xt759z908v8w https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt759z908v8w/data/mets.xml Peter, Robert, 1805-1894. 1905  books b92-57-27063442 English J.P. Morton, : Louisville, Ky. : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Transylvania University. Medical Dept. Medicine History Kentucky. Medicine Kentucky.Peter, Johanna. History of the Medical department of Transylvania University  / by Robert Peter ; prepared for publication by his daughter, Miss Johanna Peter. text History of the Medical department of Transylvania University  / by Robert Peter ; prepared for publication by his daughter, Miss Johanna Peter. 1905 2002 true xt759z908v8w section xt759z908v8w 


















































DOCTOR ROBERT PETER.


 








FILSON CLUB PUBLICATIONS No. 20



         THE HISTORY

               OF


The Medical Department

               OF



Transylvania University



                      BY
           DOCTOR ROBERT PETER
       Prepared for Publication by his Daughter, MIss JOHANNA PETER
                Member of The Filson Club




                   31 I Iusi trat Pb



   LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY
JOHN P. MORTON  COMPANY
   PRINTERS TO THE FILSON CLUB
          1905


 










































    COPYRIGHTED BY

THE FILSON CLUB
   and Ali Rights R-red
        1905


 


                   PREFACE


I N preparing for publication the following sketch of
     the famous Transylvania Medical Department and
its professors, I have placed in foot-notes, as far as
practicable, my own additions to the text, so as to avoid
making any radical change in my father's manuscript.
   Portions of the history may seem fragmentary; some
of the lives of the professors may be incomplete; some,
no doubt, are insufficiently noticed, but this is easily
understood when it is considered that my father wrote
this narrative at irregular intervals of leisure in the years
from i873 to i878, when some of the professors were
still living; and that the writing was left by him in a
yet uncompleted state and lacking those finishing touches
which no other hand could so well give. In what I have
done I have striven for accuracy. My father's remin-
iscences will have due weight as coming from one most
intimately associated with Transylvania and her medical
teachers-from the one colleague of all the brilliant com-
pany who could best transcribe them. The notice of
Doctor Eberle I have copied from the Transylvania
Journal of Medicine of i838, as the nearest I could get


 


Preiface



to the estimation in which he was held in the Transyl-
vania School. The sketch of Doctor Bruce is gathered
mainly from obituaries by his colleagues. That of Doctor
Chipley-oftenest described, by those who knew him, as
nature's nobleman-was written by his daughter, Mrs.
Boykin Jones, in answer to my letter to her. I have
added a few words about Doctor Marshall, and Doctor
Skillman, "the beloved physician," the last survivor of
the Transylvania Medical Faculty. And I have given
as best I could a description of the last declining years
of Transylvania, with some account of the Medical Hall
and its ultimate fate. Any biography of Doctor Peter,
I fear, must be unsatisfactory unless written at length.
The brief summary of his life introductory to The History
of Transylvania University, published by The Filson Club
in i896, was called "insufficient," " far too modest," etc.
Such the story of a life so long, so full, and so many-
sided must ever be unless a volume be devoted to it.
In what I now say of my father I feel, even more than I
did then, that I can not do justice. It is a mere itinerary
of a life-journey. The same thing is true in varying degree
of all the Transylvania professors, and I repeat here what
I said of the former History of Transylvania-that all
errors or faults must be ascribed to my own insufficiency
to cope with the subject.



iv


 


Preface



   Nevertheless, with all its shortcomings, this is a record
not unworthy of preservation, and while biographers
point us to the fact that in the United States Senate
there sat at one and the same time no fewer than eight
graduates of Transylvania University, including Jefferson
Davis, afterward President of the Southern Confederacy,
the student of these pages will remark that Transyl-
vania's Medical Department had already won as abun-
dant laurels in the field of science.
   My grateful acknowledgments are due, first and for
many kindnesses, to our invaluable President, Colonel
Reuben T. Durrett, through whose unfailing interest,
literary judgment, and tactful encouragement so many
gems of Kentucky history have been preserved which
otherwise had perished, and to the many friends of old
Transylvania who have bid me Godspeed in my under-
taking. I am indebted to Mrs. Thomas H. Clay for
letters and documents bearing upon my subject; to Miss
Mary Mason Brown for a copy of Jouett's admirable
portrait of Doctor Brown which hangs in the old Brown
homestead at Frankfort; to Mrs. Lawrence Dade Fitz-
hugh for data and the permission to use the beautiful
portrait by Jouett of her ancestor, Doctor Richardson;
to Mrs. Sallie Overton Bullock for the picture of Doctor
Overton; to Mrs. Anderson Berry for the picture of



v


 


