CHAPTER II.



             DRAKE AS A MEDICAL STUDENT.
 D ANIEL DRAKE was predestined for the medical profession by his
 D     father. The latter, we are told by those who knew him, was "a
        gentleman by nature and a Christian from convictions produced by a
 simple and unaffected study of the Word of God. His poverty he regretted,
 his ignorance he deplored. His natural instincts were to knowledge, refine-
 ment, and honorable influences in the affairs of the world. In consulting the
 tradition of the family, he found no higher condition than his own, as their
 lot in past times; but he had formed a conception of something more elevated,
 and resolved on its attainment,-not for himself and mother, nor for all his
 children, for either would have been impossible; but for some member of the
 family. He would make a beginning; he would set his face towards the land
 of promise, although, like Moses, he himself should never enter it." He had
 never had the advantages of a genteel education, but he was determined that
 his Dan, as he affectionately called his son, should have them. Daniel was
 fifteen years old when his father decided that he was old enough to begin his
 medical studies in earnest.
   In referring to the times when the Drakes settled in Kentucky, I men-
tioned the name of Dr. Wm. Goforth as having been one of the party who
arrived in Kentucky with the Drake family. He also hailed from New Jersey
and settled in Washington, Ky., where he remained until the year 1799, when
he joined other members of his family who were living in Columbia, near
Cincinnati. In 1800 he removed to Cincinnati. Isaac Drake made the ac-
quaintance of Dr. Goforth in 1788 during their long and tedious voyage down
the Ohio River. Drake, Sr., while he found fault with some weak points in
Dr. Goforth's character, admired his knowledge, and believed him to be a
great physician. Half jokingly, half in earnest, he told Dr. Goforth that
Daniel, then not quite three years old, should some day become a doctor, and
that Dr. Goforth should be his teacher. It was probably in consequence of
this early promise that the son often went by the sobriquet of "Dr. Drake"
long before he knew anything about medicine. His father courageously per-
severed in his cherished plan, and went to Cincinnati for the express purpose
of seeing Dr. Goforth and arranging the terms of apprenticeship for Daniel.
   When the day arrived for Daniel to take his leave, his relatives and neigh-
bors gathered at "Uncle Isaacs" to bid Daniel Godspeed. The neighbors all
liked Daniel and did not begrudge him his luck to be a doctor, a real gentle-
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