Curatorial assistant Elizabeth Arterberry explores the exciting world of diseases, geography, and early medical history!

Many of the entries that comprise J.K. Lilly’s collection of Notable Medical Books possesses unusual and interesting characteristics, not just in their binding(s), layout, or the topic addressed within, but also the format of the written material itself. Daniel Drake’s Systematic Treatise […] on the Principal Diseases of the Interior Valley of North America deals with the subject of medical geography and topography, pertaining to epidemiology, and makes note of the impact and influences of environment on health not just in writing, but also by providing detailed maps of what was, at the time, the American Frontier. These were some of the first maps of their kind— that is, with a medical focus, made of those territories.

Fold-out, lithographic map of the United States of America created by A. Wocher, tipped-in the front board of Daniel Drake’s 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 (RA802 .D76), published in 1850.

Medical geography grew in popularity as a field due to the miasma theory of disease that was the most influential belief of the time, which “postulated that disease-laden air—often called miasma or malaria—was produced by particular landforms, climates, animal waste, and vegetable decomposition, and was the source of epidemic disease” (Szczygiel & Hewitt 2000, 708). Within this work, Drake provides a very in-depth examination of many facets of the environment which could have an impact on health, including the altitude of the location, its [settlement] design and composition, soil quality and composition, temperature (as it averaged monthly over the course of a year), and the impacts of bodies of water and wetland areas. He also takes into account the population of major cities and towns in the regions which he studies, the common occupations of the residents of each area, and goes on to discuss the illnesses that were common to them as a result of the elements of their environment that most impacted them or to which they were most exposed (such as farmers, foresters, and fishermen). Drawing from his own experience visiting these communities and their surrounding landscapes in person, he provided keen observations that shaped medical discourse in the American Midwest. 

Title page of Daniel Drake’s 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 (RA802 .D76), published in 1850. Note the handwritten annotations under the author’s name, which emphasize his name and title of Doctor of Medicine. Another annotation underlines the publication date.

While the first volume takes pains to contain impartial observations of living conditions and environmental (and socio-environmental) factors, the second volume deals more directly with the subject of the most common diseases and illnesses found in North America and those things which Drake has observed correlate the most with or directly cause their occurrence. In this, Drake makes detailed arguments based on collective observations and data points he’s collected himself for the most likely correlations between an ailment and environmental conditions, some of which were relatively novel. One of these was his argument that there is some correlation between soil composition and the occurrence of “autumnal fever”—a malarial or typhoid fever, in more modern terms. Interestingly, in making this argument, he remarks that “the Fever prevails most where the organic matter is most abundant, in or resting on the soil. […] These facts undeniably establish a connection between a certain condition of the surface and autumnal fever; but they do not prove the existence of malaria, or a gas, which is the efficient cause of the Fever” (Drake 1854, 722-723). He proceeds to offer a “vegeto-animalcular hypothesis” for the origin of the disease, consisting of infection from insects that have come into contact with decaying or diseased organic matter, which reads as what we would now define as a vector-borne virus hypothesis, decades before the official determination of Laveran’s discovery of blood parasites in malaria patients in 1880 (Drake 1854, 726-727; Cox 2010).

Daniel Drake was born in 1785 in New Jersey, though his family would shortly relocate to the town now known as Maysville, KY, when he was three (Shapiro 1988, 39). His interest in the natural sciences began in childhood, though he received his first formal schooling at the age of fifteen, taking an apprenticeship with Dr. William Goforth, during which he learned medicine and surgery from the most influential surgeon in the Cincinnati area (ibid.). Though he would not complete his studies at the University of Pennsylvania’s medical college, dropping out in 1806 due to financial hardships, his involvement in the emergent field of medicine in the United States was far from over. Marrying into the extended family of the Surveyor General of the Northwest Territory, Drake had ambitions to assist Cincinnati in its efforts to become a hub of commerce and scholarly enlightenment in the newly settled territory, which were realized very quickly as he joined “the first active faculty (1817) of the first medical institution (Transylvania University) west of the Allegheny Mountains. He fathered the first museum in the West for the preservation of the local antiquities, the flora, the fauna etc.” (Horine 1953, 217).

Lithographic maps by A. Wocher depicting New Orleans, Louisiana and Lake Pontchartrain (Left) and Louisville, Kentucky (Right). Both maps are tipped-in (adhered to the binding after the book is printed) of Daniel Drake’s A Systematic Treatise…(RA802 .D76). Published in 1850.

By the time he reached his mid-thirties, he had a flourishing and respected medical practice and was a respected figure within Cincinnati society, while also “lecturing to lay audiences on botany, mineralogy, and agriculture, planning for the establishment of the medical college, carrying on an extensive correspondence in behalf of his Western Museum and arranging for its opening, planning consolidation of the Lancastrian Seminary with his newly established Cincinnati College, and participating in the activities of the Humane Society founded for the purpose of resuscitating persons apparently drowned (Horine 1953, 218).” He was a firm believer in the importance of taking the patient’s concerns and explanation of their condition into consideration when diagnosing and treating them, remarking that “The pupil, who dismisses the subject of his researches with the book that guided him, does not deserve the honorable epithet of student” (Horine 1940, 309). His determination to ensure quality medical care developed in new and developing states, as well as his patient- and experience-focused approach to the schooling of the next generations of physicians in the Midwest, ensured that his legacy is one of a principled educator, as well as an accomplished physician and medical scholar. 

With the first volume published near the end of his life, and the other volume released posthumously, Drake’s Systematic Treatise is the result of a dedicated physician’s scholarly insight and copious research coupled with decades of medical experience, resulting in a work that is as expansive as it is detailed.

About the author: Elizabeth Arterberry is a curatorial assistant at the Lilly Library, and a second-year MLS student at Indiana University Bloomington. Her undergraduate work centered heavily on philosophy, and the field remains a primary area of interest for her. When not lost in the stacks (or an Excel spreadsheet), she can most often be found attempting a new recipe, working on a creative writing piece, or falling down a provenance “rabbit hole.”

Primary Source: 

Drake, Daniel. 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. Cincinnati, 1850, 1854. 

Secondary Sources: 

Shapiro, Henry D. “Daniel Drake: The New Western Naturalist.” Bartonia, no. 54, 1988, pp. 39–47. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41609959. 

Szczygiel, Bonj, and Robert Hewitt. “Nineteenth-Century Medical Landscapes: John H. Rauch, Frederick Law Olmsted, and the Search for Salubrity.” Bulletin of the History of Medicine, vol. 74, no. 4, 2000, pp. 708–34. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44444779.

Mitman, Gregg, and Ronald L. Numbers. “From Miasma to Asthma: The Changing Fortunes of Medical Geography in America.” History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences, vol. 25, no. 3, 2003, pp. 391–412. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23333196.

Cox, Francis Eg. “History of the discovery of the malaria parasites and their vectors.” Parasites & vectors vol. 3,1 5. 1 Feb. 2010, doi:10.1186/1756-3305-3-5

Horine, Emmet Field. “DANIEL DRAKE AND HIS CONTRIBUTIONS TO EDUCATION.” The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, vol. 34, no. 4, 1940, pp. 303–14. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24296476. Accessed 12 Dec. 2024.

Horine, Emmet Field. “DANIEL DRAKE AND THE ORIGIN OF MEDICAL JOURNALISM WEST OF THE ALLEGHENY MOUNTAINS.” Bulletin of the History of Medicine, vol. 27, no. 3, 1953, pp. 217–35. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44443759.