xt70p26pzn6r https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt70p26pzn6r/data/mets.xml Meigs, Charles D. (Charles Delucena), 1792-1869. 1853  books b92-92-27695001 English Lippincott, Grambo and Co., : Philadelphia : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Drake, Daniel, 1785-1852. Biographical notice of Daniel Drake, M.D., of Cincinnati  : prepared by appointment of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia / by Charles D. Meigs ... read at the meeting, July, 1853. text Biographical notice of Daniel Drake, M.D., of Cincinnati  : prepared by appointment of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia / by Charles D. Meigs ... read at the meeting, July, 1853. 1853 2002 true xt70p26pzn6r section xt70p26pzn6r 




A



     BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE


                OF



DANIEL DRAKE, M. D.,



   OF CINCINNATI.


PREPARED BY APPOINTXENT
       OF THE



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A



      BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE


                  OF



DANIEL DRAKE, M. D.,



         OF CINCINNATI.


     PREPARED BY APPOINTMENT

             OF THE

dfulirgr Uf Vqo4iriffuo Uf V!JitatflPJia


              BY



    CHARLES D. MEIGS, M. D.,
       VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE COLLEGE.





 Read at the Meeting, July, 1853.






       PHILAD ELPHIA:
LIPPINCOTT, GRAMBO, AND CO.
            1853.

 
This page in the original text is blank.


 








                       N 0 T I C E

                               01


      DANIEL DRAKE, M.D.




  IT is a custom with the College of Physicians of Philadelphia,
to direct that a Memoir shall be presented here, of every departed
fellow and associate. This custom holds out, to each living mem-
ber of the institution, a warning and invitation to consider what
manner of record shall be made in this place as to him, and to
ponder upon that course of life which may best secure for him an
honorable remembrance on the one hand; or, on the other, leave
him to depart from your midst, conscious that he has neither con-
tributed, nor attempted anything for the increase of the talent he
had received as a sacred trust, out of that great inheritance we
have, in common, derived from the whole history of our philosophy
and our art. The talent that is confided to a scholar cannot be
safely hid away in a napkin; and he who fails to improve upon it,
shall not wholly escape condemnation.
  If those who misemploy their powers and opportunities are
worthy of blame, a meed of praise belongs, on the other hand, to
the good and faithful scholar who has been diligent with regard
to the things intrusted to him; and it is due to the interests of
society, that a true record of him should be made.
  The progress of society in the Arts and Letters, and the security
of public morals and order, result chiefly from the influence of the
scholar. It is to the scholar that we are indebted for liberation
from the bonds of ignorance and superstition, and for every solid
acquisition in wisdom and virtue. Without education, there
is no dividing line, except a distinction of greater or less ferocity,
among brutal natural men. But the instructed man is raised im-

 



4



measurably above his natural estate, taught to know his wants
and rights, and those of his fellows, and discern the sources of true
happiness, with the methods by which to secure it for himself and
the world.
  We discover that one of the principal of these means is language,
the perfecting of which is pre-eminently the work of the scholar,
who thus places in man's hands the most solid and permanent
bases of civilization, with its attendant train of blessings-it is
evident that, without language, there could be neither any History
nor Chronology; and thus, men would be at a perpetual stand-
still, the discoveries and inventions of one age being incommuni-
cable to succeeding generations. Without language there could
be no intelligent combination of those human powers, which, di-
rected by a wise administration of them, enable man to raise the
everlasting pyramid, project the course and level of the canal,
trace out the path of the railway, direct the flash of the telegraph,
drive the steamer across the trackless sea, and, in a thousand forms,
provide for the consummation of those blessings that are embraced
in the social compact. " Even those," says M. Bunsen, " who be-
lieve that language and religion were not human inventions, but,
like Prometheus' fire, given to man from heaven, cannot but admit,
without rejecting all the evidences of research, that they were not
communicated in a state of completeness. The reverse is, indeed,
obvious, viz.: that man has never received more than the germ,
which he has been left to mould and modify according to his will
and capabilities."
  If these opinions of the illustrious Prussian are good and true,
then it is the Scholar who has developed this germ, and imparted
to his fellow man all its beneficent powers and results. To hold up
for emulation the lives and actions of good and great scholars is then,
a useful task; and proper, truthful memoirs serve as beacons and
guides for all those who would strive to rival them in excellence
and in benefactions. The hope of being remembered sustains
the fainting patriot, and the patient philanthropist, whose walk is
not in the broad and easy paths of the world.
  Being directed by the College to present a memoir of our late
associate, Dr. Drake, of Cincinnati, it has appeared to me that his
signal reputation in the United States, and in many foreign coun-
tries, demands a very extended notice of his life and works, and it

