History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 81

Author: Ford, Henry A., comp; Ford, Kate B., joint comp
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Cleveland, O., L.A. Williams & co.
Number of Pages: 666

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In 1817 Dr. Drake's practice amounted nominally to seven thousand dollars a year. The place then had about ten thousand inhabitants, with fifteen to twenty physicians; and his practice, which would now be thought light by a leading practitioner, was considered a very good one.

THE LATER PHYSICIANS.

The following-named are all the doctors of medicine noted in the directory of 1819 as then belonging to Cin- cinnati: Daniel Drake, John Sellman, John Cranmer, Coleman Rogers, Daniel Dyer, William Barnes, Oliver B. Baldwin, Thomas Morehead, Daniel Slayback, John A. Hallam, Josiah Whitman, Samuel Ramsay, Edward Y. Kemper, John Douglass, Ithiel Smead, John Woolley, Trueman Bishop, Ebenezer H. Pierson, Jonathan Easton, Charles V. Barbour, Vincent C. Marshall.

To these were added, by the directory of 1825, William Barnes, John E. Bush, Jedediah Cobb, Addison and George W. Dashiell, Oliver Fairchild, Isaac Hugh, Lo- renzo Lawrence, James M. Ludlum, Samuel Nixon,

George T. Ratire (M. D. and dentist), Abel Slayback, Jesse Smith, Edward H. Stall, Guy W. Wright, Daniel P. Robbins, Michael Wolf.

The same act of general assembly of 1826, which is cited in the next chapter as imposing a tax upon attor- neys, also taxed to the same amount per capita the phy- sicians and surgeons of that day; and the docket entry of the Hamilton court of common pleas accordingly supplies the following list as exhaustive of the medical profession in the county in February, 1827:

Samuel Ramsey,

E. H. Pierson,

Jesse Smith, V. C. Marshall,

Guy W. Wright, John Woolley,

Lorenzo Lawrence,

J. W. Hagerman,

Jedediah Cobb, Josiah Whitman,

Beverly Smith, Isaac Hough,

C. W. Barbour, John Cranmer,

John Morehead, John Sellman,

James W. Mason, Abel Slayback,

F. C. Oberdorf,

J. M. Ludlum,

E. Y. Kemper,

C. Munroe,

Edward H. Stall,

J. E. Smith,

Daniel Drake, William Barnes.

In December, 1844, it was believed by Mr. Cist, who copied this record into his Miscellany, that Drs. More- head, Drake, Oberdorf, and Ludlum were all of the roll of 1827 who then survived. Dr. Cobb, however, had re- moved from the city, and is not mentioned as living or dead. Mr. Cist pertinently inquires: "What is to account for the greater mortality among the medical than in the legal class?"

The physicians of 1831, members of the Medical Society, according to the Directory of that year, were: Isaac Hugh, William Barnes, John Woolley, Daniel B. Robbins, Josiah Whitman, James M. Mason, John More- head, James M. Ludlum, Lawton Richmond, Jesse Smith, William Mulford, Joseph K. Sparks, Melancthon Rogers, Vincent C. Marshall, Lorenzo Lawrence, Roswell P. Hayes, Charles Woodward, E. W. Bradbury, Joseph Challen, Cunningham S. Ramsey, Jedediah Cobb, John E. Bush, A. Slayback, Joseph N. McDowell, George Pat- terson, Robert Morehead, James Warren, Wolcott Rich- ards, Edwin A. AtLee, William S. Ridgely, Rowland Wil- lard, M. D. Donellan, James C. Finley, Daniel Drake, Landon C. Rives, Charles Barnes, Thomas S. Towler, John T. Shotwell, George B. Walker, J. L. Dorsey, James Killough, Holmes Parvin, H. H. Sherwood, Hugh Bon- ner, James M. Staughton, Benjamin S. Lawson, John F. Henry.

DOCTOR WRIGHT.

