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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE
DANIEL DRAKE,  M.D.,
            OF CINCINNATI.

        PREPARED BY APPOINTMENT
               OF THE

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                BY

        CHARLES D. MEIGS, M. D.,
          VICE-PKESIDENT OF THE COLLEGE.
Read at the Meeting, July, 1853.
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       PHILADELPHIA:
LIPPINCOTT, GRAMBO, AND CO.
           1853. 
 
                NOTICE
                       OF

DANIEL   DRAKE,   M.  D.
   It is a custom with the College of Physicians of Philadelphia,
to direct that a Memoir shall be presented here, of every departed
fellow and associate.  This custom holds out, to each living mem-
ber of the institution, a warning and invitation to consider what
manner of record shall be  made in this place as to him, and to
ponder upon that course of life which may best secure for him an
honorable remembrance on the one hand; or,  on the other, leave
him to depart from your midst, conscious that he has neither con-
tributed, nor attempted anything for the increase of the talent he
had received as a  sacred trust, out  of that great inheritance we
have, in common, derived from the whole history of our philosophy
and our art.  The talent  that is  confided to a scholar cannot be
safely hid away in a napkin; and he who fails to improve upon it,
shall not wholly escape condemnation.
   If those who misemploy their powers and  opportunities  are
worthy of blame, a meed of praise belongs, on the other hand, to
the good and faithful  scholar who has been diligent with regard
to the things intrusted to him; and it is due to the interests of
society, that  a true record  of him should be made.
   The progress of society in the Arts and Letters, and the security
of public morals and order, result chiefly from the influence of the
scholar.   It  is to the  scholar that we are indebted for liberation
from the bonds of ignorance and superstition, and for every solid
acquisition  in wisdom and virtue.  Without education, there
is no dividing line, except a distinction of greater or less ferocity,
among brutal natural  men.  But the  instructed man is raised im- 
4
measurably above his natural estate, taught to know his wants
and rights, and those of his fellows, and discern the sources of true
happiness, with the methods by which to secure it for himself and
the world.
  We discover that one of the principal of these means is language,
the perfecting of which is pre-eminently the work of the scholar,
who thus places in man's  hands the most solid and permanent
bases of civilization,  with its attendant train of blessings—it is
evident that, without language, there could be neither any History
nor Chronology; and  thus, men would be at  a perpetual stand-
still, the discoveries and inventions  of one age being incommuni-
cable to succeeding generations.   Without language there could
be no intelligent combination  of those human powers, which, di-
rected by a wise administration of them, enable  man to raise the
everlasting pyramid, project the course and level of the canal,
trace out the path of the railway, direct the flash of the telegraph,
drive the steamer across the trackless sea, and, in a thousand forms,
provide for the consummation of those blessings that are embraced
in the social compact.  " Even those," says M. Bunsen, " who be-
lieve that language and religion  were  not human inventions, but,
like Prometheus' fire, given to  man from heaven, cannot but admit,
without rejecting all the evidences of research, that they were not
communicated in a state of completeness.  The reverse is, indeed,
obvious, viz.:  that man has never received more than the germ,
which he has been left to mould and modify according to his will
and capabilities."
  If these opinions of the illustrious Prussian are good and true,
then it is the Scholar who has developed this germ, and imparted
to his fellow man all its beneficent powers and results. To hold up
for emulation the lives and actions of good and great scholars is then,
a useful task;  and proper, truthful memoirs serve as beacons and
guides for all those who would strive  to rival them in excellence
and in benefactions.   The hope of being remembered sustains
the  fainting patriot, and the patient philanthropist, whose walk is
not in the broad and easy  paths of the world.
  Being directed by the College to  present a memoir of our late
associate, Dr. Drake, of Cincinnati, it has appeared to me that his
signal reputation in the United States, and in many foreign coun-
tries, demands a very extended notice of his life and works, and it 
5
is to be hoped that a complete biography of this eminent person
may, by some competent hand, be hereafter prepared.
  However high my own appreciation of his merits, and however
desirous I might be to do full justice to  his memory, it cannot be
expected that I shall here give more than a sketch of his life; but as
that life presents so many and such varied points of interest, and
was closely connected with the progress  of medicine in our native
country, I now bespeak the indulgence of the College,  if I should
dwell longer than is  usually allowed, upon memorials of a man
whose  name is  destined to  be reverently pronounced, wherever
the  medical biography and  history of America  shall hereafter
become known.
  Dr. Drake exhibited an illustrious example of devotion to the
improvement of medicine, and the diffusion of learning in general.
He was, moreover, a man of a pure life; charitable and kind; of
the greatest probity; laborious  in the pursuit of knowledge, and
indefatigable under manifold  difficulties  and discouragements.
  He was a man, too, of a great and merited reputation, which ex-
tends even to the outer boundaries of the Republic of Medical Let-
ters, and as a citizen, he reflected honor on his country.   The stars
in that  country's flag, and the stripes in her shield, are not surer
emblems of her  glory and power, than are the names of her emi-
nent scholars: the  flag of  the Union may be changed by violence
or caprice, but the names and actions of the great men of her people
will endure as long as her history, which, indeed, is  but the record
of their lives and deeds.   The life of an  eminent person, then, be-
longs to the age and to the nation that love to boast of him as
their own.
  Daniel Drake, the  subject  of this notice, was born in Essex
County, State of New Jersey, where the town of Plainfield now
stands, on the 20th day of October, 1785, and died at  Cincinnati,
on  Friday,  November 5th,  1852,  aged sixty-seven  years  and
fifteen days.  He was one of the  sons of Isaac  and  Elizabeth
Drake,  both natives of that vicinity, which had been the seat of
their family from an early period in the New Jersey settlements.
They were farmers, in humble circumstances as to fortune, but
respectable and exemplary by a pious life and conversation.
  For the improvement of their worldly condition they joined, in
1788, the migration to the Western country, and settled in Mason 
6
County, Kentucky, upon a tract of only thirty-eight acres of land ;
a circumstance which clearly shows  how lowly they were as to
their worldly estate;  for in that early period, none but the poorer
sort of people can be supposed to be restricted to  such narrow
possessions.   We are, moreover, informed that at the time of his
landing at Limestone, on the Ohio, now the town of Maysville,
Mr. Drake had only one single dollar remaining in his purse, and
that was the commercial equivalent of one bushel of corn.
  Notwithstanding he was such a poor farmer, yet being an upright
and discreet  sensible man, his son, in all  his subsequent career,
ever deemed himself honored in a virtuous parentage, cherishing
the memory of both  father and mother, and extending to them,
in their declining years, the strong hand  of filial affection and
respect; so that, under his protection, they had occasion to thank
Providence for the gift of a  dutiful son.  The mother is spoken
of as a person of superior merit.
  At  the  time  of his settlement  in Mason County, Isaac Drake
was too poor to be able to employ hired laborers, and even the
house he  erected was a small log-cabin.   The virgin  soil was
turned by the plough held in his own hands, and it appears the
corn was ground into meal for their  daily bread in  a hand-mill
which our late colleague was taught in his youth to turn.  It was
only by dint  of hard labor,  and  by rigorous economy, labors in
which  the youthful  Daniel  willingly  co-operated, and economy,
which he then learned to practise, that the res angustce domi began
to expand by degrees, and that Mr. Drake  was at length enabled
to add so much land as to  constitute a farm of fifty acres.  In
this place he lived and toiled up to the year 1794; at which time,
having  sold  his land, he made purchase of another domain  of
two hundred acres, which was also  worked by his own  hands
and those of  his sons.
  The lad had but few books in that wild new region, and of
these he has given us the names in one of his lesser papers.   But
these books he was early inclined to read; and he learned to read
them with but little  assistance, for in that remote frontier region
there  was small opportunity of schooling for the children of the
district.
  In spite of such untoward circumstances,  Mr. Drake very early
formed the design of devoting his boy to the medical profession, 
7
notwithstanding the circumstances of the country and the narrow-
ness of his resources prevented him from bestowing upon the youth
such preliminary tuition as might properly fit him for the pursuits
of medicine.   The sum total  of his school-house training did not
take up more than six months, and even that was interrupted and
broken by various considerable intervals.   But the child had a
passion for letters, and read with delight the few poor volumes that
had accompanied the parental exodus from the region of Plainfield.
He was filled with that " noble rage" that led him from the  most
inauspicious  beginnings to climb  the rude  ascents of knowledge
and virtue, and nothing could freeze the genial current of a soul
filled with such holy longings.
   Pending Mr. Drake's migration to the western country, he had
joined company on the way, among  others, with a Dr. William
Goforth, who was  also bending  his steps towards that land of
promise.  It was while on the voyage down the Ohio,  probably
on board of  some Broad-bottom, that  the fellow-travellers talked
of bringing up the young child, then under three years of age, as
a medical pupil of the emigrant physician; and accordingly, when
the youth had attained to his fifteenth year, all unfitted as he was
by preliminary studies for the task, he  departed from the paternal
roof, and, accompanied by his father,  travelled to the  town of
Cincinnati, which he reached on the 18th December, 1800.
   They proceeded at once to the residence of Dr. Goforth, who
being now established in  the village, a popular physician, agreed
to receive the lad into his family, and instruct and bring him up
in his own art.   Moreover, it was a part of the contract that Daniel
should have  a certain  amount of schooling, in consideration of
the fee or bonus to  be paid for his initiation into the mysteries of
physic.   The agreement  was for four years of tuition at Dr.
