History of the Ohio falls cities and their counties : with illustrations and bibliographical sketches, Vol. I, Part 90

Author: Williams, L.A., & Co., Cleveland
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Cleveland, Ohio : L. A. Williams & Co.
Number of Pages: 814

USA > Ohio > History of the Ohio falls cities and their counties : with illustrations and bibliographical sketches, Vol. I > Part 90

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he was surgeon to the City hospital, and was for a time president of the City Board of Health, and has for a number of years been promi- nently active in the medical and health interests of the city. In the medical profession he stands deservedly high, his general practice being large and valuable. In some special lines of surgery he has made an enviable reputation, and indeed, few men stand so high in general surgery through- out the country. He is a man of admirable bearing, of exceptional professional and social habits, and of great moral worth, having the respect and esteem of the profession and the kindly regard and confidence of the community. He is prominently connected with some of the social organizations of the day, but his profes- sional interests and inclinations afford him little opportunity to participate in political turmoil.

Dr. Cummins was married, in 1862, to Miss Henrietta Beach, of Jeffersonville, Indiana, a lady of great moral and social worth. She died in February, 1878. He was married again Au- gust 5, 1880, to Miss Mary F. Logan, daughter of the well known Caleb W. Logan.

DR. M. F. COOMES.

Martin F. Coomes, M. D., was born at Bards- town, Kentucky, October 4, 1847. His family are numbered among the early settlers of Ken- tucky. He was educated at Cecilian college, near Elizabethtown, Kentucky, and began the study of medicine. During the following year he entered the Medical Department of the Uni- versity of Louisville, and pursued his studies for a year in that institution. He received the de- gree of M. D. from the Hospital College of Medicine, of Louisville. Immediately after graduation Dr. Coomes entered upon the general practice of medicine in Louisville. From the beginning he has been a close and persistent student. He was for several years the demon- strator of anatomy in the Hospital College of Medicine, and devoted himself with assiduity to this important branch of medical science. His work in the anatomical rooms made him a thor- ough and practical anatomist, and gave him val- uable training as a teacher of medicine.

Dr. Coomes very soon began by preference to give his attention to diseases of the eye and ear

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HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.

and throat, and has for several years past devoted his time exclusively to practice as a specialist in those departments. He is generally known as one of the leading practitioners in these special branches of medical practice in the Southwest. In 1878 Dr. Coomes was elected to the chair of physiology and diseases of the eye, ear, and throat in the Kentucky School of Medicine at Louisville. He is a successful teacher and gives a complete course, with elaborate illustrative demonstrations, on physiology every year in this well-known institution. His clinical course of instruction in diseases of the eye, ear, and throat is very attractive to students and practitioners. He is also a thorough student of electrical sci- ence, and has marked talent in this direction. He has cultivated this interesting branch of the natural sciences with the ardor of an enthusiast, and has reduced his knowledge to practical ad- vantage in the construction of instruments of precision wellknown to cultivators of his spe- cialty. He has invented an eye speculum, an electrical onometer, and an apparatus for testing color-blindness. He is the author of a work on nasal pharyngeal catarrh, and has made numer- ous contributions to the archives of Laryngology and other medical periodicals. He is a member of the Kentucky State Medical society, and other societies for the cultivation of the medical sciences.

Dr. Coomes is a man of genial manners, gen- erous disposition, and strong practical sense. He is an enthusiast in his profession, and gives to it his entire time and attention.

DR. L. P. YANDELL, JR.

Lunsford Pitt Yandell, Jr., M. D., was born June 6, 1837, at Craggy Bluff, Tennessee. He is of English-Scotch origin. His father, of the same name, coming to Louisville a number of years ago, had a wide practice as a physician and was one of the greatest practitioners in the State. The son's early instruction was received at a select school in Louisville, and at the age of seventeen he entered the University of the city, graduating in 1857. With a year's study in the Louisville Hospital he removed to Memphis, Tennessee, and began practice the year following, being appointed to the Chair of Materia Medica

and Therapeutics in the Memphis Medical Col- lege. At the beginning of the civil war he en- listed in the Confederate army as a private, but was soon appointed Assistant Surgeon, and finally Surgeon of his regiment. He subsequently served as Brigade Surgeon, Medical Inspector, and Medical Director. April 15, 1865, in North Carolina, he took the oath of allegiance and was paroled, and returned to Louisville to practice his profession. In 1869, he accepted the ap- pointment of Professor of Materia Medica and Clinical Medicine in the University of Louisville. In 1867, he went to Europe for special study, and while there acted as correspondent for sev- eral leading journals. Dr. Yandell was married, in 1867, to Louise Elliston, of Nashville, Ten- nesee. They have three children.

