The History of the Medical Department of Transylvania University Part 8

SAMUEL ANNAN, M. D.,

Was born at Philadelphia, Pa., in the year 1800--a descendant of Scotch ancestors. He graduated as M. D. at the Edinburgh University in 1820. His thesis, ent.i.tled _De Appoplexia Sanguinia_, is in the library of the Medical and Surgical Faculty of Maryland. He was licentiate of the Medical and Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland in 1822, being then ex-President of the Royal Physical Society of Edinburgh.

From 1827 to 1834, he ably occupied the chair of Anatomy and Physiology in the Medical Department of Was.h.i.+ngton University at Baltimore, Maryland. From 1838 to 1845, he was physician to the Baltimore Alms-house. In 1846, he was called to the chair of Obstetrics and Diseases of Women and Children in the Medical Department of Transylvania University, a position which he occupied with great ability until, in 1849, he was transferred to the chair of Theory and Practice of Medicine in the same inst.i.tution, in which he gave general satisfaction until 1854, when he resigned that position.

During the years 1853-57, he was Superintendent to the Insane Asylum at Hopkinsville, Kentucky. He became surgeon to the Confederate States Army at the outbreak of our Civil War in 1861, maintaining that position until 1864. In 1866, he was surgeon to the steams.h.i.+p "Carroll" of the Liverpool line, from April to November. He died at Baltimore, January 19, 1868.

Doctor Annan was a person of great activity of mind and body, of high intelligence and probity of character. In the course of his active life and practice in his profession he found time to contribute many valuable articles to the medical journals, of which we quote the following, viz:

"Cases of Bronchotomy." Maryland Medical Recorder, Vol. VII, p. 42. 1823.

"On the Surgical Anatomy of Hernia." Ibid., Vol. III, p. 529. 1829.

"On Polypus Nasi." Ibid., No. 3, p. 655. 1830.

"On the Use of Wine in Fevers." Ibid., p. 279. 1831.

"Address to the Graduates of Was.h.i.+ngton University." 1834.

"New Views of Certain Dislocations." American Journal of Medical Science, Vol. XVIII, p. 376. 1836.

"On the Treatment of Prolapsus Ani." Ibid., p. 334. 1836.

"On Spinal Irritation and Inflammation." Ibid., Vol. XX, p. 85. 1837.

"On Cases in the Baltimore Alms-house." Ibid., Vol. XXII, p. 378. 1838.

"On Wind Contusions." American Medical Journal, Vol. II, pp. 3, 133, and 213. 1838.

"On Cases in the Baltimore Alms-house." Journal of Medical Science, Vol.

XXIV, p. 316; and Journal of Medical Science, Vol. XXV, p. 32. 1839.

"On Cases in the Baltimore Alms-house." Medical and Surgical Journal, pp. 322 and 338. 1840.

"Lecture at Opening of Kentucky School of Medicine." 1850.

"On Fracture of the Skull." American Medical Record, No. 3, Vol. II, p. 449.

"Case of Laceration of the Ileum from External Injury." American Journal of Medical Science, p. 287. 1838.

For most of the facts contained in this brief sketch of the active life of Doctor Annan we are indebted to the kindness of Doctor Oscar J. Coskery, of Baltimore.

NOTE.--In 1850, Doctor Annan accepted the chair of Pathology and Practice of Medicine in the new Kentucky School of Medicine in Louisville, which position he occupied for two years with great ability, when he resigned to return to his native city.

In 1849, when Doctor Annan was transferred to the chair of Theory and Practice, the chair of Obstetrics was filled by Doctor William M.

Boling, of Montgomery, Alabama, for one session. Doctor Boling had taught in the Memphis Medical School of Tennessee, and was "favorably known in the South as a good pract.i.tioner, an able medical writer, and an excellent teacher."

PROFESSOR HENRY M. BULLITT

Occupied the chair of Materia Medica and Medical Botany with ability during the session of 1849-50, after which, with the aid of some of his Transylvania a.s.sociates, he established the "Kentucky School of Medicine," which still maintains a prosperous condition.

"Doctor Bullitt commenced the study of medicine at seventeen years of age, in the office of Doctor Coleman Rogers, senior, of Louisville, entering the Medical Department of the University of Pennsylvania as a pupil, and graduating with high honor in 1838. Returning to Louisville, he began the practice of medicine in partners.h.i.+p with Doctor Joshua B. Flint, thus continuing for many years, their office being the headquarters of the prominent physicians of this city.

"Doctor Bullitt pa.s.sed the year 1845 in Europe, where he took advantage of every opportunity of advancing in medical knowledge. He returned liberally equipped with the good fruits of his sojourn abroad. In 1846, he was elected a professor in the St. Louis Medical College and lectured there in 1846-47 and 1847-48. In 1849, he was elected to the chair of Materia Medica, etc., in Transylvania University.... In 1850, he was mainly instrumental in the establishment of the Kentucky School of Medicine in Louisville, aided by 'prominent members of the Faculty of Transylvania.'

