Chemistry in Morrison College, Transylvania University, being
installed on the occasion of the dedication of that college, November
4, 1833, when the oath of office was administered to Mr. Peers as
Proctor of Morrison College and President _pro tem._ of the
University. Professor Peter then studied medicine in Transylvania,
receiving his diploma March 18, 1834. He was present during the
terrible epidemic of cholera in Lexington in 1833, and with Doctor
Yandell attended the first case--that of a Mr. Henry. Though a
successful practitioner, Doctor Peter, like Doctor Short, had a
distaste for the life of a physician, and soon retired to more
congenial scientific labors. On October 6, 1835, he married Frances
Paca, eldest daughter of Major William S. Dallam. In 1838,[65] he was
elected to the chair of Chemistry and Pharmacy in Transylvania Medical
Department, and, until the close of the school in 1857, was honorably
connected with it. From 1847 to the end, in 1857, he was chosen Dean
of the Faculty, being Librarian as well. In 1839, with Doctor James M.
Bush, Doctor Peter spent most of the summer in London and Paris
purchasing books, apparatus, and other means of instruction for the
Medical Department.[66] After hearing numerous lectures by famous
doctors, and after visiting the model hospitals, etc., of the day, he
writes to his wife (Paris, June 27, 1839): "We can have as great men
[in Lexington] as either of those cities [London and Paris], and
neither of them contains a man as eminent in surgery as Doctor
Dudley"; and from London, August 11, 1839: "We have bought a great
many fine books and a great deal of excellent apparatus and anatomical
and other models. Transylvania will shine. No other institution in our
part of the world will be able to compare with her in the means of
instruction. In fact, I have seen none in Europe that is more
completely prepared to teach _modern_ medicine."[67]
Daguerre, in 1839, had just published the process of his wonderful
art, and it constituted perhaps the greatest novelty in Paris at the
time of the sojourn there of Doctor Bush and Doctor Peter; so along
with the apparatus for Transylvania was brought to Lexington a
daguerreotype outfit which surely must have been the first ever seen
in that city, if not the first ever used in the West. This primitive
camera and its accompaniments, which Doctor Peter showed to his
classes many years after, can still be found, it is supposed, among
the old Transylvania possessions preserved at the Kentucky University.
On his return from Europe Doctor Peter engaged in much valuable
chemical research for the benefit of medical science, notably his
examinations of calculi, published in 1846.[68] He also, in 1846,
experimented with the then newly discovered explosive, gun-cotton, and
with pyroxyline made from paper and other materials. His chemical
research and teachings all were now and invariably along practical
lines. Leaving theory to others, his own endeavors were in
anticipation of useful results in practice. Quick to adopt new views
when properly sustained by facts, he was highly appreciative of
improved methods, a trait strikingly displayed when, in his old age,
the most radical changes revolutionized the methods of chemical work.
Laying aside the long-familiar doctrines, practiced since his
far-distant youth, he took up the new with an ease--even
alacrity--hardly excelled by contemporary chemists of a younger
generation. In his early days he experimented much with
electricity--then little understood. He gave much attention to
geology, mineralogy, zoology, and botany. Associated with Doctor
Charles W. Short and Professor Henry A. Griswold, he made important
botanical explorations.[69] His fine herbarium, including specimens
exchanged for with leading European botanists, he gave in after years
to the Kentucky State Agricultural and Mechanical College. Doctor
Lewis Rogers, in his address as President to the Kentucky State
Medical Society, 1878, says: "In the interesting departments of Botany
and Chemistry, Doctor Charles Wilkins Short and Doctor Peter are known
throughout the scientific world. As teachers, the modest, almost
shrinking manner, the seemingly acerb dignity, and Addisonian style of
the one and the lucid expositions and brilliant illustrations of the
other, must be remembered by all who ever listened to them." In
1850-53, Doctor Peter filled with distinction the chair of Chemistry
in the newly founded Kentucky School of Medicine at Louisville, since
so successful. On October 19, 1853, at the third meeting of the
Kentucky Medical Society at Lexington, he proposed to memorialize the
legislature in regard to the establishment of a Geological Survey of
Kentucky. Accordingly, he prepared such a memorial (in connection with
his "Report on the Relation of Forms of Disease to the Geological
Formation of a Region"), accompanied by a geological map, colored by
himself.[70] In consequence of this memorial, which was unanimously
sanctioned by the several agricultural societies of the State, the
first Geological Survey of Kentucky--which was also the first large
State enterprise of the kind undertaken in the West--was begun in
1854, under the able and experienced direction of Doctor David Dale
Owen. While chemist to this survey, Doctor Peter demonstrated what
previously he had sturdily maintained and ably argued--that by soil
analysis could be determined the elements necessary to increase and
preserve the fertility of soils.[71] He was probably the first in
America to apply quantitative and qualitative analysis in this
manner--certainly the first to apply it to any great extent. He proved
by numerous analyses that chemical analysis as practiced by him was
capable of showing the deterioration of soils by long cultivation. He
did this by comparing the composition of the virgin soil with that of
soil taken from a near-by old field.[72] The amount of chemical work
accomplished by Doctor Peter in the Kentucky Survey seems wellnigh
impossible when it is considered that at the same time he lectured
daily six times a week in two colleges--never omitting to prepare
experiments in illustration of his subject. Some Eastern chemists were
actually disposed to dispute the facts. One of these asserted that "no
chemist could make more than one soil analysis in less than a month."