In 1838 a notable physician of Columbus, Dr. Marma- duke B. Wright, was invited to Cincinnati as professor of Materia Medica in the Medical College of Ohio. In 1840 Dr. Morehead resigned the chair of Obstetrics in that institution, and Dr. Wright was transferred to it. This Dr. Morehead was one of the old practitioners, and is designated as "Professor Pill" in the satires of "Horace in Cincinnati." In the spring of 1850, with others, Dr. Wright was removed by the Board of Trustees, but remain- ed in Cincinnati as a practitioner. He was one of the first physicians in the West to use chloroform in parturition cases, which he did with success at the Commercial hos-

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pital as early as 1848. In 1852 he took the opportunity of a European tour to visit the most famous hospitals of England and France. He was, to some extent, a poetical writer, and occasionally prepared New Year's addresses for the city papers. He also wrote much in prose for the medical journals and the daily press, and read many papers and discourses before various learned bodies. His most famous production was a prize essay on Difficult Labors and their Treatment, read to the Ohio State Medical So- ciety in 1854. His last public effort was at the opening of the Amphitheatre of the Cincinnati hospital, October I, 1877, when he delivered a masterly address, to which we acknowledge indebtedness elsewhere. In 1860 Dr. Wright was restored to the Faculty of the Medical col- lege, and retained his chair until 1868, when increasing infirmities prompted his resignation. He was made a member of the Board of Trustees and emeritus professor of obstetrias, and for many years was observing and con- sulting obstetrician to the hospital. In 1861 he was health officer of the city, and was at one time president of the State Medical society, and had an influential mem- bership in many other associations. Dr. Wright died in October, 1879.

IN EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY-THREE

the number of allopathic physicians in Cincinnati was one hundred and fifty-one; of eclectic, nineteen; homœo- pathic, sixteen; botanic, five; Indian, one; unclassified, seven.

A prominent old Cincinnati physician and professor in the Ohio Medical and Dental colleges died Sunday, November 21, 1880, of blood-poisoning. Dr. Thomas Wood was born at Smithfield, in this State, August 22, 1814, studied medicine and graduated in the same at the University of Philadelphia; practiced three years in an asylum in that city and for a time in Smithfield, coming to Cincinnati in 1845. Here he rose to eminence as a practitioner and a professor in various medical colleges during the next thirty-five years. He also owned and conducted for a time the Western Lancet and Observer. During the war he did useful medical service in the field, and after the battle of Shiloh contracted blood-poisoning, which cost him the removal of a part of his thumb in order to save his life. After the disaster on the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton railroad, October 20, 1880, he was employed to attend ten of the wounded, and in handling their cases he was poisoned a second time, with the ulti- mate loss of his life. He was very highly esteemed in the profession, as well as by the community.

THE MEDICAL COLLEGE OF OHIO.

The beginnings of this institution were undoubtedly outlined in the mind of Dr. Daniel Drake during his short incumbency of the chair of Materia Medica in the Transylvania University at Lexington, in the winter of 1816-17. The next year he announced a series of bo- tanical lectures at Cincinnati, to which a subscription of forty-four names was obtained. About that time Dr. Drake, with Dr. Coleman Rogers and Rev. Elijah Slack, then principal of the Lancasterian Seminary, made up their minds to undertake a short course of medical in-

struction, and began lectures to a class of twelve. The Lexington people took alarm at this germ of a new medical college so near them, and offered Dr. Drake the best professorship in their university, if he would make permanent removal thither; but his heart was fixed upon Cincinnati and his own projects, and he declined to re- move. This was in 1818. In the winter of this year he went to Columbus with his drafts of charters for the medical college and a hospital to be connected there- with, and a charter for the Cincinnati college, into which the Lancasterian Seminary was to be merged. He was thoroughly successful before the legislature in the pres- entation of all his schemes, and the charters were ob- tained in January, without special difficulty. Everything seemed favorable for the inauguration of the medical school at once; but the intrigues of some of his profes- sional brethren, to secure control of the institution at the very outset, delayed its opening for a year. In Janu- ary, 1820, however, its organization was completed, and a circular prepared by Dr. Drake, head of the college by its charter, was issued to the public. The principal parts of that document are as follows:

The medical college of Ohio is at length organized, and full courses of lectures on the various branches of the profession will be delivered in the ensuing winter {1820-21]. The assignment of the different depart- ments for the first session will be as follows, viz. :

The Institutes and Practice of Medicine, including Obstetrics and the Diseases of Women and Children-Daniel Drake, M. D.

Anatomy and Surgery-Jesse Smith, M. D.

Materia Medica and Pharmacy-Benjamin S. Bohrer, M. D.

Chemistry-Elijah Slack, A. M., President of Cincinnati College.

Assistant in Chemistry-Robert Best, Curator of the Western Museum.

Medical jurisprudence will be divided among the professors, accord- ing to its relations with the different branches which they teach.

After the termination of the session, should a sufficient class be con- stituted, a course of Botanical Lectures will be delivered, in which the leading object will be to illustrate the Medical Botany of the United States.

