xt7ghx15n25x https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7ghx15n25x/data/mets.xml Yandell, Lunsford P. (Lunsford Pitts), 1805-1878. 1852  books b92-217-30936498 English Printed at the Office of the Journal, : Louisville : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. University of Louisville History. History of the University of Louisville  : an introductory lecture, delivered November 1st, 1852 / by Lunsford P. Yandell. text History of the University of Louisville  : an introductory lecture, delivered November 1st, 1852 / by Lunsford P. Yandell. 1852 2002 true xt7ghx15n25x section xt7ghx15n25x 

         HISTORY


                OF THE



UNIVERSITY OF LOUISVILLE:


                 AN



INTRODUCTORY LECTURE,


       DELIVERED NOVEMBER IST, 1852.



                BY


     LUNSFORD P. YANDELL, M. D.



PROFESSOR OF PHYSIOLOGY AND PATHOLOGICAL ANATOMY.








         LOUISVILLE:
PRINTED AT THE OFFICE OF THE LOUISVILLE JOURNAL.
             1852.

 This page in the original text is blank.

 

CORRESPONDENCE.



                          Louisville, Nov. 3d, 1852.
PROF. YANDELL:
    Sir-As representatives of the Medical Class of the
University of Louisville, we beg leave to return our
thanks for your eloquent and instructive Introductory
Address, and to solicit a copy of the same for publication.
            We are, Sir, with great respect,
                        Yours truly,
                           T. E. BROADDUS, )
                           T. N. SHELBY,
                           J. A. McQUEEN,       X
                           J. C. L. CAMPBELL,   i
                           J. L. BOGY,
                           B. F. HUMPHREYS,     R
                           ADDISON SEARS, )
                           A. A. BARNETT,
                           JAMES F. BROWN,

              University of Louisville, Nov. 4th, 1852.
GENTLEMEN:
    I beg leave through you to express to the Medical
Class, of which you are the organ, my sense of the
honor they have done me in requesting a copy of my In-
troductory Lecture for publication. I fear they over-rate
its merits; but as a brief, unadorned history of the Insti-
tution with which they are connected as pupils, I venture
to hope that it may prove to possess something more than
an ephemeral interest for them, as well as for the numer-
ous alumni of the University, and this consideration in-
duces me to comply with their flattering request.
           Very respectfully and truly yours,
                                L. P. YANDELL.
  Messrs. T. E. Broaddus, T. N. Shelby, J. A. McQueen, J. C. L.
Campbell, J. L. Bogy, &c., Committee.

 This page in the original text is blank.

 

                 HISTORY
                        OF THE

  UNIVERSITY OF LOUISVILLE:

           AN INTRODUCTORY LECTURE.



Gentlemen:
    In behalf of my colleagues, for whom I appear be-
fore you, this evening, I bid you welcome to our City and
this Institution. We greet you cordially as friends, and
tender to you our hospitality and friendly offices. We
pledge you our unwearied efforts to render your sojourn
in Louisville profitable and agreeable. You have come,
many of you, from far, leaving behind you happy homes
and loving friends. The absence of these we cannot hope
entirely to supply; but the remembrance of what you
have given up for the sake of your profession will inspire
us with deeper solicitude for your welfare; and we shall
labor the more zealously so to inflame your minds with
the love of science that this passion may replace, for
a season, all repinings towards home. You have a la-
borious winter before you; you have made choice of a la-
borious profession. It will be our aim and study to render
the toilsome path upon which you have entered a pleasant
one; to strew along it, if we may, an occasional flower,
or at least bring the light of our enlarged science fully
to illuminate it, and conduct you along it so prosperously
and safely, that, in looking back hereafter upon the happy
and useful hours of your lives, you shall recall this season
as one well spent.
  I am to speak to you on this occasion of the Institution

 