Doctor Owen says in this regard: "Without a knowledge of the peculiar
circumstances under which the work was performed, the amount of Doctor
Peter's chemical labor during the last six years, as chemical
assistant to the Survey of Kentucky, might appear incredible, for he
has, in fact, performed a greater number of _reliable_, _detailed_,
_practically useful_ analyses of soils than any living
chemist"[73]--which comes with authority, for Doctor Owen, a man not
given to exaggeration, was in position to view the whole field, and as
Director fully and faithfully informed himself as to what was going on
all over the world in matters relating to his department. Doctor Owen
said no chemists in this country had thought proper to turn their
special attention to soil analysis, but that Doctor Peter, with the
help of only one assistant to do the more mechanical part of the work,
had in six years of the survey made one thousand, one hundred and
twenty-six quantitative analyses, three hundred and seventy-five of
which were of soils in which, on an average, twelve different
substances were determined. In addition to this and the preparation of
his own chemical report, Doctor Peter personally supervised the
publication of the four royal 8vo volumes of this Survey, reading and
correcting all proof and adding an obituary biographical sketch of his
friend Doctor Owen, whose death, November 13, 1860, had terminated the
survey. Before arrangements could be made to continue this important
public work the Civil War intervened, putting a stop to all such
beneficent pursuits. Doctor Peter unhesitatingly and warmly upheld his
adopted country against secession. Unable to take the field with his
friend, Ethelbert Dudley, he promptly fell into the ranks of Dudley's
Home Guards, shoulder to shoulder with Benjamin Gratz, Madison C.
Johnson, David A. Sayre, and other such fellow-citizens.[74] He was
appointed Acting Assistant Surgeon in charge of Military Hospitals at
Lexington, Kentucky, being most of the time senior surgeon in charge,
quickly bringing his hospitals to a high state of order and
efficiency. It was this gift of reducing to system, combined with
untiring energy and diligence, which in his long life tended to make
all his work both rapid and successful. Thus he carried on
simultaneously numbers of analyses with immense saving of time, while
other chemists went through each operation separately--making his
results almost beyond belief. When, after the war, the survey was
resumed under Professor N. S. Shaler, Doctor Peter prepared three
chemical reports of his analytical work, 1873-78. A total of four
hundred and seventy-seven pages, containing eight hundred and
seventy-one analyses.
In the survey continued under the late John R. Procter, he prepared
six reports, five of which were published, covering five hundred and
eighty-eight pages, describing nine hundred and seventy-seven
analyses--a total of one thousand, eight hundred and forty-eight
published analyses. The sixth report--the ninth of the new
survey--made to Procter, was not published for the lack of funds, and
the manuscript seems to have been lost. The analyses, of which there
are about four hundred, will be published, however, by the present
able director of the newly resumed Geological Survey, Professor C. J.
