Of Doctor Dudley's influence upon the medical school Doctor David W. Yandell truly says:[104] "The history of the Medical Department of Transylvania University--its rise, its success, its decline, its disappearance from the list of medical colleges--would practically cover Doctor Dudley's career, and would form a most interesting chapter in the development of medical teaching in the Southwest. But it must suffice me here to say that Doctor Dudley created the medical department of the institution and directed its policy. Its students regarded him from the beginning as the foremost man in the Faculty. That he had colleagues whose mental endowments were superior to his he himself at all times freely admitted. He is said to have laid no claim to either oratorical power or professional erudition. He was not a logician, he was not brilliant, and his deliverances were spiced with neither humor nor wit. And yet, says one of his biographers, in ability to enchain the students' attention, to impress them with the value of his instructions and his greatness as a teacher, he bore off the palm from all the gifted men who at various periods taught at his side." But although these two would appear to be the more obvious reasons for the decline of the Medical Department of Transylvania, we can by no means ignore the injurious effect of rival medical colleges growing up at points more accessible and more progressive than Lexington could possibly be without rapid transit of some sort to make her own peculiar advantages available. Nor can we overlook the evil consequences of the opposition systematically shown to the Transylvania Medical School by the faction originating in the attempt to disorganize the institution in 1837. However, in reviewing all these influences, the prosperity of Lexington to-day (1904), her rapid growth, her increasing enterprise, her vigorous trade, the flourishing condition of her colleges and seminaries--all of which has come to her since the completion of the railroads centering in her--abundantly prove that this communication, above everything else, was her indispensable requirement.