David Wendel Yandell

“ So much has been written of this, McDowell's chief work, that I feel it needless to dwell upon it. All students of our art are familiar with it as presented by abler hands than mine. What I shall say of him, therefore, will relate rather to his life and general work than to the one operation by which his name has come to be the most resounding in all surgery. This is a much more difficult task than at first it might seem to be, for McDowell made no sketch of himself, nor have his brothers or his children left us any record of his life. ”

“ By this strange operation the human frame was commonly so transformed and disfigured as to lose every trace of its natural appearance. Sometimes the head would be twitched right and left to a half-round with such velocity that not a feature could be discovered, but the face appeared as much behind as before. ”

“ A gentleman and lady of some note in the fashionable world were attracted by curiosity to the camp-meeting at Cane Ridge. They indulged in many contemptuous remarks on their way, about the poor infatuated creatures who rolled over screaming in the mud, and promised jestingly to stand by and assist each other in case that either should be seized with the convulsions. ”

“ Epidemic convulsions prevailed in Scotland, half a century later. Multitudes, under pungent preaching, were violently agitated, uttering loud cries, shaking, trembling, bleeding at the nose, the minister promoting the uproar by urging them not to stifle their convictions. The shriek, or the shout, it is stated, never rose from one, but that others joined the outcry. ”

“ He therefore set about his work without help from precedent, placing his trust in himself, in the clearness of his own head, in the skill of his own hands, in the courage of his own heart. The result shows that he had not overestimated what was in him. But whether or not Brashear had ever heard or read a description of what had been accomplished in this direction by surgeons elsewhere, the young Kentuckian was the first to amputate at the hip-joint in America, and the first to do the real thing successfully in the world. ”

“ In his "History of the Kentucky Revival" he says: "Nothing in nature could better represent this strange and unaccountable operation than for one to goad another, alternately on every side, with a piece of red hot iron. The exercise commonly began in the head, which would fly backward and forward, and from side to side with a quick jolt, which the person would naturally labor to suppress, but in vain; and the more any one labored to stay himself, and be sober, the more he staggered, and the more his twitches increased. ”

“ Dudley, in 1828, he thus wrote of the trephine: "The experience which time and circumstances have afforded me in injuries of the head induced me to depart from the commonly received principles by which surgeons are governed in the use of the trephine. In skillful hands the operation, beyond the atmosphere of large cities, is neither dangerous in its consequences nor difficult in the execution." In this remark Dr. Dudley bore early testimony to the efficacy of aseptic surgery. He urged the trephine in the treatment of epilepsy and applied it in six cases—in four of which the disease was cured. ”

“ Three years after Brashear had won his unparalleled success at Bardstown, a practitioner already of wide repute as a surgeon, living in Danville, a neighboring village, did the second piece of original [Pg 9] surgical work in Kentucky. It consisted in removing an ovarian tumor. The deed, unexampled in surgery, is destined to leave an ineffaceable imprint on the coming ages. In doing it Ephraim McDowell became a prime factor in the life of woman; in the life of the human race. ”

“ The preaching was fervid and impassioned in the extreme. Many of the preachers, unable to control their emotions during the sermon, went around in "a singing ecstasy," shouting and shaking hands with others, as much excited as themselves. In this way everything was done to "heap fuel on the fire," and it was at such meetings that thousands fell in convulsions to the ground.
Some of the actors in these strange scenes have left records of the state of their minds, which show that they were in a condition bordering on insanity, if not actually insane. ”

“ It is a remarkable fact that, notwithstanding the intensity and duration of this nervous disorder, no instance is recorded in which permanent insanity resulted from it. Such results were to have been expected; insanity is mentioned by Edwards as having attended the excitement in New England, and it may be that reason was dethroned in some whose cases have not become matters of history. In a few years, after a sounder public opinion began to assert itself, instances of the disorder had become rare, but it was many years before the epidemic entirely ceased. ”