Goforth's house, and the Doctor's fee was to be the sum of four
hundred dollars—a considerable amount, considering  the state of
Isaac Drake's fortune, and the laborious nature of his agricultural
operations.   But this shows more conclusively his appreciation of
his offspring.
  Thus, our late associate landed, at the early age of fifteen years,
at  a small straggling village, the inhabitants of which  did not
number, all told, one thousand souls; for it was only on the  26th
December,  1788 that * * * * "Israel Ludlow, of New Jersey, and 
8
his associates, escaping from the floating ices of the river, reared
their half-faced camps on what  is now called the Quay.  These
were the first edifices of the future city.  Setting their watchmen
round, they lay down with their feet to the blazing fires, and fell
asleep  under the music of the  north wind whistling among the
frozen limbs of the great sycamores and water-maples which
overhung them.  The next morning they rose, and began the
survey of the town, and the lines were marked by blazes on the
trees among which they passed.  I need not, however, say to you,
that the commencement of the goodly city was not in the midst
of a long-settled and populous country, but in the depths of an
unbroken though not untrodden wilderness, for you all know that
hostile tribes of Indians then wandered between the gallant young
settlements of the interior of Kentucky and the distant savage
shores of Lake Erie."—Drake's Disc. Jan. 9, 1852.
   Thus, gentlemen, you have seen that it was not amid the groves
of Academus or under the columns of the Poecile, that our young
philosophy-aspirant imbibed the early principles  of wisdom.  Yet,
though Cincinnati was but a straggling village of rude houses and
shanties sprung up beneath  the primeval shades around  Fort
Washington, many meritorious persons had been attracted to the
spot, and among them several  physicians, of whom  honorable
mention has been made  in writings published by  the worthy
subject of this memoir.  For  attainments they appeared to  have
been  very respectable, and though dwellers  in the  wilderness,
careful as to manners  and dress, some of them scrupulously so.
Many  of them had been led thither to the  Indian  wars under
General Arthur St. Clair or General Wayne; others  were lured
by the prospect  of gain held out in the  rapid progress of the
transalpine population, or loved to assist in laying the foundation
of the new magnificent Empire of the West.
   Dr. Drake has left us  some very spirited  sketches of many of
these people, and seems to have been impressed with feelings of
great respect for certain of them. Without any doubt, they  were,
as men of action,  well adapted to  the professional exigencies of
the time and the place.   The accounts we have of them show them
to have been characterized by that catholic spirit of philanthropy
and  that truly Samaritan friendliness to the distressed that ever
designates and illustrates the man, and the  vocation, when the 
9
physician is not a false traitor to his mission.   This is perhaps
the more a subject of surprise, if we consider the comparative low
grade of educational processes here, during the Colonial period,
and more particularly throughout the violent bloody struggle of
the Revolution, whose long painful drama was but shortly before
closed.  It may well be supposed that adventitious aids to a medical
education, such as hospitals, books, engravings, journals, and pub-
lic lectures, and demonstrations, in reach of those sojourners in the
western wilderness, must have been wanting to them, or meagre
indeed.  We have greater reason, therefore, to  pity an aspiring
youth, doomed, without preparation or training, to enter on a de-
sultory path, and obliged to trace out its  course amidst the tangled
mazes of medical progress  from the earliest dawn of its history.
He  who would  truly  be  acquainted with the  medical  sciences,
must know them even in their origins, and throughout the whole
course  of inventions and  improvements in them.  But what is
the power that can keep down and stifle  the  irrepressible aspira-
tions of genius panting to be born, and live and become glorified
in knowledge;  or can bar out the light of truth from a mind like
his whose life we are contemplating?
  The physician, Dr. Goforth, to whose  tuition young Drake was
now confided, was a native of New York, where  he was born A. D.
1766.   In his youth he had  the advantage of good  instruction,
and acquired, at  least, very good manners, and appears to have
been a benevolent,  earnest,  and truthful man.   At  the age of
twenty-two  years he emigrated  to the  west in A. D.  1788, as
already mentioned.  After  occupying several different  fields of
labor in the  new western settlements, he  at  last  fixed upon
Cincinnati as  his permanent  abode, and established  himself as
one  of  the physicians of the  place in  the early part  of A. D.
1800.   By address, and by the possession of a certain  share of
medical skill, he soon obtained a considerable amount  of business
in the town.  Dr. Drake thought that  even had he not already
acquired some  repute  as a clinical practitioner in the West, he
would have  gotten business;  " for, on  the whole, he had  the
most winning  manners of any physician I ever knew, and  the
most of them.   The painstaking and  respectful courtesy with
which he treated the poorest and  humblest people of the village,
seemed  to secure their gratitude ; and the more especially, as he 
10
always dressed with precision, and never left his house in the
morning  until his hair was powdered by  our itinerant barber,
John  Arthurs, and his gold-headed cane grasped in his- gloved
hand."—Disc. Jan. 9, 1852.
  Dr. Drake's printed Discourse, a charming production, which he
delivered before the Cincinnati Medical Library Association, Janu-
ary 9,1852, is filled with pleasing sketches of the men and manners
of that early day; and it is difficult, in looking back  upon the
speaking pictures he has drawn, to imagine how it happened that
amidst such utter laxity of the popular opinion upon  drinking,
cards, and pastimes, and under such faineant modes of life as cha-
racterize the frontier men of America, he could wholly escape the
contagion of such baleful example and companionship.
  The only association then existing at Cincinnati, for mutual im-
provement, was one  denominated the  Young Men's  Debating
Society.   Of this association, a considerable number of the young
members  subsequently arose  to  great distinction in the United
States.  It i s enough, among these, to name the Hon. John Maclean,
now of the Supreme Bench;  Gen. Joseph G. Totten, the distin-
guished present Chief of the corps of U. S. Engineers ; the gallant
Gen. Jessup of the U. S. Army, and Drake himself, whose name is,
perhaps, not less illustrious as an  American physician and philoso-
pher,  than theirs in the field and the forum.
  In the discourse in question, Dr. Drake remarks upon the very
low state of literature in the place, and the irregularities of con-
duct of the early inhabitants; nevertheless, he there imbibed a
stronger taste for learning and habits of virtuous living.
  He gives us a lively representation of the methods of exercising
the medical art among them; and the mode of  procuring their
supplies of drugs and medicines from the then remote Atlantic
cities.
  He portrays the superstitions prevalent among the vulgar, and
describes  the narrow bridle paths along which  town physicians
made their visitations to  the  sick in distant country places, and
tells us of his own student life.  It was his business to put up and
dispense  from house  to house, the medicines prescribed by his
preceptor, Goforth, to the sick villagers.  "Beginning," says he,
" at Peach Grove, where the Lytle House now stands, my first as-
signed duties were to read Quincy's Dispensatory, and grind quick- 
11
silver into unguentum mercuriale, the latter of which,  from pre-
vious practice on a Kentucky hand-mill, I found much the easier
of the two.  But few of you," continues he, " have seen the genu-
ine old doctor's shop of the last century, or regaled your olfactory
nerves with the  mingled odors, which, like incense  to the god of
Physic, rose from the brown paper bundles, bottles stopped with
worm-eaten corks, and open jars of ointment, not a whit behind
those of the apothecary in the time of Solomon.  Yet such a place
is very well for the medical student.  However idle, he will be
always absorbing a little medicine, especially if he sleep beneath
the greasy counter."
   " New studies, and a new studio awaited me," says Drake, " and
throughout the  ensuing  spring and  summer, the adjoining mea-
dow, with its forest shade-trees, and the deep and dark woods of
the near banks and valley of Deer Creek, acted in the manner of
the wilderness on  the  young Indian  caught and incarcerated in
one of the school-houses of civilization.  Underneath those shade-
trees, the  roots  of which still throw up an occasional scion, or
among the wild flowers of the wood, which exhaled incense  to
Flora instead of iEsculapius, it was my allotted task to commit to
memory Cheselden on  the Bones, and Innes on the Muscles, with-
out specimens of the former, or plates of the latter; and afterwards
to meander the  current of humoral pathology of Boerhaave and
Van Swieten, without having studied the chemistry of Chaptal, the
physiology of Haller, or the materia medica of Cullen."
   These studies appear to have been fruitful of much knowledge,
notwithstanding Quintilian's opinion  that study in the woods is
unfavorable to progress.  That author says : Non tamen protinus
audiendi qui credunt  aptissima in hoc nemora silvasque, quod
ilia coeli libertas, locorum amsenitas, sublimem  animum et beati-
orum spiritum parent.  * * * * Quare  silvarum amgenitas, et prse-
terlabentia flumina, et inspirantes ramis arborum auras, volucrum-
que cantus, et ipsa late circumspiciendi libertas ad se trahunt, et
mihi remittere  potius voluptas ista videatur cogitationem, quam
intendere.—Inst. Orat. x. 3.
