The History of the Medical Department of Transylvania University — John Shaqi
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
On his removal to Louisville in 1837, to join in the establishment of
the rival school, the Louisville Medical Institute, Doctor Yandell
taught in the combined chairs of Chemistry and Materia Medica, never
failing ably and impressively to perform this arduous duty. Not
having any particular taste for so severe a study as practical
chemistry, although no one was more impressed with the philosophical
beauty and wide practical value of the science, he naturally sought a
transfer to a chair more congenial with his tastes and the character
of his mind than that of chemistry. This, circumstances prevented
until, in 1849, the Trustees of the school--having come to the
conclusion that Professor Caldwell had become superannuated--placed
Doctor Yandell in the chair of Physiology, for which subject he had a
decided taste. This change procured him the animosity of his whilom
friend, Doctor Caldwell, who, in his rather unfortunate
_Autobiography_ written in his last declining years, indulged in much
bitter denunciation of his late colleague. It is much to the credit of
Doctor Yandell that, although when this angry publication was fresh
from the press he retaliated by showing in ample quotations from the
_Autobiography_ some of the weak points in Doctor Caldwell's
character, he was disposed in following years, as the writer knows, to
extend over these weaknesses the mantle of kindness.
Doctor Yandell occupied this chair of Physiology with great credit until
he resigned, in 1859, to accept a chair in the Medical School of
Memphis, Tennessee. During the Civil War he devoted himself to hospital
service. In 1862, he was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of
Memphis, and in 1864 was ordained pastor of the Dancyville Presbyterian
church. He resigned his pastorship in 1867, and returned to Louisville
to resume the practice of medicine, which he had never entirely
abandoned during the whole of his professional life.
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