HISTORY OF THE MEDICAL DEPARTMENT



in which you are at present assembled. I propose to give
you some account of the origin, progress, and present
condition of the Medical Department of the University
of Louisville. I do not purpose to write its history in
detail, nor to pronounce upon it any studied eulogy; but
to recite briefly some of the most prominent events in its
career; to declare the policy by vhich it has been guided;
and to refer to some of the reasons which, in the opinion
of its Trustees and Medical Faculty, entitle it to look to
the profession for its sanction and continued support.
Such a narrative, I flatter myself, will not be uninterest-
ing to you its pupils; while such a report, now that the
school is entering upon its sixteenth session, seems to be
due to the citizens of Louisville, whose liberality in en-
dowing it, gives them a claim to know what it has achiev-
ed or attempted, and what are its present condition and
future prospects.
  Of the three professions commonly styled "learned,"
Medicine alone rests upon observation and experience.
Law and Theology are historical and dogmatic. The pro-
found jurist is made by the books of his profession. His
business is with precedents and the authorities in law.
With him reading is everything, and, other things being
equal, his eminence will be in proportion to the extent to
which he has stored his mind with legal precepts and
decisions. Experience and observation are of great avail
in the practice of the lawv, but they have no part in the
education of the lawyer.-So in Theology:-all is found-
ed upon authority. In every question involved in this
sublime science, the appeal lies to the Bible. With the
Bible alone, the student, possessed of a good mind, and
shut up to himself' and without aid from any one, might
frame a perfect system of theology. His observation,
however varied and accurate, his experience, however
deep, would not enable him to enrich or adorn it with any



6

 

OF TUEI UNIVERSITY OF LOUISVILLE.



new fact or principle. It must all come from that only
source of heavenly light-the volume of revelation.
  But with medicine it is otherwise. In our profession,
authority is worth but little. We have no traditions or
decisions that have the binding force of law-no authori-
ties from which we cannot appeal-no records of infallible
wisdom, but the book of nature. Medicine is experi-
mental and demonstrative; it consists of phenomena,
which must be seen, scrutinized, and pondered upon.
The eye of the naturalist, the laboratory of the chemist,
and the knife of the anatomist are all requisite to its ad-
vancement.  Books are of the last importance to the
student of medicine, but books alone could never make a
thorough physician; they could never impart a knowledge
of the taste of opium, or the color of chlorine;-they
could not teach a student how to determine whether a
blister had drawn well, or how a patient looked with
measles or smallpox. He is obliged to see and observe
as well as read. He appeals not to the fathers in medi-
cine for any fact in human anatomy, but repairs to a more
infallible source of knowledge; he is content with nothing
short of a demonstration.
  This, if I am not mistaken, is the principle upon which
medical schools have obtained such a currency, and are
so much relied upon in the acquirement of a medical
education. Students of law and divinity no doubt derive
important advantages from the lectures upon which they
attend on law and theology, but to the medical student
schools of medicine are indispensable. They have had
an existence in every age of the healing art. Six hun-
dred years before the Christian era we are told that
three were founded by the Asclepiades, and two centuries
later Hippocrates gave public instructions in anatomy and
the treatment of disease, and labored to disseminate a
knowledge of medicine. The great school of Alexandria
was founded three hundred years before the birth of



7

 

HISTORY OF THE MEDICAL DEPARTMENT



Christ; and it was there that Galen, in the fifth century
of its existence, inspected one of the two human skeletons
that formed the basis of his book on Anatomy. The pro-
gress of these primitive schools was slow; nor was there
in those which succeeded them in Europe, at a later day,
any principle of vigorous growth. When so many other
departments of human knowledge were rapidly advancing,
the medical teacher was still contented servilely to copy
and communicate what had come down to him from the
early Greek and Arabian physicians.
  Our country was slow to embark in the medical instruc-
tion of her own sons. A century and a half after the colo-
nies were settled the medical students of America were still
obliged to repair to the colleges of Europe for the
completion of their studies. It was not until the Uni-
versity of Edinburgh had been attracting scores of young
American physicians across the sea for forty years, that any
serious effort was made to establish a medical school on
our continent. This honor belongs to Dr. John Morgan,
who, by an address remarkable for its earnest and sound
argument, prevailed upon the trustees of the college of
Philadelphia to found the institution now represented by
the University of Pennsylvania. This first American
school of medicine was organized in 1765, while Dr.
Franklin presided over the College. Three years after-
wards a similar institution was founded in New York,
but failed to command the success which has attended the
Philadelphia school. A medical faculty was appointed
in 1782 to give lectures on the different branches of med-
icine in Harvard University; and in 1804 Dr. John B.
Davidge laid the foundation of the medical school at Bal-
timore. He had returned a few years previously from the
University of Edinburgh, where he formed the resolution,
in common with his fellow-students, Dr. Hosack, and Dr.
Samuel Brown, of establishing a medical school in his na-
tive country. I have heard him relate, that the project



