USA > Kentucky > A history of Kentucky and Kentuckians; the leaders and representative men in commerce, industry and modern activities, Volume I > Part 83
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The first botanical garden ever undertaken in this country on a large scale was that started in Lexington, Kentucky, but not completed, by Constantine Samuel Rafinesque who was elected Professor of Botany in the Medical College in 1818.
The medical faculty was reorganized in 1815 and again when Daniel Drake took such an in- terest and aroused public sentiment for the college in 1819. from this latter reorganization, the pupils increased from 20, with a single graduate, to 200 students and 56 graduates. After the medical faculty was reorganized the following were appointed : Benjamin W. Dud- ley, Professor of Anatomy and Surgery; Coleman Rogers, Adjunct Anatomy and Sur- gery; James Overton. Theory and Practice ; William H. Richardson, Obstetrics; Thomas Cooper, Chemistry. Some of these refused to serve and resigned without giving a reason, probably personal jealousy. In 1850 the med- ical faculty intermitted the winter session in Lexington, Kentucky, so as to establish the Kentucky School of Medicine in Louisville. Kentucky, as a winter school, retaining the school in Lexington as a summer school.
The Medical Department of the University of Louisville was organized in 1837. The Louisville Medical College was organized in 1850; The Hospital College of Medicine in 1874; Kentucky University Medical Depart- ment in 1898. Appreciating the necessity for consolidation of medical colleges in Louisville, a number of attempts were made to bring them together, resulting in the consolidation in 1906, of the University of Louisville and the
Kentucky University under the name of the University of Louisville; and the Louisville Medical College and the Hospital College of Medicine under the name of the Louisville and Hospital College of Medicine. In 1907, these two colleges united with the Kentucky School of Medicine, under the name of the University of Louisville, Medical Department.
The profession of Kentucky has long be- lieved in organized medicine, the organization of the Kentucky State Medical Society being affected in the Senate Chamber at Frankfort in October, 1851. Dr. W. L. Sutton was called to the chair and Dr. Joshua B. Flint in- troduced resolutions that a State Medical So- ciety be formed with the leading physicians of the state as members. A constitution and the code of ethics of the American Medical Asso- ciation were adopted. No sessions were held during the Civil War, the first session after the war convening in Louisville in April, 1867. An annual volume of transactions was issued to 1879 and then discontinued, a new series being begun in 1892 which continued until the reorganization of the Society into the State Medical Association, the basis of membership in it being membership in a County Medical Society. From this time the proceedings of the Association have been published in a monthly medical journal edited by the Secre- tary of the Association under the direction of the council.
The chief medical publication of this section was the "American Practitioner" published formerly under the name of "Western Journal of Medicine." The first number was issued in January. 1870, and edited by Drs. David W. Yandell, Professor of Clinical Surgery in the University of Louisville, and Theophilus Par- vin, Professor of the Medical and Surgical Dis- eases of Women in the Medical College of Indiana. and published by John P. Morton & Co. of Louisville. In 1883 Dr. Parvin retired, removing to Philadelphia, and Dr. Yandell ed- ited the journal alone.
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On January 1, 1876, the first issue of a weekly publication appeared, the "Louisville Medical News" edited by Drs. Richard O. Cowling. and William H. Galt. In January, 1878, Dr. Galt retired and was succeeded by Dr. Lunsford P'. Yandell, Jr. In 1886 these two journals consolidated under the name of "The American Practitioner and News," with Drs. David W. Yandell and H. A. Cottell as editors. The latter journal has been edited
DR. EPHRAIM MCDOWELL
since by Drs. H. A. Cottell, Fouche W. Sam- uel and Lee Kahn.
In 1892 the first number of "Mathews' Medical Quarterly" was issued, devoted to Diseases of the Rectum and Gastro-Intestinal Tract. edited by Drs. J. M. Mathews and Henry Enos Tuley. This was discontinued in 1898. Dr. Mathews associating himself with Dr. II. H. Grant and publishing the "Louis- ville Medical Monthly." Drs. Henry Enos Tuley and A. M. Cartledge acquired the "Lou- isville Medical Monthly," and later these two journals were consolidated under the name of "Louisville Monthly Journal of Medicine and Surgery," with Drs. Mathews, Cartledge.
Grant and Tuley composing the editorial staff. Shortly after the death of Dr. Cartledge, Dr. Mathews withdrew his connection with the journal, Dr. Grant continuing as the business editor, and Dr. Tuley as editor.