Norwood, in as nearly the original form as can be restored from the
records. Thus, with the one assistant, Doctor Peter made for the new
survey about two thousand, two hundred and fifty analyses. Besides
which, during his active life in Lexington, he had at all times
considerable practice as consulting and analytical chemist, making for
individuals many analyses not included in the above. As a toxicologist
he had a high reputation, and his expert testimony usually carried the
day in cases wherein he was called. At the time of the First Kentucky
Survey, under Doctor Owen, Doctor Peter had also contributed to the
second report of a Geological Reconnoissance of the Southern and
Middle Counties of Arkansas, made during the years 1859 and 1860, an
octavo volume of four hundred and thirty-three pages, in which he
gives the history of two hundred and seventy-one chemical analyses
made by himself of soils, subsoils, under-clays, nitre-earths, etc.,
of Arkansas, with remarks in one hundred and twenty-five pages of
report. At the same time he made chemical analyses of thirty-three
soils, subsoils, etc., of the State of Indiana for the survey of that
State begun by Doctor D. D. Owen and continued, on Doctor Owen's
death, by his brother, Colonel Richard Owen. It will be seen by
reference to the Kentucky Geological Reports that Doctor Peter was the
first, or among the first, to point out the fact that the lower
Silurian limestones always contain a notable quantity of phosphates,
and that this circumstance in part accounts for the richness of our
bluegrass soils[75]--facts which he brought to the attention of the
agricultural public as early as April, 1849, in the _Albany
Cultivator_, of New York.
He was apparently the first to show that some of the upper layers of
the Trenton limestone are remarkably rich in phosphates, as shown by
his analyses published in the reports cited.
In 1865, when in accordance with Honorable John B. Bowman's lofty
educational plans Kentucky University was removed to Lexington, was
united with Transylvania, and included the State Agricultural and
Mechanical College, Doctor Peter occupied the chair of Chemistry and
Experimental Philosophy in the new University, lecturing daily in two
colleges, having declined the Presidency of the Agricultural and
Mechanical College, which was offered him by Regent Bowman. At this
period he devoted his every energy of mind and body to assist in the
upbuilding of what he fondly hoped would be the great educational
institution of the West and South; for the training especially of
Kentucky's youth of every rank and creed, and for the benefit of all
men of all nations who sought knowledge.[76] He accepted and
accomplished, it was said at the time, the work of three average men.
On the separation of the State College from the Kentucky University,
after a bitter sectarian controversy in which he manfully defended the
Transylvania trusts--little understood by some of the
controversialists--he remained with the State College at the head of
the Chemical Department.[77]
In 1887, Doctor Peter was made Emeritus Professor of Chemistry in the
State College. It would be of interest to give a detailed account of
Doctor Peter's writings, but this must of necessity be reserved for a
more extended biography. He was an easy, practical, and prolific
writer on a large range of subjects. Deeply interested in agriculture
and horticulture, he prepared many able treatises for journals of
these branches. He experimented for himself in the culture of fruits
and flowers--notably in grape-culture and wine-making. In 1867-68, he
assisted in editing the _Farmer's Home Journal_, a weekly published at
Lexington, Kentucky, and until its discontinuance--well in the
seventies--he contributed many articles. He was sole editor of the
tenth volume of the _Transylvania Journal of Medicine_, and in the
preceding and following volumes published a number of contributions on
medical and scientific themes. He took an active part with his pen in
the controversy which arose on the attempted removal to Louisville of
the Transylvania Medical School by some of the Transylvania professors
and the establishment at Louisville of the "Medical Institute" as a
rival school.[78] Like Doctor B. W. Dudley, Doctor Peter, under a
misapprehension of the facts, was at first inclined to sanction the
removal of the medical school to Louisville, for he says in a
"Narrative" of the controversy published in the _Lexington
Intelligencer_, July 7, 1837: "I was in favor of the removal of the
Transylvania Medical School when I believed it was to be done with the
consent of its legal guardians, and with the certainty of very liberal
endowments, which would increase its means of instruction; but when
the bubble burst--when it was found that the name of Transylvania, the
oath of office--_principle_, in fact, were all to be sacrificed to the
splendid scheme--I drew back." And from listening to Doctor Caldwell's
flattering offers of emoluments in Louisville--even to the promise
that Doctor Peter should have the superintendence of the erection of
the chemical laboratory--he joined Dudley in maintaining the
Transylvania School at Lexington, vigorously defending Dudley, and
himself also, against the attacks of the Caldwell faction. In the
midst of the general hostility, Doctor Peter became antagonistic to
his former friend, Doctor Yandell--indeed, bitter was the strife on
all hands. But in after years, when the better part of half a century
had rolled between, Doctor Peter, on the friendly advance of Doctor
Yandell, forgot the vindictive feeling of the past and a
correspondence both pleasant and profitable sprung up between the two
old men, which was maintained until the death of Doctor Yandell.
