USA > Kentucky > The history of Kentucky, from its earliest discovery and settlement, to the present date, V. 2 > Part 37
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DR. BENJAMIN W. DUDLEY.
. Various other devices have since been employed, notably that of Dr. Lewis A. Sayre, of New York, whose method differs from that of Dr. Dudley only in the substitution of court plaster for the handkerchiefs.
In August. 1806, Dr. Walter Brashear, of Bardstown, performed the first amputation at the hip-joint, ever done in the United States, and in a manner different from any other. The subject was a mulatto boy, belonging to the monks at Saint Joseph's College. No publication had at that time ever appeared to indicate an attempt by any other person, and it is not cer- tain the operation through the joint had ever before been successfully done anywhere. Dr. Brashear was a remarkable man. Born in Prince George county, Maryland, February 11, 1776, and having studied medicine with Dr. Frederick Ridgely, and afterward attended lectures at the University of Pennsylvania, under Benjamin Rush, Rhea Barton, and the great sur- geon, Philip Physick, he sailed in 1799, as surgeon to the ship Jane, for China. In one of the Chinese ports, he successfully amputated a woman's breast for malignant disease, greatly to the astonishment and delight of the
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
medical men and the nobility of China. Dr. Brashear left Bardstown and went to Lexington, in 1813, where he remained four years, and in 1832, removed with his family to the parish of Saint Mary, Louisiana.
Exsection of the clavicle was done for the first time in the United States in 1813, by Dr. Charles McCreary, of Hartford, Kentucky. The subject was a lad named Irvin, of Greenville .. He fully recovered, and survived the operation thirty-five years, dying in Muhlenberg county, April, 1849.
On February 4. 1819, Dr. Henrie McMurtrie, of Louisville, published a book of two hundred and fifty-three pages, on miscellaneous subjects, in- cluding a Florula Louisvillensis, of about four hundred genera, and six hundred species of plants growing in the vicinity of the falls. Dr. McMur- trie was a versatile, rather than erudite, author. He announced the danger of persons relying upon the fallacious doctrine of " seasoning " against the endemic fevers, and warned emigrants that a single attack rather predisposed a person to continued attacks, than affording any protection. His strong appeals to the local authorities in various contributions to the daily papers, led to the establishment of the City Hospital, in 1817. The institution was partly a Government, and partly a city enterprise, and was long known as the "Louisville City Marine Hospital."
At Danville, the partner of McDowell, Dr. A. G. Smith, who afterward changed his name to Alban Goldsmith, was the first to introduce the operation of lithotripsy, an operation for crushing a calculus into small fragments, by means of which it could be voided, instead of subjecting the patient to the more hazardous procedure of cutting it out through an external opening. The first operation of this kind ever done in the United States, was done by Dr. Smith, on a gentleman in Lincoln county, Kentucky, in 1829. He had just returned from Europe, where he had witnessed Civiale operate in this way, and was, perhaps, the first imitator of this great genius in surgery.
The truss now in universal use in the treatment of hernia, was the device of a Kentucky gentleman named Stagner, and a Dr. Hood; Stagner having invented the first form of the instrument, and Hood having improved upon the model so as to perfect it.
Operations for the radical cure of strangulated hernia by Dr. Samuel B. Richardson, of Louisville, and Dr. W. L. Sutton, of Georgetown, were among the earlier operations of this kind; while Dr. Bowman, of Harrods- burg, is entitled to the credit of having devised an instrument for injecting strong stimulants and caustic solutions into the tissues around the apertures through which hernial protrusions were wont to occur. These operations by Dr. Bowman attracted great attention at the time, and with various modi- fications are still in favor with the best surgeons.
Dr. Henry Miller, lately, and for nearly forty years, a resident of Louis- ville, from 1830 to 1869, performed many remarkable operations in surgery, and was, perhaps, the first physician to introduce the practice of topical appelt- cations in the treatment of uterine diseases. In the department of diseases
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NOTED PIONEER PHYSICIANS.
of women, Dr. Miller became an acknowledged authority, being the author of a text-book on obstetrics and the diseases of women, which is still in use in nearly all medical colleges in the world. In August, 1849, Dr. Miller dilated the urethra, and introducing a curved pair of polypus forceps, seized and extracted a rough, large calculus weighing two hundred and sixty-four grains, from a female in her fifteenth year. She recovered rapidly, and returned a few days after the operation to her home, entirely restored to health.