 


5



is to be hoped that a complete biography of this eminent person
may, by some competent hand, be hereafter prepared.
  However high my own appreciation of his merits, and however
desirous I might be to do full justice to his memory, it cannot be
expected that I shall here give more than a sketch of his life; but as
that life presents so many and such varied points of interest, and
was closely connected with the progress of medicine in our native
country, I now bespeak the indulgence of the College, if I should
dwell longer than is usually allowed, upon memorials of a  n
whose name is destined to be reverently pronounced, wherever
the medical biography and history of America shall hereafter
become known.
  Dr. Drake exhibited an illustrious example of devotion to the
improvement of medicine, and the diffusion of learning in general.
He was, moreover, a man of a pure life; charitable and kind; of
the greatest probity; laborious in the pursuit of knowledge, and
indefatigable under manifold difficulties and discouragements.
  He was a man, too, of a great and merited reputation, which ex-
tends even to the outer boundaries of the Republic of Medical Let-
ters, and as a citizen, he reflected honor on his country. The stars
in that country's flag, and the stripes in her shield, are not surer
emblems of her glory and power, than are the names of her emi-
nent scholars: the flag of the Union may be changed by violence
or caprice, but the names and actions of the great men of her people
will endure as long as her history, which, indeed, is but the record
of their lives and deeds. The life of an eminent person, then, be-
longs to the age and to the nation that love to boast of him as
their own.
  Daniel Drake, the subject of this notice, was born in Essex
County, State of New Jersey, where the town of Plainfield now
stands, on the 20th day of October, 1785, and died at Cincinnati,
on Friday, November 5th, 1852, aged sixty-seven years and
fifteen days. He was one of the sons of Isaac and Elizabeth
Drake, both natives of that vicinity, which had been the seat of
their family from an early period in the New Jersey settlements.
They were farmers, in humble circumstances as to fortune, but
respectable and exemplary by a pious life and conversation.
  For the improvement of their worldly condition they joined, in
1788, the migration to the Western country, and settled in Mason

 



6



County, Kentucky, upon a tract of only thirty-eight acres of land;
a circumstance which clearly shows how lowly they were as to
their worldly estate; for in that early period, none but the poorer
sort of people can be supposed to be restricted to such narrow
possessions. We are, moreover, informed that at the time of his
landing at Limestone, on the Ohio, now the town of Maysville,
Mr. Drake had only one single dollar remaining in his purse, and
that was the commercial equivalent of one bushel of corn.
  Notwithstanding he was such a poor farmer, yet being an upright
and discreet sensible man, his son, in all his subsequent career,
ever deemed himself honored in a virtuous parentage, cherishing
the memory of both father and mother, and extending to them,
in their declining years, the strong hand of filial affection and
respect; so that, under his protection, they had occasion to thank
Providence for the gift of a dutiful son. The mother is spoken
of as a person of superior merit.
  At the time of his settlement in Mason County, Isaac Drake
was too poor to be able to employ hired laborers, and even the
house he erected was a small log-cabin. The virgin soil was
turned by the plough held in his own hands, and it appears the
corn was ground into meal for their daily bread in a hand-mill
which our late colleague was taught in his youth to turn. It was
only by dint of hard labor, and by rigorous economy, labors in
which the youthful Daniel willingly co-operated, and economy,
which he then learned to practise, that the res angustce domi began
to expand by degrees, and that Mr. Drake was at length enabled
to add so much land as to constitute a farm of fifty acres. In
this place he lived and toiled up to the year 1794; at which time,
having sold his land, he made purchase of another domain of
two hundred acres, which was also worked by his own hands
and those of his sons.
  The lad had but few books in that wild new region, and of
these he has given us the names in one of his lesser papers. But
these books he was early inclined to read; and he learned to read
them with but little assistance, for in that remote frontier region
there was small opportunity of schooling for the children of the
district.
  In spite of such untoward circumstances, Mr. Drake very early
formed the design of devoting his boy to the medical profession,