Of all the noted medical men of Kentucky it is doubtful if any of them "builded so deeply" in the foundation of fame as Dr. Ephraim McDowell, of Danville. Dr. Mc- Dowell, by his originality, skill and courage, opened up a new department in the science of surgery. By his own hand he demonstrated the practicability of the new work his genius had suggested. Recognition is given him throughout the civilized world for suggesting and performing the first ovariotomy. While the rapid progress of scientific surgery has widened the scope of this operation. the credit belongs to Dr. McDowell for first completing the operation.
Dr. McDowell was born November 11, 1771, in Rockbridge county, Virginia. His ances- tors came from the northern part of Ireland. His father removed to Danville, Kentucky, having been appointed in 1782 as a land com- missioner for the new state. The doctor's early education was obtained at Georgetown and Bardstown, Kentucky. Completing his early education he began the study of medicine in the office of Dr. Humphreys in Staunton, Virginia, and in 1793-94 he attended lectures in Edinburgh, Scotland. It is said that one of his instructors. John Bell, a teacher of anat- omy and surgery referred frequently to the possibility of recovery from such an operation as Dr. McDowell afterward carried out. In 1795 Dr. McDowell returned to Danville and at once began the practice of medicine. He did not receive a diploma from the University of Edinburgh, but in 1807 the medical society in Philadelphia conferred upon him a diploma and in 1823 the honorary degree of M. D. was conferred upon him by the University of Mary- land. His fame as a surgeon soon spread throughout the western and southern states
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and he was recognized as the leading surgeon outside of Philadelphia.
In the winter of 1809 Dr. McDowell was called to see a Mrs. Crawford, residing in Green county, Kentucky. She was found to have an ovarian tumor. He entered into the details of the condition and prognosis if it was allowed to run its course. He also explained fully the hazardous nature of the operation for the removal of the tumor. He assured her of his willingness to undertake the operation and his belief that it would be successful.
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OFFICE AND OPERATING ROOM OF DR. MCDOWELL
Mrs. Crawford was a woman of decision and courage and decided to submit to the operation and came to Danville on horseback. Dr. Mc- Dowell was assisted by his nephew. Dr. James McDowell in performing the operation, which was followed by prompt recovery. Mrs. Crawford returned to her home at the end of twenty-five days and lived thirty-two years after the operation, dying in her seventy-ninth year. Seven years afterward Dr. McDowell had operated on two additional cases, the three being the subject of a report which was published in a Philadelphia medical journal. He operated thirteen times, of these eight pa- tients recovered. Considering the locality in which these operations were done without gen- eral or local anesthetic, without hospital fa-
cilities one cannot but admire the courage and skill of the surgeon.
Dr. McDowell was nearly six feet tall, cheerful, full of good humor, kind hearted, affable, dignified and unassuming. He was charitable and public-spirited. He was act- ive in the foundation of Centre College at Danville and one of its original incorporators. He was an Episcopalian, and the site of Trin- ity church, in Danville, was contributed by him.
He was married in 1802 to a daughter of Gov. Isaac Shelby. There were two sons and four daughters, only three of whom survived him. He died on the 20th of June, 1830, after a brief illness. He was buried in the Shelby family burying ground, six miles south of Danville. In 1873 Dr. John Davies Jackson, of Danville, inaugurated an effort to suitably mark his resting place. The matter was brought to the attention of the State Medical Society and Dr. Jackson was made chairman of a committee to endeavor to accomplish the worthy purpose. In 1875 Dr. Jackson died and the accomplishment of the plan of. Dr. Jackson was due to Dr. Lewis S. McMurtry who organized the campaign which ended in the erection of the monument seventy years after Dr. McDowell had performed the opera- tion of ovariotomy. By the subscriptions of the members of the State Medical Society and many surgeons a sum was raised with which a neat granite shaft was erected to the memory of McDowell. His remains and those of his wife were removed from the old family ground and re-interred in Danville, upon a square donated by the citizens of Danville which is called "McDowell Park." The State Medical Society met at Danville April 13 and 14, 1879, and was attended by the Governor of the State, Dr. Stevens of Ohio, Dr. Kim- ball from the "Granite State," Dr. Sayre, and Dr. S. D. Gross, then acknowledged the most eminent surgeon in America, who deliv- ered the memorial oration. During the ses-
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sion Dr. Cowling presented Dr. Gross with Dr. McDowell's door knocker. On the front face of the monument is a medallion of Mc- Dowell and beneath it a tablet with the inscrip- tion :
"A Grateful Profession Reveres His Mem- ory and Treasures His Example."