Dr. William Gardner, of Woodsonville, was one of the most successful lithotomists, and one of the ablest general practitioners of medicine and surgery that ever graced the State. In a little town of less than five hun- dred inhabitants, this great surgeon, for about forty years continued the quiet, though busy, occupation of his professional work, performing now ' and then, deeds of which Sir Astley Cooper might well have been proud. It was an interesting sight at Louisville during the meeting of the American Medical Association, in 1875, to witness a small coterie of the great masters in medicine and surgery, hovering about the old backwoodsman from Hart county, who sat, clothed like an humble farmer, discussing with Gross, Sayre, Paul F. Eve, William K. Bowling, J. W. S. Gouley, Nathan S. Davis, and J. J. Woodward, the predisposing causes to calculous diseases, and the merits of the gorget, the scalpel, and the bistoury for making the section ; the best position for the incision, the size of the opening, and the after treatment; all these masters, and many more, giving breathless attention to the measured sentences of the humble rustic.
William Gardner, of Woodsonville; John Shackleford, of Maysville; Edward C. Drane, of New Castle; John Swayne, of Ballardsville; Joshua B. Flint, of Louisville, Louis Rogers, Llewellyn Powell, Erasmus D. Foree, Benjamin R. Palmer, Middleton Goldsmith, John D. Jackson, and Lunsford .P. Yandell, the elder, are names which will live in the history of Kentucky medicine-in fact, in the classical history of the healing art-as long as the pioneers in a great profession shall continue to receive the just reward of great discovery and meritorious labors. McDowell. Smith, the Dudleys, Taylor Bradford, Henry Miller, Walter Brashear, John D. Jackson, and Asbury Evans, are names that must stand side by side with those of Samuel D. Gross, Dupeytren, John Hunter, and Sir Astley Cooper, all great masters of surgery, each one contributing important additions to the grandeur of its achievements.
When Transylvania University was at its zenith, Dr. Alban G. Smith (afterward Dr. A. Goldsmith), of Danville, came to Louisville, and, pro- curing a charter from the Legislature in 1833, undertook to organize a medical school, under the title of the Louisville Medical Institute. Failing in this, he went to Cincinnati, and finally to New York.
The Transylvania school, at Lexington, was much disturbed by the con- flicting theories of disease taught by different professors, and in 1837,
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
Professor Charles Caldwell, a man of great scholarly attainments and world- wide reputation, resigned his chair at Transylvania, and proceeded at once to organize the faculty of the Louisville Institute. In September, 1837, the first course of lectures was inaugurated, and in 1838, Professor Caldwell delivered the first clinical lectures on medicine ever delivered in the West, at the Louisville City Hospital. The institute grew so rapidly it soon ex- ceeded in importance all other schools of the West. In 1845, it was reor- ganized under a new charter, in the name of the " Medical Department of the University of Louisville." It was here Drake, Short, T. G. Richardson, Gross, Austin Flint, Sr., Benjamin Silliman, and Henry Miller all won their renown. Gross' " Pathological Anatomy, and Foreign Bodies in the Air Passages," and the principal part of his great work on surgery, were all written at Louisville, where his chief renown in surgery was won, and the grace and power of his eloquence were finished.
In 1850, the Kentucky School of Medicine was established. The school at Lexington having gone down, the Dudleys, Bush, Peter, and Robert J. Breckinridge, drew about them in this new school such men as Joshua B. Flint, John Hardin, Henry M. Bullitt, E. D. Foree, and others not less gifted. Soon the old university at Lexington closed its doors, while the university at Louisville reluctantly followed the same course. Just at the moment when the Kentucky school had conquered all opposition, that brilliant though unfortunate leader, Dr. Middleton Goldsmith, aroused such opposition to his policy in the faculty, by his publications on mili- tary surgery, as to cripple the efficiency of the school. Benson, Powell, Bayless, Bullitt, and Bell, set about forming a new faculty for the univer- sity. In 1865, the Kentucky school having closed its doors, the university, now embracing in its faculty the most active men of the Kentucky school, opened to a large class of students. The combination of the hitherto bel- ligerent elements of the two faculties led to a transfer of the library, museum, and all the college apparatus and paraphernalia of the Kentucky school to the university, and a surrender of its charter, by the trustees, to the Legislature.
