USA > Ohio > Hamilton County > Cincinnati > Cincinnati, the Queen City, 1788-1912, Volume II > Part 28
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The most distinguished physician of Cincinnati in the early years of the nineteenth century was Dr. Wm. Goforth. Dr. Drake says of him: "Dr. Wil-
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liam Goforth, of whom I knew more than of all whom I have mentioned, was born in the city of New York, in 1766. His preparatory education was good. His private preceptor was Dr. Joseph Young, a physician of some eminence, who, in the year 1800, published a small volume on the universal diffusion of electricity, and its agency in astronomy, physiology, and therapeutics. Goforth also enjoyed the more substantial teachings of that distinguished anatomist and surgeon, Dr. Charles McKnight, then a public lecturer in New York. In 1778 he accompanied his brother-in-law, General John S. Gano, to the west. On the tenth of June 1788, they landed at Maysville, Ky., then called Limestone. Settling in Washington, then the second town in population in Kentucky, he acquired great popularity, and had the chief practice of the county for eleven years. In 1799, he came to Columbia township, where his father, Judge Goforth, one of the most distinguished pioneers of Ohio, resided. In the spring of 1800, Dr. Goforth removed to Cincinnati and occupied the "Peach Grove" house, at that time vacated by Dr. Allison's removal to the country. He immediately acquired an extensive practice. Dr. Drake says he had the most winning man- ners of any man he ever knew, and the most of them. He dressed with great precision, and never left his home in the morning until his hair was powdered, and his gold-headed cane was grasped by his gloved hand. He took a warm in- terest in the politics of the Northwest Territory. His devotion to Masonry was such that he always embellished his signature with some of its emblems. To Dr. Goforth the people were indebted for the introduction of the cowpox at an earlier time than elsewhere in the west. Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse, of Boston, had received the infection from England in the year 1800, and early in 1801 Dr. Goforth received it and commenced vaccination in this place. Dr. Drake was one of his first patients. In 1803, Dr. Goforth, at great expense, dug up, at Big Bone Springs, Kentucky, and brought to this place, the most diversified and remarkable mass of huge fossil bones that were ever disinterred at one time or place in the United States; the whole of which he intrusted to a swindling Eng- lishman, Thomas Ashe, alias D'Arville, who sold them in Europe and kept the proceeds. Dr. Goforth was the patron of all who were engaged in searching for the precious metals in the surrounding wilderness. They brought their specimens to him, and usually lived at his expense while he had the analysis made. The clarification of ginseng, and its shipment to China was a popular scheme in which the doctor eagerly participated.
The French Revolution of 1789 had exiled many educated and accomplished men and women. The doctor's sympathies were with the Revolutionists, some of whom came to the west. The doctor's association with one of these so raised his admiration for the French that he began preparations for migration to the south. President Jefferson had purchased Louisiana from Bonaparte. Early in 1807, he departed in a flatboat for the lower Mississippi. He was appointed a parish judge, and subsequently elected by the Creoles of Attakapas to represent them in forming the first constitution of the state of Louisiana. Soon after he removed to New Orleans. During the invasion of that city by the British he acted as surgeon to a regiment of Louisiana volunteers. By this time his taste for French manners had been satisfied, and he determined to return to this city. On the first of May, 1816, he left with his family on a keelboat, and on the
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twenty-eighth of December, after a voyage of eight months, reached this city. He immediately reacquired practice; but in the following spring he died from hepatitis, contracted by his summer sojourn on the river.
In the medical history of the west one gigantic figure towers above all others. For nearly half a century Daniel Drake was the dominant factor in educational development of every kind, medical, scientific, and literary.
Daniel Drake, second child of Isaac and Elizabeth Shotwell Drake-the first child, a daughter, having died in infancy-was born on a farm near the town of Plainville, New Jersey, October 20, 1788. Isaac Drake and Elizabeth Shotwell were married in 1783, and began housekeeping on the farm of Nathaniel Drake. Dr. Drake's grandparents were Nathaniel and Dorothy Retan Drake. Nathaniel Drake owned a grist mill on a branch of the Raritan river. Dr. Drake said of this: "I was the first-born son, which, in some countries would have made me a miller."
Isaac Drake had two brothers, Cornelius and Abraham.
