DANIEL DRAKE AND THE ORIGIN OF MEDICINE
IN
THE OHIO VALLEY1
By DAVID A. TUCKER, JR.
Biographical Sketch.
This is the story of a man, of whom few
of you have heard.
Such is fame. For Daniel Drake was in
his day the greatest
physician of the West, the founder of
sound medical education
in the Ohio Valley and one of the most
unique and picturesque
figures in the history of American
medicine.
He was born on a farm in New Jersey,
October 20, 1785. His
parents were poor; his father, Isaac
Drake, being a small farmer
and proprietor of a grist-mill. When
Daniel was two and one-
half years old the family joined a party
migrating to the western
country, setting out to cross the
Alleghanies with all their posses-
sions in an old one-horse wagon.
Reaching the Ohio River they
descended by flatboat, finally settling
in Kentucky at Mayslick,
twelve miles southwest of the present
town of Maysville and about
seventy-five miles from Lexington. When
Isaac Drake reached
Kentucky his monetary wealth consisted
of a single dollar, the
price of a bushel of corn. His first
land holding was thirty-eight
acres, shortly increased to fifty. In
1794 a tract of two hundred
acres of unbroken forest was acquired
and although Daniel was
but nine years of age at this time, he
took part in the clearing
and cultivation of the farm.
His schooling was meager, received
chiefly at the hands of
itinerant schoolmasters, who usually
remained in one place only
long enough to have their real
characters made public and who
often left hastily, and just in time to
escape the irate pioneers.
The Drake library consisted of the
Bible, Rippon's collection
of hymns, Thomas Dilworth's Spelling
Book, an almanac, and
1 An address delivered before the Ohio
chapter of the Alpha Omega Alpha, honor-
ary medical fraternity, Ohio State
University, January 19, 1934.
(451)
452 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL
AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
the famous history of Montellion--a
romance of chivalry. As
Daniel grew other books were added: Noah
Webster's Spelling
Book, John Entick's Dictionary, Scott's Lessons, Aesop's
Fables,
Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography, and
William Guthrie's A
New
Geographical, Historical and Commercial Grammar.
Very early the elder Drake had formed
the notion of having
Daniel study medicine. During the voyage
down the Ohio River
in 1788 he had made the acquaintance of
Dr. William Goforth
who first settled at Washington,
Kentucky, later, in 1799, remov-
ing to Cincinnati. Half in jest and half
in earnest he told Goforth
that Daniel some day should become a
doctor, and that Goforth
should be his teacher. Later, when
Daniel was growing up he
made the two-and-a-half day trip to
Cincinnati to confirm this
agreement and to arrange the terms of
the apprenticeship. Thus
it came about that in December, 1800,
when he was fifteen years
of age, Daniel was taken to Cincinnati,
then a small frontier town
with a population of less than a
thousand, apprenticed to Goforth,
and became the first medical student
west of the Alleghanies. He
describes his entrance to the study of
medicine as follows:
Beginning on the 20th of December, 1800,
at Peach Grove where
the Lytle house now stands, my first
assigned duties were to read [John]
Quincy's Dispensatory and grind
quicksilver into unguentum mercuriale;
the latter of which, from previous
practice on a Kentucky hand-mill, I
found much the easier of the two. But
few of you have seen the genuine,
old doctor's shop of the last century;
or regaled your olfactory nerves in
the mingled odors which, like incense to
the god of Physic, rose from
brown paper bundles, bottles stopped
with worm-eaten corks, and open jars
of ointment, not a whit behind those of
the apothecary in the days of
Solomon; yet such a place is very well
for a student. However idle, he
will be always absorbing a little
medicine; especially if he sleep beneath
the greasy counter. But I must leave off
philosophizing and return to
my narrative. New studies and a new studio awaited me;
and through
the ensuing spring and summer the
adjoining meadow with its forest
shade-trees, and the deep and dark wood
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
schoolhouses of civilization. Under-
neath those shade-trees, the roots of
which still send up an occasional scion,
or among the wild flowers of the wood,
which exhaled incense to Flora
instead of Aesculapius, it was my
allotted task to commit to memory
Chesselden on the bones, and Innes on the
muscles, without specimens of
the former or plates of the latter; and
afterwards to meander the currents
of humoral pathology, of [Herman] Boerhaave
and Van Sweiten; without
having studied the chemistry of [Jean
Antoine, Comte de Chanteloup]
Chaptal, the physiology of [Albrecht
von] Haller, or the Materia Medica
DANIEL DRAKE 453
of [William] Cullen. Such was the
beginning of medical education in
Cincinnati. I say beginning, for I was
its first pupil.
In May, 1804, Drake began the practice
of medicine as a junior
partner with Goforth, and doubtless
without having ever wit-
nessed the dissection of the human body
or a single experiment
in chemistry was dubbed
"doctor."
Stirred by the writings of Benjamin Rush
and the enthusiasms
of Dr. John Stites, Jr., who had come
from the East, and moved
by his own ambitions Drake determined in
1805 to go to Phila-
delphia for further study. At this time
Goforth presented him
with an autograph diploma reading as
follows:
I do hereby certify, that Mr. Daniel
Drake has pursued under my
direction, for four years, the study of
Physic, Surgery and Midwifery.
From his good Abilities and marked
Attention to the Prosecution of his
studies, I am fully convinced that he is
qualified to practice in the above
branches of his Profession.