 


7



notwithstanding the circumstances of the country and the narrow-
ness of his resources prevented him from bestowing upon the youth
such preliminary tuition as might properly fit him for the pursuits
of medicine. The sum total of his school-house training did not
take up more than six months, and even that was interrupted and
broken by various considerable intervals. But the child had a
passion for letters, and read with delight the few poor volumes that
had accompanied the parental exodus from the region of Plainfield.
He was filled with that "noble rage" that led him from the most
inauspicious beginnings to climb the rude ascents of knowledge
and virtue, and nothing could freeze the genial current of a soul
filled with such holy longings.
   Pending Mr. Drake's migration to the western country, he had
joined company on the way, among others, with a Dr. William
Goforth, who was also bending his steps towards that land of
promise. It was while on the voyage down the Ohio, probably
on board of some Broad-bottom, that the fellow-travellers talked
of bringing up the young child, then under three years of age, as
a medical pupil of the emigrant physician; and accordingly, when
the youth had attained to his fifteenth year, all unfitted as he was
by preliminary studies for the task, he departed from the paternal
roof, and, accompanied by his father, travelled to the town of
Cincinnati, which he reached on the 18th December, 1800.
  They proceeded at once to the residence of Dr. Goforth, who
being now established in the village, a popular physician, agreed
to receive the lad into his family, and instruct and bring him up
in his own art. Moreover, it was a part of the contract that Daniel
should have a certain amount of schooling, in consideration of
the fee or bonus to be paid for his initiation into the mysteries of
physic. The agreement was for four years of tuition at Dr.
Goforth's house, and the Doctor's fee was to be the sum of four
hundred dollars-a considerable amount, considering the state of
Isaac Drake's fortune, and the laborious nature of his agricultural
operations. But this shows more conclusively his appreciation of
his offspring.
  Thus, our late associate landed, at the early age of fifteen years,
at a small straggling village, the inhabitants of which did not
number, all told, one thousand souls; for it was only on the 26th
December, 1788 that     " Israel Ludlow, of New Jersey, and

 




8



his associates, escaping from the floating ices of the river, reared
their half-faced camps on what is now called the Quay. These
were the first edifices of the future city. Setting their watchmen
round, they lay down with their feet to the blazing fires, and fell
asleep under the music of the north wind whistling among the
frozen limbs of the great sycamores and water-maples which
overhung them. The next morning they rose, and began the
survey of the town, and the lines were marked by blazes on the
trees among which they passed. I need not, however, say to you,
that the commencement of the goodly city was not in the midst
of a long-settled and populous country, but in the depths of an
unbroken though not untrodden wilderness, for you all know that
hostile tribes of Indians then wandered between the gallant young
settlements of the interior of Kentucky and the distant savage
shores of Lake Erie."-Drake's Disc. Jan. 9, 1852.
  Thus, gentlemen, you have seen that it was not amid the groves
of Academus or under the columns of the Poecile, that our young
philosophy-aspirant imbibed the early principles of wisdom. Yet,
though Cincinnati was but a straggling village of rude houses and
shanties sprung up beneath the primeval shades around Fort
Washington, many meritorious persons had been attracted to the
spot, and among them several physicians, of whom honorable
mention has been made in writings published by the worthy
subject of this memoir. For attainments they appeared to have
been very respectable, and though dwellers in the wilderness,
careful as to manners and dress, some of them scrupulously so.
Many of them had been led thither to the Indian wars under
General Arthur St. Clair or General Wayne; others were lured
by the prospect of gain held out in the rapid progress of the
transalpine population, or loved to assist in laying the foundation
of the new magnificent Empire of the West.
  Dr. Drake has left us some very spirited sketches of many of
these people, and seems to have been impressed with feelings of
great respect for certain of them. Without any doubt, they were,
as men of action, well adapted to the professional exigencies of
the time and the place. The accounts we have of them show them
to have been characterized by that catholic spirit of philanthropy
and that truly Samaritan friendliness to the distressed that ever
designates and illustrates the man, and the vocation, when the

