Benjamin Rush Palmer, M.D., M.A. (1813-1865)

Sixth Dean, 1856-57

M.D., Vermont Medical College, 1834

Benjamin Rush Palmer was born in Vermont, attended Thetford Academy and earned both an A.B. (1831) and M.A. (1834) from Dartmouth.  He studied medicine with his father, a Professor of Chemistry and Botany at Vermont Medical College.  He practiced general medicine in Belchertown, MA until 1840, whne he became Professor of General, Special and Surgical Anatomy at Vermont Medical College.  He gained a national reputation and was appointed Professor of Anatomy at the University of Louisville in 1853.

Dr. Palmer studied with Samuel D. Gross and gained further skill and a reputation in surgery.  He led the Department of Medicine during an increasingly complex era with the loss of the initial magnificent building at 8^th and Chestnut Streets combined with the looming Civil War.  He was on the faculty for three years when he was appointed to the Deanship.  He was both preceded and followed by Lunsford P. Yandell, M.D.  During Dr. Palmer’s tenure, the Transylvania Medical Department in Lexington closed and Dr. Gross left Louisville.  Scholarship and faculty strength dropped from the high level of the school’s first decade.

In 1860, at the last meeting of the Kentucky State Medical Society before the Civil War, Dr. Palmer was elected President.  Upon the death of Joshua B. Flint in 1864, Dr. Palmer became Professor of Surgery at the University of Louisville. His son, Edward Rush Palmer (1842-1895) and his grandson, Edward Rush Palmer, Jr. (1871-1942) also studied and taught at the University of Louisville School of Medicine.