WM. GOFORTH, Surgeon General
1st Division Ohio Militia.
CINCINNATI, STATE OF OHIO, August 1, 1805.
This was the first medical diploma ever
granted west of the
Alleghanies.
After a three weeks' journey, mainly on
horseback, Drake
arrived in Philadelphia on the ninth of
November, 1805, and pro-
ceeded to purchase tickets for Rush's
lectures on physic; James
Woodhouse's on chemistry; Caspar
Wistars' on anatomy; and
Philip S. Physick's on surgery, at a
cost of $70. The lectures
closed in March, 1806, and Drake immediately
turned toward the
West again, reaching Cincinnati in
April. He commenced prac-
ticing at Mayslick, his father's home,
in the summer. In April,
1807,
Drake removed to Cincinnati to take over Goforth's practice
as the latter had determined to go to
New Orleans. In the same
year Drake was married to Miss Harriet
Sisson, the niece of
Colonel Jared Mansfield,
surveyor-general of the United States.
Occupied by practice, by commercial
activities and services of
varied and public nature until 1815,
Drake again went to Phila-
delphia, and after a winter of study
received a diploma and a
doctor's degree from the University of
Pennsylvania. The illness of
his wife required Drake's absence at the
time of the regular com-
mencement so that the faculty awarded
his degree at a special
454
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL
QUARTERLY
convocation. In 1816 practice was
resumed in Cincinnati. Drake
had in 1810 published a small work
called Notices concerning Cin-
cinnati, describing the geography, topography and botany of the
Cincinnati region, together with notices
of the local industries and
institutions. The section on medical
botany gained him some rec-
ognition among medical men and doubtless
influenced Dr. Ben-
jamin Dudley, the distinguished surgeon
of Lexington and organ-
izing genius of Transylvania, to urge
Drake in 1817 to become
professor of materia medica in that
institution. After considerable
deliberation he accepted and removed to
Lexington, remaining only
one year. When he returned to Cincinnati
he projected a sys-
tematic course of instruction for
medical students, a private ven-
ture which culminated in 1819 in the
founding of the Medical
College of Ohio, in spite of much
opposition due to personal jeal-
ousy. Drake appeared before the State
Legislature and his efforts
resulted in the passage of the law
chartering the college. By this
law Drake became the president of the
Board of Trustees and
professor of the institutes and practice
of medicine. Internal dis-
sensions soon arose and several members
of the faculty resigned.
In March, 1822, at a meeting
of the surviving faculty of three,
Drake was expelled. In a pamphlet
entitled A Narrative of the
Rise and Fall of the Medical College
of Ohio (Cincinnati, 1822),
one of the choicest bits of satire and
sarcasm in our literature,
Drake describes the meeting at which he
was removed from the
faculty as follows:
On the morning of this day, Doctor [Benjamin] Bohrer
resigned; and
the faculty was then reduced to Dr. [Jesse]
Smith, Mr. [Elijah] Slack and
myself. Immediately after the citizens'
committee was appointed, two of
its members waited upon each of us, and
upon those who had resigned, to
say that they would meet the next
morning, and to invite the whole to
attend personally, or make written
communications to them. Messrs. Smith
and Slack informed this sub-committee
that they meant, before they slept,
to expel me and let the investigations
be made afterwards. At eight o'clock
we met according to a previous
adjournment, and transacted some financial
business. A profound silence ensued, our
dim taper shed a blue light over
the lurid faces of the plotters, and
everything seemed ominous of an
approaching revolution. On trying
occasions, Dr. Smith is said to be sub-
ject to a disease not unlike Saint
Vitus' Dance; and on this he did not
wholly escape. Wan and trembling he
raised himself (with the exception
of his eyes) and in lugubrious accents
said, "Mr. President--In the reso-
lution I am about to offer, I am
influenced by no private feelings, but
solely by a reference to the public
good." He then read as follows:
DANIEL DRAKE
455
"Voted that Daniel Drake, M. D., be
dismissed from the Medical College
of Ohio." The portentous stillness
recurred, and was not interrupted till
I reminded the gentlemen of their
designs. Mr. Slack, who is blessed with
stronger nerves than his master, then
rose, and adjusting himself to a
firmer balance, put on a proper
sanctimony, and bewailingly ejaculated:
"I second the motion." The
crisis had now manifestly come; and, learning
by inquiry that the gentlemen were ready
to meet it, I put the question,
which carried, in the classical language
of Doctor Smith, "nemo contra-
dicente." I could not do more than tender them a vote of thanks,
nor less
than withdraw, and, performng both, the
doctor politely lit me downstairs.
Although public indignation compelled
the rescinding of this
action within a week, Drake promptly
resigned. A year later
(1823) he again joined the faculty of
Transylvania as professor
of materia medica and remained for three
sessions, serving as
dean for the last two. Meanwhile he
acquired a large consultation
practice, patients coming to him from
all parts of the South and
West, and he numbered among his friends
many noted men, of
whom Henry Clay was one.
The year 1827 found Drake again in
Cincinnati where he en-
gaged in practice and medical journalism
until 1830. With Dr.