The considerations which originally suggested the establishment of a medical college, and which doubtless induced the general assembly to give its sanction, were-first, the obvious and increasing necessity for such an institution in the western country; and, secondly, the peculiar fitness and advantages of this city for the successful execution of the project. These are its central situation, its northern latitude, its easy water communications with most parts of the western country, and, above all, the comparatively numerous population. This already ex- ceeds ten thousand-more than double the number of any other inland town in the new States; and, from the facility of emigrating to it by water, the proportion of indigent immigrants is unusually great. The professors placed on this ample theatre will, therefore, have numerous opportunities of treating a great variety of diseases, and thus be able to impart those principles and rules of practice which are framed from daily observations on the peculiar maladies which the student, after the termination of his collegiate course, will have to encounter.

The same state of things has compelled the guardians of the poor to assemble their sick into one edifice, and thus to lay the foundation of a permanent hospital, the care of which is confided to one of the profes- sors. In this hospital, which is at no time without patients, the stu- dents will have many opportunities of hearing clinical lectures and of witnessing illustrations of the various doctrines which are taught in this college.

Finally, every medical man will perceive that, amidst so mixed and multiplied a population, the opportunities presented to the western student for the study of practical anatomy will altogether transcend any which he can enjoy, without visiting and paying tribute to the schools of the Atlantic States.

The first session opened in the fall of this year with an attendance of thirty members. The two professors, Drs. Smith and Bohrer, were new men in the community,

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having been invited from eastern cities to their chairs. These were originally designed for two others, Cincinnati physicians, who were named in the charter among the original corporators; but the intrigues which delayed the opening of the college for a year had made it necessary to remove them in order to organize a faculty for the school. But the new men in their turn soon took ground against Dr. Drake, and, as we have seen, actually expelled the founder from the institution. Another session was attempted the following winter, by two professors only, and a corporal's guard of pupils; but it was poor work, and the college would probably with that have ended its small usefulness, had not the legislature, at the session of 1822-3, amended the charter and appointed a board of trustees, with General Harrison at the head, and with sole power of electing and dismissing members of the faculty. The college was revived the next winter, but with an at- tendance of only fifteen, while Lexington the same year had two hundred and thirty-four. The next year there were thirty; the next year eighty; then, in successive years, one hundred and one, one hundred and one, one hundred and seven, one hundred and twenty-four, one hundred and thirty-one, seventy-two, one hundred and two, and eighty-three, making one thousand and nine- teen in the sixteen years of the chartered existence of the college, 1819-34. The first and fifth years, however, there were no students; and of the rest an average of twelve per year, from 1826 to 1833, or ninety-six in all, were beneficiaries, and contributed nothing to the sup- port of the college.

During the same period of sixteen years, the attend- ance at the medical college in Lexington aggregated three thousand and twenty. The comparative weakness and inefficiency of the Ohio Medical college excited the attention and inquiry of the profession generally in south- ern Ohio, and at the legislative session of 1834-5 a peti- tion for reform in its management was sent in, numerous- ly signed, not only by physicians of Cincinnati, but by those of Dayton, Xenia, Circleville, and other places. The assembly elected a new board of trustees, which through a committee sent out a circular dated April 14, 1835, asking physicians to whom it was addressed what, in their judgment, were the causes of the inefficiency of the college. Answers were returned by a large number, and the committee, after a careful digest of them, re- ported the reasons of the decline of the institution to be "the dissensions of the individuals composing the fac- ulty at different periods, and the want of scientific repu- tation in the teachers." In the effort at reconstruction and reform, Dr. Drake was offered the chair of theory and practice, and two other places in the faculty were opened to his friends; but, since three or four of the former professors, who had been virtually condemned by the report, were to be retained, Dr. Drake declined to co- operate, and went instead into the new medical depart- ment of Cincinnati college, of which he was also founder. The older institution, however, maintained its existence, and prospered fairly. In 1841 its library contained over two thousand volumes, and it also possessed large cabi- nets, among which was a cabinet of comparative anato-

my more extensive and containing rarer specimens than any other in the country. Its faculty was now composed of Dr. John T. Shotwell, professor of anatomy and phy- siology, and dean of the faculty; Dr. John Locke, profes- sor of chemistry and pharmacy; Dr. Reuben D. Mussey, professor of surgery; Dr. David Oliver, professor of ma- teria medica and lecturer on pathology ; Dr. M. B. Wright, professor of obstetrics and diseases of women and chil- dren; Dr. Jared P. Kirtland, professor of theory and practice.

