A New Generation of Medical Leaders Emerge in the
1850s
Medical leadership in antebellum Louisville reached far beyond the local scene to national
and international levels through U of L‘s publication of widely read journals and textbooks.
In the 1850s, a new generation of medical leaders appeared due to three factors: a major
turnover of the U of L faculty, the assembly of a faculty at the Kentucky School of Medicine
and the emergence of young physician leaders trained at these schools.
Changing of the Guard at U of L
Fig. 5 The historic U.S. Marine Hospital, now being restored.
Except for early departures of Joshua Barker Flint, MD, and John Esten Cooke, MD, the illustrious faculty who led U of L to greatness remained stable throughout the 1840s (Fig. 6). Flint was
driven early (1839) from the faculty in a conflict with Charles Caldwell, MD, and he was replaced
by Samuel David Gross, MD, a greater asset. Cooke left the faculty after the 1843-44 session under peer pressure. Cooke held outdated and erroneous theories of physiology and pathogenesis.
Also, he promoted excessive use of bloodletting and purging with mercury-containing Calomel,
including his own formulation, Dr. Cooke’s pills. Cooke came under an increasing criticism from
his colleagues, especially Henry Miller, MD, in a paper in the Western Journal of Medicine and
Surgery, Miller harshly criticized Cooke’s faulted concepts. Although he did not use Cooke’s name,
recognition was inescapable.
In 1849, however, there was a major changing of the guard, leading to complete turnover of the
faculty. Charles Caldwell’s 1849 departure mirrored that of Cooke, as his emphatically expounded
theories of phrenology, polygenesis and vitalism were increasingly discredited and criticized by
colleagues, including his former protégé, Lunsford P. Yandell, Sr., MD. Caldwell left in bitterness
and moved to Nashville, to found a new medical school. Caldwell’s vacated Chair was then assumed
by Yandell, and its outdated title, “Institutes of Medicine” modernized to “Physiology.” In so doing, Yandell vacated the Chair of Chemistry, which was given to Benjamin Silliman, Jr., MD, who
was followed by J. Lawrence Smith, MD. Both were internationally famous antebellum physicianchemists, whose scientific work extended far beyond medicine. Also in 1849, Charles Wilkins Short,
MD, Professor of Materia Medica, received from his uncle a substantial inheritance, which allowed
him to retire and escape the turmoil of faculty conflicts. Short was then able to pursue in peace
his beloved collecting and classifying of botanical specimens at his rural