Jedediah Cobb he opened the Cincinnati
Eye Infirmary and prac-
ticed some ophthalmic surgery. In 1830 Drake accepted
the Chair
of Medicine in the Jefferson Medical
College of Philadelphia
where his fame as a teacher had preceded
him. It seems clear
that Drake considered this appointment
as a temporary one only,
having already in mind the establishment
of a second medical
school in Cincinnati as a part of the
State-supported Miami Uni-
versity at Oxford, Ohio. At the end of
the year, therefore, he re-
turned to the West prepared to open the
new school. However, a
compromise was effected and Doctors John
Eberle, James H.
Staughton and Thomas D. Mitchell who had
come West with
Drake, were taken into the Medical
College of Ohio. Drake having
been given a subordinate position,
resigned after one session.
In 1835, Drake revived the old
Cincinnati College with depart-
ments of medicine, law and arts. For
four years this medical
school was highly successful, its
faculty including besides Drake,
Doctors Samuel D. Gross, Willard Parker
and Joseph N. Mc-
Dowell. Without endowment and lacking
public support it was
finally permanently suspended in spite
of the fact that its faculty
456
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL
QUARTERLY
was probably the most brilliant ever
assembled in the Ohio Valley.
Drake, apparently tired of the continual
fight against odds, ac-
cepted in 1840 the
professorship of materia medica and pathology,
later of practice, in the Louisville
Medical Institute where he re-
mained for ten years. During this time
he spent much time in
the preparation and the writing of his
monumental work, A Sys-
tematic Treatise on the Principal
Diseases of the Interior Valley
of North America (Cincinnati and Philadelphia, 1850-1854).
Called in 1850 to the Medical College of
Ohio, he spent one ses-
sion as a lecturer, then returned to
Louisville. In 1852 at the
earnest request of the real friends of
the Medical College of Ohio
he agreed to resume a place in that
institution in order to stave
off what appeared to be its inevitable
dissolution. Although he
began college work, he was suddenly
taken ill in October and died
on November 6, 1852, his death
being due to pneumonia and
meningitis.
In his full and busy life Drake
experienced much personal
sorrow and sadness. Two children died at
an early age and in
1825, his wife, to whom he was
passionately devoted, succumbed
to malignant autumnal fever. In spite of
a lucrative practice,
Drake amassed no fortune, being very
generous to his family and
friends, unfortunate in investments, and
leaving practically no
estate.
Drake as a Physician.
There is abundant evidence of Drake's
skill as a physician.
Gross dedicated his Pathological Anatomy
(Cincinnati, 1839) to
Drake in the following terms:
To Daniel Drake:
Distinguished alike as an accomplished
and successful teacher, an
erudite and skillful physician, a
zealous promoter of science and literature,
and an ardent friend of pathological
anatomy, the following pages intended
to illustrate one of the fundamental
branches of medical science, are respect-
fully inscribed, as a testimony of
esteem for his exalted talents and attain-
ments, and as a token of sincere regard
for his character.
Drake's fame as a physician was such as
to attract patients
from great distances, and he was a busy
consultant during his
entire career whether living in
Cincinnati, Lexington or Louisville.
Shute, in his book Lincoln and the
Doctors, states that in 1841
DANIEL DRAKE
457
"Lincoln wrote to Dr. Daniel
Drake--a man who deservedly en-
joyed a splendid reputation throughout
the great West." In a
long letter, Abraham Lincoln described
his symptoms and asked
Drake to suggest a line of treatment,
but the doctor replied that
it would be impossible to prescribe
without a personal interview,
which would naturally include a physical
examination. Albert J.
Beveridge in his Abraham Lincoln (Boston,
1928) adds
this foot-
note:
Daniel Drake was the author of Pioneer
Life in Kentucky [(Cincinnati,
1870)], so frequently cited in Chapter II of this volume. He
was about
fifty-five years of age when Lincoln
wrote him, the acknowledged head of
his profession and greatly admired and
respected. Few men have had a
more brilliant career. Lincoln could not
possibly have done better than to
have gone to Cincinnati and personally
consulted this wise, experienced and
highly educated physician.
When Drake began the study of medicine
physical diagnosis
as it is known today did not exist.
Diseases were classified prin-
cipally on the basis of symptoms.
Giovanni Battista Morgagni
had published in 1761 his great work De
Sedibus et Causis Mor-
borum which translated is The Seats and Causes of
Diseases, and
in the same year Auchbrugger had
written the Inventum Novum,
describing percussion as a means of
detecting diseases, particularly
in the chest. It was not, however, until
Baron Jean Nicolas de
Corvisart-Desmarets (Napoleon
Bonaparte's physician) translated
this latter work into French (in 1808)
that it received acceptance
by the profession. The tremendous work
of Marie Francois
Xavier Bichat in founding normal and
pathological histology was
being accomplished. The epoch-making
discoveries of Rene Theo-
phile Hyacinthe Laennec were yet to be
made. Drake, however,
in spite of his backwoods isolation,
became a most astute practi-
tioner of the art of percussion and
auscultation, and in this he
was practically self-taught. Certain
fortunate circumstances ap-
pear to have been responsible for his
acquisition of such skill and
knowledge almost before the methods had
become known on the
eastern seaboard. These were his
association in 1817 and again
in 1823-1827 at Lexington, with
physicians who had been post-
graduates in the hospitals of Paris,
under Corvisart, Bichat,
Francois Joseph Victor Broussais, and
Laennec; and the develop-
458
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL
QUARTERLY
ment of the extensive library of
contemporary French medical
literature at Transylvania. Fortunately,
this magnificent collection
of books has been rehabilitated after
more than a half century of
storage in attics and cellars. Not long
ago the author had the
great pleasure of examining many works
which had no doubt been
studiously read by Drake himself.
