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DR. ROBERT PETER J. S. McHmcuE, UNIVERSITY oa KENTUCKY, LEXINGTON, KENTU~ICY
The name "Peter" has been continuously associated with chemistry in Kentucky through the labors of Dr. Robert Peter and his son, Dr. Alfred Meredith Peter, for almost one hundred years. The work of the son has been in a measure a continuation of the workfkst started by his illustrious father, who was a pioneer chemist in the country west of the Alleghany Mountains. Any attempt to desaibe separately the labors of either is to break abruptly the continuity of an interesting story of the progress in chemistry for a long time in Kentucky. Robert Peter was horn on January 21, 1805, in the town of Launceston, Cornwall, England. In 1817 the Peter family came to America, stopping for a brief time in Baltimore and then moving on to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where Robert, when a mere lad, was placed by his parents in a wholesale drug store and during the time of his employment acquired a passion for chemistry which filled his thought and gave direction to his life in later years. At the age of twenty-three he entered the Rensselaer Institute scientific School a t Troy, New York, and after spending one session there acquired the title of Lecturer on the Natural Sciences. In the latter part of the same year he delivered a course of public lectures on chemistry in Pittsburgh and, as a member of the Hesperian Society, made a number of scientific, literary, and poetical contributions to the Hesperus, a periodical published a t Pittsburgh, in 182&29. In 1829 he delivered a course of lectures on the natural sciences to the Pittsburgh Philosophical Society, of which he was a member, and in 1830-31 lectured on chemistry in the Western University of Pennsylvania. In 1832 he was induced to come to Lexington, Kentucky, and early in the following year he was unanimously elected to the Chair of Chemistry in Momson College of Transylvania University. In IS34 he received the degree of Doctor of Medicine a t Transylvania University. On October 6, 1835, be married Frances Paca, daughter of Major William Smith Dallam, of Maryland, and to this couple five daughters and six sons were horn, Alfred being next to the youngest child. In 1847 Dr. Peter was chosen Dean of the Medical College and served in this capacity until the College was closed in 1857. He also served as librarian of the University and in 1839 he and Doctor James M. Bush were sent to London and Paris to purchase books, apparatus, and other means of instruction for the medical department of Transylvania University. Of the hooks, apparatus, etc., purchased in Europe by Doctor Peter and Dr. Bush, there is a record of the following account having been rendered on March 25, 1839: Books and plates, six thousand dollars; chemical apparatus, two thousand five hundred dollars; preparations
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for anatomy and surgery, one thousand five hundred dollars; models for obstetrics, five hundred dollars; specimens for materia medica and therapeutics and drawing, five hundred dollars. A total of eleven thousand dollars, which for the time was no mean pecuniary expenditure. Referring to this purchase in a lectnre to the Medical Department in 1854,
Dr. Peter says, "A very large addition was made to the library, museum and apparatus by extensive purchases in Europe (selected by Dr. Bush and myself) bringing the former collection up to 8000 volumes and making the latter equal, if not superior, to any in the United States." While on this trip to Europe he wrote from Paris to his wife (June 27, 1839), after hearing numerous lectures by famous doctors and after visiting the model hospitals of the day, "We can have as great men (in Lexington) as either
of these cities (London and Paris), and neither of them contains a man as eminent in surgery as Doctor Dudley;" and from London, August 11, 1839, he wrote again to his wife: "We have bought a great many fine books and a great deal of excellent apparatus and anatomical and other models. Transylvania will shine. No other institution in our part of the world will be able to compare with her in the means of instruction. In fact, I have seen none in Europe that is more completely prepared to teach modern medicine." Dagnerre, in 1839, had just published the process of his wonderful art of photography and i t constituted perhaps the greatest novelty in Paris a t the time of the sojourn there of Doctors Peter and Bush, so a daguerreotype outfit was included in the apparatus purchased for Transylvania University and it is still preserved, among other apparatus and books purchased on this trip, in the museum and library a t Transylvania College. On his return from Europe Dr. Peter engaged in much valuable chemical research in medicine, notably his analyses of urinary calculi, which were published in Volume 5 of the Western Lancet, in 1846. In the same year he experimented with the then newly discovered explosive, guncotton, and with pyroxylin made from paper and other materials. In the early part of his scientific career he experimented much with electricity, then little understood. Dr. Mitchell, writing in his historical catalogue, in 1838, says: "Dr. Peter added to the chemical department several powerful galvanic batteries and a fine collection of apparatus recently procured from the East, making the laboratory more complete than i t ever has been before." He also gave much attention to geology, mineralogy, zoology, and botany. Associated with Doctor Charles W. Short and Professor Henry A. Griswold, he made important botanical explorations and collected a fine herbarium, including specimens exchanged with leading European botanists. He presented his herbarium, in later years, to the Kentucky State Agricultural and Mechanical College and i t has been preserved by the department of botany and is outstanding because it contains a greater number of species of the flora of this region than any collection that has been made a t a later time. Doctor Lewis Rogers, in his address as President of the Kentucky State Medical Society, in 1878, says: "In the interesting departments of Botany and Chemistry a t Transylvania University, Doctor Charles Wilkiis Short and Doctor Robert Peter are known throughout the scientific world. As teachers, the modest, almost shrinking manner, the seemingly acerb dignity and Addisonian style of the one and the lucid expositions and brilliant illustrations of the other, must be remembered by all who ever listened to them." Dr. Peter was one of the founders of the Kentucky School of Medicine