   Such, gentlemen, was the early  tuition of a  poor country lad
whose name, nevertheless,  has  since become identified with the
idea of those vast and populous regions that are comprised in the
interior valley  of  North  America.   Such  was the  imperfect 
12
training of an eloquence which learned, afterwards, to utter some
of the most beautiful language, and  to use  the  most gorgeous
rhetoric to be found anywhere in the English tongue!  Such was
the loose  training of a fiery intelligence that went forth beyond
the flammantia mcenia mundi, and, controlled  by an active vigor-
ous will, moved  men to  the performance of  great  and useful
enterprises.   He  early  acquired  the use  of language,  to  that
degree as to make it serve as the visible lucid representative of
his ideas.   For, when he  spoke, men  understood what it was he
would say to them.   To  misapprehend the  use  of  language, is
ever to be betrayed by it: Drake knew, and used  it well.
  Only ten years after his landing on the northern shore of the
Ohio, he was  in  a condition  to publish his first  printed essay.
This was his "Notices concerning Cincinnati,"  a pamphlet of sixty
pages, with an Appendix.   In this production there  is abundant
evidence to prove that he already was  master of considerable
power of observation, that he possessed much accurate knowledge,
and was filled with the genuine  love of truth in science.  That
essay might do credit to a writer of far superior education to his
own.
  It appears that his preceptor soon learned to confide in the good
sense and honest  intentions of his sylvan pupil; and long before
the close of his studentship in the Doctor's shop, was wont even to
consult with him  and take his opinion on the cases which together
they  attended.  This  confidence ripened at length into a sort of
copartnership in the business.  As a proof of the good opinion he
entertained of the young  man, he gave him, in A. D. 1805, what
Drake calls an "autograph  diploma."   This  was  a  certificate
setting forth his merits and qualifications as a student and practi-
tioner, and signed by William Goforth, Surgeon-General, First
Division, Ohio Militia.
  Dr. Drake ever after cherished the remembrance  of this occasion,
and preserved the record as a memorial  of the olden time, and
still more, as "the tribute  of a heart so generous as to set  aside all
the dictates of judgment as to the qualifications of a stripling to
whom it  was spontaneously  given."—(Disc, ut  ante.)   Drake
practised physic  upon this sole  authorization for the  space of
eleven years, when the authority was re-enacted by the venerable
University of Pennsylvania, at the annual commencement in 1817. 
13
  After concluding his engagements with Goforth in 1805, Drake
proceeded to Philadelphia with  a  view  to  attend the  medical
lectures in the University.  He was very poor.  His correspondence
with his father shows him to have been at one time reduced to his
last  dollar.   Let the poor student, therefore, be  not wholly cast
down when at the distance of a thousand  miles from  home, and
almost without pecuniary resources, he shall perceive  that our
Kentucky  boy strove against  every obstacle; and though like
himself poor, and far from friends, yet never lost hope nor faith in
his future, but applied the strong  resources within,  and raised
himself to a lofty eminence in view  of all his countrymen.
  He returned to the West in the spring of  1806, and settled as
practising physician in Mason County, Kentucky, his early home;
but, after waiting there a whole year in vain expectation of success,
he  proceeded once more  to  Cincinnati,  and engaged in a new
copartnership with his old friend  and patron,  Goforth.
  Now he got business, and as fortune began to  smile upon him
and hold out higher prospects, his boundaries grew with his ad-
vancing  knowledge—and at  length arrived a period, at  which a
profound  impression was made upon his spirit, one that seated
itself in his affections and purposes, and that was never afterwards
erased, but settled deeper and firmer in his very heart, and ruled
it and made an abiding place for itself there.  To a considerable
degree it fixed and determined  his  after individuality, moulding
his life, his thoughts, his wishes.
  I allude here  to the attachment he  formed for Miss  Harriet
Sisson, a niece of Colonel Jared  Mansfield, subsequently the dis-
tinguished professor of mathematics in the United States Military
Academy at West Point.  He was united to this lady in marriage
on  the 21st December, 1807.  She was a person of great beauty
and accomplishments, and highly attractive by her amiable man-
ners and gentle temper, which, however, did not prevent her from
possessing a very positive character for resolution and steadiness
in all her purposes.
  Probably a deeper, warmer, or  more lasting impression of love
was never made on  a  human  heart than this, which grew with
constant  augmentations—until he  was  deprived of that great
happiness by her demise, which took place on  the 30th  Septem-
ber, 1825. 
14
  During her life she contributed to his happiness, aiding him in
every difficulty, sustaining him in his  temptations, consoling him
in his severest distresses, and cheering him in his onward career of
distinction;  so that she was ever a shield interposed for her hus-
band in the  warfare of life.   It is not to be doubted that this was
to him a bitter loss, and those who remember him may, perhaps,
refer to it as the cause of that  earnest contemplative expression
which his countenance ever wore, and which blended itself myste-
riously even with the smile that  like flashes of summer lightning
served to brighten the clouds that shrouded without obscuring his
intellectual features.
  Neither can it be doubted that he bore this loss with that stoical
patience and courage that characterized the man.  But her image
never absented itself from  him.   She seemed to  be always  near
him or above him;  and always  leading, always persuading him,
and pointing out the paths of truth, and honor, and right, that she
herself had  loved.  I have reason to  believe that the thought of
her ceased at last to be painful, and that the separation came to be
rather  ideal than  real; for he  still could ever  look, when he
would, upon her face  and form, and he ever waited  and watched
with patience for the coming of  the wished-for consummation of
his  life—that was, the being laid by the side of her mouldering
remains  on  the  banks of the Ohio,  whose  current was not more
gentle  and steady than the  continued tide of his deathless affec-
tion.
  Drake loved Cincinnati—he loved the West—he gloried in her
progress and in her prospects.   His wife lay buried there.
  In these passages I am not speaking with the least insincerity,
or for any purpose of rhetorical display.   I  deeply remember con-
versations with  my departed friend, in which  I heard him pour
out these thoughts in that sweet and solemn undertone with which
he  was wont to converse.   Nor do I consider this subject too
sacred  for such  an occasion.  I ought to speak of the man as he
was, and not as he was not.  This was a part of the man.  Marc
Anthony said, "I come to bury Cassar, not to praise him."  Shall
some worldling,  some vapid bargain-maker, say this was an  idle
dream! and that it shows Drake to be a visionary!  Not so ; for
it is not possible that the identity of a single human intelligence
is ordained to  be scattered like dust  particles on the wind, and 
15
its oneness converted into nothingness again.   The  indestructi-
ble identity the Me, is but another expression  or formula of the
immortality of the soul;  and though Drake  did  not see  with
mortal eyes, but only apprehended by a concentrated  aesthetic
force, the  existence and  proximity of that gentle and faithful
monitor and lover who had blessed eighteen years  of his life, by
the sweet  communion of  heart with  heart, yet was she there;
and watching and  waiting for his coming at  the  last  declining
hour of his widowed age.   If it was a dream, it was also an  abid-
ing and consoling belief.
   I have already made a  passing allusion to Drake's first printed
essay, the "Notices concerning Cincinnati," a small pamphlet that
drew towards him no little public regard and consideration, which
was much  increased by the reissue of  the  tractate, now become a
volume of two hundred and fifty pages, under the title, A Picture
of Cincinnati.
   It cannot be without a feeling of surprise, that generates a sen-
timent of  respect for the  man, that one  examines this, his first
public essay, and reflects at the same  time, upon the slenderness
of those resources out of which, at the age of  twenty-five years,
he  thus carved  out such  a  fortune of intellectual wealth.   An
untaught Kentucky boy, he had already made  no inconsiderable
acquisitions in the department of Natural History, both in Geology
and Botany.  The tract contains the fruits of his study of the  cli-
mate and diseases, the geology, botany, zoology and population of
that region.  The Calendarium Floraz which he has inserted proves
him to be a close observer and careful recorder, and little prone
to speculations and hypothesis.
   How wise he was, that he did not, like too many of us, confine
himself to the  dull routine  of diurnal professional duties!   He
early bent himself to the promotion of  every good  work, and  the
edification of the general good.
   In particular,  he strenuously exerted himself for  the  establish-
ment, at Cincinnati, of a  Lancastrian School,  and  drew up  the
articles of association for it with his own hands.  This good  work
he  did in  1813, and thus has  the honor to be one of the  prin-
cipal founders of an institution, that was  subsequently expanded
into the noble College of Cincinnati, which was in 1814. 
16
  About the same time, he assiduously promoted the formation of
a public library for the town.
  Can a man do anything better for society than promote, as far
as in him lies, the diffusion of knowledge, and a love of learning
among his fellow-citizens?  Probably no more philanthropic act
can be performed than such an one as this.  Dr. Drake had felt,
in his own case, how greatly  knowledge conduces to virtue, which
is happiness, and was, therefore, willing to extend the knowledge
and means of happiness by opening up easy avenues to public in-
struction.