8

 

OF THE UNIVERSITY OF LOUISVILLE.



appeared to the students of the old country extremely
absurd, an(I they made great sport of the embryo profes-
sors of America. The opening of his enterprise was any-
thing but auspicious; his first class numbered only six, and
his second had but one addition to it. The rise of the other
early American schools, thoughI not quite so gradual as that
of my old preceptor and friend, was by no means rapid when
compared with those of our day. It remained for the
West fullv to develope the activity of such institutions.
  The tide of immigration had been pouring into the Val-
ley of the Mississippi for more than thirty years, and the
Western States wvere still without a medical school.
Such students as could afford the necessary means resort-
ed to the Atlantic colleges; those who wvere unable to in-
cur the expense entered upon the practice of their pro-
fession without the advantages of public instruction.
Kentucky, the pioneer of the new states, took the lead in
medical education. With whom the thought of founding
a medical college in Lexington first originated, it is per-
haps impossible now to ascertain, but as early as 1816
some steps had been taken in that direction. In that year
lectures were delivered by Dr. Wm. H. Richardson while
yet an under-graduate in medicine. In 1817 he was asso-
ciated with Dr. Benjamin W. Dudly, Dr. Daniel Drake,
Dr. James Blythe, and Dr. James Overton, in the Faculty
of the Medical Department of Transylvania Universi-
ty. These gentlemen delivered a course of lectures to a
class of twenty students, of whom Dr. W. L. Sutton, the
first President of the Kentucky Medical Society, is one of
the surviving members. The result of this enterprise
does not appear to have been satisfactory; troubles ori-
ginated in the Faculty, and the school was suspended af-
ter a single session.
  In the summer of 1819 the Faculty was re-organized,
Dr. Charles Caldwell and Dr. Samuel Brown taking the
place of Dr. Drake and Dr. Overton, the first of whom
                          2



9

 

HISTORY OF THE MEDICAL DEPARTMENT



had in the meantime returned to Cincinnati, and the lat-
ter had removed to Nashville.  Dr. Caldwell brought
vith him from Philadelphia a high reputation both as a
writer and a lecturer. Dr. Brown wvas a man of showy
parts, of varied learning, of fine person, and elegant ad-
dress. Dr. I)udley had already given promise of that
rare surgical skill which has since rendered him so distin-
guished. Dr. Richardson had the reputation of being a
successful practitioner of obstetrics, and was recommend-
ed by cordial and popular manners. Dr. Blythe, the pro-
fessor of Chemistry, was a learned Presbyterian clergy-
man, and his connection with the school was calculated to
conciliate that large and influential body of Christians.
  Under the direction of a Faculty thus constituted it be-
came at once manifest, that the Medical Department of
Transvlvania University was soon to exhibit an example of
prosperity at that time unparalleled in the history of med-
ical schools. Its location had great advantages for the
time. Lexington, from its literary eminence, had acquired
the title of "Athens of the West." It was the commercial
as well as the literary emporium of the Western States.
The late Dr. Horace Holley, at that time President of the
University, with powers of display seldom equalled, con
ferred upon the institution a remarkable lustre. The
medical school was a new enterprise and had in it all the
excitement of novelty and hope. Its Faculty was ardent,
zealous, and gifted. It was situated in the midst of a wide
country rapidly increasing in population. The first session
of the school opened with a class of 37 pupils; its second
class numbered 93; its third 138; its fourth, 171. Be-
fore the commencement of the fifth session, Dr. Drake, who
had made an abortive effort to found a similar institution
in Cincinnati, was united to the Faculty, as Professor of
Materia Medica. The number of the succeeding class
was 200; and that of the sixth, 234. At the end of this
session, Dr. Browvn resigned the chair of Theory and



10

 

OF THE UNIVERSITY OF LOUISVILLE.



