Zachariah Frederick Smith, the Kentucky historian, was born near Eminence, Kentucky, January 7, 1827. He was educated at Bacon College, Harrodsburg, Kentucky. During the Civil War he was president of Henry College at New Castle, Kentucky. From 1867 to 1871 he was superintendent of public instruction in Kentucky. Professor Smith was subsequently interested in various enterprises, and for four years he was connected with the publishing firm of D. Appleton and Company. For more than fifty years he was a curator of Transylvania University. His History of Kentucky (Louisville, 1885; 1892), is the only exhaustive and readable history of the Commonwealth from the beginnings down to the date of its publication. In a sense it is the chronicles of the Collinses transformed from the encyclopedic to the continuous narrative form. Professor Smith's other works are: A School History of Kentucky (Louisville, 1889); Youth's History of Kentucky (Louisville, 1898); The Mother of Henry Clay (Louisville, 1899); and The Battle of New Orleans (Louisville, 1904). He spent the final years of his life upon The History of the Reformation of the 19th Century, Inaugurated, Advocated, and Directed by Barton W. Stone, of Kentucky: 1800-1832, which was almost ready for publication when he died. In this work Professor Smith set forth that Barton W. Stone, and not Alexander Campbell, was the founder of the Christian ("Campbellite") so-called "reformation" in this State, and that its adherents are "Stoneites," not "Campbellites," as they are called by the profane. Professor Smith died at Louisville, Kentucky, July 4, 1911, but he was buried at Eminence.

Bibliography. Kentucky in the Nation's History, by R. M. McElroy (New York, 1909); The Register (Frankfort, Kentucky, September, 1911).

EARLY KENTUCKY DOCTORS

[From The History of Kentucky (Louisville, 1892)]

It is probable Dr. Thomas Walker, of Virginia, was the first physician who ever visited Kentucky. In 1745 he came and negotiated treaties with the Indian tribes for the establishment of a colony, which was announced in Washington's journal (1754) as Walker's settlement on the Cumberland, accompanied by a map, dated 1750. Some time just before 1770, Dr. John Connolly, of Pittsburgh, visited the Falls of the Ohio, and three years later, in company with Captain Thomas Bullitt, patented the land on which Louisville now stands. But little is known of the professional performances of either Walker or Connolly, except the fact that they were both men of superior intelligence, and of far more than average cultivation. They were both known as enterprising business men rather than great practitioners of medicine. In a History of the Medical Literature of Kentucky, Dr. Lunsford P. Yandell (the elder) says: "The first surgical operation ever performed in Kentucky by a white man occurred in 1767." Colonel James Smith, in that year, accompanied by his black servant, Jamie, traveled from the mouth of the Tennessee river across the country to Carolina, now Tennessee. On their way, Colonel Smith stepped upon a projecting fragment of cane, which pierced his foot, and was broken off level with the skin. Swelling quickly came on, causing the flesh to rise above the end of the cane. Having no other instruments than a knife, a moccasin awl, and a pair of bullet-molds, the colonel directed his servant to seize the piece of cane with the bullet-molds, while he raised the skin with the awl and cut the flesh away from around the piece of cane, and, with the assistance of Jamie, the foreign body was drawn out. Colonel Smith then treated the wound with the bruised bark from the root of a lind tree, and subsequently by poultices made of the same material, using the mosses of the old logs in the forest, which he secured with strips of elm bark, as a dressing.

Dr. Frederick Ridgely, a favorite pupil of Dr. Rush, was sent from Philadelphia early in 1779, as a surgeon to a vessel sailing with letters of marque and reprisal off the coast of Virginia. This vessel was chased into the Chesapeake Bay by a British man-of-war. As the ship's colors were struck to the enemy, Dr. Ridgely leaped overboard, and narrowly escaped capture by swimming two miles to the shore. He was at once thereafter appointed an officer in the medical department of the Colonial army. A few months later, he resigned his commission, and settled, in 1790, at Lexington, where he speedily attained a leading position as a master of the healing art. From Lexington he was frequently called, in the capacity of surgeon, to accompany militia in their expeditions against the Indians. He was appointed surgeon-general to the army of "Mad Anthony Wayne," returning finally to Lexington, where he took part in the organization of the first medical college established in the West. Dr. Ridgely was a frequent contributor to the American Medical Repertory, published at Philadelphia. He was the intimate friend of Dr. Samuel Brown, also of Lexington. At the organization of the medical department of Transylvania University, in 1799, Brown and Ridgely were the first professors. Ridgely, in that year, delivered a course of lectures to a small class, and, as the organization of the faculty had not been completed, no further attempts at teaching were made. Dr. Samuel Brown, like his colleague, Ridgely, was a surgeon of great ability and large experience. These two gentlemen added greatly to the growth and popularity of Lexington by their renown as surgeons. They attracted patients from the remote settlements on the frontier, and were both frequent contributors to the medical literature of that time. The cases reported by these gentlemen were numerous, interesting, carefully observed, and ably reported. Dr. Brown was a student at the University of Edinburgh with Hosack, Davidge, Ephraim McDowell, and Brockenborough, of Virginia. Hosack became famous as a professor in the College of Physicians and Surgeons, at New York; Davidge laid the foundation of the University of Maryland; Brown was one of the first professors in Transylvania University, at Lexington, while McDowell achieved immortal fame in surgery as the father of ovariotomy. Strong rivalry in the practice of medicine at Lexington, between Brown and Ridgely, and Fishback and Pindell, had much to do with the difficulties attending the efforts of the two former to establish the medical school. In 1798, Jenner made public his great discovery of the protective power of vaccination. Dr. Brown, of Lexington, was his first imitator on this continent. Within three years from the date of Jenner's first publication, and before the experiment had been tried elsewhere in this country, Brown had already vaccinated successfully more than five hundred people at Lexington.