“ The subjects often rolled over and over on the ground, or ran violently until worn out with the exertion. Hysterical laughter was another modification. Instances of laughter were only occasional at first, but it grew, until in 1803 the "holy laugh" was introduced systematically as a part of religious worship. Sometimes half the congregation, apparently in the most devout spirit, were to be heard laughing aloud in the midst of a lively sermon. As the excitement grew, the infatuated subjects took to dancing, and at last to barking like dogs. ”

“ He placed great reliance on surgery and its possibilities; he placed little trust in drugs. He counselled against their too liberal use. In truth, he did not like the practice of medicine, and turned over most of his non-surgical cases to his associate in business. In manner he was courteous, frank, considerate, and natural. He was a simple, ingenuous man. [Pg 17] His great deeds had given him no arrogance. His was a clean, strong, vigorous life. ”

“ Another feature of these excited meetings, which served still further to intensify the feelings of the people who attended them for days and nights together, was the part taken in them by children. Nothing was more affecting to the congregations than the sight of a little boy or girl on a log or stump, passionately exhorting the multitude. Thus, a boy, who appeared to be about twelve years of age, is described as having retired from the stand at Indian Creek, Ohio, during the sermon, and, mounting a log and raising his voice to a high pitch, soon had nearly all the congregation with him. ”

“ Like them they enjoyed but scant recompense for labors the far-reaching significance of which they did not comprehend. Let us who are reaping in the harvest which they sowed forget not how much we are beholden to these immortal husbandmen. ”

“ Dr. Dudley was the son of Ambrose Dudley, a distinguished Baptist minister. He was born in Spottsylvania County, Va., April 25, 1785. When but a year [Pg 29] old he was brought by his father to the then county of Kentucky. The family settled in Lexington, in which beautiful city the child became a man, and lived and wrought and died. The date of his death is January 25, 1870; his age was eighty-five years.
Dr. Dudley was a man of affairs. His practice was always large and paid him well. He amassed a handsome fortune. ”

“ The convulsions once started in a congregation spread quickly through it, until all the fit subjects were convulsed. Repetition greatly increased the proneness to the disorder, which was invited by the masses on the supposition that it was a true religious exercise.
These perverted muscular movements all come under the head of morbid reflex action. By the continued religious fervor, the central portions of the brain, the immediate seat of emotion and feeling, became inordinately excited. ”

“ Dudley, that shot wounds are as dangerous as bullet wounds?" "Shot are but little bullets," was the unhesitating reply.
Dr. Dudley had also a proper sense of the value of his professional services. He was called on one occasion to a town near Lexington to attend a patient in labor, who was the wife of a man made rich by marriage. The husband was too wise to engage a [Pg 30] "night rider," and too purse-proud to call the village doctor. At that time most of the one hundred dollar notes in circulation in Kentucky were issued by the Northern Bank, at Lexington. ”

“ He must necessarily go as he was stimulated, whether with a violent dash on the ground, and bounce from place to place like a foot-ball, or hop round with head, limbs, and trunk twitching and jolting in every direction, as if they must inevitably fly asunder. ”

“ Dudley's life few physicians in any part of America devoted themselves exclusively to surgery. The most eminent surgeons were general practitioners—all-round men. In this class Dr. Dudley was equal to the best. ”

“ The same writer gives the history of a case of jerks as follows, and no case could illustrate more strikingly the nature of the affection:
A young man, of a pious family, the son of a tanner, feigned sickness one Sunday morning to avoid going that day to camp-meeting. He kept his bed until he was assured that all the family, except a few negro children, had left the premises, and was much pleased at the success of his stratagem. As he lay quietly in his bed, his thoughts naturally turned to the camp-meeting in progress. ”

“ 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 Dr. Dudley created the medical department of the institution 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. ”

“ It soon grew into a habit, and those who had once fallen were ready to fall again under circumstances by no means exciting. Women who had suffered repeated attacks sometimes fell from their horses on their way to or from the meeting-house, while relating their past religious exercises. ”