DR. BOLLING.

W. H. Bolling, M. D., Dean of the Hospital College of Medicine, Louisville, was born in Pe- tersburg, Virginia, May 23, 1840; is a descendant of Robert Bolling, of Bolling Hall, near Brad- ford, England, who emigrated to America in 1660, and settled at the Falls of the Appomattox, where the city of Petersburg, Virginia, now is. Dr. Bolling received his education in the University of Virginia and in the Medical De- partment of the University of Pennsylvania, graduating from the last-named institution with the degree of M. D. in the year 1867, and im- mediately afterward visited Paris, London, and Edinburgh for further instruction. In the year 1868 he located in Louisville. In 1874 he was made Dean of the Hospital College of Medicine and Professor of Obstetrics and Diseases of Women. In 1869 he married Miss Ida Foree, daughter of the well-known Dr. Foree, of Louis- ville.

. PERSONAL NOTICES.

The elder Coleman Rogers, progenitor of a distinguished line of physicians in Louisville, was one of a family of fourteen children, sprung from the pioneer Rogers, who, coming from Vir- ginia in 1787, settled at Bryant's Station, now Lexington, Kentucky. Coleman was then a child of six years, having been born in Culpeper coun-

Dr. Lunsford P. Yandell

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ty, Virginia, March 6, 1781. He had but small facilities for education in the schools of the period. When twenty-one years old he began to read medicine with Dr. Samuel Brown, of Lexington, rode on horseback to Philadelphia in 1803 to attend the lectures in the University of Pennsylvania and study with Dr. Charles Caldwell ; established himself as a practitioner in Danville, Kentucky, with Dr. Ephraim Mc- Dowell, a surgeon then of some note, and, as their practice enlarged, opened an office also at Stanford, in the adjacent county ; returned to Fayette county in 1810, and then to Philadelphia, where he finished his course in 1816-17, and re- ceived his diploma ; declined the appointment of Adjunct Professor of Anatomy in the Tran- sylvania University, and formed a partnership with Dr. Daniel Drake for practice in Cincinnati, becoming also an original corporator, Vice-Pres- ident of the corporation, and Professor of Sur- gery in the Ohio Medical College ; removed temporarily to Newport, Kentucky, and in 1823 came to Louisville, where he soon had a very large practice. He was thenceforth one of the very foremost practitioners here for thirty-two years ; for ten years was Surgeon to the Marine Hospital ; aided to form the Louisville Medical Institute in 1833, and was appointed Professor of Anatomy, although finally he declined active service in a chair ; filled a large space in public and professional affairs here for a generation ; and passed away at length on the 17th of Feb- ruary, 1855, in his seventy-fourth year, greatly beloved and mourned.

Lewis Rogers was son of Dr. Coleman Rogers, and was born near Lexington October 22, 1812. He was trained at Georgetown College and Transylvania University, graduating from the latter ; began the study of medicine with his father, and pursued it in the Medical Depart- ment of the University ; went to Louisville for practice, and was appointed Resident Physician to the City Work and Poor House, but by and by took a further course in medicine at the Univer- sity of Pennsylvania, and was graduated M. D. from that great school in 1836. He resumed practice in Louisville, and presently formed a partnership with his father, which endured for a long time. The same year of his final gradua- tion he was appointed Clinical Assistant to Dr. Caldwell, of the Louisville Medical Institute,

and long performed the duties of that place. In 1849 he became Professor of Materia Medica and Therapeutics in the University of Louisville, but was afterwards transferred to the Chair of Theory and Practice, succeeding the renowned Dr. Austin Flint, and again, in 1867, was re- turned to his former chair, shortly after which he resigned. Besides his labors in the medical schools, it is said that for more than forty years he commanded the largest general practice of any physician in the city. He died in Louisville June 13, 1875.

Coleman Rogers the younger is son of the subject of the last sketch, and was born in Louis- ville August 10, 1840. He received his elemen- tary education in the public schools, took a European tour with his father, completed an un- dergraduate course at the University of Toronto, graduated in medicine at the Louisville Univer- sity after several years' study, and then attended lectures at the Bellevue Medical College, New York City; began practice in Louisville in Sep- tember, 1868, was afterwards chosen Adjunct Professor to Dr. Bell, in the Chair of Theory and Practice, in the local University, and was for some years Physician to the University Dispen- sary and the Louisville Marine Hospital. He has collected a very superior medical library, and written much on professional topics.