Practice of Medicine, to which Dr. Drake was transferred,
and Dr. Charles W. Short was elected Professor of Mate-
ria Medica and Medical Botany. The ensuing class, in
the autumn of 1825, numbered 282 students. The one
which followed was not so large, and the next declined to
190. At the termination of this session, Dr. Drake resign-
ed his professorship. In the summer of 1827, Dr. John
E. Cooke, who had attracted the attention of the profes-
sion by some able papers in the Medical Recorder, and his
"Pathology and Therapeutics," the first volume of which
had just been published, was invited from Winchester,
Virginia, to the chair of Theory and Practice. The num-
ber of students the following winter was only 150; but
the next session exhibited an increase, and for several
years the classes continued steadily to grow. In the
spring of 1831, Dr. Blythe resigned the chair of Chem-
istry, and the writer of this narrative was appointed his
successor, with the late Mr. H. Hulbert Eaton as Assist-
ant. Unfortunately for science, this promising young man
was cut off after participating in a single course of lec-
tures, dying of pulmonary consumption in the 23d year
of his age.
   The institution in 1835 was again in a highly flourish-
ing condition. Its classes had risen above 260. To the
eye of the common observer all about it gave promise of
stability; but appearances were deceptive, and in the
midst of such success the conviction was forced upon the
minds of the Faculty, that the school had filled up the
measure of its usefulness. Lexington, the most eligible
site for a medical school when this was organized, was
now admitted to be deficient in some of the elements es-
sential to the establishment of a great and enduring insti-
tution. With the advancement of medical science in our
country it had ceased to be able to satisfy the demands of
the profession. It had no hospital, and furnished very pre-
carious and inadequate means for anatomical study. In the



it

 

2HISTORY OF THE MEDICAL DEPARTMENT



winter of 1835-6 it came to be felt and acknowledged by the
Faculty that the department, if it was to be maintained in
the position of ascendency which it had enjoyed from the
beginning, must be transferred to a situation possessing
more advantages than were then afforded by that beautiful
city. Louisville suggested itself to the mind of every
member as a point combining all the facilities for a med-
ical school, and accordingly in the spring of 1836 it was
resolved, with entire unanimity, to attempt to remove it to
this place.
  When the period for carrying out this resolution arriv-
ed, it was ascertained that the measure was impracticable;
the professors might remove to Louisville, but the citi-
zens of Lexington and the Trustees of the University
would not entertain the proposition to transfer the Medi-
cal department. The agitation of the question led to dis-
sentions among the professors, and finally to a dissolution
of the Faculty; three of the members, Dr. Dudley, Dr.
Richardson, and Dr. Short remainin- in Lexington, Dr.
Cald well, Dr. Cooke and myself accepting places in the
Louisville Medical Institute.
  The Medical Institute of Louisville was chartered by
the Legislature of Kentucky on the 2d of February, 1833,
and various attempts were made without success to put
it in operation; at length the citizens becoming interested in
the project, a town meeting was held, at which on the 30th
of March, 1837, it was resolved that there ought to be a
college in the city of Louisville, with Medical and Lauw
Departments, and that it was expedient that the MaVor-
and Council should proceed at once to endow the first of
these.
  The Mayor and Council were prompted by these reso-
lutions of the citizens to grant the square bounded by
Eighth and Ninth, and Chestnut and Magazine Streets, to
the Managers of the Medical Institute; and they further
resolved to erect necessary buildings for a Medical school



12

 

OF THE UNIVERSITY OF LOUISVILLE.