 


9



physician is not a false traitor to his mission. This is perhaps
the more a subject of surprise, if we consider the comparative low
grade of educational processes here, during the Colonial period,
and more particularly throughout the violent bloody struggle of
the Revolution, whose long painful drama was but shortly before
closed. It may well be supposed that adventitious aids to a medical
education, such as hospitals, books, engravings, journals, and pub-
lic lectures, and demonstrations, in reach of those sojourners in the
western wilderness, must have been wanting to them, or meagre
indeed. We have greater reason, therefore, to pity an aspiring
youth, doomed, without preparation or training, to enter on a de-
sultory path, and obliged to trace out its course amidst the tangled
mazes of medical progress from the earliest dawn of its history.
He who would truly be acquainted with the medical sciences,
must know them even in their origins, and throughout the whole
course of inventions and improvements in them. But what is
the power that can keep down and stifle the irrepressible aspira-
tions of genius panting to be born, and live and become glorified
in knowledge; or can bar out the light of truth from a mind like
his whose life we are contemplating
  The physician, Dr. Goforth, to whose tuition young Drake was
now confided, was a native of New York, where he was born A. D.
1766. In his youth he had the advantage of good instruction,
and acquired, at least, very good manners, and appears to have
been a benevolent, earnest, and truthful man. At the age of
twenty-two years he emigrated to the west in A. D. 1788, as
already mentioned. After occupying several different fields of
labor in the new western settlements, he at last fixed upon
Cincinnati as his permanent abode, and established himself as
one of the physicians of the place in the early part of A. D.
1800. By address, and by the possession of a certain share of
medical skill, he soon obtained a considerable amount of business
in the town. Dr. Drake thought that even had he not already
acquired some repute as a clinical practitioner in the West, he
would have gotten business; "for, on the whole, he had the
most winning manners of any physician I ever knew, and the
most of them. The painstaking and respectful courtesy with
which he treated the poorest and humblest people of the village,
seemed to secure their gratitude; and the more especially, as he
      2

 