  The distinguished  London  physician,  Dr. John Forbes, uses
strong language on this subject, some portions of which I shall
venture now to recite.   In  speaking  of the actual state of the
laboring  classes as to happiness, he says the cause of wretchedness
among them is ignorance, or the general want of knowledge, and
adds: " From want of knowledge, or, to express my meaning more
accurately, from want of mental cultivation, the laborer is, at pre-
sent, deprived of  half the pleasure that should be the accompani-
ment of his daily labor, and of more  than half the pleasure that
should be his share in the hours of relaxation.  It is indeed most
melancholy to think that there should exist, in any civilized nation,
a large proportion of the population, whose enjoyments can scarcely
be said to partake of a mental character at all, or only of the low-
est degree to which this epithet can apply.  The subject is too
painful to dwell on ; but it is one, I hesitate  not to say, which is
a blot on the escutcheon of humanity itself, and, next to actual
slavery, cries the loudest for redress.  That the sole  remedy to
be found for such a great evil,  education, should be withheld for
a single day, while civilized and instructed Christian men are de-
bating over trifles—trifles surely, when  compared with the great
thing at  issue—is what requires  to be seen and heard, to be be-
lieved."—Forbes, Happiness  in its relation to Work and Knowledge,
p. 29.
   See, then, gentlemen of the College  of Physicians, how long ago
it was, and how early in his career, that our lamented companion
entertained views like these, of one of the most distinguished  of
our European brethren!
   There had been established what was called the School of Lite-
rature and the Arts at  Cincinnati.   On the 23d  Nov.  1814, he 
17
delivered, before  that society, an anniversary address which was
published; and in the course of the same year he read two papers
on  the  earthquakes of 1811, and on the aurora borealis, which
were  printed  in  an appendix to the Picture of Cincinnati.  You
shall find in that anniversary address, a good deal of that sort of
solid merit that may, with justice, be said to mark  almost every-
thing that he wrote.  He was ever an ardent, enthusiastic man,
but held those qualities in subjection to a vigorous judgment.
   Hear him speak when he would move those frontier-men to seek,
in the pleasures of  science, the sources of great happiness.
   " On  this subject, gentlemen, our enthusiasm can scarcely rise to
excess.   We are surrounded by a boundless region,  redundant in
objects  the most novel and inviting, where the strong may exhaust
their  mightiest energies, and the weak find, in the  luxuriance of
the harvest, a substitute for strength, where  gleaning is neither
necessary nor practicable, and the time elsewhere employed  in the
search for fruitful fields is devoted to selection in the  midst of uni-
versal plenitude. But let us descend to particulars.   The climate
of this country exhibits many singular phenomena.  To  note, and
compare them with those of other climates, and thereby  ascertain
the laws peculiar to each and common to all, are objects of great
interest  to the meteorologist, and  remain to be attempted.  To
observe the symptoms peculiar to  our diseases, investigate their
causes,  and assign their remedies; to mark the succession of epi-
demics, and  point  out the  means of preventing endemics,  are
duties of the first consequence, which the physicians of this country
have  yet  to perform.  To analyze and compare the varieties of
our soil, and assign to each  its appropriate species of culture; to
ascertain the extent and diversities of the great  calcareous  strata
which support this region;  classify their marine exuviae, and in-
vestigate their marbles, their saline deposits, and their metallurgic
precipitates;  to explore the tracts of sandstone that are occasionally
found, and bring to light their beds  of coal; to survey and dis-
integrate our extensive alluvions, determine the process of their
formation, their richness in  iron ore, in copperas, alum, clays and
ochres; their antiquity, and their vegetable and animal remains,"
&c. &c.   I shall cite only half of this paragraph of suggestions,
and this suffices to  show the character of that mind that so strongly
marked the man.
       3 
18
  In September, 1815, he published his Natural and Statistical Vino,
or a Picture of Cincinnati and  the Miami  Country, illustrated by
maps, with an appendix containing observations on the late earth-
quakes, the aurora borealis, and south-west wind.   The work was
divided into seven chapters, treating respectively on a geograph-
ical and historical introduction to the whole;  on Physical Topo-
graphy, Civil Topography, Political Topography, Medical Topo-
graphy, Antiquities, and, lastly, the Conclusion and Appendix.
This is not a befitting place to present  a review of this work, and
I therefore rest with the passing observation, that it is a tract re-
plete with useful information;  and that it was, at  the time of its
appearance, in great request;  and that it  contributed essentially
to spread abroad  the opinion that Dr. Drake was  a man of con-
siderable  attainments, and worthy of confidence as a faithful re-
porter of carefully observed  facts.
  So considerable, indeed, was  the repute  he had obtained in the
now rapidly growing West, that a proposal was made to him to
accept a professorial chair in a medical school about to be founded
at the  flourishing city  of  Lexington,  Kentucky.   He had as yet
attended only one course of medical lectures, and that so far back
as the  year  1805; he therefore  proceeded to Philadelphia, where,
after fulfilling the  obligations of a student,  he  was graduated
Doctor of Medicine at  the  Commencement, which followed the
close of the session of 1815-16.
  In regard to this incident, I beg leave to lay before you the fol-
lowing letter to me from Prof. Carson,  Dean of the Faculty of the
University of Pennsylvania, which is interesting to all those who
knew and admired our late Associate.

                                                  May 31, 1853.
  Dear Sir :  As all circumstances connected with the life of the distinguished
member of our profession, the late Dr. Daniel Drake, are interesting, permit
me to communicate those  relating  to his graduation at the  University of
Pennsylvania in 1816.  To you, as his biographer, they will be most appro-
priately given.
  On the Uth of May, 1816, a special commencement was held for the purpose
of conferring upon him the  degree of Doctor of Medicine, more than a month
after the regular Commencement had been  held. The reasons for this are
contained in the following note, which is  appended to the record of the
transaction:—
  "The circumstances leading to this extraordinary proceeding, were as fol- 
19
lows :  'Daniel Drake, a practitioner of medicine in Cincinnati, having com-
plied with all the requisitions of the University, was admitted a candidate for
its medical honors.   He accordingly presented to the Dean of the Faculty
(Dr. James) his thesis,  and then left the city.  An arrangement was made
by the Dean to apprise him of the day of Commencement, but the letter
containing the information did not reach the candidate, and he arrived in
Philadelphia the day after the Commencement.  In this dilemma he stated
his  anxiety to graduate in this school in preference to others, in which he
was led to believe no difficulties would be opposed to his application.  Under
these circumstances the Professors, considering the high literary accomplish-
ments of Mr. Drake, the value of his late publication, his present eminence
and his future promise, preferred the present plan to the conferring of an
honorary degree, which  they  have  always been  desirous of  avoiding.'
Accordingly, on April 30th, Dr. Drake was examined and recommended to
the Board of Trustees for the special mandamus, which was granted at the
Commencement held as  has been stated."
                           Very truly your friend,     J. CARSON.

   The autumn  of the  next year, 1817, found  him  occupying the
chair  of Materia Medica in Transylvania University,  which he
resigned early in the spring of 1818, and returned to Cincinnati.
In  May, 1818, he gave a course of lectures there  on Botany, the
introductory discourse of which was published in one of the city
newspapers.  In  conjunction with the Eev. Elijah Slack he en-
gaged in a course of medical instructions, in which that gentleman
took  charge of the department of Chemistry, while the Materia
Medica and the  Practice  of Physic was confided to Dr. Drake.
Their class consisted of twelve persons.
  Dr. Drake was a man intensely progressive, and ever  on the
watch for occasions  to do some good ; and now he began to per-
ceive that the great West should stand in  need of some domestic
institutions for the propagation of medical knowledge, and sup-
posed that his beloved Cincinnati offered  great advantages for the
establishment and conduct of a  good school  of medicine—since
her early  strides clearly pointed  out the future  greatness and
progress of the gigantic West.  In common with many western
physicians  he  imagined  that the climate and soil, manners and
customs of the West, and  some  shades  of  peculiarity  in the
diseases prevalent there,  rendered it desirable that the physicians
of the country should  be educated by physicians of the country.
Whether these views  be well founded or not, I take pleasure in
bringing forward, in this place, his matured notions upon the subject, 
20
one which has excited no little discussion of late years; not only
to show how he reasoned upon that question, but  because it is,
probably, as plain a declaration of western argumentation of the
subject as need be desired.   "That many physicians overrate the
degree of variation from a common standard which the diseases of
different countries present, I am quite convinced; but feel equally
assured that  if the maladies of each country were studied and
described without reference  to those of  any other, it  would be
found, if the state of medical science were equal in them, that the
works thus produced would not  be commutable,  but  that each
would be better adapted, as a book of etiology, diagnosis, and prac-
tice, to the profession and people among which it  was written, than
to any other.  How much better, would  depend on  the various
identities and discrepancies which might exist between the coun-
tries thus  compared.   If  their geological, hydrographical, topo-
graphical, climatic, social, and physiological conditions were nearly
the same, of course their medical histories would be much alike;
but if they differed widely in one  or several of  these conditions,
a corresponding diversity would appear in the respective histories
of all the diseases which admit of modification from causes referable
to those heads." (Introd. Inter. Valley)
  The foregoing is a very candid  exhibition of the argument, of
the force of which or its applicability to  divers  positions within
the boundaries of the American Union, the reader is the  proper
judge.  He deemed them, with other motives, sufficient to warrant
the commencement of an  institution on the banks of the Ohio,
and he labored with the greatest zeal and painstaking to carry into
effect those views.  He succeeded, at the  seat of government of
Ohio, in procuring the passage of a law on the 19th of January, 1819,
chartering the Medical College of Ohio. Drake was the real founder
of that college, and he ever afterwards entertained a strong  feeling
of personal attachment towards it, with warm desire for  its use-
fulness  and greatness, although circumstances separated him for
many years from it.   The Medical College was opened November
11,1820, on which occasion he pronounced an inaugural discourse
on Medical Education, afterwards published in pamphlet form.  In
the winter curriculum of lectures he held there the chairs of In-
stitutes and Practice,  and  Obstetrics.