It is interesting to note what Drake
wrote of these methods.
In the section on pneumonia in his Principal
Diseases is the fol-
lowing:
Physical Signs--Notwithstanding the
sufficiency of the symptoms for
a correct diagnosis in ordinary and
well-developed cases, we are by no
means to neglect or undervalue the signs
afforded by auscultation and per-
cussion; the knowledge of which, in this
and other maladies of the chest,
constitutes one of the greatest triumphs
of medicine, and, in some cases of
disease, one of the most valuable. Yet
the physical signs, in a certain sense,
but reveal to us through the ear, during
life, what the scalpel will disclose
to the eye after death. They largely
depend on derangements of structure,
and, in a much more limited degree, give
indication of the pathological
actions from which these derangements
result, and which it is the object
of treatment to avert. . . .
To reason against the practical value of
percussion and auscultation,
ab ignorantia, would be manifestly
absurd. Yet when writing in and for
an age and country, where a most
imperfect knowledge of these signs exist,
it is agreeable to believe that our
practice may, in the majority of cases,
be safely guided by the symptoms. The
degree of inflammatory action is,
in every case, that which must determine
the amount of treatment which
is applicable to all cases: and this is
indicated by the state of the pulse,
of the drawn blood, of the skin and the
tongue, taken in connection with
the structure, cough and expectorated
mucus. Percussion and auscultation
tell us of the effects produced by the inflammation,
and may suggest a
great deal on the prognosis of the case,
and on what may be called the
secondary treatment. . . . It still
remains, however, as our great duty,
to prevent the lesions of structure by
subduing the inflammation, and this,
I am disposed to believe, is, on the
whole, as successfully accomplished by
the physicians of the Interior Valley as
by those in the great cities of the
Atlantic States or of Europe.
The fundamental cause of defective skill
in percussion and auscultation
is the want of a familiar acquaintance
with the natural and healthy sounds
of the chest and lungs: the study of
which by personal experiment and
observation on all ages, sexes, and
classes of persons, should be enforced
in the office of the private preceptor:
for it cannot be prosecuted either
in the university or hospital. To come
up to the study of the pathological
or abnormal sounds without this
knowledge of the physiological, is as
absurd as to study the hyperinosis of
the blood in pneumonia, or its hypinosis
in typhus fever or scorbutus, without
having first acquired a knowledge of
its proximate elements in health. Yet
the few who have an opportunity,
during their two short courses of
lectures, of examining dispensary or
hospital patients, generally take up the
pleximeter and the stethoscope, in
utter ignorance, as far as observation
is concerned, of the normal thoracic
and pulmonary sounds; and of course the
knowledge they acquire is super-
DANIEL DRAKE
459
ficial, inaccurate, and unreliable. The
teaching of auscultation and per-
cussion has very unfortunately been made
a specialty, which has suggested
to thousands that it cannot be
prosecuted without the aid of a teacher. I
know of nothing in our science, in which
a man can be more successfully
his own teacher. Any one of the numerous
admirable works on these
subjects with his own fingers and ears,
even unarmed with pleximeter or
stethoscope, will enable any young
physician, in a brief period of time,
to become au fait in these means of
thoracic diagnosis.
A paper written by Drake in 1827
entitled "The Modus
Operandi and the Effects of
Medicine" was an attempt to do
the impossible, namely, to systematize a
subject where only im-
perfect knowledge existed. It was,
however, an heroic effort, and
gives considerable information
concerning Drake's therapeutic no-
tions. As Otto Juettner remarks in his Daniel
Drake and His
Followers (Cincinnati, 1909), page 76, "He was a champion of
moderation of dosage and adaptation of
physiological effects to
pathological processes."
Drake as a Medical Educator.
In 1832, Drake published Practical
Essays on Medical Educa-
tion and the Medical Profession in
the United States (Cincinnati),
dedicating it to the students composing
the twelfth graduating
class of the Medical College of Ohio.
The titles of the seven
essays were as follows:
1. Selection and Preparatory Education
of Pupils.
2. Private Pupilage.
3. Medical Colleges.
4. Studies, Duties and Interests of
Young Physicians.
5. Causes of Error in the Medical and
Physical Sciences.
6. Legislation Enactments.
7. Professional Quarrels.
This work is even now worth careful
study by our medical
educators and as Fielding H. Garrison
remarks, it and Abraham
Flexner's Medical Education in the
United States and Canada
(Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement
of Teaching, 1910)
are the two most significant American
contributions to the subject
and deserve a place along with the
essays of Thomas Hodgins
and Theodor Billroth. Had these essays
been carefully consid-
ered by those who subsequently founded
or developed medical
schools, there would never have been any
necessity for the Car-
negie report on Medical Education in
the United States.
460
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
Drake favored a graded course of at
least four years, advo-
cated a classical education as
preparatory to the study of medicine
and emphasized the necessity of careful
bedside teaching.
