This section is from "The American Cyclopaedia", by George Ripley And Charles A. Dana. Also available from Amazon: The New American Cyclopędia. 16 volumes complete..
Daniel Drake, an American physician, born in Plainfield, N. J., Oct. 20, 1785, died in Cincinnati, Nov. 5, 1852. His father emigrated to Mason co., Ky., in 1788, where Daniel lived until his 16th year on a small farm. In December, 1800, with very little education, he was placed under the care of Dr. William Goforth of Cincinnati as a student of medicine, and in 1804 commenced practice. In 1816 he graduated at the university of Pennsylvania, and in 1817 he lectured one session in the Transylvania medical school at Lexington, Ky. In December, 1818, on his personal application, the legislature of Ohio granted a charter for the medical college of Ohio at Cincinnati, and also established there the commercial hospital. In the autumn of 1820 the former institution was opened for students, and for two sessions Dr. Drake was connected with it. In 1823 he again became professor in the Transylvania school, and afterward in medical colleges at Philadelphia, Louisville, and Cincinnati. As a professor of the theory and practice of medicine he held an eminent position, and as a practitioner his reputation was coextensive with the Mississippi valley. His writings were voluminous, but generally not intended for permanent use.
His first considerable work was "An Historical and Scientific Account of Cincinnati " (1815). His last work, on which his fame as an author principally rests, was "A Systematic Treatise, historical, etiological, and practical, on the Principal Diseases of the Interior Valley of North America, as they appear in the Caucasian, African, Indian, and Esquimaux Varieties of its Population" (2 vols., 1850-'54). A memoir by Edward D. Mansfield was published in Cincinnati in 1855.
 
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