Five families emigrated to Maysville, Kentucky: Isaac, Cornelius and Abra- ham Drake, and David Morris and John Shotwell, reaching that place on the 16th of June, 1788. Daniel Drake had a sister, Elizabeth, two and a half years younger than himself, and a brother, Benjamin, born in Mason county, Ken- tucky, in 1795. Daniel Drake's childhood was spent in a log-cabin. He received his first schooling from itinerant schoolmasters, who would establish themselves in conveniently located cabins and teach the children of the settlers the ele- ments of reading, writing and arithmetic. At the age of seven Daniel was a fair reader. The next four years were spent in labor on his father's farm. Drake's early years were spent in close communion with nature. "What to an ordinary observer was barren and unattractive, was to him a source of infinite interest and delight. The impressions thus made on the boy's mind during the formative period of life, were the elements out of which the mind of the future man was constructed. Drake became an eminent naturalist and great physician because of that fact." At about eleven years of age he was able to resume his studies under the guidance of an instructor who came from Maryland, and opened a school in the Mayslick district. Cornelius Drake, a brother of Daniel Drake's father, had settled near the place where the Drakes lived. He was a prosperous man, and in 1796 sent his son, John, a young man probably six years older than Daniel, to Dr. Wm. Goforth, who was practicing medicine in Wash- ington, Kentucky. John Drake remained three years with Dr. Goforth, and then continued his studies at the University of Pennsylvania. John Drake spent his vacations on his father's place. Daniel became greatly interested in his cousin John's books. He devoted every spare moment to study. His father favored the idea of Daniel becoming a doctor. It was intended that John Drake should locate in Maysville, and that Daniel should study under him. John Drake died about the time of his graduation. His death was directly instrumental in bringing Daniel to Cincinnati. Had John Drake lived, Daniel would have be- come a country doctor.
Dr. Goforth, who was probably the first teacher of medicine in the West, having for his first pupil John Drake, in 1796, removed to Columbia in 1799, and to Cincinnati in 1800. Isaac Drake made the acquaintance of Dr. Goforth
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in 1788, during their long voyage down the Ohio river. He greatly admired the doctor's knowledge, and believed he was a great physician. Half in earnest, he told Dr. Goforth that Daniel, then three years old, should some day be a doctor, and Dr. Goforth should be his teacher. When the time arrived Isaac Drake went to Cincinnati, and arranged with the doctor the terms of apprenticeship for Daniel. On the 16th of December, 1800, accompanied by his father and a neighbor, Daniel set out on horseback for Cincinnati. Two days later they reached the town. The arrangement which Isaac Drake made with Dr. Goforth was that Daniel should live in the doctor's family, and that he should remain with him four years, at the end of which he was to be made a doctor. It was also agreed that he should be sent to school two quarters, that he might learn the Latin language. For his board and services the doctor was to receive $400, a goodly sum for that time. On the 20th of December, 1800, he began his studies. His first duties were to read Quincy's Dispensatory, and grind quicksilver into mercurial ointment. Dr. Drake says: "It was my function during the first three years of my pupilage, to put up and distribute medicines over the village. In doing this I was brought even as far west as where Sixth and Vine streets now is." He further says: "But few of you have seen the genuine old 'doctor's shop,' or regaled your olfactory nerves in the mingled odors, which like incense to the god of physic, rose from brown paper bundles, bottles stopped with worm- eaten corks, and jars of ointment; not a whit behind those of the apothecary in the days of Solomon. Yet such a place is very well for a student; however idle, he will always be absorbing a little medicine, especially if he sleep behind the greasy counter."
Through Dr. John Stites, Jr., a young physician, who came from New York, and in 1802 became Dr. Goforth's partner, Drake became acquainted with the writings of Benjamin Rush, whom Dr. Goforth heartily despised. Drake studied the forbidden books, and indirectly won Dr. Goforth over to the new teachings of Rush. Dr. Stites stayed in Cincinnati less than a year, going to Kentucky, where he practiced until his death, five years later, at the early age of twenty- seven years. Dr. Goforth thought so much of his talented pupil that in 1804, when Drake was hardly nineteen years old, he made him a full partner. On the first of August, 1805, Dr. Goforth presented Drake with an autograph diploma, signing it as "Surgeon-General of the First Division of the Ohio Militia." This was the first diploma conferred on a Cincinnati student, and the first issued west of the Alleghanies to any student of medicine. Equipped with this diploma and lots of enthusiasm, but very little money, Drake started for Philadelphia, arriv- ing there November 9, 1805. After five months (April, 1806) he returned to Cincinnati. Dr. Goforth was then contemplating removal to New Orleans. Drake did not wish to practice in Cincinnati without him, and went to his old home in Mayslick, Kentucky. In April, 1807, Dr. Goforth wrote to him to come to Cincinnati and take his office during his absence. Drake came immediately, and was immediately successful. On the 20th of December, 1807, Dr. Drake was married to Miss Harriet Sisson, a niece of Colonel Jared Mansfield, sur- veyor-general of the Northwestern Territory.
