Early in 1799, at the first meeting of the trustees of the new Transylvania University,[5] they instituted "The _Medical Department_" or _College_ of Transylvania--which subsequently became so prosperous and so celebrated--by the appointment of Doctor Samuel Brown as Professor of Chemistry, Anatomy, and Surgery, and Doctor Frederick Ridgely as Professor of Materia Medica, Midwifery, and Practice of Physic. Doctor Brown qualified as Professor October 26, 1799, and Doctor Ridgely the following November. Doctor Brown was authorized by the Board to import books and other means of instruction for the use of the medical professors to the amount of five hundred dollars[6]--a considerable sum in those days--and he and his colleague were made salaried officers of the University. A Law College was also organized at this time in the University by the appointment of Colonel George Nicholas, soldier of the Revolution and member of the Virginia Convention, as Professor of Law and Politics. DOCTOR SAMUEL BROWN, The first Medical Professor of Transylvania University and of the great Western country, was born in Augusta, or Rockbridge County, Virginia, January 30, 1769, and died near Huntsville, Alabama, at the residence of Colonel Thomas G. Percy, January 12, 1830. He was the son of Reverend John Brown, a Presbyterian minister of great learning and piety, and Margaret Preston--a woman of remarkable energy of character and vigor of mind--second daughter of John Preston and Elizabeth Patton.[7] He was the third of four distinguished brothers--Honorable John Brown, Honorable James Brown, Doctor Samuel Brown, and Doctor Preston Brown. After graduating at Carlisle College, Pennsylvania, where he had been sent by his elder brother, he studied medicine for two years in Edinburgh, Scotland. Doctor Hosack, of New York, and Doctor E. McDowell, of Danville, Kentucky, were of the same class. Returning to the United States, he commenced practice in Bladensburg, but soon removed to Lexington, Kentucky, where he was made Professor of Chemistry, Anatomy, and Surgery in Transylvania University in 1799, as above stated. In 1806, he removed to Fort Adams, Mississippi, where he married Miss Percy, of Alabama.[8] Afterward returning to Lexington he was re-appointed in 1819 to a chair in the Medical Department of Transylvania, that of Theory and Practice. Here he was a distinguished colleague of Professors B. W. Dudley, Charles Caldwell, Daniel Drake, William Richardson, and James Blythe until 1825, when he finally left Kentucky.