Doctor Yandell confessed that in the heat of contention he had said
much which afterward he fain would recall. And it is readily to be
credited that others felt the same when time was given for calm and
dispassionate reflection.
Doctor Peter at all times wrote much on education, much on politics
and the questions of the day. Beside lectures to his classes, he gave
by request many public lectures on various topics. Possessing no
especial gift of voice or enunciation, he was not an orator, though as
a lecturer uniformly popular; never dry, though full of information;
sometimes humorous, but ever dignified. He never neglected, where
appropriate, to illustrate his subject with experiments, frequently
new and always skillfully performed. His rapidity and sureness of
manipulation were nearly that of the prestidigitator, and were the
boast and admiration of his pupils. But with this complete mastery of
science there was no corresponding lack of business ability. More than
once he was offered civic honors--vainly, however. Once he agreed to
act as City Councilman, but summarily resigned because the Council
unjustly denied to respectable colored citizens the right to establish
a public school for negroes in Lexington--a refusal we can not
understand to-day. He was ever ready to give time, labor, and money to
public education and improvement; ready instantly to take up his pen
on all questions affecting the welfare of the community in which he
lived, regardless of applause, yet valuing the approval of the wise
and good. His modesty was inherent. He utterly abhorred ostentation.
Yet no citizen was better known, or could more surely rely upon the
love and respect of his fellows--respect secured by thorough
truthfulness and honesty of purpose--the "courage of his convictions"
which never left him. He retained his activity of mind and body, his
youthful appearance, his cheerfulness of spirit, up to a very short
time before his death, which took place at "Winton," eight miles from
Lexington, in the eighty-ninth year of his age, April 26, 1894. He
had, as he had often wished, "worn out rather than rusted out."
Perhaps the words of his colleague of more than twenty years make the
best summary of his life and character: "Intense devotion to physical
science and work of the laboratory, purity of speech and modesty of
manner, fidelity to all duties, domestic, professional, and civic,
fidelity to settled convictions and principles; above all, his long
and illustrious career in educating so many thousands of the young,
and in setting before them a model so worthy of their imitation and
remembrance; these were the traits, this was the service that crowned
his busy life of nearly ninety years with honor, admiration, and
renown."
PROFESSOR JAMES CONQUEST CROSS, M. D.
Born in the vicinity of Lexington, Kentucky, was early distinguished
for superior natural energy and mental ability. He was a graduate of
Transylvania and most ambitious to take place as member of its
Faculty. Appointed to the chair of Institutes of Medicine in 1837,
having been called from the Medical College of Ohio, at Cincinnati,
where he held a professorship, he occupied the position in Lexington
until 1843-44, and died a few years thereafter. He was Dean of the
Medical Faculty in 1838.
Doctor Cross contributed several papers to the medical journals, but
wrote no large work. He was distinguished for readiness and brilliancy
rather than for solidity. His strong ambition and self-confidence,
with his considerable abilities and extensive reading, gave promise of
a most distinguished career, which unhappily a certain want of mental
ballast measurably prevented.[79]
DOCTOR JOHN EBERLE[80]
Was a native of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and was a little over
fifty years of age at the time of his decease. Born and educated among
the Germans of Lancaster, he retained the peculiar accent and idiom of
that people to the day of his death, as also their habits of industry
and perseverance in favorite pursuits. At an early period of his
history, Doctor Eberle was deeply involved in politics and for some
time conducted a German political paper. Prior to his removal to
Philadelphia, which occurred about the year 1818, he published several
interesting papers in the _New York Medical Repository_ and other
journals. Shortly after his settlement in Philadelphia, he became the
editor of the _American Medical Recorder_, known throughout the
country as one of our ablest periodicals. In 1822, his work on
_Therapeutics and Materia Medica_ first appeared, after having
encountered many obstacles that for a time seemed to preclude its
publication. The author assured the writer of this notice that he
failed in all his attempts to procure a publisher, who would give him
anything for the copyright, until the person who finally became its
proprietor offered two hundred and fifty dollars for the work. Being
the first book of the author, he accepted the offer in the hope of
being more successful in his subsequent undertakings.