In discussing hospital instruction Drake
spoke as follows:
And here allow me to say, that all the
tendencies of the age are to
the study of medicine and surgery in
hospitals. In them it is, that the
student learns pathological anatomy,
diagnosis, the art of prescribing and
operative surgery. The laboratory is not
more necessary for the study of
chemistry, or a garden of plants for the
study of botany, than a hospital
for the study of practical medicine and
surgery. The time has passed by
when students will flock to men of
genius (as they once flocked to Boer-
haave) for the purpose of listening to
expositions of theory, or to be
amused with creations of imagination.
The school which is not based on
a hospital, may have learned and able
professors; but the results of their
teaching can never be satisfactory to
the student, who seeks to make him-
self a good, practical physician and
surgeon. A mathematician might
compose an admirable system of
navigation, but you would prefer to trust
yourselves, on a dangerous voyage, with
one of more practical skill, though
less learned.
From several other essays the following
quotations are taken:
Of the various occupations in society,
scarcely one requires greater
talent and knowledge than the medical
profession.
The student of medicine should not only
be of sound understanding,
but imbued with ambition. A mere love of
knowledge is not to be relied
upon, for the greatest lovers of
knowledge are not infrequently deficient
in executive talents, and go on
acquiring without learning how to appro-
priate. A thirst for fame is indeed a
safer guaranty than a taste for
learning, as it generates those
executive efforts which are indispensable to
the successful practice of medicine.
Further, the temperament of the youth
should be that of industry and
perseverance, without which he will balk
at every difficulty, and require
to be goaded on through all stages of
his pupilage. An indolent or irreso-
lute student, whatever may be his
genius, can never figure as a physician,
and should, without delay, be
apprenticed to some vocation in which the
destruction of limbs and life will not
be the inevitable consequence of idle-
ness and discouragement. We may hope
that the time is not distant when
the proportion of talented youth who are
dedicated to the study of physic
will be much greater than at present.
The consequences of this deficiency of
talent in the profession are of
serious import to the science and to the
people at large. It is unquestion-
ably one of the causes which retard the
progress of discovery and improve-
ment. Of the thousands who annually go
forth with diplomas or licenses,
or without either, to engage in the
practical duties of the profession, very
few ever contribute a single new fact to
its archives, or communicate an
impulse to the minutest wheel of its
complicated machinery. Acting on
the precepts of others, they may, it is
true, do some good, but they also
do much harm; while to the great work of
revising and correcting the
principles of the science they are, of
course, utterly incompetent.
But a thorough course of preparatory
learning is useful in more ways
than one. It establishes early habits of
application; generates a love of
knowledge; trains the faculties; and
inspires that firmness of purpose which
prevents him who puts his hand to the
plough from looking back. These
DANIEL DRAKE 461
are the cardinal virtues of a student;
and they are in a great degree the
effect of cultivation. We look
instinctively at the grand and beautiful
aspects of nature, but this is poetry, not philosophy.
A poet delineates
the surface; a philosopher decomposes
the substance of things. One is
born, the other called to his vocation.
Education never made a great poet,
nor nature a good philosopher. He is essentially
the product of art. Toil
is his destiny. He must sink a deep
shaft and draw up his treasures from
below. Therefore he should be
strengthened by timely and active effort.
He must be inured to labor, and acquire
adroitness in its performance.
Hence he should begin early, for then
only can suitable habits be formed.
The principal branches of literature and
auxiliary science to which the
student of medicine should devote a
portion of his time are:
1. English grammar and the art of
composition.
2. Physical geography, embracing the
leading facts in meteorology.
3. The outlines of history.
4. The elements of mathematics and
natural philosophy.
5. The French language.
6. The Latin and Greek languages.
In medicine, as the other sciences, that
method is best which requires
the student to take nothing on trust--to
anticipate no principle or leading
fact. The whole course should,
therefore, as far as possible, be purely
synthetical.
Finally, he arrives, by a regular
transition, at the practice of the pro-
fession--its therapeutics and
operations. He studies the indications of cure,
and labors to establish in his mind
correct associations between symptoms
and remedies--an association not
arbitrary and empyrical, but founded on
an ample and accurate knowledge of the
functions of the living body in
their regular and irregular conditions;
and of the influence of external
agents in the production and cure of
diseases.
1. If he now finds deficiencies in any
of his preliminary acquirements,
he should supply them, without delay, by
recurrence to the branches in
which they are discovered to exist.
2. In ascertaining general principles he
should carefully note those
which are of a doubtful character and
rest upon them as few rules of
practice as possible.
3. His practical maxims, in all cases,
should be logical deductions
from his principles.
4. If they do not conform to those of
the great and original writers
of the profession, he should doubt their
correctness and act upon them
cautiously, but not reject them without trial.
5. He should recollect that the same
diseases in different countries,
frequently require variations in their
treatment, and that he must not im-
plicitly adopt the rules of practice
that have been found successful elsewhere.
6. When he meets, in practical work,
with different modes of treat-
ment for the same disease, he should not
suppose that one only can be
correct and the others necessarily
erroneous, for disease may be cured by
various methods.
7. In his practical readings he should
always prefer original works
to compilations, and monography to systems.
8. He must be on his guard against the
delusion of a fancied sim-
plicity in the system which he
constructs. Every complex machine is liable
to a variety of irregular movements
which can only be reduced to order
by a corresponding diversity of means.