In 1851 a new building was put up for the college, being, with enlargements, that now occupied by it near the corner of Sixth and Vine streets. It is of brick, cast- iron and freestone, in the collegiate Gothic style, one hun- dred and five by seventy-five feet, and forty-eight feet high. The original building here was only fifty-four by thirty-six feet. Mr. John P. Foote, in his Schools of Cin- cinnati, writing in 1855, says: "The internal arrange- ments furnish accommodations for professors and pupils which are said, by persons competent to speak ex cathedra on the subject, to be unsurpassed, in extent of conve- nience, by any institution of the kind in the United States."

A valuable History of the Chair of Practice in this in- stitution was given to the profession and the public by Professor James F. Whitaker, M. D., of the college Faculty, in an introductory lecture September 4, 1879. It includes many valuable notices of the older and later practitioners and medical professors here, and is amply worth transfer bodily to these pages. We omit, however, the preliminary matter, and the sketch of Dr. Drake's career, with which the notices begin. The whole was printed in the Cincinnati Lancet and Observer for Oc- tober, 1879:

Dr. John Morehead was born in the county of Monaghan, Ireland, in 1784. He graduated at the University of Edinburgh, and shortly after entered the medical service of the regular British army. In 1820 he crossed the ocean and came to Cincinnati. Dr. Morehead was ap- pointed to the chair of Theory and Practice in the Medical College of Ohio in 1825, and held this position six years, when on a re-organiza- tion of the faculty he was appointed to the chair of Obstetrics and Dis- eases of Women and Children. For nine years he lectured in this field and then resigned and went to Ireland to visit his father, who was one of the nobility, and proprietor of large landed estates. In 1842 he returned to the old field of his labors, from which even the prospect of a coronet could not entice him, and was in the same year appointed Pro- fessor of the Theory and Practice of Medicine. He now made annual trips to Ireland, going over in the spring and returning every autumn to fill his winter course. In 1849 his father died, and Dr. Morehead left our city and college, abandoned the practice of medicine, returned to Ireland, and became Sir John Morehcad. He dicd in 1873, over eighty years of age. The old practitioners of this city arc most of them his students. They speak of him with veneration. He was a remarkably lueid lecturer, a keen diagnostician, and a sound practitioner of the old school.

Jared Potter Kirtland, M. D., LL. D., was born in Wallingford, Connecticut, November 10, 1793. At an carly age he was adopted into the family of his grandfather, Dr. Jared Potter, a distinguished physi- cian of Wallingford, and there received his carly education. In 1803 his father removed to Poland, Mahoning county, Ohio, leaving his son in the family of his grandfather while pursuing his studies in the aead- emies of Wallingford and Chicshire. At the age of twelve young Kirt- land was an expert at budding and engrafting, and a student of the Linnæan system of botany. He also, with some assistance, managed the extensive orchard of white mulberry trees established by his grand- father for the cultivation of silkworms. In 1810 his father, being dan- gerously ill, sent for him to come west. He left home in May, travel- ling on horseback, and reached his father's house in June, who in the

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meantime had recovered. Young Kirtland began teaching school soon after his arrival. In 1811 his grandfather died, leaving him his medical library and means to attend the medical school in Edinburgh. He re- turned at once to Wallingford and began the study of medicine in the office of Dr. John Andrews, and later in that of Dr. Sylvester Wells, of Hartford, both of whom had been pupils of his grandfather. In 1813 he was ready to enter Edinburgh university, but the war with Great Britain prevented, and, as the medical department of Yale college was to open the following winter, his name was recorded first on the matric- ulation book of that institution. While at Yale he received private instructions in botany from Professor Ives and in mineralogy and geol- ogy from Professor Silliman, and made great progress in zoology with- out a teacher. After one year at Yale his health required him to take a vacation, which was passed at Wallingford, during a time of general sickness. He practiced during this time with success. In 1814 he at- tended lectures at the university of Pennsylvania. In this year he re- turned to Yale college, and graduated there in 1816. He began prac- tice at once in Wallingford.

In 1818 he journeyed to Poland, Ohio, and made arrangements to take his family there. During his absence from home he was elected, against his will, probate judge. He performed the duties of this office until he settled as a physician in Durham, Connecticut. At this place he remained until 1823, when the death of his wife and daughter oc- curred. He then returned with his father to Ohio. Though it was not his intention to practice, but to be a farmer and a merchant, calls were constantly made upon him, and he finally became associated with Dr. Eli Mygath, an able physician. In 1828 he was elected a representative to the legislature, where he succeeded in putting an end to close con- finement in the penitentiary and to deriving profit from the labors of convicts. He continued in the legislature for three terms. During this time he carried through the bills chartering the Ohio and Pennsyl- vania canal. In 1834 he announced the existence of sex in the naiads (Vid. American Journal of Art and Science, vol. xxvi). He decided that the fresh-water shells of Ohio were of different sexes, not hermaphrodite, as has been supposed. The translators of the Encyclopædia Icono- graphie attempted to refute his statements. Professor Agassiz said, "Dr. Kirtland's views are entirely correct, and have been sustained by my own and the German naturalists' observations." In 1837 he accepted the chair of theory and practice in the Medical college of Ohio, and continued in this institution until 1842.

