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DANIEL DRAKE PRACTICAL ESSAYS ON MEDICAL EDUCATION AND THE MEDICAL PROFESSION IN THE UNITED STATES Editor's Note Daniel Drake (1785-1852) has long been a heroic figure in American medicine . His fame rests on his writings, which were voluminous and of very high quality, and on his efforts to bring good medical education to the western states. The fact that he represented the ideal frontier physician undoubtedly also enhanced his reputation. His fellow medical teacher Samuel D. Gross called him a great lecturer. "He had natural talent and genius of a high order, and would have become eminent in whatever pursuit he might have engaged."1 Drake has been remembered especially for his monumental Systematic Treatise, Historical, Etiological, and Practical, on the Principal Diseases of the Interior Valley of North America, published in two volumes in 1850 and 1854, with a total of 1,863 pages.2 His essays on medical education are of equal interest and have become classics in their own right. They are informative because they describe so many of the conditions then existing, as well as the problems to be solved. The essays first appeared in Drake's own Western Journal of Medical and Physical Sciences, before he collected them into a book in 1832. One hundred and twenty years later they were reprinted as volume 5 of the Bibliotheca Medica Americana Series of the Institute of the History of Medicine, The Johns Hopkins University. Unfortunately, they quickly went out of print again. Bibliographical Note The secondary sources on Daniel Drake are extensive. He himself also wrote more on medical education. See especially his Strictures on Some of the Defects and Infirmities of the Intellectual and Moral Character in Students of Medicine, Louisville: Prentice & Weisinger, 1847. For recent descriptions and evaluations of Drake and his work see particularly : James Thomas Flexner, Doctors on Horseback, New York: Viking, 1937, reprinted by Dover, 1969. Emmet F. Horine, Daniel Drake, 1785-1852; Pioneer Physician of the Midwest , Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1961. Cincinnati: Roff & Young, 1832; reprinted by The Johns Hopkins Press, 1952. *S. D. Gross,Autobiography, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: Barrie, 1887) 2: 261-74. 2 Selections from this have recently been reprinted by the University of Illinois Press, Norman D. Levine, ed., 1964. 8 DANIEL DRAKE D. A. Tucker, Jr., "Daniel Drake and the origin of medicine in the Ohio Valley," Ohio Archives of History 44 (1935): 451-68. See also the introduction by Norman D. Levine, in the reprint cited above, and Henry D. Shapiro and Zane L. Miller, eds., Physician to the West, Selected Writings of Daniel Drake on Science and Society, Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1970. ESSAY I SELECTION AND PREPARATORY EDUCATION OF PUPILS Of the various occupations in society, scarcely one requires greater talent and knowledge than the medical profession. This is especially true in the United States, where almost every practitioner must be, at the same time, physician, surgeon, and apothecary. Obvious as this proposition is to many, its truth, unfortunately, is not generally perceived by those who are about to dedicate their sons to the profession-in other words, by the persons who above all others should feel and acknowledge its reality. Hence, it results that the ranks of the profession are in a great degree filled up with recruits, deficient either in abilities or acquirements—too often indeed in both—who thus doom it to a mediocrity, incompatible with both its nature and objects. Other causes contribute to its degradation, but this I am persuaded is one of the most frequent and most difficult to obviate. Still, much might be done if those who have the power would open their eyes to the evil and exert their influence in its suppression. Few of those who are put to the study of medicine can be aware of the magnitude of the undertaking or of the insufficiency of their capacity and preparation; for the obvious reason that they are, in general, young and inexperienced . There are, however, two classes of persons who might be expected to judge more correctly and have much in their power. These are parents and physicians, both of whom, rather than our sons, should feel responsible to society on this subject; and to them I beg leave respectfully to address myself. In the selection of boys for the study of medicine, many circumstances, entirely disconnected with their fitness, too often exert a dominant influence; when their sway should be kept subordinate or even regarded as entirely inadmissible...

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