Part 2 (1/2)

Dudley, published by the late Lunsford P. Yandell, M. D., in the _American Pract.i.tioner_, 1870, these are stated to be the only writings of our late distinguished surgeon; but Doctor Dudley subsequently published three elaborate and highly valuable surgical papers, to wit:

1. _On the Treatment of Aneurism_, published in the _Transylvania Journal of Medicine_, edited by Professor Ethelbert L. Dudley, July, 1849.

2. _On the Treatment of Gunshot Wounds._ Ibid., December, 1849.

3. _On the Treatment of Fractures by the Roller Bandage._ Ibid., 1850.

This journal was a bi-weekly publication, the successor of the old _Transylvania Medical Journal_ above mentioned.

These were the latest productions of Doctor B. W. Dudley. Engaged as he continually was in a daily round of engrossing surgical and medical practice, lecturing twice a day in the Medical School during its sessions, there was left to him but little time for the record or promulgation of his ample experience by his pen.

As a medical pract.i.tioner also he was original. He was among the first to discard the lancet in his treatment of disease. He used instead small doses of tartar emetic, or more recently, of ipecacuanha frequently repeated, with low diet; or cholagogue purgatives combined with ipecacuanha, etc. He confined himself to but few medicines, but in the application of these, and of diet and regimen, his clear and correct judgment was usually apparent. Polypharmacy he despised. New remedies were looked upon by him with incredulity and suspicion.

Quinine, iodine, and other novelties in his time never were accorded approbation by him.

As a man and a citizen he was eminently liberal, charitable, magnanimous, public-spirited, and energetic. He bound his friends to him with the strongest ties and treated his hostile enemies--who were few--with a cordial hatred. His sense of honor and personal dignity was very delicate and high. No one so deeply despised a mean action.

No one so readily forgave an injury which was confessed.

An exemplification of his character was given in 1817-18. A difficulty having originated between himself and Doctor Drake, in relation to the resignation of the latter and some matters connected with a post-mortem examination of an Irishman who had been killed in a quarrel, sharp pamphlets pa.s.sed between them and a challenge to mortal combat from Dudley to Drake, which the latter declined, but which was vicariously accepted by his next friend, Doctor William H. Richardson. A duel resulted in which, at the first fire, Richardson was seriously wounded in the groin by the ball of Dudley, severing the inguinal artery.

Richardson would have speedily bled to death--as it could not be controlled by the tourniquet--but for the ready skill and magnanimity of Dudley. He immediately asked permission of his adversary to arrest the hemorrhage, and by the pressure with his thumb over the ilium gave time for the application of the ligature by the surgeon of Richardson--thus converting his deadly antagonist into a lifelong friend.

Notwithstanding Doctor Dudley had contributed tens of thousands to public improvement and to private charities, and never regularly kept accounts against his patients, he acquired a considerable fortune. His latter days were pa.s.sed in the society of his children and grandchildren in the household of his son, the late William A. Dudley, surrounded by all the comforts which a large competency and a devoted family could provide. Thus, in the quiet of domestic retirement, pa.s.sed away the last days of a most active and eminently useful and distinguished life.[20]

The annals of the earlier efforts to establish medical education and a medical college in connection with Transylvania University--the first in the whole West and the second in the United States--are meager and unsatisfactory.

As already stated, the first Medical Professors in this University--Doctors Samuel Brown and Frederick Ridgely (1799)--no doubt taught and lectured occasionally to such students as were present. The files of the old _Kentucky Gazette_ show that Doctor James Fishback, who was unanimously appointed to the chair of Theory and Practice of Medicine in Transylvania in 1805, advertised to lecture, and did probably lecture on these subjects. But he resigned in 1806. Doctor James Overton, who had been appointed to the chair of Materia Medica and Botany in 1809, said in his letter of acceptance (on the occasion of his reappointment in the reorganization of the Medical Faculty in 1817) that he ”had engaged for some time in giving lectures on Theory and Practice in this town,” etc.

According to the best recollection of the late Doctor Coleman Rogers--for a long time before his death a resident in Louisville--the Medical College of Transylvania University was reorganized in 1815 by the appointment of the following Faculty:

Doctor Benjamin W. Dudley, Professor of Anatomy and Surgery.

Doctor Coleman Rogers, adjunct to this chair.

Doctor James Overton, Theory and Practice.

Doctor William H. Richardson, Obstetrics, etc.

Doctor Thomas Cooper (Judge Cooper), of Pennsylvania, to the chair of Chemistry, Mineralogy, etc.

Doctor James Blythe, then acting President of the University, was to give chemical instruction. Doctor Cooper and Doctor Rogers did not accept this appointment. According to Doctor Rogers' recollection a regular course of lectures was not delivered by this Faculty, although Doctors Dudley and Overton probably both lectured or taught ”as they previously had done.”[21]

Doctor Dudley's own recollection, as detailed to the present writer, was also that he and Doctor Overton, as well as Doctor Blythe, lectured in 1815-16 to about twenty students, of whom the late Doctor Ayres and the yet surviving Nestor of Transylvania graduates, Doctor Christopher C. Graham, of Louisville--now almost a centenarian[22]--were in attendance as pupils. Very little can now be ascertained, from existing records, of the character of Professor James Overton, M. D. Doctor Christopher C. Graham, in a recent letter to the writer, gives some of his reminiscences of him in the following language: ”Doctor Overton was a small, black-eyed man, very hypochondrical and sarcastic (notoriously so), and yet quite chatty, humorous, and agreeable; telling his cla.s.s many funny things.... He was well educated for his day and plumed himself especially on his Greek.” Doctor Overton removed from Lexington to Nashville, Tennessee, in 1818.[23]

[Ill.u.s.tration: DOCTOR JAMES OVERTON.

From a Portrait made in Philadelphia before 1815.]

The late Doctor Ayres, of Danville, and latterly of Lexington, informed the writer that, in 1815, Doctor Dudley, having recently returned from Europe, was invited by himself and other medical students to demonstrate to them in anatomy and surgery. Learning _that he would lecture to them if a cla.s.s were formed_, they made up one of from twenty to twenty-five, and Doctor Dudley lectured to them on anatomy and surgery in ”Trotter's Warehouse,”[24] a house situated on the south-east corner of Main and Mill streets, opposite the site[25] of the old original Lexington block-house. In the next winter, he recounts, he lectured to about fifty or sixty students, some of whom were from Ohio. Doctors Overton and Blythe, one or both, also lectured in both winters.

This may be said to be the real beginning of the successful career of the Medical Department of Transylvania University, and of that of Doctor Dudley as a medical professor.