10



always dressed with precision, and never left his house in the
morning until his hair was powdered by our itinerant barber,
John Arthurs, and his gold-headed cane grasped in his gloved
hand."-Disc. Jan. 9, 1852.
   Dr. Drake's printed Discourse, a charming production, which he
delivered before the Cincinnati Medical Library Association, Janu-
ary 9, 1852, is filled with pleasing sketches of the men and manners
of that early day; and it is difficult, in looking back upon the
speaking pictures he has drawn, to imagine how it happened that
amidst such utter laxity of the popular opinion upon drinking,
cards, and pastimes, and under suchfaineant modes of life as cha-
racterize the frontier men of America, he could wholly escape the
contagion of such baleful example and companionship.
  The only association then existing at Cincinnati, for mutual im-
provement, was one denominated the Young Men's Debating
Society. Of this association, a considerable number of the young
members subsequently arose to great distinction in the United
States. It is enough, among these, to name the Hon. John Maclean,
now of the Supreme Bench; Gen. Joseph G. Totten, the distin-
guished present Chief of the corps of U. S. Engineers; the gallant
Gen. Jessup of the U. S. Army, and Drake himself, whose name is,
perhaps, not less illustrious as an American physician and philoso-
pher, than theirs in the field and the forum.
  In the discourse in question, Dr. Drake remarks upon the very
low state of literature in the place, and the irregularities of con-
duct of the early inhabitants; nevertheless, he there imbibed a
stronger taste for learning and habits of virtuous living.
  He gives us a lively representation of the methods of exercising
the medical art among them; and the mode of procuring their
supplies of drugs and medicines from the then remote Atlantic
cities.
  He portrays the superstitions prevalent among the vulgar, and
describes the narrow bridle paths along which town physicians
made their visitations to the sick in distant country places, and
tells us of his own student life. It was his business topuet up and
dispense from house to house, the medicines prescribed by his
preceptor, Goforth, to the sick villagers. "Beginning," says he,
" at Peach Grove, where the Lytle House now stands, my first as-
signed duties were to read Quincy's Dispensatory, and grind quick-

 


11



silver into unguentum mercuriale, the latter of which, from pre-
vious practice on a Kentucky hand-mill, I found much the easier
of the two. But few of you," continues he, " have seen the genu-
ine old doctor's shop of the last century, or regaled your olfactory
nerves with the mingled odors, which, like incense to the god of
Physic, rose from the brown paper bundles, bottles stopped with
worm-eaten corks, and open jars of ointment, not a whit behind
those of the apothecary in the time of Solomon. Yet such a place
is very well for the medical student. However idle, he will be
always absorbing a little medicine, especially if he sleep beneath
the greasy counter."
  " New studies, and a new studio awaited me," says Drake, " and
throughout the ensuing spring and summer, the adjoining mea-
dow, with its forest shade-trees, and the deep and dark woods of
the near banks and valley of Deer Creek, acted in the manner of
the wilderness on the young Indian caught and incarcerated in
one of the school-houses of civilization. Underneath those shade-
trees, the roots of which still throw up an occasional scion, or
among the wild flowers of the wood, which exhaled incense to
Flora instead of iEsculapius, it was my allotted task to commit to
memory Cheselden on the Bones, and Innes on the Muscles, with-
out specimens of the former, or plates of the latter; and afterwards
to meander the current of humoral pathology of Boerhaave and
Van Swieten, without having studied the chemistry of Chaptal, the
physiology of Haller, or the materia medica of Cullen."
  These studies appear to have been fruitful of much knowledge,
notwithstanding Quintilian's opinion that study in the woods is
unfavorable to progress. That author says: Non tamen protinus
audiendi qui credunt aptissima in hoc nemora silvasque, quod
illa coeli libertas, locorum ammnitas, sublimem animum et beati-
orum spiritum parent.     Quare silvarum ameenitas, et prm-
terlabentia flumina, et inspirantes ramis arborum aurw, volucrum-
que cantus, et ipsa late circumspiciendi libertas ad se trahunt, et
mihi remittere potius voluptas ista videatur cogitationem, quam
intendere.-Inst. Orat. x. 3.
  Such, gentlemen, was the early tuition of a poor country lad
whose name, nevertheless, has since become identified with the
idea of those vast and populous regions that are comprised in the
interior valley of North America. Such was the imperfect

 