Preface



Doctor Cooke; to Mr. William Short, of Louisville, for
valuable suggestions and the fine likeness of Doctor
Short; and to Doctor A. M. Peter for some of the illus-
trations. The several descendants of Doctor Ridgely to
whom I applied have, without exception, aided me most
courteously and patiently in my search for a picture of
Doctor Ridgely: a search which I abandoned with the
utmost reluctance and with the feeling that his portrait,
could I have found it, must have adorned this history
as his life had adorned the tim-s to which it belonged,
and therefore be sadly missed from its place with Doctor
Brown. To Doctor John W. Whitney, who was pro-
sector of Surgery and Anatomy in the Transylvania
Medical School in i854-55, and is now the sole surviving
representative of that school, I am indebted for a num-
ber of facts and suggestions.
                                     JOHANNA PETER.



vi


 


            INTRODUCTION


THE late Doctor Robert Peter, one of the most dis-
       tinguished analytical chemists of his times. was a
member of the Medical Faculty of Transylvania Univer-
sity from i833 to the time of the dissolution of that in-
stitution, and afterward occupied chairs in the different
colleges into which Transylvania was merged. He was
one of the most active of the professors, and did as much
as any one else to raise the university to the lofty heights
it attained as a school of literature, law, and medicine.
It occurred to him after the merger of the Transylvania
into the Kentucky University that an institution which
had led the way and done so much for literature, law,
and medicine should not be permitted to vanish and
leave nothing but a name and memory behind. He,
therefore, went to work, after the weight of years was
gathering fast upon him, to write the history of Transyl-
vania University, and got his work almost finished in
i894, when death, which alone could have arrested him
in his undertaking, relieved him of the task at the age
of eighty-nine.  His daughter, Miss Johanna    Peter,


 


viii               Introduction

with filial affection worthy of so excellent a father, and
public spirit equal to the occasion, rightly estimating so
good a work if it should be published and put into the
hands of the public, undertook to prepare his manu-
scripts for publication. One of these manuscripts pre-
pared by her embraced the literary department of Tran-
sylvania, and was published by The Filson Club in i896
as its eleventh publication. When this publication was
made, it was intimated, if not promised, that it would
be followed in the near future by one of the medical de-
partment. Miss Peter, therefore, prepared this second
manuscript of her father for publication, and The Filson
Club now presents it in the pages which follow as the
twentieth number in its regular annual series.
   The medical department of the Transylvania Uni-
versity no longer exists. Indeed, nothing of the Tran-
sylvania University exists except its name. Its learned
professors have gone the way of all flesh. The last one
of them recently went down to his grave. Its buildings
have been swept away by fire or have passed to other
institutions with its library and apparatus. Yet all of
this renowned University has not passed away. Its
fame yet lives, and will not perish while the memory of
the living holds sacred the good deeds of predecessors.
The distinguished professors made Transylvania Univer-


 


Introduction



sity famous, and made history at the same time, and
they themselves are now entitled to a place in history.
It is the purpose of The Filson Club, by this publication,
to assist in securing for them the place they deserve in
the memory of mankind. Doctor Peter, the author,
was the fittest of men to sketch these professors and to
present life pictures of them. His work, however, if it
had remained in manuscript, as he left it, would have
been seen but by few, and could have done but little
good. In this twentieth publication of The Filson Club,
the manuscript will make its way to many and present
them with likenesses of those who devoted their lives to
instructing the young of our land in the art of adminis-
tering to the sick and afflicted. The author knew all of
his contemporary professors, and the likeness which he
has given of some of them will be the ones by which they
will be known in after years. Pen pictures are sometimes
as efficient as likenesses in oil, and the characteristic of
Doctor Peter's pictures is fidelity so executed that they
seem to be the originals standing in life before us. In a
work like this the essence of its history is biographic,
and Doctor Peter has made his work to consist chiefly
of biographical sketches of those who made Transylvania
University what it was. He gives the leading facts in
the life of each of the professors he sketches, and enu-



ix


 


