NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE Washington Founded 1836 U. S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare Public Health Service MEDICAL DEPARTMENT OP THE CINCINNATI COLLEGE. S® "SEE! EngnUDaSCSk At a meeting of the medical students of the Cincinnati College, on Wednesday evening, October 28th, in order to give a public expression ,of their opinion with regard to certain publications that have lately ^appeared, traducing the character of their distinguished professor, Dr. Drake, — E. Read was called to the chair, and T. P. Hotchkiss ap- pointed secretary. The object of the meeting having been explained, it was resolved, that a'committee of three be appointed to draft resolu- tions expressive of their opinion: whereupon T. C. Kenney, W. Stans- berry, and S. Reed, were appointed said committee. The committee, after due deliberation, presented the following preamble and resolutions, which were unanimously adopted:— Whereas, certain articles have appeared in one of the newspapers of this city, over the signature of "Vindex," and reprinted in pamphlet form, in which Dr. Drake has been presented to the public as a danger- ous and quarrelsome man, disturbing the quiet of the community, and endeavoring in every possible manner, to prostrate public institutions, by which he might build up his own reputation, therefore, 1st. Resolved, That the students of this institution believe such communications destitute of truth, and that they were written and pub- lished under the auspices of interested persons of the Medical College of Ohio, expressly to injure the character and detract from the confidence reposed by the citizens and profession of the West, in the distinguished talents and private worth of Dr. Drake. 2d. Resolved, That we have the utmost confidence in the expose made by Dr. Drake, this afternoon, in which the whole of those arti- cles were proven a tissue of falsehoods. 3d. Resolved, That we consider the charter of the Cincinnati Medical College valid, and having full authority to grant the degree «f Doctor of Medicine, or any other degrees granted by any College or University within the United States. 4th. Resolved, That we consider the anovymovs handbills, doubting such authority, and circulated in the city and surrounding country, as basely false, and as such sent forth to the world to crush the prospecti of our rising institution. 5th. Resolved, That the proceedings of this meeting be published in the city newspapers. E. READ, President. T. P. Hotchkiss, Secretary. October 29, 1835. V Cincinnati, October 29, 1835. At a meeting of the medical students of Cincinnati College, held in the Anatomical Hall of the college edifice, T. C. Kenney -^as called to the chair, and W. J. Barbee chosen secretary. On motion it was Resolved, That a committee of seven be appointed to wait on Dr. Drake, and request of him a copy of the documents exhibited by him to the students, on Wednesday evening last, accompanied by such ob- servations as he may thick necessary, for the purpose of presenting to the public in tangible form, the refutation of the charges and wanton misrepresentations made against him in a publication signed "Vindex." Whereupon the following gentlemen were appointed said committee: Messrs. T. P. Hotchkiss, E Read; and John Bamford, of Ohio; J. Q,, Adams Frydinger, of Indiana; J. S. Moore, of Illinois; J. S. Alexan- der, of Kentucky; and J. W. Finley, of Missouri. On motion, adjourned to meet on Saturday morning at 9 o'clock. On Saturday morning the class met pursuant to adjournment, whee the committee submitted the following Report:— Mr. President,—Your committee, agreeably to their instructions, addressed to Dr. Drake the following note. Cincinnati, Oct. 30, 1835. To Daniel Drake, M. D. Prof. Med. Dep. Cin. College: Sir,—At a'meeting of the Medical students held in the Anatomical Hall, Oct. 29th, 1835, the undersigned were appointed a committee to request of you the documents read on a previous occasion, refuting the accusations contained in the publications signed "Vindex." The object is to present to the public in pamphlet form, the fact* which so clearly prove the falsehood of the viilifying articles of that writer, Very respectfully, J. S. Moore, Ezra Read, J. W. Finley, T. P. Hotchkiss, J. G. Adams Frydingm,, Jno. S. Alexander,, Jno. Bamjord. T« whieh Dr. Drake made the following reply: mbq w&£.ilw>® samPEaTTo Vine Street, Oct. 30, 1835. Gentlemen,—I have received your note of this morning, requesting me to furnish you for publication in a pamphlet form, the documents which I read to you on Wednesday, the 25th inst., in reply to the pa- pers signed "Vindex," directed against myself, and the newly organ- ized Medical department of the Cincinnati College. It is gratifying to me, gentlemen, that you have perceived the legitimate bearing of those documents, and, still more, that they have inspired in you a desire to make them public. But I must beg leave to decline your request for two reasons:—First. It is not proper that I should suffer your time and attention to be absorbed, after the present week, when our regular lec- tures will commence, by such an object;—and, secondly, I cannot con- sent to lay before the public, either directly or indirectly, extended evi- dence of my innocence, of anonymous