Part 9 (2/2)
Robert Peter, Chemistry and Pharmacy; Dean.
[Ill.u.s.tration: TRANSYLVANIA UNIVERSITY--MEDICAL HALL.
Built in 1839--Burned in 1863.]
From 1850 until the end in 1857, the existence of the school seems to have been an heroic struggle against fate. In spite of the fine Medical Hall, alluded to on the day of its dedication (November 2, 1840) by President Robert Davidson,[101] as ”colossal in size and surpa.s.sing in architectural beauty,” in spite of liberal endowments and ”costly and complete apparatus, superior to any in the valley of the Mississippi, and not surpa.s.sed, if equaled, by any on the continent,”[102] the school languished. Notwithstanding the efforts of zealous Trustees and generous citizens, notwithstanding the diligence of an able Faculty, the cla.s.ses steadily decreased from year to year until, in 1857, with only nine graduates, the Faculty in despair disbanded, and the time-honored Medical Department of Transylvania University was no more.
Two factors more than all else (except as before mentioned, the impossibility of securing sufficient material for clinical instruction) had contributed to its demise--the retirement of Doctor Dudley in 1850, and the difficulty that existed in establis.h.i.+ng the needed railroads throughout the State. The latter cause had been operating unfavorably and with increasing effect almost ever since the introduction of steam transportation.
Enlightened thinkers had early recognized and urged the vital importance of railroads for Kentucky, and especially for Lexington and Transylvania, and had bravely advanced to conquer the difficulties of the situation, but with only discouragement and pecuniary loss for many years. The peculiar topography of the State, the constant alternation of hill and valley, the numerous streams, the hardness of the rock to be penetrated, made the building of railways very expensive, and capital was wanting. The wealth of Central Kentucky was in the soil, not in the purse, and without communication with the markets of the world this wealth was unavailable. In this manner enterprise was checked and Lexington sank into an apathetic state. It is true she had secured the distinction of having the first railroad in the West and the second in the United States,[103] but for years it only led to Frankfort, an interior town but twenty-eight miles distant. It was not until 1851 that it connected with Louisville.
Of Doctor Dudley's influence upon the medical school Doctor David W.
Yandell truly says:[104] ”The history of the Medical Department of Transylvania University--its rise, its success, its decline, its disappearance from the list of medical colleges--would practically cover Doctor Dudley's career, and would form a most interesting chapter in the development of medical teaching in the Southwest. But it must suffice me here to say that Doctor Dudley created the medical department of the inst.i.tution and directed its policy. Its students regarded him from the beginning as the foremost man in the Faculty. That he had colleagues whose mental endowments were superior to his he himself at all times freely admitted. He is said to have laid no claim to either oratorical power or professional erudition. He was not a logician, he was not brilliant, and his deliverances were spiced with neither humor nor wit. And yet, says one of his biographers, in ability to enchain the students' attention, to impress them with the value of his instructions and his greatness as a teacher, he bore off the palm from all the gifted men who at various periods taught at his side.”
But although these two would appear to be the more obvious reasons for the decline of the Medical Department of Transylvania, we can by no means ignore the injurious effect of rival medical colleges growing up at points more accessible and more progressive than Lexington could possibly be without rapid transit of some sort to make her own peculiar advantages available. Nor can we overlook the evil consequences of the opposition systematically shown to the Transylvania Medical School by the faction originating in the attempt to disorganize the inst.i.tution in 1837.
However, in reviewing all these influences, the prosperity of Lexington to-day (1904), her rapid growth, her increasing enterprise, her vigorous trade, the flouris.h.i.+ng condition of her colleges and seminaries--all of which has come to her since the completion of the railroads centering in her--abundantly prove that this communication, above everything else, was her indispensable requirement.
While the medical school was closed in 1857, the Academical Department of Transylvania University continued to be conducted at the Morrison College as a State Normal School,[105] under the Presidency of the distinguished Doctor Lewis W. Green, D. D., but was soon to be disorganized, after only two years of usefulness, on account of a supposed unconst.i.tutionality. Thus Transylvania was again humbled to a low estate in educational distinction. Lexington herself was suffering an era of banishment, as we may say, for without proper railroad connections she was excluded from progress and rendered inaccessible to both labor and capital. The financial prosperity of her citizens was not such as to warrant the lavish hospitality formerly shown to strangers within her gates, and especially to the students in Transylvania. The enterprising individuals who remained to her were not sufficient in numbers to dispel by their most strenuous exertions the lethargy which had fallen upon the place.
