• Professor of Clinical Medicine and Pathological Anatomy, 1840-1849
• Professor of the Theory and Practice of Medicine, 1850-1852

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Daniel Drake, M.D.

Born in New Jersey, Daniel Drake grew up in May's Lick, Kentucky, and at the age of 15 began studying medicine with William Goforth of Cincinnati, who after four years awarded him a diploma, said to be the first diploma granted in the West.

He attended lectures at the University of Pennsylvania in 1805 and 1815, graduating with an MD in 1816.

He taught materia medica for one session at Transylvania University, then returned to Cincinnati and persuaded the Legislature of Ohio to charter the Cincinnati College, the Medical School of Ohio and the Commercial Hospital.

In 1830, he taught at Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, and, in 1835, he organized a medical department at Cincinnati College.

This school closed after several years, and he came to the University of Louisville in 1839 as professor of clinical medicine and pathological anatomy. In 1844, he became professor of medicine.

Briefly, in 1849-1850, he returned to Medical College of Ohio and then spent two more years at the University of Louisville.

While in Louisville, he founded and edited the Western Journal of Medicine and Surgery with Lunsford Pitts Yandell Sr.

His best-known writing, the result of lifelong research was "Systematic Treatise on the Principal Diseases of the Interior Valley of North America."

In addition to his medical practice and teaching, Drake founded schools for the blind in Cincinnati and Louisville.

- Written by Daryll Anderson