accusations, until they shall be supported by some respectable amount of proof. This latter considera- tion has kept me, throughout the summer, from replying to any of the incessant attacks made upon me in the newspapers, pamphlets, hand- bills, etc., industriously distributed throughout the city—and, indeed, over the United States. In fact, I saw but little in the whole of them that had not been published and refuted long ago; and it did not> therefore, seem to me that any farther notice need be taken of it, than such an one as I took before you on Wednesday last. Nevertheless, I cannot entirely refuse the respectful request you have made, and propose, therefore, to glean from the publications of Vindex several of the more prominent charges against my professional charac- ter, and connect with my denial of them, a few extracts from the docu- ments which establish their falsehood. In doing this it will be im- practicable for me to be very methodical, for the author of these crimi- nations has purposely so intermixed them, as to render a natural or even chronological enumeration of them quite impossible. Going back to my first appointment in Transylvania University, it is affirmed, Vindex, p. 14, that in the single session of 1817-18, during which I was a member of the institution, "I quarreled toith my new as- sociates—among the rest with Dr. Blythe, and left the institution in con- tequence." The evidence which I adduce of the utter falsehood of this charge—is, first, the fact, that in 1823 I was, on the recommendation of all the professors, re-elected into that University: secondly, a letter from Professor Blythe himself, written fifteen years afterwards, in which (4) he says, "J have no recollection whatever of any discordance between yourself and any of the professors; and I believe your resignation was the cause of deep regret: third, a letter from Professor Richardson, to Dr. Ridgely, of this city, dated in April, 1833, in which he says, "Upon his (Dr. Drake's) arrival, (October, 1817,) there were many preparatory arrangements necessary to a successful and respectable ef- fort towards putting the department into operation. In all the efforts made and plans proposed for the accomplishment of that object, the mem- bers of the Faculty to whom it was confided to make the. necessary ar- rangements, derived great aid from the promptitude, judgment, and alacrity with which he united his efforts with those of his colleagues. At that time, Dr. Drake, in common with all his colleagues, was inex- perienced as a teacher of medicine; he, however, evinced uncommon tact and facility in composition and lecturing; and left us in the spring, with- out a rupture, so far as I am advised, with any one of his colleagues; and leaving a deep impression on the class of pupils, the citizens of Lexington, and his colleagues, of his powers and susceptibilities to make a distinguished teacher of medicine." Such is the account of my first residence in, and departure from, Transylvania, in 1818, as given by two of my four colleagues. Now compare this, if you please, with the following paragraph of "Vindex," (also p. 14,)—"// is needless here to remark, that the medical department of Transylvania University was entirely broken up by this event,—(what event?)—and that it did not recover from the shock it had received, until by a manly effort, it threw the incubus from its own bosom, upon that of the Ohio College, where it sal with the fatality of Iirutus, evil genius at the battle of Phillippi!'* —the writer commences his next sentence as follows—'•'■When by these means the Transylvania school was destroyed—when Drake had return- ed to Cincinnati, and in like manner the Medical College of Ohio was destroyed." Here it is distinctly set forth, that I destroyed the medical depart- ment of Transylvania, and that I was expelled from it, the falsehood of which you have already seen, from the letters of Dr. Blythe and Dr. Richardson. But it is also stated, that the Medical College of Ohio- was then in existence—that I was thrown upon it, and that at the end of four years, I had succeeded in breaking it up also. Now, what is the fact? When I left Lexington, in the spring of 1818, the Medical College of Ohio had no existence;—it was planned by myself in the course of that year, and authorized by the legislature in January, 1819, on my personal application, myself having prepared the charter! The institution at first had no Board of Trustees, being modelled after the Medical School of Baltimore, as it then was organized, and some of the professors were appointed by the legislature. It did not go into opera- tion till the fall of 1820, when it had 25 pupils. Three months after- wards, I obtained by a protracted personal solicitation of the General Assembly, the money with which the present hospital was built, and (5) the splendid endowment with which it has teen sustained, again draw- ing up its charter with my own hands. Efforts were made ovor the city in the following spring to have the whole rejected, and among those who were most violent, was Professor Moorehead, not then three years from Euope, and to this hour I believe not a naturalized citizen. In the following autumn we had 30 pupils; and before spring I detected a scheme of two of my colleagues, to expel me from the