Introduction



merates the other colleges in which they occupied chairs,
and gives the titles of the works they published either
in book form or magazine articles. He omits nothing in
the sketch that is necessary in forming a just idea of the
character portrayed.
   In the long career of Transylvania University she did
not fail to make enemies, but she made more friends
than enemies to remember her. A few of the living
students and the many descendants of the deceased pro-
fessors and graduates now scattered broadcast over the
land will be glad to read what is here said of old Transyl-
vania, and the work will thus be widely known and read.
All who see it will be thankful to Doctor Peter for his
manuscript, and to Miss Johanna Peter for preparing it
for the press, and to The Filson Club for publishing it.
  There is in our nature something like the love of the
relic which makes us revere the memory of Transylvania
University. Early in the year I799 a medical depart-
ment was attached to this University which was the first
medical college in the great Mississippi Valley and the
second in the whole United States. The medical depart-
ment of the University of Pennsylvania antedated it,
but it antedated all others afterward established in any
part of our vast domain. We can not, like our English
cousins, go back along the pathway of centuries to the



x


 


                   Introduction                       xi

colleges of Oxford and Cambridge and revere them for
their age; we have nothing in our new country that par-
takes of such age. We are a young people in a young
country, and our Transylvania Medical College was old
enough from our standpoint to be crowned with hoary
years. We revere it as the first medical college on this
side of the Alleghanies. We revere it for the efforts it
made to prepare our young physicians to cope with the
diseases that afflicted our people. We revere it for the
good name it gave our State in the fame it acquired.
We revere it for the success of Professor Brown in intro-
ducing vaccination in advance of its discoverer, for the
brilliant and numerous operations in lithotomy by Pro-
fessor Dudley, and for the noble efforts of others of its
professors in prolonging human life and mitigating its
pains. What it did in the day of its glory is set forth
in the pages which follow, and he who reads them will
hardly doubt that the medical department of Transyl-
vania University is worthy of the record here made for it.

                           R. T. DURRETT,
                                 President of The Filson Club.




 


               ILLUSTRATIONS


                                                     PAGE
Doctor Robert Peter   .     ..........F.................... Frontispiece
DoctorSamuel Brown.........     ........     ..........   8
Doctor Benjamin W. Dudley ........  ...............    i6
Doctor James Overton               .        .        I 28
Doctor WilliamH. Richardson.                           32
Daniel Drake, M. D      .         .40
Charles Caldwell, M. D  ................ ................ 48
Doctor John Esten Cooke....                           64
Doctor Charles Wilkins Short  .       .                8o
Doctor Lunsford P. Yandell, Senior.                    84
Doctor James M. Bush.   .                                     6
Doctor Ethelbert L. Dudley .       ..................... ...... I32
Doctor Henry Martyn Skillman..........    . ........... I44
Transylvania University-Medical Hall.                    56
Absolom Driver..............    ...................... I62

 


     MEDICAL DEPARTMENT

                        OF

TRANSYLVANIA UNIVERSITY



THE history of medicine and of the earliest medi-
1cal men in Kentucky clusters around the name of
TRANSYLVANIA UNIVERSITY.
  The State of Virginia, in I780-when "Kan-tuck-ee"
or "Kentuckee," as this country was then called, was
only a little-explored portion of that State-placed eight
thousand acres of escheated lands within that county
into the hands of thirteen trustees "for the purposes of
a public school or seminary of learning, " that they " might
at a future day be a valuable fund for the maintenance
and education of youth; it being the interest of this
Commonwealth always to promote and encourage every
design which might tend to the improvement of the mind
and the diffusion of knowledge, even amongst the most
remote citizens, whose situation a barbarous neighbor-
hood and a savage intercourse might otherwise render
unfriendly to science."


