802, returning to France in 1805, with a very large botanical collection.

Spending ten years in Sicily in making natural history collections and writing various essays, he published in 1815 his _a.n.a.lysis of Nature_.