Such was the state of affairs immediately preceding the Civil War. The immense Medical Hall had reverted to the city and was deserted, save the laboratory in which was still being busily conducted the chemical work of the first Geological Survey of Kentucky; and save perhaps one of the smaller rooms, rented to a lodger. The survey had just received a sudden check in the death of the lamented Doctor Owen when the war still further darkened the prospect, during which, as a matter of course, the resumption of the survey was out of the question. The Morrison College was almost immediately appropriated by the United States Government for a general hospital, and, some time after, the Medical Hall, which as before mentioned was utterly destroyed by fire[106] during its occupation by the sick soldiers. The conflagration originated, it appeared, from a defective flue of a temporary frame kitchen, built adjoining.[107]
The corner-stone of this Medical Hall had been laid July 4, 1839; Robert Wickliffe, junior, the well-beloved, making the address. It was dedicated November 2, 1840. Of Grecian architecture, ma.s.sive and without ornamentation, it contained three great lecture rooms, with ample provision for light and ventilation. The amphitheatre was immediately below the cupola, being by this means lighted from above.
There were three other large apartments--for the library, the anatomical museum, and for other medical teaching. Smaller rooms accommodated the laboratory, Faculty room, janitor's room, etc.
Besides which were long halls or galleries utilized for natural history collections, museums of zoology, ornithology, geology, etc., as also for apparatus of divers sorts. The costly and complete chemical apparatus was well displayed and conveniently arranged in the immense lecture room for that department.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ABSOLOM DRIVER.
For many years Janitor at the Medical Hall of Transylvania University.]
In the s.p.a.cious lecture-room in the front of the building many fas.h.i.+onable and distinguished audiences had a.s.sembled on various occasions, not only to hear the gifted inc.u.mbent professors in due discourse of introductory or valedictory, but to be charmed with concerts by Ole Bull, Strakosch, Adelina Patti--who sang there on her first tour in this country--and other celebrities of the period. There the learned Guyot had instructed in geology; there unique ”Tom Marshall” had uniquely delivered a unique course of lectures on History. Over the rostrum hung the portrait of Doctor Samuel Brown--the first medical professor. This lecture hall was lighted for evening a.s.semblages, from the sides mostly, by ”scounches,” as they were called by the ”ole Virginny” negro janitor. This factotum, ”Absolom Driver,” is unforgotten by any whose path some time ran parallel with his. For many years the keeper of the Medical Hall, his zeal and vigilance were unimpeachable, his dignified solemnity on state occasions unsurpa.s.sed. Contemptuous of letters--except for doctors--and with unshakable prejudice against ”book learnin' for n.i.g.g.e.rs,” he was faithful in trusts with the matchless fidelity of the dog. ”Bad boys”--the problem of philosophers and ordinary folk in all ages--was one of easy solution by ”Uncle Absolom” with a bent nail at the end of a long pole. Charged upon with _elan_ with this unprecedented weapon, accompanied by an ominous war-cry, no truant could withstand, even though the artfully strewn broken bottles on the high back fence had been successfully outflanked. ”Robbers” had their everlasting antidote at hand in the peculiarly uncanny, long, ”one-barreled shotgun” with curious lock, which stood in the corner of the Faculty room. n.o.body ever heard it ”go off,” but the mystery of it was what appalled one. Happily ”Uncle Absolom's” death was nearly coeval with the closing of the medical school. To have witnessed the burning of his sacred temple, the Medical Hall, after all his ”keer,”
would have broken his heart indeed.
And now, bidding adieu to the shades of the grand old Transylvania Medical Department, conjured from the past by one now numbered with them, may the earnest wish be permitted with hope of realization, that some other hand with cunning in such craft will unveil to us the portraits of that bygone throng of brilliant men which const.i.tuted and which were the exponents of the honored Transylvania Law School.
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