In 1824, on the establishment of Jefferson Medical College, Doctor
Eberle constituted one of its Faculty, and continued in the school
until his removal to Cincinnati in 1831. While in Jefferson he taught
the Theory and Practice, Materia Medica, and Obstetrics at different
periods, and was also engaged as editor of the _American Medical
Review_, a journal devoted especially to the interests of that school.
While in the Jefferson Faculty he published the first edition of his
work on _Practice_, which, it is well known, has passed through
several editions, and unlike its predecessor yielded a handsome
compensation to its author.
In 1831, Doctor Eberle was invited (in connection with Doctors Thomas D.
Mitchell and George McClellan) by Doctor Drake, to unite in the
formation of a new medical school at Cincinnati. In the winter of
1831-32, the deceased gave his first course of lectures in the West as
Professor of Materia Medica and Medical Botany in the Medical College of
Ohio, in which school he remained until the fall of 1837, when he became
connected with the Medical Department of Transylvania. While in
Cincinnati, he prepared his work on the _Diseases of Children_, for
which the publishers gave him a fair compensation, and it is understood
that he was engaged a year ago in getting ready for the press _A System
of Midwifery_. That he was importuned by his publishers in Ohio to
prepare such a work is known to the writer of this notice.
In addition to the publications of Doctor Eberle above named, there
were others of less magnitude. Among these we name a small work of a
botanical character, for young students; and it may be noticed here
that botany was a favorite study with the deceased.
Doctor Eberle was not fond of the practice of his profession, or he
might have become rich in its pursuit. He was devoted especially to
books, and as a journalist he has not perhaps been equaled in the
United States of America. In his deportment he was plain, unassuming,
unostentatious; and his whole aspect was indicative of one who had
long been a companion of the midnight lamp. Few there are in our
profession whose labors have given them such extensive celebrity as
fell to the lot of Professor Eberle. His _Practice of Physic_ is in
almost every medical library in the West, and has been noticed with
high commendation by foreign journalists. His death has left a chasm
in the profession, and especially in the school of the West, that is
greatly lamented.
* * * * *
Doctor Eberle died at Lexington, Kentucky, February 2, 1838, while
filling the chair of the Theory and Practice of Medicine.
PROFESSOR THOMAS DUCHE MITCHELL, M. D.,
Was appointed from the Medical College of Ohio to the chair of
Chemistry and Pharmacy in the Medical Department of Transylvania in
1837. He was transferred to that of Materia Medica and Medical Botany
in the following year, Doctor Peter having been called to the chair of
Chemistry, etc.
In consequence of the death of Professor John Eberle early in the
session of 1837-38, Doctor Mitchell was required to fill both this and
his own chair during the session, an arduous duty which he performed
faithfully and to the satisfaction of all parties.[81]
With equal ability and success he performed a similar double duty to
the full satisfaction of his classes in the winter of 1844-45, when,
in consequence of the death of Professor William H. Richardson, the
chair of Obstetrics and Diseases of Women and Children became vacant.
He was appointed to that chair. He was also Dean of the Faculty in the
Transylvania School from 1839 to 1846.
Doctor Mitchell was born in Philadelphia in 1791, in which city for
three generations his ancestors resided. He died in the same city May
13, 1865, in his seventy-fourth year, having heroically performed his
duties as Professor almost up to the time of his death, although he
was a constant sufferer from painful neuralgic disease of the stomach,
at times almost unendurable. His early education was in Quaker
schools, the best in those times in that city, and in the University
of Pennsylvania. After a year spent in a drug store and chemical
laboratory he became office pupil of the late Doctor Parrish, and,
after attendance on three full courses of medical lectures in the
Medical Department of the University, he graduated in medicine. His
thesis "On Acidification and Combustion" was published in the Memoirs
of the Columbian Medical Society. His mind and pen always in active
operation, he published papers in _Coxe's Medical Museum_, _New York
Medical Repository_, _Duane's Portfolio_, and other periodicals.