12



training of an eloquence which learned, afterwards, to utter some
of the most beautiful language, and to use the most gorgeous
rhetoric to be found anywhere in the English tongue ! Such was
the loose training of a fiery intelligence that went forth beyond
the flammantia mcenia mundi, and, controlled by an active vigor-
ous will, moved men to the performance of great and useful
enterprises. He early acquired the use of language, to that
degree as to make it serve as the visible lucid representative of
his ideas. For, when he spoke, men understood what it was he
would say to them. To misapprehend the use of language, is
ever to be betrayed by it: Drake knew, and used it well.
  Only ten years after his landing on the northern shore of the
Ohio, he was in a condition to publish his first printed essay.
This was his "Notices concerning Cincinnati," a pamphlet of sixty
pages, with an Appendix. In this production there is abundant
evidence to prove that he already was master of considerable
power of observation, that he possessed much accurate knowledge,
and was filled with the genuine love of truth in science. That
essay might do credit to a writer of far superior education to his
own.
  It appears that his preceptor soon learned to confide in the good
sense and honest intentions of his sylvan pupil; and long before
the close of his studentship in the Doctor's shop, was wont even to
consult with him and take his opinion on the cases which together
they attended. This confidence ripened at length into a sort of
copartnership in the business. As a proof of the good opinion he
entertained of the young man, he gave him, in A. D. 1805, what
Drake calls an " autograph diploma." This was a certificate
setting forth his merits and qualifications as a student and practi-
tioner, and signed by William Goforth, Surgeon-General, First
Division, Ohio Militia.
  Dr. Drake ever after cherished the remembrance of this occasion,
and preserved the record as a memorial of the olden time, and
still more, as "the tribute of a heart so generous as to set aside all
the dictates of judgment as to the qualifications of a stripling to
whom it was spontaneously given."-(Disc. ut ante.) Drake
practised physic upon this sole authorization for the space of
eleven years, when the authority was re-enacted by the venerable
University of Pennsylvania, at the annual commencement in 1817.

 


13



  After concluding his engagements with Goforth in 1805, Drake
proceeded to Philadelphia with a view to attend the medical
lectures in the University. He was very poor. His correspondence
with his father shows him to have been at one time reduced to his
last dollar. Let the poor student, therefore, be not wholly cast
down when at the distance of a thousand miles from home, and
almost without pecuniary resources, he shall perceive that our
Kentucky boy strove against every obstacle; and though likes
himself poor, and far from friends, yet never lost hope nor faith in
his future, but applied the strong resources within, and raised
himself to a lofty eminence in view of all his countrymen.
  He returned to the West in the spring of 1806, and settled as
practising physician in Mason County, Kentucky, his early home;
but, after waiting there a whole year in vain expectation of success,
he proceeded once more to Cincinnati, and engaged in a new
copartnership with his old friend and patron, Goforth.
  Now he got business, and as fortune began to smile upon him
and hold out higher prospects, his boundaries grew with his ad-
vancing knowledge-and at length arrived a period, at which a
profound impression was made upon his spirit, one that seated
itself in his affections and purposes, and that was never afterwards
erased, but settled deeper and firmer in his very heart, and ruled
it and made an abiding place for itself there. To a considerable
degree it fixed and determined his after individuality, moulding
his life, his thoughts, his wishes.
  I allude here to the attachment he formed for Miss Harriet
Sisson, a niece of Colonel Jared Mansfield, subsequently the dis-
tinguished professor of mathematics in the United States Military
Academy at West Point. IHe was united to this lady in marriage
on the 21st December, 1807. She was a person of great beauty
and accomplishments, and highly attractive by her amiable man-
ners and gentle temper, which, however, did not prevent her from
possessing a very positive character for resolution and steadiness
in all her purposes.
  Probably a deeper, warmer, or more lasting impression of love
was never made on a human heart than this, which grew with
constant augmentations-until he was deprived of that great
happiness by her demise, which took place on the 30th Septem-
ber, 1825.