Joseph Rodes Buchanan, one of the most original thinkers our land has produced, was born December 11, 1814, at Frankfort, Ken- tucky. Noted in his childhood for great ma- turity of mind, he became early a student and investigator in the sciences so familiar to his learned father. After pursuing a diversity of studies in a great variety of fields, he secured the degree of M. D. from the Transylvania Univer- sity. In 1835 he devoted himself to the study of the brain, and six years subsequently traveled and lectured through several States, meanwhile carrying on constant investigations and arriving at new conclusions, by which he was enabled to rectify the principles of crainoscopy. In 1841, by his bold experiments and discoveries, phre- nology really entered upon a new era in its his- tory. He subsequently published for years in Cincinnati, his Journal of Man. His System of Anthropology, issued in that city in 1854, also had a direct influence on the same subject. In 1842, Robert Dale Owen, in the New York

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HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.

Evening Post, said: "Unless the discoveries of Dr. Buchanan are quickly exploded, they will rank among the first gifts of philosophy and philanthropy to the cause of science and the good of the human race." As medical professor, he occupied a prominent place in the Eclectic Medical Institute or College at Cincinnati, edit- ing meanwhile the Medical Journal. For five years previous to the year 1861, he devoted his time largely to the care of his family and property in Louisville, at which date he married the daughter of Judge John Rowan. Between 1861 and 1866 he had an active part in the politics of the State, first as an opponent of secession, afterward as Chairman of the State Central Com- mittee of the Democratic party. He has since returned to his scientific researches.

Joseph Buchanan was born in the year 1785, in Washington county, Virginia. He is called physician and editor, but was as well author, teacher, philosopher, and inventor. His boy- hood was passed in the State of Tennessee, where he made his college preparation. In IS05 he completed his studies in the Transylvania University, following which he became a student of medicine in Lexington, practicing a portion of his time at Fort Gibson, on the Mississippi river, to get means for a more thorough educa- tion. While at Fort Gibson, he wrote a volume on fevers which gave his name great celebrity, al- though never put into published form. In 1809, although so young a man, he was made Professor of Institutes of Medicine in the Transylvania Medical School. Not long after this date, he gave up his profession and went East to study the Pestalozzian system of education. On his return, he taught a school founded on these prin- ciples for several years. In 1812 he wrote a book that has brought to his name no little re- nown, "The Philosophy of Human Nature." His writings, among learned people, rank with the most original and philosophical. In fact, at that date he elucidated principles brought out at a later day by such men as Carpenter, Huxley, Tyndall, and Herbert Spencer. Among his studies he became proficient in the law, but he never practiced. His first editorial work was to aid on the Lexington Reporter; we afterward hear his name in connection with the Frankfort Palladium, Western Spy and Literary Cadet, and the Focus and Journal. On the last-named he

was doing editorial work at the time of his death in 1829. He also wrote a History of the War of 1812, the life of General George Rogers Clark, and various articles on education, law, and steam power applied. His attainments in scholarship were really wonderful. While a mere youth he detected faults in his mathematical text-book, and noted errors in the speculations of Sir Isaac Newton. As an inventor, he prepared a capillary steam-engine with spiral tubes for boilers, and a steam hand-carriage, anticipating many of the most recent inventions. He also discovered a new motive principle derived from combustion without water or steam. Dr. Buchanan, while so able and scholarly, was always modest and unassuming, and during many years of his life was much hindered by poverty. At his death he left a wife and one son, Professor J. R. Bu- chanan, whose labors have been in a similar field.

Richard W. Ferguson, M. D., was born in Louisville, August 21, 1805. His father came from Ireland to this country in 1772, settling at first in Virginia, but moving finally to Louisville. His mother was a daughter of Colonel W. A. Booth, of Virginia. Dr. Ferguson's early teach- ing came from private schools in his own town, till, in 1824, he became a student at Transylva- nia University. His graduation occurred three years later. The following three years.were de- voted to the study of medicine with his father, when he graduated from the Medical Department of the same University, and immediately became a practitioner with his father, up to the date of his father's death, which occurred in 1853. Having gained a fine property, Dr. Ferguson has retired from active business, but continues his interest in all enterprises tending to improve the the city or its people. For nine years he was physician in the City hospital. All the'early part of his life he was a member of the Unitarian church, until some years ago, at the age of sixty, he united with the Protestant Episcopal church. Formerly he was a Whig in politics; since that party ceased to exist, however, he has been counted with the Democrats. Years ago he owned a large number of slaves, but before the beginning of the war set them all free.