On the remaining tablets, on the different sides, are further inscriptions as follows :
"Beneath this Shaft Rest the Remains of Ephraim McDowell, M. D., the Father of Ovariotomy. By Originating a Great Surgi- cal Operation He Became a Benefactor of His Race, Known and Honored Throughout the Civilized World."
"Born in Rockbridge County, Virginia, 1771; Attended the University of Edinburgh, 1793; Located at Danville, Ky., 1795; Per- formed the First Ovariotomy, 1809; Died, 1830."
"Erected by the Kentucky State Medical Society, -1879."
Few are aware that a doctor was one of the first explorers who entered Kentucky. Dr. Thomas Walker who was born in Virginia in 1715, was one of the first who emigrated to Kentucky. He was of a restless, roving dis- position and employed most of his time in surveying and outdoor sport. He was mar- ried in 1741, at the age of 26, and his wife bore him sixteen children. He built the first house within the present bounds of Kentucky near the town of Barboursville.
Coleman Rogers was a private pupil of Brown and Caldwell, partner of Dr. McDow- ell and colleague of Drs. Dudley, Richardson and Drake. He was born in Culpeper county, Virginia, on March 6, 1781. He was the sev- enth of twelve children and when six years old moved to Fayette county, Kentucky. At the age of 21 he entered on the study of med- icine at Lexington under Dr. Samuel Brown, the first professor of medicine in Transyl- vania. Dr. Brown was just back from Edin-
burgh. From his office young Rogers went to Philadelphia in 1803 to attend lectures in the University of Pennsylvania, but had to leave before he completed his course because of lack of funds. He returned to Kentucky and located in Danville asociated with Dr. McDowell who had already acquired some reputation as a surgeon. Soon after he opened his office in the adjoining county (Lincoln) which Rogers attended on appointed days of the week. He married Miss Jane Farrar on November 3, 1805. In 1810 he moved to Lex- ington, Kentucky, and in 1816 returned to Philadelphia for the third course of lectures and had the degree of M. D. conferred upor him. When Transylvania faculty was formed he was made Adjunct Professor of Anatomy. Other members of the faculty were Drs. Drake, Dudley, Richardson, Blythe, and Ov- erton. Dr. Rogers retired from the faculty as relations were not entirely cordial and he was especially dissatisfied that Dr. Dudley had Anatomy and Surgery. In 1817 Dr. Rogers moved to Cincinnati. Later with Daniel Drake he formed the Ohio Medical College and was vice-president and Professor of Sur- gery. Later, he dissolved the partnership and left the college. In 1823. Dr. Rogers removed to Louisville and was a surgeon in the Marine Hospital. In 1832 with Professor Powell he formed the Louisville Medical Institute and took the chair of anatomy but no session was held. He died in Louisville on February 16, 1855 in his 75th year.
Benjamin W. Dudley was born in Spottsyl- vania county, Virginia, April 12, 1785. His father, Ambrose Dudley, was a leading Bap- tist preacher. His family moved to Fayette county in 1786. He did not have a college education, but his training was not neglected. He began the study of medicine with Dr. Frederick Ridgely and in 1804 he went to Philadelphia to study medicine at the Univer- sity of Pennsylvania. Here he met John Es- ten Cooke, Daniel Drake, and William H.
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Richardson, with whom he was closely asso- ciated later. He took his M. D. degree in March, 1806, having practiced with Dr. Fish- back in Lexington, during the summer vaca- tion previously. Practicing for four years after his graduation, in 1810 he went to Eu- rope remaining four years in London and Paris. He returned to Lexington and devoted himself assiduously to his practice.
In 1817 the Board of Directors of Transyl- vania University, then the leading college of the West, determined to open a medical de- partment. Dr. Dudley was made Professor of Anatomy and Surgery. After one session difficulties arose and the faculty was disrupted. Dr. Richardson removed to Cincinnati and later in a personal encounter between Dr. Richardson and Dr. Dudley, Dr. Richardson received a bullet wound in the thigh. As a surgeon Dr. Dudley was cool, quick, calm, de- cisive, with a sound judgment and steady hand; as a lecturer his manner was impres- sive and imposing. Ilis operations for stone in the bladder gave him the most renown. IIe operated 225 times with a mortality of 2 per cent, which, when one considers the time and without an anesthetic, seems rather remark- able. He always performed lateral lithotomy and rarely median. Dr. Dudley entertained many views on surgical subjects which hold good nowadays. In 1821 he was married to Miss Anna Short. He delivered his last lec- ture in February, 1850, having retired to a beautiful country place near Lexington in 1848. He died January 20, 1870, in the 85th year of his age.