But of all machines, the human
body is the most complicated, exhibits the greatest
number of disordered
actions, all differing from each other,
and requires the greatest variety of
remedial applications.
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OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
9. When arrived at this stage of his
studies, he should no longer
stand aloof from the practical duties of
the profession, but avail himself
of frequent opportunities to make an
application of his knowledge. This
is the end for which he has studied, and
his final success will be propor-
tionate to the facility and effect with
which he can make such application.
For myself, I am convinced that every
medical school ought to have
eight professors, and that with less
than six, it should, in the phrase of
Lord [Francis] Bacon, "be
noted as defective." As to the distribution of
the duties, there may be some diversity
of opinion; but the profession,
generally, would perhaps concur in the following: (1)
anatomy, (2) in-
stitutes of medicine, (3) practice of
medicine and clinical cases, (4)
surgery, (5) materia medica, (6)
chemistry and pharmacy, (7) obstetrics,
(8) medical jurisprudence.
I shall here offer a summary view of the
desiderata which our medical
institutions seem to me to present, and
shall make no other apology for
the repetition it may involve than the
great importance of the subject:
1. An increase in the length of our
sessions to at least five months.
2. An augmentation of the number of
professors to at least seven,
with a general refusal to recognize
schools that have not more than four
or five.
3. The election of professors for five
or seven years, instead of an
indefinite time.
4. Students should not be allowed credit
for a course unless they
matriculated by the end of the first
week of the didactic lectures and then
remained to the end of the session.
5. At least four years should elapse
from the commencement of the
pupil's studies until his graduation.
6. He should be required to show that he
is twenty-one years old.
7. Increased attention should be paid to
the preparatory or academical
attainments of candidates.
8. The examinations for a degree should
be more searching than they
are generally made. This, it is true,
would diminish the amount of gradu-
ation fees received by professors, but
the public would be gainers.
9. Every candidate should be required to
publish his thesis, and a
premium should be awarded to the author
of the ablest of these productions.
10. Summer lectures, especially on the
collateral and auxiliary sciences,
ought to be encouraged, and the
candidate should be required to have some
knowledge of those branches.
11. A stricter regard should be had to
the moral character of candi-
dates, who should never be admitted to
examination until they had deposited
with the dean satisfactory evidences of
good reputation.
12. Lastly, as a means of promoting this
object and of advancing the
respectability of the profession, there
should be in every medical school a
series of Sunday morning discourses by
one of the professors on the
morale of the profession and the virtues
and vices of medical men, em-
bracing their duties to their patients
and a system of medical ethics.
I shall conclude with a few hints to
professors on the means of
making their prelections interesting and
instructive.
A dull lecture is a great evil.
Politeness may reconcile the majority
of a class to such a lecture, but it
falls dead-born from the lip of the
professor. To listen, day after day, for several hours, through four
months, even to animated speakers, is a
serious undertaking; but to sit
from hour to hour, beneath those who, "through
the long, heavy, painful
page, drawl on," is intolerable to
all who have not a facility in resorting
to early and sound sleep; the usual and
best resource under such a calamity.
There is an eloquence of the
lecture-room as well as of the bar and
DANIEL DRAKE 463
pulpit which every professor should
attain, or feel himself in duty bound
to resign, so as not to exclude a
competent man.
The faculty of awakening and sustaining
the attention of an audience
is in some degree a gift of nature, and
may be wanting when other
requisites are not. An original or
eccentric manner is often the secret of
success; illustrations by means of
anecdotes, skillfully introduced, produce
the same effect; episodes may be so managed
as to answer the purpose;
flights of fancy, if well-timed, will
accomplish the end in view; while in
the absence of a talent for the whole of
these, unexpected and pertinent
questions with familiar conversational
remarks on the answers that may
be given, will resuscitate the drooping
energies of the class and enable
them to hold out to the end.
As a teacher Drake was able, captivating
and impressive.
David W. Yandell, one of his confreres
at Transylvania, wrote:
"As a lecturer Doctor Drake had few
equals. He was never dull.
His was an alert and masculine
mind. His words are full of
vitality. His manner was earnest and
impressive. His eloquence
was fervid."
Concerning his appearance in the class
room Gross says:
It was here, surrounded by his pupils,
that he displayed it [character]
with peculiar force and emphasis. As he
spoke to them, from day to
day, respecting the great truths of
medical doctrine and medical science,
he produced an effect upon his young
disciples such as few teachers are
capable of creating. His words dropped
hot and burning from his lips,
as the lava falls from the burning
crater; enkindling the fire of enthusiasm
in his pupils, and carrying them away in
total forgetfulness of everything,
save the all-absorbing topic under
discussion. They will never forget the
ardor and animation which he infused
into his discourses, however dry or
uninviting the subject; how he enchained
their attention, and how, by his
skill and address, he lightened the
tedium of the class-room. No teacher
ever knew better how to enliven his
auditors, at one time with glowing
bursts of eloquence, at another with the
sallies of wit; now with a startling
pun, and anon with the recital of an apt
and amusing anecdote; elicting,
on the one hand, their admiration for
his varied intellectual riches, and,
on the other, their respect and
veneration for his extraordinary abilities
as an expounder of the great and
fundamental principles of medical science.
His gestures, never graceful, and
sometimes eminently awkward, the pe-
culiar incurvation of his body, nay, the
very drawl in which he frequently
gave expression to his idea, all denoted
the burning fire within, and served
to impart force and vigor to everything
which he uttered from the rostrum.
