The History of the Medical Department of Transylvania UniversityPeter, Robert
History
The History of the Medical Department of Transylvania University
Peter, Robert
Medicine -- Kentucky; Medicine -- Kentucky -- History; Transylvania University. Medical Department
Professor Dudley continued to lecture until 1850, when he resigned and
was appointed Professor Emeritus. Doctor James M. Bush succeeded him
in the chair of Anatomy, and Dudley's nephew, Ethelbert L. Dudley,
took that of Surgery, which he filled with great success.
A schedule of the succession of the Professors of this Medical School
will best illustrate the changes which occurred since 1819. (See
Schedule A.)
Professor B. W. Dudley remained in the regular performance of the
duties of his double chair--Anatomy and Surgery[15]--with the able
assistance of Doctor J. M. Bush, until 1844, when Doctor Bush was
regularly appointed Professor of Anatomy. Doctor Dudley, as above
mentioned, retained the chair of Surgery until 1850. In that year the
Medical Faculty intermitted the winter session in Lexington, with the
consent of the Trustees, in order to establish the "_Kentucky School
of Medicine_" in Louisville as a winter school, retaining the
Transylvania Medical College as a summer school. Doctor Dudley's last
course of lectures was delivered in the session of 1849-50.
Simultaneously with the resignation of his professorship, he withdrew
from his extensive practice and retired to his beautiful suburban
residence, "Fairlawn," in the vicinity of Lexington.[16] His death
occurred in Lexington on the twentieth of January, 1870, in the
eighty-fifth year of his age.
Doctor Dudley was an earnest and laborious practical man. His whole
time and energies were devoted to his profession, in which, like the
celebrated John Hunter--the one of his early preceptors Dudley most
admired--he sought instruction in the book of nature--in his
practice--rather than in the written archives of science.
As a teacher and lecturer he was admirably clear and impressive. While
no attempt at eloquence was ever made by him, and no early training or
later readings in the classics gave ornament to his style, his terse
and impressive sentences, as they were delivered apparently without
the slightest effort or premeditation as also without hesitation or
interruption, were the embodiment of the ideas to be conveyed, in the
most lucid and concise language. It seemed impossible to use fewer or
more appropriate words to convey to the least appreciative student the
subject to be taught.
This, with his great practical skill as a surgeon, his minute and
ready knowledge, his great experience, his unequaled success in his
numerous operations, his suavity and dignity of manner, the
magnanimity and liberality of his character, and his eminent
devotedness to his profession, made his students most earnest admirers
and followers and aided greatly in the establishment and maintenance
of our Medical College.
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