Robert Peter was born in Cornwall, Eng- land, January 21. 1805. When sixteen years of age he arrived in Pittsburg and was em- ployed as drug clerk. In 1832 he went to Lex- ington. In 1834 he received the degree of M. D. at Transylvania and soon after took the chair of Chemistry and Pharmacy. He was editor of "The Review of Medical Science" and a teacher for fifty years. Dr. Peter stands out as an honorable and conspicuous
figure. Ile devoted his time to chemistry, botany and geology. Prof. Asa Gray of Har- vard named a species in his classic work "in honor of Prof. Robert Peter of Lexington, Ky." He conducted the chemical department of Kentucky Geological Seminary from 1854 to 1861. In 1865 he was professor of chem- istry in the Kentucky University and later in State College. He left to fill the chair of chemistry at Morrison College.
Louis Rogers was born in Lexington, Ken- tucky, on October 22, 1812. He came to Louisville when HI years old. When a boy he witnessed surgical operations and post mortems. In October, 1829, he attended Transylvania and in 1831 received a degree of B. A. at Georgetown, paying particular at- attention to the study of French, In 1831 he began the study of medicine and the next summer studied cholera in the epidemic in Louisville. In 1835 he received the degree of M. D. from the University of Pennsylvania. He was his father's partner. On January 29, 1839, he married Miss Mary Eliza Thruston. He had the chair of Materia Medica and Therapeutics in the Medical Institute in 1849. He succeeded Austin Flint in the University of Louisville in the chair of Theory and Prac- tice and later to Materia Medica and Thera- peutics. He was not physically equal to the strain of teaching and resigned in 1869. He developed a difficulty with his eyes and an operation for cataract was done by Prof. Ag- new in New York. He was a great student, had an uncommon memory, never kept a visit- ing list, was prompt and punctual. His was one of the largest practices in the city. He was a great obstetrician, and ranked with Miller. For 25 years he was a leading consult- ing physician, and often referred to the fact that he had had no professional or personal quarrels. He made three trips to Europe. On March 13, 1875, he took to his home and was never out again. He died on June 17, 1875. in his 63d year.
George Wood Bayless, was born in Mason
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county in 1816. Not satisfied with mercan- tile life he resumed his education and finished at Augusta College. He attended the Medical Institute of Louisville in 1837, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1839. He had an absorbing love for flowers. Upon graduating he began practice in Louisville. He had attracted the attention of Dr. Drake who had succeeded Cooke in the chair of practice, and through his efforts Dr. Bayless was elected to the demonstratorship in the college and later elevated to the chair of Sur- gery. His first essay as lecturer was in a course upon visceral anatomy, given at the sugges- tion of Professor Gross during the prelimin- ary term of his second winter in the school. He was curator of the museum and prosector to the chair of Anatomy, and worked at Pa- thology and Histology. He was familiar with the microscope long before it was com- monly used in this section. With Dr. Drake he went to Cincinnati and occupied the chair of Anatomy for two years in the Medical College of Ohio. His health failing, he pur- chased a farm in Western Missouri and re- tired from teaching to it. In 1857, his health restored he returned to Louisville to educate his children and resumed practice. He was called to the chair of Physiology and Pathol- ogy in the Kentucky School of Medicine and retained it until the disruption of the school at the opening of the war. In 1863 he was elected to the chair of Physiology in the Uni- versity of Louisville, which he occupied for two years. With his youngest child he was re- turning from a search for wild flowers when he was stricken with apoplexy and died a few hours later. Surgery was the field most in accord with his tastes and the training of his professional life was along these lines. In his didactic lectures he shone-he did less well in his clinics. His standard in examina- tion was considered very high.
John James Speed was born October 31. 1816, at the Speed homestead in Bardstown. Vol. I-37.