Of all the medical teachers whom I have
ever heard, he was the most
forcible and eloquent. His voice was
remarkably clear and distinct, and
so powerful, that when the windows of
his lecture-room were open, it
could be heard at a great distance. He
sometimes read his discourse, but
generally he ascended the rostrum
without note or scrip.
His earnest manner often reminded me of
that of a venerable Metho-
dist preacher, whose ministrations I was
wont to attend in my early boy-
hood. In addressing the Throne of Grace,
he seemed always to be wrestling
with the Lord for a blessing upon his
people, in a way so ardent and
zealous as to inspire the idea that he
was determined to attain what he
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OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
asked. The same kind of fervor was
apparent in our friend. In his lec-
tures he seemed always to be wrestling
with his subject, viewing and ex-
hibiting it in every possible aspect and
relation, and never stopping until,
like an ingenious and dexterous
anatomist, he had divested it, by means of
his mental scalpel, of all extraneous
matter, and placed it, made and life-
like, before the minds of his pupils.
There is no question but what teaching
and medical education
formed the greatest interest in Drake's
life. In thirty-five years
he held nine professorships in five
different schools, and in these
years no less than one-third of all
graduates in the Ohio Valley
came under his instruction. How great an
influence he exerted
in the development of the medical
profession, cannot be measured
but only imagined. In the latter part of
his life he was frequently
heard to say, "Medical schools have
consumed me."
Drake as an Editor and Author.
As an editor and author Drake won
preeminence and was one
of the foremost medical writers in the
West. For many years,
1827 to 1838, he owned and edited the Western
Journal of the
Medical and Physical Sciences (Cincinnati). He wrote with
facility. His style is robust, incisive,
vigorous and full of anima-
tion, rising at times to heights of
eloquence. Witness such state-
ments as these:
Medicine is a physical science, but a social
art.
If a young tree cease to grow, we expect
it to die. We know the
law of nature to be, that if it should
not be advancing to full development,
it will recede.
An overweening regard for authority in
the sciences is the offspring,
either of a slender understanding or a
timid spirit, still further enfeebled
by bad education.
A medical professorship, is indeed a
public office; and should be filled
or made vacant from no other motive than
the general good.
Medical science has often been
cultivated out of the large cities.
Drake's first work was Notices
concerning Cincinnati published
in 1810. Following this there were
frequent publications, essays
on social and medical subjects,
contributions to the current medical
literature, and finally his greatest
work, The Principal Diseases
of the Interior Valley of North
America, the second volume of
which was not published until after
Drake's death and was edited
by Doctors S. Hanbury Smith of Starling
Medical College and
DANIEL DRAKE 465
Francis C. Smith of Philadelphia. This
treatise culminated a life-
time of observation, investigation and
compilation, involving every
conceivable hardship in his thirty
thousand miles of travel extend-
ing from the Gulf of Mexico to Hudson
Bay, from the Alleghanies
to the Sierras, from the headwaters of
the St. Lawrence to the
prairies of the Far West. He traversed
this vast area in every
direction on foot, on horseback, by boat
or railroad. He spent
time, money and an enormous amount of
labor in securing the
material for his great work. It was an
original investigation,
peculiarly American in its subject,
method of treatment and com-
position. As Garrison says, "Drake
was the first after Hippocrates
and [Thomas] Sydenham to do much
for medical geography, and
has a unique position of his own in
relation to the topography of
disease." Nothing like it had
appeared since Hippocrates wrote
on Airs, Waters and Places. The first
volume is concerned mainly
with medical geography; the second with
the description of febrile
diseases. These latter were grouped as
autumnal, yellow, typhus,
eruptive and phlogistic fevers, and
contain clear and complete
descriptions of the clinical features of
these conditions.
It would be of interest to describe in
more detail the character
and magnitude of this work but space
does not permit. It should,
however, be pointed out that Drake
believed in, although he could
not prove, the infectious nature of many
diseases. In 1832 he
had surmised cholera to be of
animalcular origin, and later thought
the same of tuberculosis and typhoid. In
Volume II of the
Principal Diseases he wrote:
I have united two words to express an
hypothesis which ascribed
autumnal fever to living organic forms,
too small to be seen with the
naked eye; and which may belong either
to the vegetable or animal kingdom,
or partake of the characters of both.
In the year 1832, I published in the
Western Medical and Physical
Journal, of which I was the editor, a
series of papers on Epidemic cholera,
which were afterward collected and
enlarged into a small volume; in which
an attempt was made to show, that the
mode in which that disease spreads,
was more fully explained by the animalcular
hypothesis than by any other
which had been proposed. The brief
investigation then given to the sub-
ject, reinspired my respect for the
opinion long before expressed, that
autumnal fever, and many other forms of
disease, might be of animalcular
origin; and the discoveries since made
by the Ehrenberg school, have seemed
to render that doctrine still more
probable. But I have neither had time
nor means for experimental or
bibliographical inquiry; and do not propose
to dwell very long upon the subject in
this place.
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OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
Among visible plants and animals, there
are species that form no
poison, and others which secrete that,
which applied to, or inserted in our
bodies, produces a deleterious effect,
which is generally of a definite kind.