He was the colleague of Cook, Harrison, Locke, Mussey, Oliver, Shot- well, and Wright. In 1842 he resigned and accepted the same chair in Willoughby Medical college, where he remained one year. In 1843 he was elected to the same chair in the medical department of Western Reserve college, Cleveland. He continued in this school until 1864. In 1848, when the first geological survey of Ohio was made, he took part as assistant in the natural history department. His report em- braces a catalogue of the fishes, birds, reptiles and mollusks of Ohio, and was published in the Boston Journal of Natural Sciences and in the Family Visitor. He commenced a cabinet of Ohio mammals, birds, reptiles, and insects, and a cabinet of the land and fresh-water shells of the State. The legislature stopped the survey, and ultimately he donated his collections to the Kirtland Society of Natural History, of Cleveland. He was president of the State Medical society in 1849 and one of its vice-presidents in 1851. In 1861 Williams college con- ferred on him the degree of LL. D. During the war he was detailed to examine several thousand drafted men. He donated all his pay to the bounty fund of Rockport and to the Soldiers' Aid society. He was called "the Sage of Rockport." For many years he was president of the Cleveland Academy of Natural Sciences and of the Kirtland Society of Natural History. He received the title of Philosopher from the American Philosophical society in 1875. At the age of seventy he de- clined to lecture on any subject. Of his long life and great labors more than half were given to the public without compensation. When by long and tedious experiment he found fruits especially adapted to Ohio, seeds, slips, and young trees were gratuitously distributed throughout the country. He gave himself no rest as long as his physical condition permitted him to work. He had printed over his table the motto, "Time is money ; I have none of either to spare." He was one of that band who move in the van of science, and by personal observation and unremitting study add to the sum of human knowledge and to the ele- vation of the race.

He died in Cleveland December 10, 1877, aged eighty-four years.

Dr. John Eberle was born in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, Jan- uary, 1788. His parents were of the early German population of Lan- caster county, and cultivators of the soil. Of his early training little is known; certainly he had no collegiate education. He began the

study of medicine about 1806, and graduated at the University of Pennsylvania in 1809. Disappointed in not immediately acquiring a lucrative business in a short time, he undertook the editorship of a po- litical paper in the midst of a gubernatorial contest. This soon de- prived him of medical practice, but involved him in the practices of po- litical demagogues, which were nearly his utter ruin. Alarmed at his danger, he quit politics and his home and located in Philadelphia, where he began again the struggle for existence. In 1818 he published the first number of the American Medical Recorder, which for years enjoyed great popularity. In 1822 he published Eberle's Therapeutics, which was acknowledged at home and abroad as the best work then extant on the subject. It was in two volumes. Dr. Eberle was one of the founders of the Jefferson Medical College. During his connection with that school he published his work on Theory and Practice, in two volumes. The demand for it was great, and it reached a fifth edition. In the summer of 1830 he was invited to take the Chair of Materia Medica and Botany in the Medical Department of Miami University, then being formed in this city. He reached Cincinnati in the fall of 1831. At that time the new school had merged into the Medical Col- lege of Ohio, and Dr. Eberle became one of the professors. During his connection with the Medical College of Ohio he published his work on Diseases of Children. He was co-editor with Drs. Staughton and Mitchell of the Western Medical Gazette. In 1837 Dr. Eberle was elected to the Chair of. Theory and Practice in the University at Lex- ington, with a salary of four thousand dollars, guaranteed for three years. The highest expectations had been raised in Lexington of the coming man; but trials and disappointments had completely broken him down mentally and physically, and his efforts there resulted in failure. He died in Lexington February 2, 1838, before the close of the first session, æt. fifty.

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History of Cincinnati, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 81

Author: Ford, Henry A., comp; Ford, Kate B., joint comp Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Cleveland, O., L.A. Williams & co. Number of Pages: 666

Author: Ford, Henry A., comp; Ford, Kate B., joint comp
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Cleveland, O., L.A. Williams & co.
Number of Pages: 666