  Upon the establishment of the Medical College of Ohio, he soon 
21
extended his views for the public welfare, and began to labor with
a purpose of having added to the institution, a great  Public Hos-
pital, a difficult task at that period. Yet, by unremitting exertions
of his own, and aided  by leading men, whose minds were on this
topic inflamed and enlightened by his own zeal and  intelligence,
he compassed the enactment of a charter for the Hospital, accom-
panied by a grant from the State treasury of ten thousand dollars,
to defray the expense of erecting the edifice.  This hospital, which
is still in the constant exercise of its beneficent purpose, is one of
the most considerable in the West, and as it is  connected with the
Medical College,  lends  the most important aid in the business of
clinical medicine and  surgery as taught in that school.  Cincinnati
is indebted mainly to  Dr. Drake for this good work.
  One might well suppose that here he would have found a perma-
nent resting-place, and a fair field for the display and exercise of
the great abilities with which he was richly endowed.  But new
countries  are, above all things, characterized by changeableness.
In fact, the population of such regions is unstable as  the waves of
the sea;  and in such  a  society wave succeeds wave, the  last in-
flux of population  removing and confounding the  antecedents.
Men rather may be  said to  bivouac than to settle in new coun-
tries of the American States;  nor is it surprising that this should
be  the case in a nation which, but two centuries since, having
landed, a small but intrepid band of pilgrims on Plymouth  Kock,
on the coast of New England, already occupies  the vast expanse of
its territory, even to the shores of the Pacific Ocean.  It was with
Drake as with every other item of living beings out  there.
  The college  faculty,  originally constituted  of  five professors,
was, in the spring of 1822,  reduced to only three—Dr. Slack,
Dr. Smith, and the  subject of this notice.   The two former had
become inimical  to our Professor, and as the power of removal
was vested in their board, it was moved and  seconded that
Dr. Drake  be expelled  from  his  professorship.   Drake was
President of the Faculty. "Is the motion seconded?" said he.
"Aye!"   "It is moved  and seconded that Dr. Drake be expelled
from his  professorship.  Are you ready for the question ?   All
those who are in favor of the motion will say Aye."  There were
two affirmative voices. " The ayes have it—Dr. Drake is expelled,"
said the  imperturbable; and, putting on his hat, he vacated  the 
22
chair, leaving the two voters in possession of the power over an
institution he had founded, and which he fondly and always hoped
to see  honored and useful.  It would be curious  to have a da-
guerre of the physiognomies of the remaining members after the
departure  of Dr. Drake.  He soon afterwards published  a narra-
tive of the rise and fall of the Medical College of  Ohio, which I
am unable to procure.
   Assuredly no  charge of fickleness of purpose  can  rest upon
him as to this change.   Yet doubtless it has, in some degree, con-
tributed to spread abroad a notion that he was a man unsteady of
purpose.
   I believe it was about this time that a great thought brooded
in his mind, which, gradually developing the primary germ, took
the form of that important work, to which with  intrepid courage
and unflagging industry he devoted a major part of his remaining
years.  It employed him from 1823 until the period of his death—
near thirty years.  In 1823  he issued a printed circular to the
physicians of the West, announcing his purpose to construct, upon
the diseases of that region, a work, for the  materials of which he
solicited their contribution of results obtained by experience and
observation throughout that vast area.  As his attention became
more and more riveted upon that scheme, its importance expanded
under his view of its novelty and grandeur, and he felt a warm
desire to execute a monument worthy of the country, of the pro-
fession he loved, and of his own fame.   To write upon the diseases
of the West,  as he proposed the plan, it were not enough to treat
of agues, of congestive fevers, or  milk sickness, or yellow fever.
It became necessary to  show what is the West; and hence there
grew up before him the ideal of an extended reconnoissance of the
great West, whose  geography and topography; whose geological,
ethnological,  and sanitary characteristics, would require years of
toil and a conscientious adherence to the visible and palpable truths
of the subjects.
  He informs us, in his  Preface, that the germ of this work was a
pamphlet, already mentioned, entitled " Notices concerning Cincin-
nati, printed for distribution forty years ago."
  In order to show you the vastness  of the field in which our
deceased Fellow  toiled  so faithfully, I beg  permission to quote
here, from Part I. Chapter I.  Sec. I., the following words:-- 
23
   "I. The interior  valley of North America begins within the
tropics, and  terminates  within the polar circle; traversing the
continent from  south to  north, and passing through  the  entire
northern temperate zone.  In the south it rests upon and is deeply
indented by, the Gulf of Mexico; in the north it bears a similar
relation to the Polar Sea and Hudson Bay; the latter penetrating
it so deeply,  as to come within twenty-two degrees of latitude of
the Gulf of Mexico.   On the east its limits are the Appalachian
Mountains, which extend from the thirty-third to the fifty-third
degree of latitude, each end terminating in a low water-shed.  On
the west, the immense chains of Eocky and sea-side mountains,
beginning within the torrid zone and ending within the polar cir-
cle, divide it from the Pacific Ocean.  These mountain borders, as
may be seen on the  map (PI. L), diverge  from each other as they
cross the continent,  and thus the valley regularly widens as it
passes from south to north."
   " II. Area. Of the area of this great intermontane region it is not
easy to speak with  much precision.  To  the south, its latitudes
vary from the eighteenth to the thirtieth parallels ; in the  north,
from the fiftieth to the seventieth.   In the south, its eastern margin
is found  near the eighty-first meridian;  its western in the one
hundred and fifth; but in the fifty-third degree of latitude, it ad-
vances east to the fifty-sixth meridian,  and west to the one hun-
dred and  sixteenth;  finally, in the sixty-eighth parallel, its western
margin is found in  the  one hundred and  thirty-sixth degree of
longitude."
   " If we assume eight millions of square miles as the area of North
America, the valley cannot be  estimated at less than six millions,
or three-fourths of the whole  continental surface.  Its northern
half is, however, rendered nearly uninhabitable by the state of its
surface and its climate; and, therefore, the portion which presents
objects of immediate interest to the medical etiologist does not
exceed three millions of square miles, of which, as yet, not more
than one-third has acquired even a sparse civilized population."
   I have brought forward the foregoing extract from his work with
a view merely to open up a general conspectus of the field in which
he designed to labor,  and point out more  clearly the intellectual
directions and aspirations of the man; and it appears to me that, con-
sidering all the phases of life presented  in the preceding sketch of 
24
his career, it cannot but be conceded he was a man moved by great
and bold designs and aspirations as a scholar, as well as a person
of indomitable energy in the attempt to elevate himself from the
lowest beginnings in the scholar-class, to a position in  its highest
rank.  I hope to show, in the course of this notice of him, what
he really did effect of this design of his.  For the present I make
the remark that he was a man in the highest  degree unselfish.
He lived and died without making haste to be rich.   Situated at
the radiating point of a growing tide of civilization and progress,
and  entertaining the most glowing  anticipations of the pro-
gress of population and means  of happiness, amidst those loved
scenes wherein he  had passed his youth,  and well aware of the
certain and rapid appreciation of values all around him, he never
became  a speculator  in real estate, else it would  have  been
an easy  thing for him to become a millionaire.   He preferred the
sweet pleasures of that " Divine Philosophy," which to his appre-
hension furnished a " perpetual feast of nectar'd sweets, where no
crude surfeit reigns," and so followed the footsteps of that fair sci-
ence who led him " far as the solar walk or milky way," and onwards
until his comprehending spirit came at length to grasp the whole
ideal of a Cosmos—he, the rude unlettered farmer boy of Mason
County, taught beneath overarching forests on the wild banks of
the Ohio!  Is it  a question whether he were a wiser and happier
man if he had, instead, addressed himself to the worship of the
Mammon of Riches ?  Dr. Drake was a man always beckoned for-
wards, and drawn towards an ideal that he  had erected.  This was
not the Demon of Socrates, nor would he sacrifice a cock to ^Escu-
lapius, like the great and wise Athenian, but he devoted himself.  I
leave this honored audience to decide whether this is wisdom or not;
and whether we, who are left behind in the  world, and in the desire
of fame,  are  more  benefited by his example than we should be,
had he lived and died merely a  wealthy American!
   He always labored for his own support, emulating in that re-
spect the example of holy St. Paul, who says: " Neither did we eat
any man's bread  for naught; but wrought, with labor and travail
night and day, that we might not be chargeable to any of you."—
Thess. ii. 3.  A portion of his time was employed in practice, but a
much larger share was devoted to public instruction in the profes- 
25
 sorships which he at various times held; the avails of which suf-
 ficed for his sustenance and respectability.
   There were three guiding thoughts for Dr. Drake.  One was
 that he might be able worthily to execute his great task as to the
 diseases of the West; one that the Medical College of Ohio, which
 owed its origin to him, might be greatly useful and honored, and
 also he earnestly desired that the institution should, at some future
 day, recall and reinstall him as one of its professors; and, lastly, that,
 dying at home, he might, followed to the grave by a train of pro-
 fessors and pupils, be  borne to rest  near by the remains of her
 whose ideal, as I have said, was never absent from him.