Thus, the venom of the rattlesnake
produces a disease of definite form; can-
tharides another; certain fish are
poisonous when eaten; wasps and bees instil
a venom; and the smallest visible gnat,
as that which inhabits the forests of
the middle latitudes, and that which is
known under the name of sand-fly
on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico,
inflames the skin; while the juice of
stramonium, the exhalations of the thus
toxicodendron, and the fungus
which grows beneath its shade, excite
peculiar diseases. It seems justifiable
to ascribe, by analogy, to microscopic
animals and plants the same diversity
of properties which we find in larger
beings, differing from them, as we
may presume, in nothing but size and
complexity of organization. We may
suppose, then, that while many species
of this minute creation are harmless,
there are others, which can exert upon
our systems a pernicious influence.
Conclusion.
Those activities of Drake's which were
directly related to
medicine have been touched upon and now
the many other fields
in which he was engaged will be
mentioned.
In his earlier periods of residence in
Cincinnati he was the
chief leader in the literary enterprises
of the day, such as the
Library Society, the Debating Society,
the School of Literature
and Art, and the Lancastrian Seminary
which became the founda-
tion of the Cincinnati College. He
established the first public
hospital, from which has developed the
present Cincinnati Gen-
eral; he procured the passing of laws to
found orphanages; he
suggested and outlined a canal system
for the Middle West; he
projected the building of a railroad
from Cincinnati to Charles-
ton, South Carolina, anticipating and
giving impulse to the con-
struction, later, of the Southern
Railway. He aided in the organi-
zation of the Little Miami Railroad, now
a part of the Pennsyl-
vania system.
Sir William Osler, who was greatly fascinated
by the story
of Drake, wrote in March, 1912, to Paul
Wooley, then dean of
the Medical College of the University of
Cincinnati in part as
follows:
I want to see a fine monument to Daniel
Drake in Cincinnati, one really
worthy of the man. He was a great
character, and did a remarkable work
for the profession in the West. I hope
to see some rich Cincinnatian put
up a $25,000 monument to him--he is
worth it. He started nearly every-
thing in Cincinnati that is good and has
lasted. If anybody will give the
amount I will come out and give a
regular "Mississippi Valley" oration.
DANIEL DRAKE 467
Drake was intensely interested in the
social movements of
his day, advocating both temperance and
abolition when it took
great courage to speak publicly on these
questions.
In a study of Drake's life and
personality one is quickly
struck with his great facility for
making both friends and enemies.
He had a limitless loyalty for his
friends and unforgiving relent-
lessness for his enemies; he indulged in
bitter quarrels, in his
younger days, even in physical combat;
but these traits must be
viewed to some extent as an expression
of the day and time in
which he lived. Undoubtedly he was of an
aggressive disposition,
deeming it his duty to resent every
insult, real or imaginary, that
was offered to him. This impulsive
nature became restrained later
in life and Gross wrote of him, "As
a colleague or companion no
man could have been more agreeable, more
considerate, or more
honorable."
Gross has left a striking word-picture
of Drake, which is here
quoted:
His personal appearance was striking and
commanding. No one could
approach him, or be in his presence,
without feeling that he was in contact
with a man of superior intellect and
acquirement. His features, remarkably
regular, were indicative of manly
beauty, and were lighted up and im-
proved by blue eyes of wonderful power
and penetration. When excited
by anger or emotion of any kind, they
fairly twinkled in their sockets, and
he looked as if he could pierce the very
soul of his opponent. His counte-
nance was sometimes staid and solemn,
but generally, especially when he
was in the presence of his friends, it
was radiant and beaming. His fore-
head, though not expansive, was high,
well-fashioned, and eminently denotive
of intellect. The mouth was of moderate
size, the lips of medium thickness,
and the chin rounded off and
well-proportioned. The nose was prominent,
but not too large. The frosts of
sixty-seven winters had slightly silvered
his temples, but had made no other
inroad upon his hair. He was nearly
six feet high, rather slender, and
well-formed.
His power of endurance, both mental and
physical, was extraordinary.
He seemed literally incapable of
fatigue. His step was rapid and elastic,
and he often took long walks sufficient
to tire men much younger, and
apparently, much stronger than himself.
He was an early riser, and was
not unfrequently seen walking before
breakfast with his hat under his
arm, as if inviting the morning breeze to
fan his temple and cool his burn-
ing brain.
His manners were simple and dignified;
he was easy of access, and
eminently social in his habits and
feelings. His dress and style of living
were plain and unostentatious. During
his residence in Cincinnati, previ-
ously to his connection with this
University, his house was the abode of a
warm but simple hospitality. For many
years no citizen of that place enter-
tained so many strangers and persons of
distinction.
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OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL
QUARTERLY
In Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati
there is a simple
monument marking Drake's final
resting-place which reads:
Sacred to the memory of Daniel Drake, a
learned and distinguished
physician, an able and philosophic
writer, an eminent teacher of the medical
art, a citizen of exemplary virtue and
public spirit, a man rarely equalled
in all the gentler qualities which adorn
social and domestic life. His fame
is indelibly written in the records of
his country. His good deeds, im-
pressed on beneficent public
institutions, endure forever. He lived in the
fear of God and died in the hope of
salvation.
He who rests here was an early
inhabitant and untiring friend of the
City of Cincinnati with whose prosperity
his fame is inseparably connected.