Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 1.djvu/380

 DUDLEY !

an upright citizen. He was made pro- fessor of theory and practice of physic in the Medical College of Transylvania University in 1805, but resigned the following year.

In the fall Dudley returned to the University of Pennsylvania, receiving his M. D. therein March, 1S06, just two weeks before he was twenty-one.

Returning to Lexington he began to practise, but being ambitious, he was dissatisfied with his knowledge and de- cided to further qualify himself under some of the more famous men of Europe. With this end in view he added some commercial business to the practice of physic, and in 1S10 descended the Ohio River to New Orleans in a flat boat. This was just one year before the first experimental steamboat was launched upon those waters. At New Orleans he bought a cargo of flour with which some- time in that year he sailed to Gibraltar. Disposing of his cargo advantageously at that point and at Lisbon, he made his way through Spain to Paris. Nearly four years were spent in Europe, the best part of the time passed in the hos- pitals and dissecting-rooms of Paris. It was here that much of the foundation of his future success was laid, and his knowledge of anatomy was mainly ac- quired, but his surgical training he received in London. In his manners he was French, in methods English. Larrey, the surgical genius of the Napoleonic wars, came in for a large share of Dudley's admiration, but the hard sense of the English appealed more strongly to him. Abernethy he regarded as the leading surgeon of Europe, and Sir Astley Cooper was his ideal operator.

During his stay in Europe he also traveled in Italy and Switzerland and returned to Lexington in the summer of 1S14, a member of the Royal College of Surgeons.

Collins refers to his misfortune of losing his books, instruments and a cabinet of rare minerals by the burning of the Custom House at London.

In 1815 he was appointed professor of

2 DUDLEY

anatomy and surgery in the medical department of the Transylvania Uni- versity. He held both chairs until 1844, after which he retained only that of surgery. His last course of lectures was delivered in the session of 1S49-1850, and about this time he also gave up his extensive practice and retired to private life.

After the reorganization of the medical department of the Transylvania Uni- versity in 1817, friction arose between members of the faculty. A duel resulted in which Dudley wounded his opponent in the thigh or, according to others, the groin. It is said he would have bled to death but for Dudley, who asked per- mission of his adversary to arrest the hemorrhage, which he did by the com- pression of the vessel with his thumb until it could be definitely controlled, by this act converting an adversary into a life-long friend.

In appearance he was a man of slender frame, but of erect carriage and of most courteous and dignified deportment, while as a teacher his popularity was unsur-

It was as a practical surgeon his rep- utation was established. He is credited with having performed lithotomy in the course of his life two hundred and twenty- five times, and it was not until about the hundredth case that he lost a patient. Lithotrity he never adopted, but per- formed the lateral operation, his favorite instrument being the gorget, invented by Mr. Cline of London. In all his oper- ations he used but two sizes, the smaller seven-tenths larger, the latter eight- tenths of an inch broad in the blade. Although an expert operator, he was cautious rather than bold and conser- vative rather than adventurous, not inclining at all to operate in doubtful cases. He laid great stress upon the preparatory treatment, to which he was more inclined to attribute his success than to his superior skill. The period of preparation varied from a few days to two or three months. The time of operation varied from forty seconds to