Dr. and Mrs. Drake began housekeeping in the fall of 1807, in a two-story frame house on the east side of Sycamore street, between Third and Fourth
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streets. Dr. Drake was a student of nature as well as of medicine. In 1810, he published his "Notices of Cincinnati, its Topography, Climate and Diseases." In 1815, he brought out his "Picture of Cincinnati." The full title of this work was : "Natural and Statistical View of Cincinnati and the Miami country, illustrated with maps. With an appendix containing observations on the late earthquakes, the Aurora Borealis, and Southwest Wind." It was the first book written by a Cincinnatian. It is a duodecimo volume of 250 pages.
In 1813 Drake became the owner of a drug store on Main street between Second and Third streets, which he conducted with the assistance of his brother Benjamin. It soon became a general store, where hardware and groceries were sold. In this store Drake, after his return from Philadelphia, fitted up the first soda fountain in Cincinnati.
In 1815 the Lancaster Seminary was founded, and Drake became one of its trustees. Drake devoted much time to this institution. In a few years (1819) it became the Cincinnati College.
In fulfillment of a long cherished desire, Dr. and Mrs. Drake set out for Philadelphia in October, 1815. There he entered the Medical Department of the University of Pennsylvania. In the spring of 1816, he received his diploma. and returning to Cincinnati, resumed practice in May, 1816.
In addition to his scientific and literary activities, Dr. Drake was interested in civic advancement.of every kind. In his "Picture of Cincinnati" he suggested and outlined the canal system of the Middle West. He traced routes from Lake Erie to the Allegheny river; between the Maumee and Great Miami; between the Chicago and Illinois rivers; between the Wisconsin and Fox rivers; between the Cuyahoga and Muskingum rivers; from the Great Miami to Cincinnati; from Maumee bay to Cincinnati. Many of these were projected by 1825. Drake in 1835, earnestly advocating the building of a railroad between Cincinnati and Charlestown, S. C. Early in 1817, Dr. Benjamin W. Dudley, who had estab- lished a medical school in connection with Transylvania University, in Lexington, Kentucky, invited Dr. Drake to take the chair of Materia Medica. The offer was accepted, and in the fall of 1817 he moved to Lexington. Thus he became one of the five members of the first faculty of the first medical school in the West. That he had contemplated teaching medicine is shown in an advertisement that ap- peared in the Western Spy, July 9, 1817, three months before he moved to Lexing- ton. The card states that, "Drs. Drake and Rogers having connected themselves in the practice of their profession have made arrangements for the accommoda- tion and instruction of medical students." After Drake's return a systematic course of instruction was planned by Drake and Rogers. They interested Elijah Slack, president of the Lancaster school, and on May 27, 1818, they announced in the public prints the full curriculum. The first lecture was delivered on the Ioth of November, 1818, and the session closed on the 10th of March, 1819.
Dr. Drake was one of the founders of the Western Museum, established in June, 1818. Regular meetings were commenced in July, 1819. In 1820 Dr Drake delivered an address at the opening meeting.
Dr. Drake devoted the greater part of the year 1818 to paving the way for the establishment of the Medical College of Ohio. The people of Cincinnati were favorable to the project, but the physicians of the town were indifferent
Copyright from Otto Juettner's Daniel Drake and His Followers.
DANIEL DRAKE'S RESIDENCE, 1850 Now the site of 124 West Fourth Street
Copyright from Otto Juettner's Daniel Drake and His Followers.
DR. WILLIAM GOFORTH (Drake's Teacher)
Copyright from Otto Juettner's Daniel Drake and His Followers. DR. DANIEL DRAKE
Copyright from Otto Juettner's Daniel Drake a His Followers
HOTEL FOR INVALIDS, FRANKI AND BROADWAY, 1857
yright from Otto Juettner's Daniel Drake and His Followers.