The Kentucky school of the present is acting under a revival of the old charter, by an act of the Legislature, approved some twenty years ago.
Kentucky Jurisprudence .- It is believed that a brief historical narrative of the rise and progress of the laws of Kentucky, including the principal acts of legislation, a few of the important judicial decisions, together with the main features of our several State constitutions, may not be unaccepta- ble to the general reader. An attempt will here be made to give an outline sketch of some prominent points in the legal polity of the State, by group- ing it under four periods. The periods selected are the following: First- From the formation of the State government, in 1792, to June 1, 1300, when the second constitution was adopted ; Second-From thence to 1830; Third -From thence to 1860; Fourth-From thence to the present time.
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733
OUR FIRST LEGISLATURES.
First-The Constitution adopted at Danville April 19, 1792, provided that all laws then in force in the State of Virginia, not inconsistent with the Constitution, and of a general nature, and not local to the eastern part of Virginia, should be in force here until altered or repealed by the Legislature. This clause in our first constitution brought to Kentucky the common law of England, and the general statutes of Parliament in aid thereof, prior to the fourth year of the reign of James I., except as modified by the legis- lation of Virginia, just mentioned. A single section of our first constitution thus imported to the State a large body of law, which had been gathered in England and Virginia. The special work of our Legislature and courts was to make such additions and alterations as would adjust this body of law to the condition and wants of the new Commonwealth.
A marked characteristic of the legislation of this first period is the dearth of all laws relating to business corporations, such as banks, insurance, turn- pike and railroad companies, which now engross so much of the time of our Legislatures. A few charters, incorporating academies and libraries in some of the oldest counties and towns in the State, constitute nearly all that is to be found in our early statutes upon the subject of corporations. The act incorporating the Frankfort Bridge Company, and the law of 1798, making a university of Transylvania Seminary, nearly completes the list of corporations as made prior to 1800.
The desire for educational improvement, which in later periods has been so much outstripped by the thirst for gain, was then in the ascendancy in our corporate legislation. The rising trade and commerce of the State was just beginning to make its way over our unimproved dirt roads, and to creep slowly down our rivers filled with obstacles to navigation. until it reached a market at New Orleans, the natural receptacle for the produce carried upon our waterway.
Among the important general laws of the first period, we may reckon first the meagre revenue law of 1792-3, providing for the frugal wants of the State government. Its subjects for taxation are indicative of the por- erty of that day. No specific taxation upon banks, dealers in exchange. or merchants of spirituous liquors is found upon its lists. No gold or silver plate, no stocks in banks or other corporations, crowd the narrow columns of the assessor's book. The items of chariots, coaches, and carriages to be found in the schedule embrace articles owned by a few wealthy settlers from Virginia, who were then to be occasionally seen traveling over the State in search of land.
Second-The famous wolf-scalp law makes its first appearance in 1795. Its frequent reappearance since has made it almost a settled part of the polity of the State.
Third-The act of 1798, in reference to the authentication of records, deeds, and policies of insurance, shows that the commercial intercourse of Kentucky with other parts of the Union had already become so consider-
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
able as to make it necessary to have some mode of giving credit to foreign instruments of business.
Fourth-The act altering the form of execution so that it could be levied upon real estate, as well as personalty, is much in advance of some of our sister States.
Fifth-An act for the better regulation of towns gives an inside view of the primitive customs and practices of the period. It affixes a penalty for the offense of racing horses in a town, or shooting at a mark on a street. It vests the trustees with power to make proper regulations respecting the public spring, and subjects any persons violating such regulations to suit- able punishment. It is evident that the old town spring was an object of much solicitude. In fact, this spring often determined the location of our first county towns.