at a cost not to exceed 30,000, and to advance in cash
for the purchase of a library, anatomical museum, and
the requisite apparatus, an additional sum of 20,000.
On the 1th of April the Board met, and accepted the do-
nation of the city. During the summer six professorships
were filled, Dr. Miller, who had resigned his chair in or-
der that the Board might be entirly unembarrassed in
making their new arrangements, being appointed to the
chair of Obstetrics, Dr. Cobb to that of Anatoniv, and Dr.
Joshua B. Flint to that of Surgery. To Dr. Caldwell,
Dr. Cooke and myself were assigned the chairs which we
had respectively held in Transylvania University, name-
ly, Institutes of Medicine, Theory and Practice, and
Chemistry. Subsequently I was transferred to the chair
of Materia Medica and for one season delivered lectures
on that branch as well as Chemistry.
  The first course of lectures in the Medical Institute
was delivered in the upperroomsof the City Work-house,
which stood upon the site of-our present edifice, to a class
of 80 students. The appearance and appointments of
the old structure in which we were to commence our la-
bors were unattractive, straitened, and comfortless enough;
and now as I look back upon the new enterprise I can see
that there were discouragements attending it which might
justify the misgivings of many of its friends. The Lexing-
ington school was again fully organized. The citizens
were roused by the attempt to transfer to a rival city an
institution which had been so long a cherished object of
their pride, and were resolved to sustain it. Dr. Eberle,
at that day one the most popular authors and teachers in
the country, had been induced to leave Cincinnati and ac-
cept the chair of Theory and Practice of Medicine. One
half of the Facultv whitch had reared the school and con-
ferred upon it a full share of its reputation, still remained
identified with it. It had a widely extended, influential,
and devoted corps of-alumni upon which it could rely, and



13

 

HISTORY OF THE MEDICAL DEPARTMEINT



it had a name among the medical institutions of the coun-
try which the success of nineteen winters had been con-
stantly strengthening and extending.
  Such was the School in the face of which the Medical
Institute of Louisville was to rise; nor was Transylva-
nia the only powerful rival in its neighborhood. The
Ohio Medical College, though crippled by the withdraw-
al of Dr. Eberle and Dr. Cobb, was again organized, and
with many other advantages could boast of a reputation
as ancient as that of the sister institution at Lexington.
The Cincinnati Medical College was also contending vig-
orously for the first rank among Western Medical Schools,
and when I tell you that Dr. Drake, Dr. Parker, of New
York, Dr. McDowell of St. Louis, the late Dr. Harrison,
of Cincinnati, and Dr. James B. Rogers, of Philadelphia,
Dr. Rives, now of the Ohio Medical College, and my col-
league, Dr. Gross, composed its Faculty, you can judge
with what chances of success. Not a few of our friends
were desponding.  It was doubted whether we should
have any students at the time we proposed to commence
our first course, and some of us were kindly advised to
give up the project as hopeless.
  But not so thought the Faculty. To their minds it was
evident that the enterprise must prosper. It could not be
doubted that Louisville, from its geographical position and
many other natural advantages, must become the seat of
a great medical school, and the citizens had wisely de-
creed the means necessary to its establishment.
  Our first class, I have mentioned, numbered 80 students,
of whom 27 received the degree of M. D. in the spring.
The class at Lexington numbered 230, which was only
about twelve short of the preceding class.
  It was a noble effort to found the first medical school
in the West. It placed a liberal medical education within
the reach of hundreds of meritorious young men who
mu st otherwise have grown old in their profession with-



14

 

OF THE UNIVERSITY OF LOUISVILLE.