COMMERCIAL HOSPITAL, 1832
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or hostile to the movement. They were jealous of Drake, or feared increased competition from the doctors whom the institution would turn out. Drake per- sisted in his efforts undismayed, and made a personal appeal to the legislature. On January 19, 1819, the legislature passed an Act (Ohio Laws, Vol. 17, p. 37) establishing the Medical College of Ohiv. Under the terms of this Act Dr. Drake was elected president, Dr. Coleman Rogers, vice president, and Elijah Slack, registrar and treasurer. The first regular course was to begin in the fall of 1819, but dissensions in the faculty caused a postponement for a year. The opening of the first session, November 1, 1820, saw a class of twenty-four stu- dents assembled. On Wednesday, April 4, 1821, a class of seven were grad- uated. Dr. Drake delivered the valedictory address. The commencement over, strife broke out afresh in the faculty, which at that time consisted of three mem- bers. At the close of the second session, March 6, 1822, Dr. Drake was ex- pelled by the votes of his two confreres. Popular indignation demanded his reinstatement, but Dr. Drake promptly handed in his resignation. In 1823 he was again offered the chair of Materia Medica in Transylvania University, and in the fall again went to Lexington. He lectured there during the following three years. In October, 1825, Dr. Drake lost his wife. From this affliction Dr. Drake never recovered. Ever afterwards he observed the anniversary of her death by solitude, fasting and meditation. She was buried in the old Presbyterian cemetery in Cincinnati (now Washington Park), and later in Spring Grove. Dr. Drake was dean of the medical faculty of Transylvania in 1825-6. In the spring of 1826, Drake returned to Cincinnati. Immediately after his return he had a severe attack of meningitis. He had hardly recovered from this when he again began working and making plans. In 1827 he opened on Third street be- tween Main and Walnut, the Cincinnati Eye Infirmary, in connection with Dr. Jedediah Cobb. Dr. Drake engaged in active practice for the next three years,
taking part during this time in nearly every thing of public interest, and watch- ing closely the trend of affairs in the Medical College of Ohio. In 1830, he was offered a chair in Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia. This he accepted, and made for himself a splendid record. Before he went to Philadelphia he had decided to establish a new medical college in Cincinnati. He had discussed the plan with some of the trustees of Miami University, at Oxford, Ohio. This was to be known as the Medical Department of Miami University.4
The cholera of 1832 kept him very busy professionally. For relief he began to cultivate society in the better sense of the word. At that time he lived, with two daughters growing into womanhood, at the corner of Vine and Baker streets. Here he dispensed hospitality from a large buckeye bowl, filled with innocent beverages and decorated with buckeye blossoms and branches. Dr. Drake loved the buckeye, the emblem of the state.
In 1833 the College of Teachers was founded, and existed for ten years. It was an aggregation of the brightest and most progressive men in Cincinnati at that time. Drake's contributions to the transactions were frequent and valu- able. He advocated compulsory education, the teaching of anatomy and physi- ology in the common schools.
4 See History of Medical College of Ohio. Vol. 11-15
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In 1835 Drake was again asked to take a chair in the Medical College of Ohio. His demands were not acceded to. His answer to this was the securing of a charter for the Medical Department of the Cincinnati College. (Referred to under Medical Colleges.) After the collapse of this school (1839), Drake accepted an appointment as Professor of Materia Medica and Pathology in the Louisville Medical Institute. Later he was made Professor of Theory and Practice. He moved to Louisville in 1840, and remained there for nearly ten years. In the latter part of 1849, when the Medical College of Ohio was again passing through one of its critical periods Drake was asked to return. At the opening of the session, November 5, 1849, Drake delivered the opening address before the class. It was a resumé of a life-long struggle for the idol of his heart. At the end of the session he resigned. He was weary of the endless wrangling. He went back to Louisville, where he was received with open arms. In 1852 he was again importuned to return to the Medical College of Ohio, which was again threatened with dissolution. He began his college work, but took sick on October 26, 1852, with pneumonia. He died November 6, 1852.
Drake in his "Discourses" tells us that in 1818 he issued proposals for a jour- nal, and obtained between two and three hundred subscribers, but other duties interfered (The College Hospital and Insane Asylum) with his entering on its publication. "In March, 1822, Dr. John D. Godman, who had been professor of surgery in the Medical College, but had resigned, issued the first number of the Western Quarterly Reporter, of which Mr. John P. Foote, then a book-seller and cultivator of science, was at his own risk, the publisher. Dr. Godman, at the end of a year, returned to the east, and with the sixth number, the work was discontinued. In the spring of 1826, Drs. Guy W. Wright and James M. Mason, Western graduates, commenced a semi-monthly, under the title of the Ohio Medi- cal Repository. At the end of the first volume, Dr. Drake became connected with it in place of Dr. Mason. The title was changed to Western Medical and Physical Journal and it was published monthly.