Sixth-The benevolent spirit of our early Legislature is shown in an act of this period to aid poor persons in their lawsuits. This statute enjoined the officers of the State to issue and serve process for such persons, free of all costs to the litigants. Another law pervaded by a like spirit furnished a cheap court of arbitration for suitors desiring to save expense and delay in the trial of their cases.
Seventh-The prosperity of the Commonwealth was greatly checked, its improvement and settlement retarded, its citizens occasionally alarmed, and often ruined in their fortunes by reason of the interference of conflict- ing claims founded on the conflicting land laws of Virginia. Claims dor- mant, and unknown to the neighborhood of the disputed tract of land, were often bought up, not only to alarm, but eventually to cast out on the world, numerous industrious families in all parts of the State. Late and inferior claims to land were held up and concealed until the witnesses to establish the superior title were dead, or had removed to remote places, or the prop- erty had fallen into the hands of persons ignorant of the sources of proof respecting it.
To afford some alleviation of an evil so great, our early courts, acting on the general principles of equity, adjudged compensation for improvements to innocent occupants when evicted from their farms. To foster this equi- table principle, and render the mode of recovering compensation more safe and expeditious, the Legislature of 1797 passed what is usually known as the occupying-claimant law. This act secured to the improver the cost and value of seating and improving his farm, as against the rightful owner of the same. The act was upheld by our appellate court with a strong hand, and became exceedingly dear to the people as the palladium of their homes.
Eighth-The legislation of 1798 is extremely rich in valuable laws. Acts upon the subjects of gaming, interest and usury, master and servant, and many other topics, characterize this period.
Ninth-Perhaps the most remarkable statute passed by the Legislature of '98 is that making amelioration in the penal laws of the State. The severe
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THE EARLY COURTS.
punishment of death, which the law prior to this date awarded to so many minor felonies, was now abandoned. Experience had demonstrated that the previous cruel and sanguinary laws of the Commonwealth defeated their own purposes, by engaging the benevolence of men to withhold prosecu- tions, smother testimony, or listen to it with bias. Acting upon these ideas, the law of '98 to amend the penal laws was passed. The penitentiary was substitued for the gallows in many instances. The crimes for which capital punishment was inflicted were reduced to few in number. The law is a striking proof of the spirit of humanity which prevailed among those who laid the foundations of our Commonwealth. Its beneficial workings are acknowledged in subsequent messages of Governor Greenup.
Tenth-The courts of justice for the period consisted of the Justices' Court, the County Court, the Court of Quarter Sessions, the District Court, the General Court, and the Appellate Court. Some of the justices were also judges of the Court of Quarter Sessions, which had an extensive juris- diction in cases of law and equity. Appeals could be taken from the single justice to the quarter-sessions court, thence to the county court. The law establishing district courts divided the State into six districts, and gave these courts both common law and chancery jurisdiction in most causes of action within their districts. These courts superseded the Oyer and Terminer, and in addition to civil matters they had a general criminal jurisdiction. Appeals lay in civil cases from the judgments both of the district and those of the quarter-sessions courts. The pleadings and proceedings in all these courts were marked by a spirit of simplicity. The early legislation of the State in this respect shows a strong dislike to many of the evils which abound in the old common-law system of pleading and practice. The desire, as manifested by the law, was to try cases upon their substantial merits, irrespective of errors of form. Some of the earliest legislation was directed to efforts to correct the delays incident to pleadings in real actions. The declaration and subsequent pleadings in the old writ of right were thoroughly reformed, and the issues simplified.
Eleventh-The punishments for misdemeanors were principally the pil- lory, whipping-post, ducking-stool, and stocks. The sheriff's fee for ducking or putting any person into the stocks was forty-one and one-half cents each.
Twelfth-The foundation of our first statutes upon the subject of wills, descents, frauds, bills of exchange, attachments, executors, and administra- tors, were made a part of the legal polity of this early period.
No laws upon the subject of exemptions from execution, or homestead acts, or valuation laws, had yet found their way into our legislation. A short replevin law of three months is all that is to be found in the period under review. Imprisonment for debt had not yet been abolished. No judicial decision of the period is recalled as being of special importance. The case of Kenton versus McConnell, decided in 1794, is perhaps the most noted, as the decision led to an attempt on the part of the Legislature to
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
address Judges Muter and Sebastian out of office, on account of their rulings in that case. Such is an imperfect outline of the laws in the first period of our sketch.