 




14



   During her life she contributed to his happiness, aiding him in
every difficulty, sustaining him in his temptations, consoling him
in his severest distresses, and cheering him in his onward career of
distinction; so that she was ever a shield interposed for her hus-
band in the warfare of life. It is not to be doubted that this was
to him a bitter loss, and those who remember him may, perhaps,
refer to it as the cause of that earnest contemplative expression
Which his countenance ever wore, and which blended itself myste-
riously even with the smile that like flashes of summer lightning
served to brighten the clouds that shrouded without obscuring his
intellectual features.
  Neither can it be doubted that he bore this loss with that stoical
patience and courage that characterized the man. But her image
never absented itself from him. She seemed to be always near
him or above him; and always leading always persuading him,
and pointing out the paths of truth, and honor, and right, that she
herself had loved. I have reason to believe that the thought of
her ceased at last to be painful, and that the separation came to be
rather ideal than real; for he still could ever look, when he
would, upon her face and form, and he ever waited and watched
with patience for the coming of the wished-for consummation of
his life-that was, the being laid by the side of her mouldering
remains on the banks of the Ohio, whose current was not more
gentle and steady than the continued tide of his deathless affec-
tion.
  Drake loved Cincinnati-he loved the West-he gloried in her
progress and in her prospects. His wife lay buried there.
  In these passages I am not speaking with the least insincerity,
or for any purpose of rhetorical display. I deeply remember con-
versations with my departed friend, in which I heard him pour
out these thoughts in that sweet and solemn undertone with which
he was wont to converse. Nor do I consider this subject too
sacred for such an occasion. I ought to speak of the man as he
was, and not as he was not. This was a part of the man. Marc
Anthony said, "I come to bury Ciesar, not to praise him." Shall
some worldling, some vapid bargain-maker, say this was an idle
dream! and that it shows Drake to be a visionary! Not so; for
it is not possible that the identity of a single human intelligence
is ordained to be scattered like dust particles on the wind, and

 



15



its oneness converted into nothingness again. The indestructi-
ble identity the ME, is but another expression or formula of the
immortality of the soul; and though Drake did not see with
mortal eyes, but only apprehended by a concentrated Esthetic
force, the existence and proximity of that gentle and faithful
monitor and lover who had blessed eighteen years of his life, by
the sweet communion of heart with heart, yet was she there;
and watchino and waiting for his coming at the last declining
hour of his widowed age. If it was a dream, it was also an abid-
ing and consoling belief.
  I have already made a passing allusion to Drake's first printed
essay, the " Notices concerning Cincinnati," a small pamphlet that
drew towards him no little public regard and consideration, which
was much increased by the reissue of the tractate, now become a
volume of two hundred and fifty pages, under the title, A Picture
of Cincinnati.
  It cannot be without a feeling of surprise, that generates a sen-
timent of respect for the man, that one examines this, his first
public essay, and reflects at the same time, upon the slenderness
of those resources out of which, at the age of twenty-five years,
he thus carved out such a fortune of intellectual wealth. An
untaught Kentucky boy, he had already made no inconsiderable
acquisitions in the department of Natural History, both in Geology
and Botany. The tract contains the fruits of his study of the cli-
mate and diseases, the geology, botany, zoology and population of
that region. The Calendarium Florce which he has inserted proves
him to be a close observer and careful recorder, and little prone
to speculations and hypothesis.
  How wise he was, that he did not, like too many of us, confine
himself to the dull routine of diurnal professional duties! He
early bent himself to the promotion of every good work, and the
edification of the general good.
  In particular, he strenuously exerted himself for the establish-
ment, at Cincinnati, of a Lancastrian School, and drew up the
articles of association for it with his own hands. This good work
he did in 1813, and thus has the honor to be one of the prin-
cipal founders of an institution, that was subsequently expanded
into the noble College of Cincinnati, which was in 1814.

 



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   About the same time, he assiduously promoted the formation of
 a public library for the town.
   Can a man do anything better for society than promote, as far
 as in him lies, the diffusion of knowledge, and a love of learning
 among his fellow-citizens Probably no more philanthropic act
 can be performed than such an one as this. Dr. Drake had felt,
 in his own case, how greatly knowledge conduces to virtue, which
 is happiness, and was, therefore, willing to extend the knowledge
 and means of happiness by opening up easy avenues to public in-
 struction.
   The distinguished London physician, Dr. John Forbes, uses
strong language on this s