"In 1866, he was elected to the chair of Theory and Practice in the University of Louisville, and, in 1867, was transferred to that of Physiology. In 1868, he established the Louisville Medical College, with which he remained during the several years of his professional life, his increasing deafness greatly marring his social and professional enjoyments.

"Doctor Bullitt was an able writer on professional subjects.... He held, successively, chairs in five medical schools," in all with great ability.

"In 1866, he was elected Health Officer of the city of Louisville,"

which office he most ably filled.... "Doctor Bullitt was one of the ablest Health Officers the city ever possessed," and was author of many papers of "great merit in numerous medical journals. His great affliction, deafness, was all that prevented him from taking the foremost position among medical pract.i.tioners, teachers, and writers.

But he bore the misfortune with singular equanimity and fort.i.tude."

Doctor Bullitt died on the seventh of January, 1880, after a number of weeks' confinement to his bed with Bright's disease.

The greater part of this brief sketch of the life of Doctor Bullitt is copied from an able obituary notice published in the _Louisville Journal_ at the time of his death.

HENRY MARTYN SKILLMAN, M. D.,

Youngest child of Thomas T. and Elizabeth Farrar Skillman, born September 4, 1824, at Lexington, Kentucky, was educated in Transylvania University. He spent two or three years in the drug and apothecary business in Lexington, and commenced the study of medicine and surgery in 1844, graduating as Doctor of Medicine, etc., in 1847.

He was appointed Demonstrator of Anatomy in the Medical Department of Transylvania University in 1848. In 1851, he was appointed Professor of General and Pathological Anatomy and Physiology, which position he occupied with skill and success until the close of the Medical College in 1857. Since that time he has devoted himself to the duties of his profession in medicine and surgery, being "one of the most skillful, successful, and accomplished physicians in Kentucky," and "having inherited the admirable qualities of his parents, is one of the most honorable and useful citizens of Lexington."[96]

Since the above was written, the gentle and busy life of this last surviving member of the Transylvania Medical Faculty came suddenly to a close at his home in Lexington, March 21, 1902, at a quarter past four o'clock in the afternoon, apparently without warning. Only two hours previously, handsome and smiling and dignified as usual, he had visited a patient, and he expected in a few hours to resume his professional rounds when the last summons came.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DOCTOR HENRY MARTYN SKILLMAN.

From a Photograph by Mullen.]

It is hardly possible for a man to depart this life without leaving an enemy, but if Doctor Skillman, in his fifty-four years of active professional life, had made even a few enemies they hesitated to declare themselves. His own nature was to see good in others; their defects were not made prominent by him. As he spoke no evil, so nothing but good was said of him. But with his amiable, benevolent, compromising disposition there was no trace of weakness. Strict in professional etiquette, immovable in principle, he repelled with gentle but irresistible firmness every effort to shake his integrity.

The loveliness of his character and personality is best portrayed in "Luke, the Beloved Physician," a tribute paid, on his death, editorially in the _Lexington Herald_ by Kentucky's favorite orator and statesman, every word of which is as true as it is well-chosen and beautiful. Doctor Skillman held numerous offices of trust; was elected, in 1869, President of Kentucky State Medical Society and, in 1889, the first President of Lexington and Fayette County Medical Society, and was at the time of his death the oldest practicing physician in Lexington, having seen that city grow from eight thousand to thirty thousand inhabitants. It is claimed that he was the first physician to administer chloroform there. For two years during the Civil War he was contract surgeon for the Government.

Doctor Skillman's father, Thomas T. Skillman, a native of New Jersey, came to Lexington in 1809, and soon founded there the largest publis.h.i.+ng house in the Mississippi Valley, the name of T. T. Skillman on the t.i.tle page of a work being a guarantee of its excellence and fitness for the family circle. In 1823, an edition of several thousand copies of the entire Bible was published by Mr. Skillman from stereotype plates sent from New York by the American Bible Society. He founded the _Evangelical Recorder and Western Review_, afterward edited by Reverend John Breckinridge, the young and talented pastor of "the McChord Church"; also the _Western Luminary_, in 1824, the first religious paper issued in the West.

Doctor Skillman married, October 30, 1851, Margaret, daughter of Matthew T. Scott, President of the Northern Bank of Kentucky. Of their children only one is living, Henry Martyn Skillman, of the Lexington Security Trust and Safety Vault Company.

SAMUEL M. LETCHER, M. D.,

Of a prominent Kentucky family, also a graduate of the Medical Department of Transylvania University who had won distinction in his profession in Lexington, was called to the chair of Professor of Obstetrics and Diseases of Women and Children in that school in 1851, and performed the duties of that chair with ability and success until the close of the Medical College in Lexington in 1857. During the Civil War he was placed in charge of a United States General Hospital in Lexington, a position which he held for some time, giving great satisfaction. He died February 1, 1863, in Lexington, Kentucky.

JOHN ROWAN ALLEN, M. D.,

Who was Superintendent of the Eastern Lunatic Asylum at Lexington,[97]