David Wendel Yandell

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Dr. Dudley was made its head and appointed to fill the chairs of anatomy and surgery. A small class of students assembled in the autumn. At the commencement exercises held the following spring, W. L. Sutton was admitted to the doctorate—the first physician given that distinction by an institution in the West. Troubles arose in the faculty. Resignations were sent in and accepted. Dr. Richardson, one of the corps, challenged Dr. Dudley. A meeting followed. Rich [Pg 23] ardson left the field with a pistol wound in his thigh which made him halt in his gait for the rest of his life. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”