out its advantages.  The Transylvania medical school
was a source of substantial blessings to the country.
They who founded it and by their labors gave to it its
brilliant reputation, were pioneers in medical education,
benefactors of their profession and their race, and as such
their names will live in the memories of men.
  Those who came to establish the medical school at
Louisville were also pioneers. They were still bearing
forward the light of our beneficent science in the direction
in which the "star of empire" has so long held its way.
When the steeple which surmounts this edifice, was erect-
ed, it was the last reared in honor of medicine upon which
the sun shone in his journey down the evening sky-the
first to greet the traveler coming from the "far west."
Now it is one of the old schools; so rapidly do such insti-
tutions grow up in our progressive country.
  On the 22d of February, 1838, the corner stone of this
building was laid with Masonic honors, in presence of a
great concourse of citizens, and the second course of lec-
tures was delivered in these rooms. At the close of the
first session, it appearing desirable to fill the vacancy in
the Faculty by the introduction of Dr. Short, who had
again after the dissolution of the Faculty accepted a
chair in the Lexington school, I resigned the profes-
sorship of Materia Medica and was appointed by the
Board of Trustees to the chair of Chemistry. The
election of Dr. Short completed the organization of
the Institute.  A member of the Faculty was com-
missioned by the Trilstees to visit Europe for the purpose
of increasing the library, chemical apparatus, anatomical
models and preparations, and other materials of illustra-
tion for the school. The second session opened under
favorable circumstances. The new ar.d splendid edifice
presented a strong contrast to the old rooms in which the
incipient exercises of the institution were performed; and
the fine library and suites of apparatus arrived from Europe



15

 

HISTORY OF THE MEDICAL DEPARTMENT



in good season to render the preparation for teaching the
several branches complete. The second class numbered
120.
  In the summer of 1839, the Cincinnati Medical College
suspended operations, and Dr. Drake, its founder, was
elected Professor of Clinical Medicine and Pathological
Anatomy, in thc Medical Institute, a chair created by
the Board of Trustees, on the recommendation of
the Faculty, for the purpose of securing the ser-
vices of that experienced and able teacher. It is wor-
thy of remark that although the effect of this inno-
vation wvas to raise the tuition fees of the Institute above
those of all the neighboring schools, it caused no abate-
ment, but rather an increase, in the ratio of its growth.
The number of its third class was 205. At the end of this
session Dr. Joshua B. Flint retired from the school, and
was succeeded in the chair of Surgery by its present in-
cumbenr, Dr. Samuel I. Gross.
  'rTe class had now grown to be so large that the usual
mode of giviiig clinical instruction-the students follow-
ing the professors through the wards of the hospital,
and catching-, as they could, the remarks made at the bed-
sides of the patients-was found to be ineffectual; and
in order that this most important branch of medical teach-
ing might be rendered efficient and useful, the Faculty
determined, with the consent of the city council, to erect
a clinical theatre adjoining the Marine Hospital. The
following course of lectures was delivered to 209 stu-
dents, and no portion of it was more satisfactory than
that which was given in the clinical amphlitheatre. The ef-
fect of tie innovation was felt to be most salutary. The
succeeding class numbered 268.
  In consequence of the embarrassed state of the coun-
try, the number of students declined the ensuing session,
and was only 190; but the institution soon recovered
from the temporary depression and the following years ex-



16

 

OF THE UNIVERSITY OF LOUISVILLE.



hibited a rapid increase. Its sixth class reached 246; its
seventh, 290; and its eighth, 347. It was now confess-
edly ahead of all the neighboring schools, and probably
behind none in the country except the two principal
schools of Philadelphia.
During the winter of 1843-4, Dr. Cooke, who had retired
to a farm in the neighborhood of Louisville, gave notice
to the Board of Managrers tha he should vacate his chair
in the spring, a step which his declining health shortly af-
terwards would have rendered necessary. He was the
first of those who had taken part in the organization of
the school to resign his seat in it. The peculiar medical
theories and practice of this original man have been exten-
sively commented upon, and are known to every one who
has read much of American medicine. Whatever may
be the judgment of medical men concerning these, there
can be among those who have known him intimately but
one opinion as to the purity and excellence of his charac-
ter. However mistaken he may have been in any of his
views, no one ever doubted his sincerity. No one ever
associated long with him without the conviction that he
was a just, upright, and thoroughly honest man. The
feeble state of his health has compelled him entirely to
abandon his profession, and for several years past he has
lived on his thrm, in Trimble county, on the banks of the
Ohio.
  In February, 1845, during its eighth session, the Leg-
islature of Kentucky granted a charter for the University
of Louisville, of which the Medical Institute was consti-
tuted the Medical department. By the provisions of the
charter, the Board of Trustees were to be elected by the
City Council, and to hold office for a limited period, in-
stead of filling their own vacancies, and continuing in
office for life, as under the original charter.  The first
class that assembled in the Medical department of the
University of Louisville numbered 353 Students, and the
                           3