The Second Period of our sketch begins with the adoption of the second constitution of the State, and ends in 1830. During this portion of the State's history much was done to perfect the jurisprudence of the Common- wealth. All the particulars can not be given in this summary, but some of the most important may be grouped under the following general heads :
First-The first judiciary system was found to be inconvenient and ex- pensive. The old district and general courts were abolished in 1802, and circuit courts established.
Second-The increasing commerce of the State, the great scarcity of money, and extravagant ideas on the part of some of our politicians, as to the benefits to be derived by the public from the establishment of banks, led to the creation of two banking institutions as early as 1806. The first of these, chartered in 1802. made its way through the Legislature under the guise of an insurance company. The second, the Bank of Kentucky, with a capital of one million dollars, afterward became a controlling monetary power, and exerted much influence upon the politics of the Commonwealth.
Third-A statute passed in 1808 exhibited some of the growing ill-feeling toward England which afterward culminated in the war of 1812. This act prohibited the reading of all reports and books containing reports of ad- judged cases in the kingdom of Great Britain, rendered since the 4th of July, 1776. These books were not to be read nor considered as authority in any of our courts. The effect of the law, if it had been enforced, was to deprive Kentucky of the benefit of all the lights contained in the post- revolutionary decisions of England. The law was more injurious to Ken- tucky than to England. The act was at first strictly enforced, but soon fell into disuse.
Fourth-Another innovation in the law was the divorce act of Iso9. While this act was liberal to the wife, in some of the causes for divorce on her part, in the matter of cruelty it only entitled her to obtain a separation for such mistreatment as endangered her life. The long train of divorces which have been granted by our courts since took their rise in this statute. Its provisions have been much enlarged with the growth of the State.
Fifth-An important change in the forms and pleadings for administering justice between party and party was made by a statute of 1811. familiarly known as " Bob Johnson's law." This act provided that the plaintiff should state in substance, in his declaration, what he claimed of the defendant . and the defendant should state in substance what he intended to rely on as in defense. Neither party was bound to any particular formality in pleading. If their cases were stated so plainly that a fair trial could be had on the merits of the cause, no demurrer was to be sustained to any part of the pleadings of either side, provided the statements contained in the pleading.
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LAWS OF THE SECOND PERIOD.
substantially apprised the adverse party of the points intended to be relied on and amounted to a substantial cause of action or defense. This law is a remarkable production for its day, and its bold author was Colonel Robert Johnson, the father of the noted brothers, Richard M., John T., and James Johnson. This statute really contains the substance of all the modern re- forms introduced by the later codes of practice adopted in the different States of the Union.
Sixth-The Commonwealth has repeatedly sustained great and irrepara- ble injury in the loss of some of her best and most valuable citizens by the inhuman practice of duelling. The destruction of the peace, happiness, and domestic felicity of many families, by this deadly practice, led to the enactment of an anti-duelling law in 1811. The act required every officer in the State, from constable up to governor, including lawyers and members of the Legislature, to swear solemnly that they would never give or accept a challenge. The statute denounces duelling as contrary to the principles of morality, religion, and civil obligation. It is characterized as a practice which, originating in a barbarous age, has been fostered by a savage policy, and only perpetuated in this enlightened era by mistaken ideas of honor.
Seventh-Another innovation in our law was the act of 1813, forbid- ding the carrying of concealed deadly weapons. The law met with much opposition at the time of its introduction here, and was at first held to be unconstitutional, but this ruling was subsequently set aside.
Eighth-The office of associate circuit judge was abolished in 1815. The working of the circuit court was thereby greatly improved, the tone of its decisions was strengthened, and the respect and confidence of the commun- ity enlisted in its favor.
Ninth-The era of banks had now arrived. The State was flooded with independent organizations of the kind, mostly chartered in 1817. These acts of incorporation had scarcely come from the molding hands of the Leg- islature when they were suddenly repealed.
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