 


2        The Medical Department

   Three years thereafter (1783), when Kentucky had
become a district of Virginia, the General Assembly, by a
new amendatory Act, re-endowed this " public school"
with twelve thousand acres more of escheated lands and
gave to it all the privileges, powers, and immunities of
" any college or university in the State," under the name
of " Transylvania Seminary."
   In the wild and sparsely settled country this seminary
began a feeble existence under the special fostering care
and patronage of the Presbyterians, who were then a
leading religious body, aided by individual subscriptions
and by additional State endowments.
  The Reverend James Mitchel, a Presbyterian min-
ister, was its first "Grammar Master," in 1785. In I789
it was placed under the charge of Mr. Isaac Wilson and
located in Lexington, with no more than thirteen pupils
all told. The Reverend James Moore, educated for the
Presbyterian ministry but subsequently an Episcopalian
and first Rector of Christ Church, Lexington, was
appointed "Director," or the first acting President of
the Transylvania Seminary, in I79I.' He taught in his
own house for want of a proper seminary building, with
the aid of a small library and collection of philosophical
apparatus. This library and apparatus had been donated
         'April 11, 1791. See Records of Transylvania University


 


Transylvania University.



by the Reverend John Todd, of Virginia, who, with other
influential Presbyterians, had been mainly instrumental
in procuring the charters and endowments from the Gen-
eral Assembly of Virginia.
  The offer of a lot of ground in the town of Lexington'
to the trustees of Transylvania Seminary, by a company
of gentlemen calling themselves the " Transylvania Land
Company," induced the trustees to permanently locate
the seminary in that place in I793. On that lot the
first school and college buildings were placed, and on it
was afterward erected the more commodious University
edifice in which taught the learned and celebrated Presi-
dent, Doctor Horace Holley. This first University build-
ing was destroyed by fire May 9, T829. In later years
(i879) this old "College lot" was beautified and improved
by tree-planting and otherwise by liberal citizens of Lex-
ington, moved by the efforts of Mr. H. H. Gratz, and
designated first "Centennial Park,", and afterward
"Gratz Park," in honor of Benjamin Gratz, being not
now utilized for special educational purposes.
  With limited success the first "Director of Transyl-
vania Seminary" taught in Lexington until I794, when
he was superseded by the election by the Board of Trus-
    'Out lot No. 6.
    -In honor of the Centenary of Lexington, celebrated April 2, 1879.



3


 



4



The Medical Department



tees of Mr. Harry Toulmin as first President of the
Seminary.
   This gentleman, a learned Unitarian minister of the

school of Doctor Priestly, and a native of England,
resigned the Presidency in 1796, and was Secretary of
State of Kentucky under Governor Garrard. (See Col-
lins' History of Kentucky, volume 2, page i84.)
   Intense feeling at the election of Mr. Toulmin on the
part of the leading Presbyterians, who claimed the Semi-
nary as their own peculiar institution, caused them to
obtain in I 796 a charter from the legislature of Ken-
tucky-now a State-for a new institution of learning
which they could more exclusively control. This was
the " Kentucky Academy," of which the Reverend James
Blythe, of their communion, was made President.'

    'An interesting notice of "Inoculation lo, Smn/ftox," in 1794, is to be found
in the files of the old Kentucky Gazette, a paper published by John Bradford, in
Lexington, August II, 1787-the first newspaper published west of the Alleghany
mountains. This notice appeared in that paper January 4, 1794, as follows: "On
Thursday last the inhabitants of this place began the inoculation of smallpox and
have agreed to continue until the fifteenth, after which they are determined to
cease. They have appointed a committee to draw up a remonstrance to the court
of Fayette County requesting that the order of that court granting liberty to the
inhabitants of said county to inoculate may be rescinded, so far as respects the
town of Lexington, after that date." The Gazette for the first of February
following has this significant statement, illustrating the great hazard of this primi-
tive operation, viz: "That the smallpox had been very fatal within the three weeks
past in the town and vicinity under inoculation, that at least one out of fifteen died
who had been inoculated, and very few children had recovered." Vaccination
was introduced here by Professor Samuel Brown, M. D., at quite an early period,
as we shall see further on.


