Daniel Drake, "the Franklin of the West," was born at Plainfield, New
Jersey, October 20, 1785. When he was but three years old, his family
removed to Mayslick, Mason county, Kentucky, where they dwelt in a log
cabin for some time. When he was sixteen years of age, Drake went to
Cincinnati to study medicine, the city's first medical student. He
later attended lectures at the medical school of the University of
Pennsylvania. On his return to Kentucky, Dr. Drake practiced his
profession near his home at Mayslick, Kentucky, but he shortly
afterwards went to Cincinnati, where he became a distinguished
physician and author. In 1816 he was appointed professor of materia
medica and botany in the medical school of Transylvania University,
and he held this chair for one year. He returned to Transylvania, in
1823, and this time he remained for four years. In 1835 Dr. Drake
organized the medical department of Cincinnati College. Four years
later he went to Louisville to accept the chair of clinical medicine
and pathological anatomy in the University of Louisville, which he
occupied for ten years. He returned to Cincinnati two years before his
death, which occurred there, November 6, 1852. Dr. Drake's
publications include _Topography, Climate, and Diseases of Cincinnati_
(1810); _Picture of Cincinnati_ (Cincinnati, 1815); _Practical Essays
on Medical Education_ (1832); _Systematic Treatise on the Principal
Diseases of the Interior Valley of North America_ (Philadelphia, 1850;
1852), a work which was characterized by Judge James Hall of
Cincinnati as "the most important and valuable work ever written in
the United States. The subject is large. The work could not be
compiled. The subject was new, and the materials were to be collected
from original sources, from observation, personal inspection, oral
evidence, etc. It occupied many years; and was, probably, in
contemplation during the whole or most part of Dr. Drake's long
professional life." To-day Dr. Drake's most popular work is _Pioneer
Life in Kentucky_, a series of reminiscential letters addressed to his
children, concerning early times in Kentucky. It was issued by Robert
Clarke, the Cincinnati publisher in his well-known Ohio Valley
Historical Series. This is a charming volume and it has been much
quoted and praised by Western writers.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. Appletons' _Cyclopaedia of American Biography_ (New
York, 1887, v. ii); _Beginnings of Literary Culture in the Ohio
Valley_, by W. H. Venable (Cincinnati, 1891); Allibone's
_Dictionary of Authors_ (Philadelphia, 1897).