institution. One of the other two, Dr. Godman, was my friend, but, without knowing their designs, resigned, for the purpose of returning to Philadelphia— one of the others, Dr. Bohrer, resigned, with the promise of my place —the other two expelled me, and gave the professorship to him—he put the appointment in his pocket, and, starting eastward, has not yet re- turned. Such was the origin and early progress of the Medical Col- lege of Ohio, and the mode of my leaving it. So far, then, from having broken up a previously flourishing, or even previously existing institu- tion, I was frustrated in the first attempt ever made north of the Ohio to establish such a school. It is ludicrous to find the writer we are quoting, instituting a comparison between ihe college at that time, and ten or twelve years afterwards. It is not unlike a mother's boasting, that her son, fifteen years old, is larger and smarter than her neighbor's,, wrapped in swad.lling clothes. It is said that I persuaded and enveigled Dr. Bohrer, to take a part in this Faculty. This is false, the application came to me from his own friends in the District af Columbia. It is futher said, that I deceived and quarreled with Dr. Godman, this i6 also false. We never had the slightest difference on earth. He remained 8 months in Cincinnati after he resigned, and we lived in social and professional kindness till he departed for the East. We cor- responded from that time till a few weeks before his death — and after that melancholy event, I delivered in public, in this city, a discourse on his life and character, containing numerous extrac s from his lettersi the whole of which was published in the 4th or 5th volume of the Wes- tern Journal. In February 1823, ten months after my expulsion, the Legislature of Ohio, appointed a Board of Trustees. At their second meeting, they re-elected me into the school. Wo ild they have done this, if they had thought me guilty of destroying my own work? for such I may call it, as up to the time of my expulsion, but little, except in the Lecture rooms, had been done by any one except myself. But I have other evi- dence, still, in support of my innocence. Dr. Best the adjunct professor of Chemistry, not less than Dr. Godman, was, and continued to be my friend, up to the hour of his death ; and immrdiately after my expulsion (in 1822) I was solicited by private letters from president Holley and professors Brown, Caldwell, Blythe and Richardson of Transylvania University, to rejoin that institution. I need not give you extracts from these, for the following nomination by all the professors will speak for itself: 1 * (6) " As the Chair of Materia Medica and Medical Botany is vacant in our institution, and is one of great importance in all well organized schools of physic, we regard Dr. Drake as an individual eminently qualified to discharge the duties of that professorship, and with these imnressions we most respectfully recommend him to your consideration for that office." B. W. Dudley, Chs. Caldwell, Sam. Brown, Wm. H. Richardson, J. Blythe. Lexington, Feb. lCth, 1823. In pursuance of* this nomination I was re-elected into Transylvania and accepted the office. Under this second appointment, I remained four years, when a variety of circumstances connected with my family and private interests, conspired to render it proper for me to resign^ Now it is asserted by " Vindex " pp. 14 and 15, that I was the " same fire brand of discord" among the Faculty that 1 had been before ;—that I was engaged in " prostrating that school," which sunk from 281 to 190—that it is " notorious that there are 20 physicians in this city,who know the fact, that I quarreled incessantly wilhmy associates in the. Fac- ulty >"—« and that in consequence of these difficulties I was obliged to abandon for the third lime my professor's chair." Now where is the proof of this great official and moral turpitude? none whatever is ad- duced—and I must refer you to the author of " Vindex " for it. In the negative I read you some documents, to which with others I will now refer. The printed catalogues of Transylvania, show that her Medical school never exceeded 200 till my election in 1823. It had for 4 years been regurlarly and rapidly rising, and continued to rise in numbers, for three years afterwards when it attained 281. I claim only an equal share of influence, with each of my colleagues, in effecting this respect- able increase ; and do not allow, that when the next year the number only rose to 190, the fault was mine more than theirs. On a subsequent year, it rose only to 152, and has since been up to 282. So much for my prostrating influerce. As to quarreling and discord, I may say that all who were my col- leagues when I resigned in 1827, have visited me since (in Cin- cinnati,) and that I have visited them in Lexington ; that when I was in that city, in 1833,1 walked in procession with them and the students, to the University and sat on the platform with my old colleagues and the Trustees, during the various introductory Lectures; and that all seemed to be pleased and happy. But on this subject let me extract from the letters of Drs. Blythe and Richardson, before quoted. The former, in his letter of 1833, says. "During the four years (from 1623 to 1827) that I had the happiness to be