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
that he gave fifteen hundred dollars to have it published and placed
as a healthful guide in certain schools for boys. It was in 1855 that
he took charge of the Eastern Kentucky Lunatic Asylum at Lexington.
This proved a wide field for the development of the most astonishing
tact and management of individuals. The attendants greatly admired him
and yielded without question to his dictation. Gentle as a woman,
adamantine after a decision, never acting hastily, maturing a subject
before deciding--these characteristics were shown on all occasions
where it pertained to the comfort of the poor creatures under his
care. During his fifteen or sixteen years of most successful
management of this institution, he made many radical changes for the
amelioration of the condition of these unfortunates. Winter after
winter he haunted the legislative halls in behalf of the Asylum,
spending his own personal means most lavishly to meet this
end--presenting one bill after another, which sooner or later were
always honored. His enthusiasm and faithfulness carried conviction
with them. When he took charge of the Asylum he found it a
conglomerate mass--many from other States there--incurables,
epileptics, idiots--all huddled together. He went carefully over the
records and proceeded to institute a thorough weeding. First he
notified the governors of the respective States to send for their own
insane, giving them a stated time of grace, and telling them that if
the call was not honored he would send the patients to their doors by
one of his own attendants, which he did in several instances. This
systematizing was a great step forward. The next thing he did was to
induce the State to erect an institution for idiots, believing there
were few born who were not capable of receiving some degree of
cultivation. In time a home was built at Frankfort, the result proving
his great wisdom. It was a matter of wonderment to see these poor
creatures developing from a driveling state of nonentity into some
capacity for the enjoyment of life, and even to a degree of
usefulness. There were but few incapable of being taught some
employment which rendered their life more than a mere existence, akin
alone to the lower animals. To have succeeded in this was enough to
mark any man's life. His philanthropy never slept. Then, through his
direct intervention, the Asylum at Anchorage for incurables was
erected; all these changes making room for those who stood a chance of
being cured instead of their being turned, for the lack of room, from
the sheltering care which might restore them. I think his influence
was brought to bear upon the advisability of an institution for the
deaf and dumb, which culminated in the home made for them in Danville.
I think it was in or about the year 1857 he went to Europe, absolutely
for the purpose of gaining an insight into better ways and means of
the treatment of the insane and the construction of the buildings
which were their homes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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