 


          Transylvania University.                   5

  On the establishment of the Kentucky Academy by the
dissatisfied Presbyterians in 1796, an active rivalry between
that school and Transylvania Seminary operated to the
injury of both institutions as well as to the cause of edu-
cation in general. Therefore, after two years of separate
existence these two institutions, with the consent of the
trustees of both, were united in I798 by Act of the Gen-
eral Assembly of Kentucky into one, "for the promotion
of public good and learning," under the title of Transyl-
vania University. The consolidation was made under the
original laws which governed the Transylvania Seminary
as enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia.


              TRANSYLVANIA UNIVERSITY.

   Under the act of consolidation of December 22, I798,
this University was organized by the appointment of
Reverend James Moore, of the Episcopal Church, as first
acting President, with a corps of professors. And now,
for the first time in the Mississippi Valley, was the effort
made to establish a medical college.
   Early in 1799, at the first meeting of the trustees of
the new Transylvania University,' they instituted "The
Medical Department" or College of Transylvania-which



   'Lexington, January 8, 1799. (See Records of Transylvania University,
Volume i.)


 


6     The Medical Department



subsequently became so prosperous and so celebrated-
by the appointment of Doctor Samuel Brown as Professor
of Chemistry, Anatomy, and Surgery, and Doctor Fred-
erick Ridgely as Professor of Materia Medica, Midwifery,
and Practice of Physic. Doctor Brown qualified as Pro-
fessor October 26, I799, and Doctor Ridgely the following
November.
  Doctor Brown was authorized by the Board to import
books and other means of instruction for the use of the
medical professors to the amount of five hundred dollars'
-a considerable sum in those days-and he and his
colleague were made salaried officers of the University.
  A Law College was also organized at this time in the
University by the appointment of Colonel George Nicholas,
soldier of the Revolution and member of the Virginia
Convention, as Professor of Law and Politics.


               DOCTOR SAMUEL BROWN,

The first Medical Professor of Transylvania University
and of the great Western country, was born in Augusta,
or Rockbridge County, Virginia, January 30, I769, and
died near Huntsville, Alabama, at the residence of Colonel
Thomas G. Percy, January I2, i830. He was the son of
Reverend John Brown, a Presbyterian minister of great
     'December il, 1799. (See Records of Transylvania University.)


 


Transylvania University.



learning and piety, and Margaret Preston-a woman of
remarkable energy of character and vigor of mind-
second daughter of John Preston and Elizabeth Patton.'
He was the third of four distinguished brothers-Honora-
ble John Brown, Honorable James Brown, Doctor Samuel
Brown, and Doctor Preston Brown.
  After graduating at Carlisle College, Pennsylvania,
where he had been sent by his elder brother, he studied
medicine for two years in Edinburgh, Scotland. Doctor
Hosack, of New York, and Doctor E. McDowell, of Dan-
ville, Kentucky, were of the same class. Returning to
the United States, he commenced practice in Bladens-
burg, but soon removed to Lexington, Kentucky, where
he was made Professor of Chemistry, Anatomy, and Sur-
gery in Transylvania University in I799, as above stated.
In i8o6, he removed to Fort Adams, Mississippi, where he
married Miss Percy, of Alabama.2 Afterward returning
to Lexington he was re-appointed in i8i9 to a chair in
the Medical Department of Transylvania, that of Theory
and Practice. Here he was a distinguished colleague of
Professors B. W. Dudley, Charles Caldwell, Daniel Drake,
William Richardson, and James Blythe until i825, when
he finally left Kentucky.
   '"Memoranda of the Preston Family," by John Mason Brown, Page 20.
   -See "Memoranda of the Preston Family," Page 37, for his descendants.