eohnectedwiih you as a professor in the Medical College of Transylvunia (7) University, 1 knew ofntt difficulty between you and any of your col' leagues, nor do I believe there was any; and as far as I know, your resignation was again a matter of deep regret with the Faculty, at least such was the language they held to me. Dr. Richardson in his tetter of a corresponding date to Dr. Ridgely says — "On all occasions when, the Faculty was in session, he (Dr. D.) gave clear and consistent views of the best methods to be observed from time to lime, and never, as far as I now recollect, flinched from any responsibility, or evinced the least indifference to the interests of the school. In the spring of 1825, if my memory serves me correctly, Dr. Drake was elected Dean of the fac- ulty, and discharged the duties assigned to that responsible and laborious officek the entire satisfaction of his associates until his resignation in 1827. For myself I now look back to the affairs of the Medical Department of Transylvania, during the four years, Dr. D. was associated with it, with feelings of astonishment and delight,rememberb gthat so many difficulties and perils wire passed without some serious rupture or collision, re- sultingfrom the ardor and zeal with, which members of the Faculty would urge their peculiar views and plans upon their colleagues; but we for- tunately escaped such a calamity." " The fmr sessions the Doctor held a professorship in Transylvania, we had 905 matriculated students and there were 219 of that number laho received the degree of Doctor of Medicine, at thr several commencements held by the Trustees for that purpose I do not speak in terms of exaggeration when I assure you he occupied the first ranks in the estimation of the students and the citizens of Kentucky as a teacher and a gentleman, and was indefatigable in his kindness and a''c,tion to the invalid andsick students each session. The separation of Dr. Drake from Transylvania was fAt as a public loss, and now at a riper and more mature period of life his silence in medicat lecture rooms, is a void that is not to be readily filled and no where sur~ passed in the United Stales." I shall give you, gentlemen, one more authority. Tt is that of Dr. Cross, atp.esent a prnfetsc.r in the Medical College of Ohio, but at the time under consideration, I ibrarian and resident graduate, in Transyl-- vania. In a pamphlet entitled " Ti oughts on the Policy of kstab- lishing a fci.ooL of IvIej if-ink in Louisville (18—!) Dr. Cross p. 5f observes. "//. the s rug oflHll Dr.-Drake resigned his professor- ship. When this hip >e.iccl, the Medical school received a stroke, from the evil effects of which it has never recovered." " The loss of such a man, viewed in a ,y light, was a severe calamity." From the moment of Dr. Drake's resignation up to the present time, the medical class has not ceased to ] our firth one uninterrupted burst of indignation." These witnesses I trust rt-ill be regarded by you as sufficient to demonstrate, the utter falsehood of the charges I have been considering. I will now return to my relations with the Medical College of Ohio, which it is afLr.ncd by " Vindex " I had so deeply injured. On my re- i (8) turn from LexingNxi in 1827, the Trustees of that Institution, again, offered me a professorship, which I declined, because of the incompe- tence of the existing professors. Early in 1830, I was solicited by Dr. McClellan and Dr. Eberle, to accept a chair in the Jefferson school, and a gentleman, of this city, then in Philadelphia, wrote me on that subject a letter, of which the fol- lowing is an i-xtract: " My friend Dr. George McClellan. a gentleman with whom I have been intimate fix the last two years, urges me to write you upon a subject in which he feels a deep interest. He is exceedingly desirous that you should accept the chair of Theory and practice of Medi- cine in the Jefferson Medical College, lately occupied by Dr. Eberle, who has been transferred to another. You need not consider yourself bound to stay more than one session, nor even to remain here more than a part of the session. By reading two lectures a day, you can gel through your course in two months easily. Dr. McClellan pledges himself that you shall be accommodated in this and in all other respec's; in fact he considers that you will come here the first winter, merely for the purpose of frying how far it may prove to your interest to come again, or to remove here altogether. You can have an adjunct appointed at once if you like, mndwill be under no obligation to continue longer^than you see proper.'' My letter of acceptance was literally on these conditions (with the exception of an adjunct) as Dr. Eberle himself will testify. What then, becomes of the false and calumnious assertion of "Vindex" p. 2l, that I had imposed upon the Jefferson College and proved faithless to my implied engagements, by resigning at the end of my first course of Lectures? But, if I had done so, would those engaged in that in- stitution, have sought to get me back ? 1 rather think not, and yet in the summer of 1832, Dr. McClellan wrote a letter, urging me to take another appointment, in which he says. " If you could join us per- manently we should go over all obstacles and outrank all others in what- ever region they m