"At the end of the first volume it came into my exclusive proprietary and editorial charge, under the title of the Western Journal of the Medical and Physi- cal Sciences, with the motto, 'E. Sylvis Nuncius.' My first editorial associate was Dr. James C. Finley, the next Dr. Wm. Wood, then Drs. Gross an 1 Harrison. After the dissolution of medical department of the Cincinnati College in 1839, it was transferred to Louisville on my appointment there, and its subscription list was united with that of the Louisville Journal of Medicine and Surgery, be- gun by Profs. Miller and Yandell, and Dr. T. H. Bell, but suspended after the second number. The title was then modified, and it was again made a monthly. In 1849 my connection with it was dissolved." In the autumn of 1832 the faculty of the Medical College of Ohio projected a semi-monthly under the title of the Western Medical Gazette. It was edited by Professors John Eberle, Thomas D. Mitchell, and Alban G. Smith. At the end of nine months it was suspended. Five months afterwards Dr. Silas Reed revived it as a monthly, and Dr. Samuel D. Gross, then demonstrator of anatomy in the Medical College of Ohio, was added to the editorial corps.
It was continued to the completion of the second volume, when in April, 1835, the editors withdrew, and Dr. Reed united it with the Western Journal. In the following autumn, September, 1835, Dr. James M. Mason commenced
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a new publication, to which he gave the name, Ohio Medical Repository, the same with that of which he was one of the editors and publishers in 1826. Like that also it was issued semi-monthly. It did not continue through the first year. In the year 1842 Dr. Leonidas M. Lawson founded the Western Lancet, which continued under his charge for thirteen years. In 1855, he sold it to Dr. Thomas Wood. It was continued until 1858, when it was combined with the Medical Observer, a monthly, which had been established in 1856 by Drs. Geo. Menden- hall, John A. Murphy and E. B. Stevens.
The name of the combined journal was the Lancet and Observer. In 1873 it was purchased by Dr. J. C. Culbertson. In 1844, Dr. Lawson began the pub- lication of a monthly journal called the Journal of Health. It was intended for the people, and contained much information along hygienic and dietetic lines. It was suspended after two years.
The American Psychological Journal was begun by Dr. Edward Mead, pro- fessor of obstetrics in the Cincinnati College of Medicine and Surgery in the session of 1851-2. The following session, 1852-3, he lectured on Mental Diseases and Medical Jurisprudence. After five numbers the journal suspended.
Dr. A. H. Baker, founder of the Cincinnati College of Medicine and Surgery (1851), began in 1858 the publication of a monthly journal in the interest of his school. It was called the Cincinnati Medical News. After the second year it was called the Cincinnati Medical and Surgical News. It was suspended in 1863. The Alumni Association of the same institution started the Cincinnati Medical Journal, in 1885, and published it as a monthly for two years. Dr. C. A. L. Reed was the editor. Drs. R. C. S. Reed and C. A. L. Reed had previously pub- lished the Sanitary News in Hamilton, Ohio. In 1882 and 1883 they issued it from the college building as the Clinical Brief and Sanitary News. It appeared every month. Drs. William Judkins and George B. Orr were associate editors.
The Cincinnati Journal of Medicine was begun by Drs. George C. Blackman and Theophilus Parvin, of the Medical College of Ohio, as a monthly, in 1866. It became the Western Journal of Medicine after Parvin removed to Indianapolis, in 1870, and was published in the latter city. It was absorbed by the Lancet and Observer in 1875.
The Cincinnati Medical Repertory was founded by Dr. J. A. Thacker in 1868. In 1872 its name was changed to the Medical News. It was suspended in 1890.
The Cincinnati Medical and Dental Journal, was established by Drs. A. B. Thrasher and F. W. Sage. as a monthly, in 1885. After three years the dental feature was dropped and the name changed to Cincinnati Medical Journal. It was discontinued in 1896.
The Obstetric Gasette was founded by Dr. E. B. Stevens in 1878. In 1885 Dr. J. C. Culbertson became the editor. In 1890 it was discontinued.
In 1871 the faculty of the Medical College of Ohio began the publication of The Clinic. It was a weekly, the first published in the west. Dr. J. T. Whit- taker was the editor. Later Dr. J. G. Hyndman acted in that capacity. The faculty were collaborators, and the success of the journal was decided from the beginning. In 1878 it was purchased by Dr. J. C. Culbertson, who united it with the Lancet and Observer under the title of Lancet and Clinic. In 1886 the title was changed to Lancet-Clinic. In 1891, Dr. Culbertson removed to Chicago, to take charge of the journal of the American Medical Association.
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