   Nor did these images, which preoccupied, render  him morose;
 on the contrary, he was cheerful, contented;  wanting but little;
 indifferent to sensual indulgences and gratifications; abhorring all
 intemperance; a hater of untruthfulness and all false pretence;
 highly assiduous in the discharge of his daily duties, and ever ready
 to promote  and uphold any good word or work.  Thus, he brought
 forward the project of a railway between Cincinnati and the city of
 Charleston,  South Carolina, submitted the report of a committee
 on the subject, which he had himself prepared, and was doubt-
 less one of  the chief movers in that great and laudable enterprise
 which entitles him to the  praise and gratitude of our  nation.
 This was in the year 1835, and in the summer of 1836, he attended
 a convention held in  Knoxville, Tenn., to promote  the same ob-
ject.
   In the general prevalence of habits of intoxication, and the use
 of intoxicating drinks, he saw the fruitful source of unnumbered
ills both public and private, and he abhorred  intemperance as an
 opprobrium of the land.  His own  practice  in  this matter was
sufficient warrant  for  him to lift  up his warning voice, since  in
all his career, he had set his face  strongly against the pernicious
practices of society in  this behalf.  Many eloquent,  warm-hearted
addresses were made in public by him, both on the east and the
west side of the mountains.   In these performances he was singu-
larly felicitous, not more by the unerring truth of his words than
by the visible conviction and sincerity that prompted him to speak.
Even the medical classes that listened to his lectures, were brought
under the influence of this spirit, and by the associations he formed
among them, he rendered good service, not only by wooing them
       4 
20
away from the dangerous habitudes of the times, but by thus en-
abling him the more effectually to pour into their intelligence the
rich stores of his own medical philosophy and art.
  This College are well acquainted with  the wide spread of  pro-
fessional opinion  in this country, in regard to  our processes of
medical education, and with the prevalent wish that some changes
should be made in relation to the length of the courses of lectures.
Dr. Drake held the  same opinions long before  the institution of
the American Medical  Association.   In an inaugural discourse
pronounced by him  at the opening of the Medical College of Ohio
Nov. 11, 1820, thirty-three years ago, he held this language:—
  " It  cannot be supposed that the Legislature of Ohio will long
suffer  an institution so beneficial  to the people in the State, to
struo-ole, unsupported, with the  difficulties that must beset its in-
fancy.   But, should  a different  policy prevail, it will not, there-
fore, be abandoned.  Its growth may be  retarded, but, like the
pine on the stormy and barren  summits of the Alleghany, what
it loses in luxuriance it will gain in vigor and hardiness.   Its pro-
fessors are determined  on  success, and  hope to deserve it.  To
show more fully on what their  expectations rest, will occupy us
but a few moments.  The college to which they  belong offers one
advantage over  all  that have  been hitherto established in the
United States.  Not one has  a session exceeding four months—a
period confessedly too short for the course of instruction they are
designed to impart.   The lectures in this institution will continue
five months,  and there  will be  fewer  of them daily.  Thus, the
pupils will not be  perplexed and oppressed by exuberance, nor
hurried so rapidly on as to be precluded from the necessary read-
ing and  reflection," &c.  &c.
  The idea, then, of lengthening the courses of public lectures, in
the American Schools,  is not so novel as has by some been sup-
posed ; and though  it is, perhaps, to the direct  influence of the
public opinion of the profession, rendered powerful by the Ameri-
can Medical Association, that we owe the positive increase of length
of the courses, let  us at least  do Dr. Drake the justice to admit
him as one of the earliest advocates of that reform.  No member
of the  American medical profession received, with greater joy than
he, the early impressions of hope for some improvement from the
constitution of the  great society than  he did.   He attended, and 
27
took an active and self-denying part  in  the  session of that body
held at Cincinnati, where, I may casually  remark, he was  not
honored with the presidency.  He journeyed also to Charleston, S.
C, where his eloquent appeals were heard in vain on the questions
of certain ameliorations he was most desirous to see adopted.  He
made another long journey, that he  might take his place at Rich-
mond, in Virginia, whence he proceeded  to the mountains, in order
to conclude  some topographical investigations  for his work, and
thence reached his home in  Cincinnati.  It cannot be said that
he exerted any positive influence upon the deliberations of either
of the above named conventions; and,  doubtless, he  suffered no
little disappointment at the failure of plans which he deemed likely
to redound to the advantage of Medicine.   In all these things he
sought only to  elevate it; and, in his view,  Medicine  is elevated
only when it grows in usefulness to the people.   He was a man
who never looked upon Medicine as  a refuge for the doctors, but
rather as only an asylum for the suffering portion of  the popula-
tion.
   Let me now show, not only his feelings on the subject of the phy-
sician's mission, but also exhibit some evidence of what progress in
scholarship had been made by the uneducated, unaided Kentucky
lad of the year 1800.  And in order to  that end I shall read the
following passages from  the same inaugural, teeming with noble
sentiments clothed in the richest forms of expression.
   " The powers of the healing art, in shortening the  stages of  a
disease, are  equally obvious; and next to the mitigation of pain
nothing is more grateful  to an invalid than his early release from
the chamber of sickness.  Every convalescent has an exquisite
relish for the  objects  and aspects of nature;  and even in their
coarsest and  simplest dress, they never  fail to  delight him.  But
there are moments in which the great artist  arrays her in charms
uncommonly fascinating.  In every country the elements of this
enchantment are  in some degree peculiar.  In this, we are pre-
sented with  the most striking exhibitions of beauty and grandeur
in an April  morning, when the  heavens  have distilled their fresh
and purest dews upon the tenderest flowers of the year; when the
buds of our forest expand to  the enlivening  influence of a vernal
sun, while the  same influence has restored  our migratory birds,
and  ' made vocal every tree,' with their songs of love; when the 
28
Ohio, swollen by the last snows of its parent mountains, wheels
rapidly along its weight of waters, and reflects the brightened disk
of that luminary, whose return has dissolved the spells of winter, and
diffused new energy and  action through every animate and inani-
mate form; or, on an evening of August, after the oppressive heats of
the great fountain of light and life have been tempered by a thunder-
gust, and the  freshened atmosphere wafts the sweet exhalations of
our blossomed corn-fields; when  the green mantle of our hills as-
sumes a livelier hue, and the rays of the setting sun illumine the de-
parting  clouds with the softest tints of red and yellow light.   To
languish in captivity till these evanescent glories have passed away,
is the agony of privation.   To be emancipated by medical skill, and
set at large with renewed  capacities for enjoyment, infuses gladness
of heart, and inspires gratitude to the Great Physician above, as
well as to the humble instrument by which his beneficence is ad-
ministered."  (Inaug.  Disc. 27.)
   As I  am willing to exhibit specimens of his descriptive power
which I regard as highly expressive, not only  of the nature of his
sentiments, but also of his attainments as a belleslettres scholar, I
shall venture in this  place to read for you an extract from his
great work, which may challenge a comparison with any, the most
graceful forms of language in our English literature.
   Dr. Drake, in one  of his many excursions in search of materials
for his History of Medical Topography and Diseases, extended his
voyage, in 1842, to the Sault de St. Marie and Lake Superior.   His
examination of the climate, and other circumstances of that interest-
ing  region, induced  him, upon his return, to throw together his
thoughts in the form of a pamphlet, published under the title of The
Northern Lakes, a Summer Residence for Invalids of the South.  This
essay, which merits a reprint and general diffusion,  seems to  have
been the foundation  of his remarks at p. 348 of his work.  After
descanting upon the delicious  atmosphere and other hygienic ad-
vantages  of  the Island  of Mackinac,  which  is situated in the
beautiful  Straits of  Michilimackinac, he proceeds to sav, looking
from the elevated summit of the ruins of Fort Holmes :-—
   " When the observer directs his eye upon the water more than
the  land, and the day is fair, with  moderate wind, he  finds the
surface as variable in its tints as if clothed in a robe of changeable
silk.  Green and blue are the governing hues, but they flow into 
29
each other with such facility and frequency, that while still con-
templating a particular spot, it seems, as if by magic, transformed
into another; but these midday beauties vanish before those of the
setting sun, when the boundless horizon of lake and land seems
girt round with a fiery zone of clouds,  and  the  brilliant drapery
of the skies paints itself upon  the surface of the  waters.  Brief as
they are beautiful,  these evening  glories, like spirits of the air,
quickly pass away; and the  gray mantle of night warns the be-
holder to depart for the village, while he may yet make his way
along a narrow and rocky path, beset with tufts of prickly juniper.
Having refreshed himself for an hour, he may stroll out upon the
beach to listen  to the serenade of the waters.   Wave  after wave
will break at his feet, over the white pebbles, and return as limpid
as it came.   Up the straits he will see the  evening star dancing
on the ruffled surface, and the loose sails of the  lagging schooner
flapping in the fitful land breeze; while  the  milky-way, Death's
Path  of the red man, will dimly appear on the waters before him.