“ The profession at home cast doubt upon the narrative. The profession abroad ridiculed it. For all that, McDowell kept his temper and his course, and when he finally laid down his knife he had a score of thirteen operations done for diseased ovaria, with eight recoveries, four deaths, and one failure to complete the operation because of adhesions. ”

“ In his journal he records numerous instances of men and women dropping to the ground under his preaching "as if struck by lightning," ten or a dozen praying at once. They had also prevailed extensively in New Zealand half a century before they became epidemic in Kentucky. The elder Edwards has left an instructive account of the bodily agitations which accompanied the revivals of religion from 1735-'42. Many instances are given of fainting, falling, trance, numbness, outcries, and convulsions, and he relates that some of the subjects lost their reason. ”

“ 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 by his side. ”

“ Possessed by one dominant idea, the people gave themselves up to the wildest enthusiasm, and it was no uncommon thing for them to spend the whole night in religious orgies such as have been described. ”

“ Even his early biographers failed to gather from his surviving friends those personal recollections of the man which would now be of such exceeding interest to us all. An authentic life-size portrait of Ephraim McDowell, as he was seen in his daily walk among men, can not now be [Pg 10] made. The materials are too scant; the time to collect them has gone by. A profile, a mere outline drawing, is all that is possible to-day. ”

“ A large proportion of the members of every congregation had power to resist the convulsive tendency. In a great majority, no such tendency probably existed; but where there was a conscious impulse toward the convulsions it could be restrained by most persons before it had been yielded to too long. ”

“ It is greatly to be regretted that more is not [Pg 19] known of McCreary's personal and professional character. He is said, by one who met him often, to have been a serious, thoughtful man, given to study, devoted to his calling, and fatally fond of drink, to which he fell a victim when but thirty-seven years of age.
1814. A younger man than either of those I have attempted to sketch, Dr. Benjamin Winslow Dudley, now came upon the stage. He, too, was the son of a pioneer. His early training was much like that of his contemporaries. Like Brashear, he had instruction in the office of Dr. ”

“ Others who fell hard to the ground, or in running encountered stumps or trees, felt no pain from the violence. So many fell at Cabin Creek camp-meeting, it is related, that to prevent their being trodden upon "they were laid out in order on two squares of the meeting-house, covering the floor like so many corpses. ”

“ It would be neither fitting nor becoming on this occasion, and in this presence, to speak in detail of the technic observed by McDowell in his work. That has long since passed into history. I may, however, be permitted the remark that the procedure, in many of its features, is necessarily that of to-day. The incision was longer than that now usually made, and the ends of the pedicle ligature were left hanging from the lower angle of the wound. But the pedicle itself was dropped back into the [Pg 14] abdomen. The patient was turned on her side to allow the blood and other fluids to drain away. ”

“ Nor were the people who suffered so mortifying a transformation always of the vulgar classes; persons of the highest rank in society, on the contrary, men and women of cultivated minds and polite manners, found themselves, by sympathy, reduced to this degrading situation. ”

“ It was so meagre and so startling that surgeons hesitated to credit its truth. He had not mastered his mother tongue. The paper was thought to bear internal evidence of its author's having "relied upon his ledger for his dates and upon his memory for the facts." The critics from far and near fell upon him. ”

“ The principle of imitation accounts for the rest. The great nervous centers, in multitudes of people, being in a state of polarity, any unusual exhibition of feeling would throw the more excitable into spasms; and the affection would then spread by sympathy, as hysterical convulsions and chorea are known to spread among girls at boarding-schools. ”

“ Dr. Brashear came of an old and wealthy Catholic family of Maryland. He was born in February, 1776. [Pg 6] His father journeyed to Kentucky eight years later, and cleared a farm near Shepherdsville, in Bullitt County. Walter was his seventh son, and was therefore set apart for the medical profession.
When a youth he was enrolled in the literary department of Transylvania University, where it is said he ranked high as a scholar in Latin. At the age of twenty he began the study of medicine, in Lexington, with Dr. ”