7


 


8     The Medical Department



   Doctor Brown was a man of fine personal appearance
and manners; an accomplished scholar, gifted with a
natural eloquence and humor that made him one of the
most fascinating lecturers of his day. Learned in many
branches, he was an enthusiast in his own profession,
scrupulous in regard to etiquette and exceedingly benevo-
lent and liberal of his time and services to the poor. Al-
though active in scientific pursuits he left no extensive
work, and but a few detached writings to perpetuate his
fame.
   His name appears among those of the contributors to
the American Philosophical Transactions, and to the
medical and scientific periodicals of the day, both in
this country and in Europe. In those Transactions and
in Bruce's fournal of Mineralogy, etc., he described a
remarkably large nitre cavern on Crooked Creek in Madi-
son County (now Rockcastle County), Kentucky. In this
and in a subsequent communication in Volume i of Silli-
man's 7ournal he described the process of nitre manu-
facture in caves, and gave the best theory of its forma-
tion, according to the science of the day. In various
other journals he described several interesting cases which
occurred in his own practice, and in the renowned Medi-
cal Logic, by the distinguished Gilbert Blane, of London,
Doctor Samuel Brown, of Lexington, is quoted as author-




 







































































DOCTOR SAMUEL BROWN.
  From Jouett's Portrait at Frankfort.


 
This page in the original text is blank.


 
Transylvania University.



ity for a certain scientific fact. " To him we are indebted
for the first introduction in the West of the prophylactic
use of the cow-pox. As early as i802 he had vaccinated
upwards of five hundred persons, when in New York and
Philadelphia physicians were only just making their first
experimental attempts.    The virus he used was taken
from its original source, the teats of the cow, and used in
Lexington even before Jenner could gain the confidence
of the people of his own country.",
   A curious anecdote, illustrating progress, was told of
Doctor Samuel Brown by his nephew, the late Orlando
Brown, Esquire, of Frankfort, in a letter to the present
writer:
   " I remember once when talking of calomel, he said he
never would forget the first dose of it he gave a patient.
It was looked upon as 'the Hercules,' and he used it
accordingly. The case was desperate and he resolved to
venture upon calomel and give a strong dose. He accord-
ingly weighed out with scrupulous accuracy four grains-
gave it to his patient, and sat up all night to watch its effects.
The man got well and the Doctor afterwards used calomel
more freely."
   What would he have thought of the heaping tablespoon-
ful doses-quickly repeated pro re nata-or the pound of
   'Quoted from an introductory lecture to the winter course in the Medical
Department of Transylvania University, delivered by the present writer (Doctor
Robert Peter) November 5, 1854.



9


 


10    The Medical Department



calomel taken in a day-and survived-which character-
ized the cholera treatment of one of the later Professors
of Transylvania Medical School


             DOCTOR FREDERICK RIDGELY,

Of a well-known family in Maryland,' and one of the
most celebrated of the early physicians of the West,
studied medicine in Delaware, and attended medical
lectures in Philadelphia.
   He was appointed Surgeon to a rifle corps in Virginia
when only nineteen years of age, and served in different
positions as Surgeon throughout the Revolutionary War.
He came to Kentucky in 1790, was Surgeon-General in
General Wayne's army in 1794, and after that decisive
campaign was ended returned to Kentucky in I799 and
was made Professor of Materia Medica, Midwifery, and
the Practice of Physic in the same year in the Medical
Department of Transylvania University at the first organi-
zation of this department.
   Widely known as a successful practitioner and a gentle-
man of great benevolence, disinterestedness, and affabil-
ity, he was also one of the medical preceptors of Ken-
   'Doctor Ridgely was born on Elkridge, Anne Arundel County, Maryland, May
25, 1757, and studied medicine under Doctor Philip Thomas, of almost unrivaled
reputation. (Doctor C. W. Short.)