He graduated at St. Joseph College, and in medicine at Transylvania University in 1838. He first practiced his profession at Crawfords- ville, Indiana, until 1846, when he returned to Bardstown, practicing there until 1850, when he moved to Louisville. He was con- nected with the Hospital College of Medicine for a number of years and also served as Sec- retary of the State Board of Health. He was always a rather delicate man physically, but possessed a keen intellect, an unusually quick perception, and soon had a reputation of a skilled and learned physician. He was an ex- cellent writer and contributed many articles to the medical press. His composition was clear, direct and forcible; he thought clearly and expressed himself in apt and striking lan- guage. He did not believe in giving much medicine. He was appointed postmaster un- der Mr. Lincoln in 1861, retaining as his assistant Mr. E. S. Tuley, the father of Dr. Henry Enos Tuley. He held this office for eight or nine years. In 1855 he had smallpox, from which he recovered but slightly marked. Dr. Speed was by nature social, loving to have his friends and kinsmen about him and was refined in his tastes.
David Wendell Yandell was born on Sep- tember 4, 1826, at Craggy Bluff, near Mur- freesboro, Tennessee. He came of a family that for two generations had been distinguished in medicine. His grandfather was Wilson Yandell, the most noted physician in his lo- cality, and his father was Lunsford Pitts Yan- dell, a professor of Transylvania University and one of the founders of the University of Louisville, Medical Department. A personal reminiscence of his early childhood was, that he had the common pneumatic diathesis of the vigorous male infant and made night hideous by his screams until he was eighteen months old. His family moved to Lexington for a few years when Dr. Yandell was five years of age. then to Louisville where he became a pupil of Noble Butler, the famous educator. He at-
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tended college at Center College, Danville, but returned without a diploma, matriculating in the University of Louisville, Medical Depart- ment, and received his degree in 1846. Soon after graduation he went to Europe for two years spending his time chiefly in London, Dublin and Paris. His letters from abroad published in the "Louisville Journal" and the "Western Medical Journal" show a remark- able knowledge of men, their arts and insti- tutions, and a command of language and a finished style seldom seen in a man of twenty. Returning from Europe Dr. Yandell began the practice of his profession in Louis- ville and became connected with the Uni- versity of Louisville as the demonstrator of anatomy. In 1851 his health failed and he had to retire temporarily from practice to a farm near Nashville where he acquired a wonderful knowledge of nature, he was a great hunter of all game in states from Maine to Georgia and in the wilds of the west. Recovering his health he returned to Louisville, taught pri- vate classes in medicine and established the Stokes Dispensary, thus becoming the founder of clinical teaching in the West. He was soon made Professor of Clinical Medicine in the University, serving but a short time, however, as he enlisted in the Confederate army at the opening of the Civil war. He served under Buckner and Hardee, and later was made med- ical director of the Department of the West. In 1867 he was elected to the chair of Medicine in the University of Louisville and in 1869 was made Professor of Clinical Surgery, a chair which he held up to the time of his death. As a teacher of Clinical Surgery Dr. Yandeil had few equals. He was a splendid operator, his surgical dressings were accurate and beau- tiful, he was a diagnostician, and an excellent physician. In 1870 in conjunction with Dr. Theophilus Parvin, he established the "Amer- ican Practitioner" which at once took a com- manding position in the medical literature of the day. It was merged with the "Medical
News" in 1886. In 1871 Dr. Yandell was elected president of the American Medical Association and presided at the meeting the next year. In 1870, after the death of his father, Dr. Yandell again visited Europe, where he wrote another series of sprightly letters which were published in his own journal of that year. In 1886 he was made a Fellow of the Philadelphia College of Medicine, in 1884 a Corresponding member of the Edinburgh Medico-Chirurgical Society and an Honorary Fellow of the Medical Society of London. In 1887 he was appointed Surgeon General of the troops of Kentucky and in 1889 he was elected President of the American Surgical Associa- tion. His health began to fail about 1892, he seldom went out after night and was less at- tentive to his practice, had less confidence in his operating and wrote but little. Dr. Yan- dell was a severe critic, a good fighter and a fair hater. He loved with a great heart and with a constancy which knew no change. He was devoted to his great master Gross and the epitaph written by Dr. Yandell when the mas- ter died is a wonderful production even to-day. After months of invalidism during which Dr. Yandell was confined to his room he died May 2, 1898.
Henry Chenoweth, at the time of his death the oldest medical practitioner in Jefferson county, died April 15, 1905, having shortly before celebrated his 80th birthday. He died where he had lived for 44 years continuously. He was a physician of the old school, a typ- ical country doctor of the lan Maclaren type and was greatly beloved.
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