John Thruston is a native of Louisville, a scion of the famous old pioneer family and a long line of English ancestry, which included at

John Goodman, 16.20.

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HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.

least one medical man, Malachi Thruston, who published in London two editions of a Latin Treatise on the Respiration, in 1670-71. He began active life in mercantile pursuits in New Orleans, but returned to Louisville, read medi- cine with his brother-in-law, the late Dr. Lewis Rogers, graduated at the home University, prac- ticed for ten years with Dr. Rogers, and after- wards alone, establishing a lucrative and well- maintained practice.

The well-known manufacturer of proprietary medicines in Louisville, Dr. John Bull, was born in Shelby county in 1813, scion of an old and reputable Virginia family. He was fairly edu- cated in the home schools, but at the early age of fourteen pushed for Louisville to study medi- cine, which he did very earnestly for several years under Dr. Schrock. He was still very young when he resolved to devote his life mainly to chemistry and pharmacy. Following his bent he soon became one of the best pharmacists in the city, and was often called upon by the doc- tors to compound their more delicate prescrip- tions. He formed a partnership in the drug business with J. B. Wilder, and continued with others for some years, until, single handed and alone, he started in the manufacture of his famous patent medicines. He began very hum- bly, and with only a small part of the remedies which afterwards made his name widely known; but from year to year the business and his invent- ive genius enlarged, until, in the latter years of his life, it is presumed that his net income from the sale of his specifies amounted to $150,000 a year. He had experienced some sharp reverses, however-one by establishing a branch house in Louisville, and again by the vicissitudes of the late war, that for three years so reduced him that he was glad to accept the post of a Federal pro- vost marshal, at $75 a month. He finally be- came, it is believed, a millionaire, with the largest income of any citizen of Kentucky. He died suddenly at his home in Louisville, on the 26th of April, 1875.

George W. Bayless was a native of Mason county, in this State, born January 17, 1817. He received an excellent elementary training, and began to study medicine in Louisville at the age of twenty, with the first class organized in the Medical Institute. He then attended lectures in Philadelphia, where he received his degree,

and began practice in Louisville. He was soon made demonstrator of anatomy in the Medical Institute, but resigned in 1848, and, the next year, joined the faculty of the Ohio Medical College in Cincinnati, resigned for his health in 1850, removed to Missouri, and engaged in farming for several years, but returned to Louis- ville at last, and resumed practice. He was for many years professor of physiology, anatomy, or the principles and practice of surgery, in the medical department of the University or in the Kentucky School of Medicine. As a surgeon he was especially skillful, and had wide repute. After suffering from paralysis since 1870, he died of apoplexy at Rockcastle Springs, September 8, 1873.

Martin Lee Lewis, son of Jedediah H. Lewis, was born in Massachusetts, on June 10, 1800. When nineteen years of age he began the study of medicine in Columbus, Ohio. He afterward went to Cincinnati, and finally, in 1824, gradu- ated at the Cincinnati Eclectic College of Medi- cine. He commenced practice in Columbus, Ohio, but removed to Louisville in 1827, where he has since remained, an active and successful practitioner. Considering the disfavor generally given physicians of the Eclectic school, Dr. Lewis, by his unostentatious methods and genu- ine determination to benefit those around him, has gained a place seldom reached by the aver- age physician. He is a prominent member of the Order of Masons, but has kept entirely aloof from politics. In religion, he has been a mem- ber of the Methodist Church from early child- hood. In 1827 Dr. Lewis was married to Miss Eliza A. Johnston, of Columbus, Ohio. Of their six children, two sons are both practicing physi- cians, Dr. W. C. Lewis near Perryville, Kentucky, and his brother, near Louisville.