17

 

1IISTOnY OF THE MEDICAL DEPAETME1ET



second rose to 406.  This was in 1847, ten years from
the commencement of the enterprise, and I suppose I am
safe in saying, that no medical school ever attracted so
many students in so short a time. The number, the en-
suing session, was 333.
  Extensive changes in the Faculty took place after the
close of this session.  In February, 1849, Dr. Drake
signified to the Board of Trustees that he should re-
sign his professorship at the end of the term.  Later in
the season the chair held by Dr. Caldwell was vacated;
and in June, Dr. Short carried into effect a wish which
he had long indulged, of retiring from the turmoil which
seems to be inseparable from medical schools.  These
professors were all men experienced, learned, and widely
known. Dr. Caldwell was for many years one of the
chief ornaments of Transylvania University, and by his
energy and industry, his great learning, and his eloquence,
had contributed a full share to its rapid rise and wide pop-
ularity. He was far more actively concerned than any of
his colleagues in procuring from the city of Louisville
the noble endowment of the Medical Institute, and his
reputation for learning and originality had been of the
greatest service to the institution in its earlier years. Dr.
Drake was at the height of his popularity, and in the
full maturity of his intellect.  As a lecturer or writer,
he had made himself known to every educated American
physician. With an unfailing zeal in his profession, untiring
industry, a mind singularly active, vigorous, and compre-
hensive, and an eloquence which never failed to excite
and gratify the interest of his pupils, he would have taken
a high rank in any medical school.  Dr. Short differed
in the character of his mind from both his distinguished
colleagues, but possessed qualities which rendered him
a most valuable officer. His high scientific attainments,
the soundness of his judgment, his dignity and urbanity



is

 

OF THE UNIVERSITY OF LOUISVILLE.



ofrnannerE, his amiable temper, and blameless life, added
character and weight to the institution.
  These eminent teachers were succeeded by Dr. Elisha
Bartlett, Dr. Lewis Rogersa and Dr. Benjamin Silliman,
Jr., the latter in the chair of Chemistry, the Board of
Trustees having done me the honor to assign to me the
department of Physiology and Pathological Anatomy.
The influence of so extensive a revolution was feared by
some, but the sequel proved that the institution had be-
come sufficiently established in the confidence of the
public to bear the change without loss. The number of
the succeeding class was 376-a gain of more than forty
upon the one of the previous year, and the largest but
one ever attracted to the University.
  The prospects of the school were never brighter than
they appeared to be at the close of that session. There
was not a speck to be descried upon its horizon in any di-
rection.  Its faculty was united and harmonious; its
pupils had retired to their homes in the most favorable
temper; it had been now for several years far in advance
of all the western schools;-all the omens were auspi-
cious.  But before the opening of another collegiate
year, the Trustees were called upon to fill two vacancies
in the faculty. Dr. Bartlett and Dr. Gross, late in the
summer of 1850, resigned their places, and accepted
chairs in the University of New York. Dr. Drake was
recalled by the Board to the professorship which he had
formerly held, and Dr. Gross was succeeded by Dr. Paul
F. Eve, of the Georgia Medical College, atAugusta. The
number of students the session ensuing was 282.
   At the close of his first course of lectures in New York,
 Dr. Gross returned to Louisville, and Dr. Eve resigned the
 chair of Surgery in his favor. Dr. Gross was re-elected
 in 1851, and Dr. Eve, who had generously relinquished a
 place to which he felt that his friend had stronger claims,
 was invited to a chair in the medical school about to he



19

 

HISTORY OF THE MEDICAL DEPARTMENT.



organised at Nashville. The number of the class, as you
are aware, was 262.
  The friends of the Ohio Medical College, being desi-
rous of reorganizing that institution, prevailed upon Dr.
Drake, last spring, to return once more to the chair in that
school of which he was the first occupant. Dr. Cobb,