Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 1.djvu/371

 DRAKE 253

my mother, Elizabeth, was the daughter

of Shotwell and Bonney,"

and that is all he knew of his ancestry. He himself was born in Essex County, New Jersey, on October 20, 1785. When he was two and a half his father moved to May's Lick, Kentucky. Here he lived in a log cabin until fifteen years old, attending school from November until March of each winter. Of the classics he knew nothing until he began to study medicine.

In the fall of 1SO0 he went to Cincin- nati and began to study under Dr. Goforth. At that time a student was required not only to read his preceptors books, but to fill prescriptions and attend to the consulting- room, generally a diminutive drug store. Dr. Drake's first tasks were to read Quincy's "Dis- pensatory " and grind mercury for mer- curial ointment. The latter he said was much the easier task of the two. At the end of four years he received an autograph diploma from Goforth signed as "Surgeon-general, First Divi- sion, Ohio Militia." It was the first diploma ever granted in the west, and Dr. Drake prized it above all others as an old-time memorial.

In the autumn of 1S05 he went to Philadelphia to attend University lec- tures and in the following spring returned to Cincinnati, making the journey on horseback in about thirty days. One year, 1806, was spent in Kentucky, and on the twenty-first of December, 1807, he married Harriet Sisson, grand- daughter of Col. Jared Mansfield, sur- veyor-general, of the northwest territory.

In September, 1809, they lost their first child, Harriet, and in 1816 a second, John Mansfield, born in 1813. Three more children were born, Charles D., Elizabeth M. and Harriet E. Mrs. Drake died September 30, 1825.

Dr. Drake attended his second course of lectures in the University of Pennsyl- vania in 1815, graduating in 1816, and in 1817 held the chair of materia medica in Transylvania University, Lexington, Kentucky. After the first session he

DRAKE

returned to Cincinnati and in 1818 planned a college, medical school and hospital, and in 1819 visited Columbus, Ohio, to lay his plans before the Legis- lature. They were adopted at once, and charters granted for the Cincinnati College, for the Medical College of Ohio, and for the Commercial Hospital. By contract with the secretary of the Treasury the latter hospital be- came also the Marine Hospital of the United States.

The first session of the Medical Col- lege of Ohio was held during the winter of 1S21-22, with Drake as lecturer on the institutes and practice of medicine, including obstetrics and diseases of women and children. Before the close of the session misunderstandings sprang up, and Drake was expelled by the votes of two colleagues. In 1823 he went back to Lexington, Kentucky, and re- sumed the chair of materia medica, but in 1825 was transferred to the chair of practice, retained until 1827.

In 1830 he held the professorship of practice in Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia. There he created quite a furor by his eloquence, not only among the profession, but also the students. At the end of the term he returned to Cincinnati and founded a medical de- partment to Miami University, which, however, united with the Medical College of Ohio before the opening of the first session. Dr. Drake was assigned a subordinate position, and once more retired to private life.

In 1835 he organized the medical department of Cincinnati College. His colleagues were: Drs. Landon C. Rives, Joseph N. McDowell, John P. Harrison, J. B. Rogers, H. G. Jameson, and S. D. Gross. When the Cincinnati school closed, Dr. Drake was appointed pn i ir of clinical medicine and pathological anatomy in the University of Louis- ville. In 1844 he was transferred to the chair of practice of medicine until 1S49, when he resigned and once more re- turned to Cincinnati. In this year he was reappointed professor of practice in