Behind, in the  street, a lively  group  of Canadian French of every
shade of color between white  and red, will gossip and shrug their
shoulders; on one  side, should the Indians, who still inhabit the
shores of Lake  Michigan, be  on a visit to the island, he will hear
the uproar of a lodge of drunken Chippeways, with the  screams of
women and children, and the  cackling of frightened hens; on the
other, will see the sober and listless Ottawa, sitting in silent vacancy
of thought, on his upturned birch canoe; his wife within the tent,
spreading cypress bark and flag mats upon the gravel, as lodgings
for the night; while half a dozen children loll or  play about the
door,  and as  many half-starved dogs  curl  up among them.  Sur-
rounded by such scenes, the traveller begins to  realize that he is
a stranger;  when suddenly, a  new phenomenon  appears and fixes
the conviction.   Every object becomes more visible; and, raising
his eyes, he beholds the heavens illuminated with an aurora bore-
alis, where he reads, in fantastic characters  of strange  and eccen-
tric light, that  he is, indeed,  a sojourner in a strange  land, and
has wandered far from home and his friends in the sunny regions
of the South."
  Let us compare the foregoing charming pictograph, if I  might
venture to say so, with the gawky Kentucky boy who, in 1800,
proceeded to the house of Dr.  Goforth, to commence, at the age of 
30
15, an almost unassisted course of mental development;  and let
those physicians take shame to themselves, who, with the abundant
means of education scattered with lavish profusion  all over the
land this day, exhibit in their correspondence and published tracts,
the indubitable proofs  of their indifference to the claims of our
scholarship.  It is to me difficult, nay it is impossible to scan these
passages, and many  others equally pleasing—I  cannot follow in
the high assthetic tract  over which he would lead, without feeling
ready to offer homage to that intelligence which  made him one of
America's most gifted sons.  May it not be that  the men  of Cin-
cinnati, that now Queen City, whose birth and infancy he observed
and nurtured, shall,  in some  future day, honor  themselves  and
their municipality by inaugurating a deathless statue of the emi-
nent citizen whose name is indissolubly connected with her origins!
   Inasmuch as a considerable part of Dr. Drake's life was passed in
the station of a public teacher  of medicine, it behooves me now to
give some account of his transactions in that relation.
   I have already stated that, previously to his departure for Phila-
delphia, in the autumn  of 1816, there was offered to him a pro-
fessorship to be established at  Lexington, and that, in the winter
of 1817, he did occupy  the chair of Materia Medica in that school,
but resigned  it in 1818.
   In May, 1818, he  delivered, at Cincinnati,  a popular  course of
lectures on Botany, and in the  following fall, was connected with
Dr. Slack in a course of private lectures; his department being the
Practice of Medicine and the Materia Medica.   The class consisted
of twelve students.
   You are aware that he was Professor of the Institutes  and Prac-
tice of Medicine and  Obstetrics in the  Medical College of  Ohio in
1820, and of his summary ejection therefrom, by the votes of his
two colleagues in the spring of 1821.
   Dr. Drake was recalled to the Transylvania School in  1823, and
held there the professorship of Materia Medica during the session
of 1823-4, at the close  of which he was transferred to the  chair of
Therapeutics and Practice, which he  filled until he resigned it in
1827.
   ne was elected to the professorship of the Institutes and Practice
in Jefferson Medical College at Philadelphia, in the year 1830, and
accepted it with  the express understanding that he would hold it 
31
 for only one season, when his interests would draw him to the West
 again.
   Before his departure hence, he had engaged several gentlemen,
 in whom he placed confidence, to  proceed to Cincinnati  for the
 purpose of establishing a medical school of the Miami University.
 But that plan failing to go into operation, and the Faculty of the
 Medical College of Ohio being reorganized, most of those gentle-
 men received appointments in it; and in that catholic spirit which
 distinguished him, he accepted  the minor office or professorship
 of Clinical Medicine; but resigned it in the early part of 1832.
   In 1833, he declined  a professorship in the University of Vir-
 ginia which was tendered to him.
   In 1835, he obtained  the organization of the Medical Depart-
 ment of Cincinnati  College,  and held  in it, a professorship of
 Theory and Practice during the four following years, when the
 institution was discontinued.  This happened in 1839.
   In 1839, he was  elected to a professorship of Pathological
 Anatomy and Clinical Medicine in the Medical Institute of Louis-
 ville, Kentucky, and labored there assiduously during ten years,
 pending the  first  six of which he lectured on the topics above
 named, but for the last four years upon Pathology and Practical
 Medicine.
   But it was ever Cincinnati that he loved—that was  his home,
 and there  he wished to die, and there be buried.  A ceaseless
 attraction drew him near the spot where rested the remains of her
 whose image was always present in his heart.   Let no  one, then,
 be surprised that he should resign  at Louisville to accept at Cin-
 cinnati  the chair  of  Special Pathology,  Practice, and Clinical
 Medicine in the Medical College of Ohio, founded by him in 1819.
   I have never learned his motives for soon abandoning this post,
 which he gave up in 1850, and then rejoined his former  associates
 at Louisville, where he was fully reinstated.
   In  May, 1852,  he attended the  Richmond  meeting of the
American Medical Association, and upon his return to the West,
again laid  down his  appointment in the Louisville school to ac-
cept, and for the  last time, a professorship at home—his beloved
home.   He was elected Professor of  Theory and Practice in the
Medical College of Ohio.  He was surrounded by a band of capa-
ble men, in whose ability and purposes he could confide, and here 
32
one might hope to see him firmly fixed at last in the place which
he preferred to all others.  He addressed himself with the greatest
earnestness and zeal to his  task.  The business of the  session
began with good promises of success, but Drake's hour was at hand,
and the fatal malady which deprived us  of him, struck him down,
that he ceased to live, on the 5th November, 1852, dying at an age
a little beyond sixty-seven years.
  It is thus seen  that  Dr. Drake, in his whole career, had held
nine different professorships in medicine from 1817 to 1852.  In
only one of these did he continue for  a long time to pour forth
those sound and  useful  doctrines which he was able to  impress
upon the youthful student.  It was at Louisville that he was rein-
forced  by those zealous and faithful, as well as  able colleagues,
whose respect and affection he bore with him to the grave.   I have
reason to know that these many  changes, which exposed him to
the charge  of want of steadiness of purpose, filled him with regret,
lamenting that he had not been able, like some of his contempo-
raries, to maintain one station from beginning to  ending of his
career.
  I conceive, however, that  the charge  of want  of  steadiness is
unwarranted upon these grounds alone, and  not  so upon any
others whatever for  those who will review his whole history, ex-
hibiting a life of  incessant activity and unshaken  purpose to do
what he deemed his call and mission, I mean, to deal justly as to
all men, and construct  his work on the Disorders  of the West.
With him this last was a ruling idea: he was never weary of this
labor, nor tired of its observations, researches, and records.   He
never flinched at  its expense, nor pined after the riches from the
possession of which it debarred him.   He was steady.  This was
his work, and he was true to it and, steady, he labored upon
it till he died.  Is it proper to disparage such a man with  the sup-
position that he is unreliable—capricious—unstable of purpose!!
  It is not possible,  in this notice of our countryman, to present
an elaborate account of this work, upon which,  I  believe, his
claims to high consideration as an American writer  must chiefly
rest.  It is entitled A  Systematic Treatise,  Historical, Etiological,
and  Practical, on the Principal Diseases of the Interior Valley of
North America, as they appear in the  Caucasian, African, Indian, and 
33
Esquimaux  Varieties  of its  Population.   Cincinnati, 1850, 8vo.
pp. 878.
  The work is  divided  into two Books.  The first book treats
of General Etiology,  and contains three parts, of which the first
discusses  questions  of the Topographical and  Hydrographical
Etiology of those extensive regions.   This first part has sixteen
chapters, which  comprise his results, as 1st.  A General Analysis
of the boundaries and aspects; hydrographical system, altitudes
and  configuration; geological outline, and hydrographic basins.
2d. The Southern Hydrographic basin or Gulf of Mexico, which
is continued in the third chapter, in which he describes the medi-
cal topography of the principal places on the Gulf.  In  chapter
fourth,  he reviews the delta of the  Mississippi.  Chapter  fifth
relates to localities in and around the delta.  The sixth chapter
details his information relative to the bottoms and bluffs of the
river above its delta.   In the  seventh chapter he gives an ac-
count of the region  west of the Gulf and the Mississippi River.
The Medical Topography of the  regions east of the great river,
and south of the Ohio basin, is exposed in chapter eighth; and
the  ninth chapter is devoted to  the  history of the Ohio basin,
principally the  tributaries to the great Ohio from the southern
side.  The hydrography of the  same basin, as coming  into its
trough from the northward, is comprised in chapter tenth.
   In chapter eleventh he goes  yet farther to the north, exploring
the basins of the Kaskaskia, the Illinois, and Rock Rivers.
   The  great hydrological system of the  St. Lawrence, with the
magnificent series of the great American Lakes, is treated of in
chapters twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth.
   The Hudson  Bay and Arctic Hydrographical basin take up the
last chapter of Part I., which is chapter sixteenth.
   The second Part of Book I. treats of  Climatic Etiology, in five
chapters, of which chapter first treats of the nature, dynamics, and
elements of climate.   Then comes, temperature of  the  Interior
valley,  atmospheric pressure of the Interior valley, winds, aqueous
meteors, and, lastly, electric phenomena, and distribution of plants
and animals.  Part III. contains the author's views on  Physio-
logical  and Social Etiology, in four chapters, as population, modes
of living, clothing, lodging, bathing, habitations, and shade trees,
and occupations;  pursuits, exercise, and recreations.