 


         Transylvania University.                   11

tucky's distinguished surgeon, Benjamin W. Dudley, and
for many years gave active support to Transylvania Uni-
versity as a member of the Board of Trustees. In I799-
i8oo, he delivered to the small class of medical students
then in attendance a course of public instruction which
did him much credit-a fact of peculiar interest, "as it
proves him to have been," with his able colleague, Doctor
Samuel Brown, "the first who taught medicine by lecture in
Western America." He died at the age of sixty-eight at
Dayton, Ohio, December 21, i824.
  These first medical professors in Transylvania Univer-
sity were no doubt the first in the promotion of medical
education in the West. Medical and Law societies were
soon established and were in active operation-as we
learn from the columns of the Kentucky Gazette, published
at the time. How many pupils they attracted and taught
we can not now definitely ascertain.
  In i8oi, the meager existing records of the University
show a reorganization, in which the Reverend James
Moore-who had been replaced in I799 by a Presbyte-
rian clergyman, the Reverend James Welsh-was restored
to the Presidency. " Doctor Frederick Ridgely was made
Professor of Medicine, and Doctor Walter Warfield was
made Professor of Midwifery, in addition to Doctor
Samuel Brown." Doctor Warfield, a physician of Lex-


 


12    The Medical Department



ington, (lid not long occupy this chair, and appears not
to have lectured in it.
   In I 804, the Reverend James Blythe, D. D., of the
Presbyterian church, who had been President of Ken-
tucky Academy, was made acting President of Transyl-
vania University, which position he held until i8i6. He
was subsequently, in i8I7, under Doctor Holley's admin-
istration, appointed Professor of Chemistry, etc., in the
Medical Department. This position he retained until, in
I831, he accepted the Presidency of Hanover College,
Indiana.
  Doctor Blythe died in i842, aged seventy-seven, hav-
ing devoted his life mainly to religion; having been one
of the pioneers of the Presbyterian church in Kentucky.
He made no distinguished reputation as a chemical pro-
fessor in the Medical School, for chemistry in those days
had few advocates, but he did good service in the Univer-
sity as a teacher of what was called " Natural Philosophy"
in early times.
   The Medical College of Transylvania University seems
not to have attracted many students in this early period
of its history, nor were its means of instruction or its
organization complete.
   In I805, Doctor James Fishback, D. D., was made
Professor of the Theory and Practice of Physic in this


 


Transylvania University



department., He was characterized as an eloquent,
learned, though erratic divine; an able writer; a physi-
cian in good practice; an influential lawyer, and an
upright man. He was the son of Jacob Fishback,2 who
came to Kentucky from Virginia in 1783.
   He resigned this chair in i8o6, having given lectures
to such small medical classes as were present. In i8o8,
he was elected Representative to the General Assembly
of Kentucky. In i813, he published The Philosophy of
the Mind in Respect to Religion, and, in I834, Essays
and Dialogues on the Powers and Susceptibilities of the
Human Mind to Religion. He was also preceptor in
medicine, and for a time partner in the practice, of the
celebrated surgeon, Benjamin W. Dudley. He died at
an advanced age in i854.
   An effort was again made to organize a full Faculty
and establish a medical school in Transylvania Univer-
sity in the year i809, when Doctor Benjamin W. Dudley
was appointed to the chair of Anatomy and Physiology,
Doctor Elisha Warfield to Surgery and Obstetrics, Joseph
Buchanan, A. M., to the Institutes of Medicine, and
Doctor James Overton to Materia Medica and Botany.3
   'Doctor James Fishback resigned as Trustee and qualified as Medical Professor
November 4, 1805. (See Records.)
   'Jacob Fishback was a Trustee of Transylvania in x8oi and up to 1807. (See
Records.)
   3See Records of Transylvania University, i8oq.



1 3


 


14    The Medical Department



But Doctor Warfield resigned in the same year, and
Doctor Buchanan in i8io. The late Lewis Rogers, M. D.,
of Louisville, thus mentioned Doctor Buchanan in his
inaugural address as President of the Kentucky State
Medical Society in i873: "He died in Louisville in i829:
and I call up from the memories of my boyhood with
great distinctness his slender form, massive head, and
thoughtful, intellectual face. He was a man of great
and varied powers of mind. He was a mechanical, medi-
cal, and political philosopher.  His 'spiral' steam-boiler
-the prototype of the exploding and exploded tubular
boiler-and his steam land-carriage were among the
wonders of the day. As a physician his papers attracted
distinguished notice from the medical savants of Phila-
delphia, then the center of