Dr. James Harvey Owen was of Welsh ancestry on the paternal side, the son of Captain John Owen, of English ancestry on the mother's side. She was Martha Talbot. He was born in Shelby county, Kentucky, May 19, 1801; received a substantial English education from a son of a French nobleman named De l'Huys ; com- menced the study of medicine under the tutelage of his cousin, the late Dr. John M. Talbot, of Louisville, in 1817, and received, in 1822, from Drs. Talbot, W. C. Galt, Richard Babbington Ferguson, and James C. Johnston, an endorse-

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ment of his qualifications to practice medicine and surgery. He commenced practice the same year at New Madrid, Missouri, and remained there till 1827, when he moved to Port Gibson, Mississippi, and practiced his profession at that place in partnership with Dr. John O. T. Hawkins till 1832, taking charge of Claiborne Female Seminary for one year, when he moved to Louisville and practiced his profession very successfully till 1852, when he retired to his farm in Hunter's Bottom, Carroll county, Ken- tucky, the farm having the largest peach orchard on it in the West. He was very popular, and was often solicited to accept political honors. He was a member of the City Council of Louis- ville two years ; received the nomination for a place in the House of Representatives of Ken- tucky several times; and once he was the choice of the Louisville delegation in the Democratic nominating convention in 1847 for Representa- tive in the lower House of Congress in the United States, but uniformly declined. He was a Jackson Democrat, and a Free Mason of long standing. He was a member of the Church of the Disciples of Christ, and a true Chris- tian. He died December 1, 1857, of pneumonia, and was interred at Cave Hill Cemetery. Dr. Owen was married in 1827 to his cousin Martha, daughter of Major David Owen, of Gallatin county, Kentucky. They had six children, five sons and one daughter. The mother died in 1876. The two youngest sons are also de- ceased.

William H. Goddard, doctor of dentistry, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, June 28, 1808, son of Dr. Thatcher Goddard, of that city, who had been a physician, and then a successful mer- chant. He received a liberal education, began to study dentistry at twenty, prepared thoroughly, and began practice in New York City, but re- moved to Louisville in 1834, where he soon had an extensive and profitable practice. He be- came the oldest, and was considered the most prominent and influential member of his branch of the profession in Kentucky. In 1856 he took an interest in the agricultural implement business of Munn & Co., and was reaping large profits from it when the war closed the estab- lishment and reduced him to comparative poverty. He became a deputy during the Col- lectorship of the poet Gallagher, and at the close

of the war resumed dental practice, in which he has since remained.

Henry M. Miller, one of the most notable physicians ever in practice in Louisville, was born in Barren county, November 1, 1800, son of a Glasgow pioneer of German stock. Young Mil- ler was not college-bred, but became a good scholar in English, with a fair knowledge of Greek and Latin. At seventeen he began to read medicine with Drs. Bainbridge and Gist, of Glasgow, and after two years joined the first class organized in the Medical Department of Transylvania University. He began practice at Glasgow with Dr. Bainbridge, but returned to Lexington presently to complete his course, and graduated in 1822. After a short residence in Glasgow, he was appointed, although so young, as Demonstrator of Anatomy in the university ; and after further study in Philadelphia, he un- dertook its duties. In 1827 he removed to Har- rodsburg for general practice, and came to Louis- ville in 1835, to aid in organizing a new medical school. When the Medical Institute here was established two years later, he became Professor of Obstetrics and Diseases of Women and Chil- dren. He resigned upon the transfer of the in- stitute to the University of Louisville in 1858, after twenty-one years' service. In 1869, how- ever, he rejoined the Faculty as Professor of Medical and Surgical Diseases of Women, and soon after took a similar chair in the Louisville Medical College, which he held during the rest of his life. In 1849 was published his success- ful book, Theoretical and Practical Treatise on Human Parturition, known in the later editions as Principles and Practice of Obstetrics. He wrote much otherwise in pamphlets for the pro- fessional journals. Dr. Miller died February 8, 1874.

John Esten Cooke, the renowned physician, surgeon, and writer of medical treatises, was for very few years a resident of Louisville ; but, as one of the most remarkable physicians who ever lived in this city, or anywhere in Jefferson county, he amply deserves notice in these pages. He was of the famous Cookes of Virginia, but was born in Boston, Massachusetts, March 2, 1783, during a visit of his parents to that city. His father was Dr. Stephen Cooke, also a phy- sician of note and an army surgeon during the War of the Revolution. He was finely educat-

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History of the Ohio falls cities and their counties : with illustrations and bibliographical sketches, Vol. I, Part 90

Author: Williams, L.A., & Co., Cleveland Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Cleveland, Ohio : L. A. Williams & Co. Number of Pages: 814

Author: Williams, L.A., & Co., Cleveland
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Cleveland, Ohio : L. A. Williams & Co.
Number of Pages: 814