        5 
34
  Book the second has one Part only, as far as published.   It
treats, in eleven chapters, on, 1. The nomenclature, varieties, and
geographical limits of autumnal fever,  together  with the topo-
graphical and climatic conditions under which it prevails. 2. Specu-
lations on the efficient cause of autumnal fever.  3. Mode of action
and first effects of the remote cause; and 4. The varieties and de-
velopment of autumnal fever.
  Chapter five considers of intermittent fever, simple and inflam-
matory.  Chapter six,  malignant intermittents; seven, remittent
autumnal fever, simple  and inflammatory; eight, malignant remit-
tents ; nine, protracted, relapsing, and vernal intermittents.
  The tenth chapter contains the fruit of his researches upon the
pathological anatomy and consequences of autumnal fever; which
is continued in the last, or eleventh, chapter,  which closes  the
volume.
  This sketch of the volume may serve at least to  point out the
vastness of the enterprise which our late associate  undertook to
carry on—but it by no means presents any exhibit of the extent
and variety or precision of the special researches on the etiology
of diseases in the West, nor the philosophical and dispassionate his-
tory of the signs and treatment of them.  In regard to this great un-
dertaking, it appears to me that but one thing is  to be regretted—
and that is, the premature termination of the author's existence—
premature  chiefly  in this, that it was not vouchsafed for him to
superintend the completion of a task so long the object of his as-
siduous and most conscientious devotion.
  He had made arrangements while in Philadelphia, in the month
of April, 1852, to put the second volume to the press in this city,
and it only  required for its completion  that he should apply the
finishing hand to the abundant materials he had,  to a certain ex-
tent, not only provided but arranged.   Nevertheless, let us hope,
that while it  has pleased the Disposer of events to remove him
suddenly from the world, the hands to which this honorable task of
completing a national work is now confided, may prove worthy of
that high confidence, and  fully come up to the expectations and
demands of the profession in relation to it.
  It has by some been considered unfortunate that Dr. Drake did
not so arrange his work as to give to the world his information on
special diseases of the  West, and leave  the  task of recordincr the 
35
immense mass of its medical topography and general etiology for
an independent volume.  But, I think, it requires only a moment's
consideration to discern that in doing  so he would abandon the
cherished and wisely-concerted  designs that  occupied so large a
share of his life.  Drake, perhaps, foresaw some objections of this
kind, and one might almost imagine he was ready to answer before
they were stated, when he made use, in his Discourse, January 10,
1852, of the following words:  " The enlightened aspirant for medi-
cal distinction is but little taken with the applause of the present
moment, unless  he perceives that after it has passed away there
will  remain some enduring element of fame—some solid and un-
decaying trunk, with fruit-bearing branches, which might have
been overspread and hidden by a gorgeous drapery of leaves and
flowers that enraptured the gazing populace for a day, but had no
charms for him.  When we feel in our hearts this indifference to
the  fleeting,  and this warm regard for the permanent, let  us
believe that God has implanted the instinct for a wise and good
purpose; and then follow it as a heavenly guide."
   Again, in speaking of medical works that serve to show the age
and  body of the time, its form and pressure, he says: " The true and
healthful bibliothecal element of the mind consists of monographs,
reports of original observations, and the systematic works which,
in different ages, have presented the existing principles and facts
of the  profession, as they  appeared to  men of  genius and ex-
perience.  Such works have been at all times appearing and dis-
appearing.  They are not, like ordinary compilations, superseded
by others  of a later imprint,  but a  new generation  overlooks
them.  They are like great men who have retired from the public
gaze.   They lie embalmed in the truths with which they are pene-
trated,  and cannot decay; but, like the bodies of kings and philo-
sophers, steeped in  spices and deposited in the  catacombs, they
are  found  only in  unfrequented closets and alcoves."  It is re-
freshing to hear such scholarly views, and delightful to find them
set forth in  such clear and masterly exposition—who that has
traced  out the  path of our western  philosopher, e  sylvis nun-
cius, can doubt  that he did indeed achieve the fame for which he
toiled so long, and that his labors will be embalmed amidst the
most precious  exemplifications  of  the  Medical  Literature of
America in the  nineteenth century ? 
36
  Dr. Drake was indisposed during the greater part of the month
of October, 1852, but did not consider his malady anything more
than an ordinary catarrh, though about the 15th of the month, the
sorethroat and hoarseness were so considerable as to prevent him
from lecturing.
  On the 20th of October, he travelled to Louisville, Kentucky,
being invited to attend a meeting of the Medical Society of that
State.  He returned on Saturday night, 22d, with some increase
of the indisposition, but attended Divine service both morning
and evening of the morrow.
  Monday, 24th, and Tuesday, 25th, he  prescribed at the Hos-
pital, and wrote and lectured as usual.  On the Tuesday evening
he attended a meeting of citizens, convened in consequence of the
death of Mr. Webster, where he made a short address.   The even-
ing being wet and cold, he had, after retiring to rest, a severe and
protracted  chill, which did  not  deter  him from  fulfilling  his
duties at the lecture-room  and at the  Hospital on  the following
day, Wednesday, 26th.  Another chill, experienced on Wednes-
day night, was followed by fever, considerable cough, and intense
headache; the pain being felt immediately above the eyes.   Thurs-
day, 27th,  he was too  ill  to leave the house, and grew worse
throughout the day, but rested upon a sofa near the  parlor fire.
The night was bad, and rendered sleepless by the pain and by
ocular spectra.   Friday, 28th, he  was dressed and down stairs on
the sofa, where he passed the day, conversing with  many friends
who called to see him, and with his colleagues, upon  the affairs
of the Medical College. Throughout this  period he suffered in-
tensely.
   Another miserable night being  past, he was too  ill  on the
Saturday (29th) to descend into the  parlor.  He this  day ad-
mitted no persons, save  the  members  of his family,  and his
physicians, Drs. Rives and Richards.   The action of the heart was
now become  very irregular, and the cough and  pain in the  head
continually augmented  in violence.  In the course of  the Satur-
day night, he arose and bled himself, sitting erect  in  bed.   The
venesection gave rise to a faintness, upon recovering from which
he felt greatly relieved.
   Although  the prostration that followed the bleeding was very
considerable, the physicians, having discovered some symptoms 
37
of congestion of the left lung, he, on Sunday afternoon, had cups
applied upon the left thorax, which took away about eight ounces
of blood.   Subsequently to this he took medicine, and was some-
what relieved as to the headache, and quite free from pain in the
lung—yet exceedingly reduced as to his nervous system.
  Monday,  31st, found him still more reduced, speaking with
difficulty, and only in broken sentences.
  Tuesday, September 1. The nervous exhaustion was  so  great
that he requested his friends to pray only for his release, saying,
that he had no longer a hope, nor even wish for his recovery; and
that he no  longer desired to live, even to finish his  great work,
for God had  taught  him the vanity of all  earthly plans and
hopes, and now he only desired to depart and be at rest.
  Wednesday, 2d. The symptoms  continued  unchanged, except
that they increased in severity, and his strength failed more and
more.  During  this period, his conversation with his own family
and the Rev. Dr. Reid, showed how firm was his faith in the re-
ligion he  had publicly professed, which now afforded to him its
safe and sure consolations.
   Thursday evening (3d). He sank into a comparatively calm or
lethargic condition.  At a later hour he pressed  the hand of  a
dear relative, and  said faintly—" Temporary relief," " temporary
relief."  These were his last words.  After an anodyne medicine
he fell into a tranquil and deep sleep, which, for a short time,
cheered the distressed friends near him with  fallacious hopes of
amendment—but before midnight  he was insensible and  nearly
pulseless.   Throughout Friday  (4th) he opened his eyes,  when
loudly called by a familiar voice.   It was with difficulty that he
swallowed the fluids  presented  to  him; the respiration became
more and more embarrassed.   In this state he continued until near
six o'clock, his breathing becoming gentler and less deep, until at
last, by the most imperceptible  degrees, it seemed to cease.  At
that moment, when all around were  gazing upon the face of the
departing physician, he closed his lips gently, drew up his right
arm and placed it on his breast, though for hours before, it had
lain motionless by his side; the eyes, which now opened, seemed
to beam with unearthly radiance, as  if he were at the moment
drinking in and reflecting the glories of the unseen world. 
38
  It was in this manner that died the most  eminent member of
the medical profession in the West.
  He was recalled to a professorship in  the  Medical College of
Ohio, which was mainly founded by him.  He  was followed to
the grave by the professors and students of that institution, and the
funeral train was also composed of an immense concourse of his
fellow-citizens, an  unprecedented number of  whom came out to
show their respect and veneration for their  illustrious townsman.
He was deposited  in  the grave where mouldered the remains of
her whose image he so fondly cherished.  But he did not live to
complete the task over which  he  had  impended  more or less
assiduously during about forty years.
  I have drawn these  memorials from  documents furnished to
me by his family, from his printed works,  and from my  own
recollections and  convictions, as to his  character  and conduct.
Dr. Drake's name  is that  of a  celebrated American.  Let every
member of this College, remember his virtues and services in the
cause of medical science, and be thankful to Providence who has
permitted an illustrious name to be added to the Medical Scholar-
ship in America.