a t Louisville. He lectured there during the winter sessions, 1850-1853, the first years of its existence, filling with distinction the Chair of Chemistry. On October 19, 1853, a t the third meeting of the Kentucky Medical Society, a t Lexington, Dr. Peter proposed to memorialize the Kentucky Legislature in regard to the establishment of a Geological Survey of Kentucky. Accordingly, he prepared such a memorial (in connection with his "Report on the Relation of Forms of Disease to the Geological Formation of a Region") accompanied by a geological map colored by himself. In consequence of this memorial which was unanimously sanctioned by the several agricultural societies of the state, the first Geological Survey of Kentucky, which was also the first large State enterprise of the kind undertaken west of the Alleghanies, was begun in 1854, with Dr. David Dale Owen as the director and Dr. Robert Peter as chemist. While chemist to the Survey, Dr. Peter demonstrated what he had previously maintained and ably argued, that by soil analysis could be determined the elements necessary to increase and preserve the fertility of soils. He was probably the first in America to apply quantitative and qualitative methods of analysis in this manner. Certainly the first to apply them to any great extent. He proved by numerous results that chemical analysis, as practiced by him, was capable of showing the deterioration of soils by long cultivation. He did this by comparing the composition of the virgin soil with that of soil taken from a near-by old field. It must be understood that this work was done long before Experiment Stations were established and before the biological methods of studying the soil were developed. Notwithstanding, the newer methods of studying the soil, i t may be said and without fear of serious contradiction that chemical analysis will continue to be one of the most important means of studying soils. The number of chemical analyses accomplished by Dr. Peter for the Kentucky Geological Survey seems well-nigh impossible when i t is considered that a t the same time he lectured daily six times a week in two colleges, never omitting to prepare experiments in illustration of his subject. Some eastern chemists were actually disposed to dispute the facts. One of these asserted that "No chemist could make more than one soil analysis in less than a month." Doctor Owen's reply to this statement was: "Without a knowledge of the peculiar circumstances under which the work was performed, the amount of Dr. Peter's chemical labor during the last six years, as chemical assistant to the Kentucky Geological Survey, might appear incredible, for he has in fact performed a greater number of reliable, detailed, practically useful analyses of soils than any living chemist." Dr. Owen adds, in further confirmation of the prodigious output of Dr. Peter's results, a description of the laboratory in which the work was done. He says: "The principal operating room in wbich Dr. Peter
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made his analyses is 15 feet square, the working and balance tables stand within three feet of each other, and the furnace, sand, and water baths three feet from the former, so that one or two steps suffice to reach all important parts of the different operations in their various stages of progression. The reagents constantly in use were contained in a case which rested on the working table within an arm's reach of the operator, and his recording desk in a drawer of the same table." Dr. Owen, zealous to defend Dr. Peter, explains further that the latter was aided by a more than common physical as well as mental aptitude. Dr. Peter took no part in this defense save to extend to the skeptics an invitation to visit his laboratory and examine his manner of working. The death of Dr. Owen, the director, in 1860, and the approach of the Civil War terminated for a time the activities of the Kentucky Geological Survey. During the six years of progress of the Survey Dr. Peter had made one thousand, one hundred and twenty-six quantitative chemical analyses, three hundred and seventy-five of which were of soils, in each of which, on the average, twelve different constituents were determined and, in addition to this and the preparation of his own chemical reports, he had personally supervised the publication of the four royal octavo volumes of this Survey, reading and correcting all proof and adding an obituary, biographical sketch of his friend, the late Doctor Owen. With the outbreak of hostilities in 1861, Doctor Peter was made Acting Assistant Surgeon in charge of Military Hospitals a t Lexington, Kentucky, being most of the time senior surgeon in charge. After the close of the Civil War the activities of the Kentucky Geological Survey were resumed under the direction of Professor N. S. Shaler with Dr. Peter as chemist. During the five years, 1873-78, Doctor Peter prepared three chemical reports of his analytical work, which contained a total of four hundred and seventy-seven pages describing eight hundred and seventy-one analyses. In the Geological Survey continued under the direction of Mr. John R. Procter, from 1878 to 1891, Dr. Peter prepared six reports, five of which were published. These contained five hundred and eighty-eight pages and described nine hundred and seventy-seven analyses. The sixth report which was not published a t the time because of the lack of funds, contained about four hundred analyses. Thus, for the new survey, Dr. Peter had made about two thousand, two hundred and fifty analyses. In addition to this he contributed to a Geological Reconnaissance of the Southern and Middle Counties of Arkansas, which was made during the years 1859-60, an octavo volume of four hundred and thirty-three pages, the chemical report in which he described the history and reported the analyses made by himself of two hundred and seventy-one samples of soils, subsoils, under-clays, nitreearths, etc., of Arkansas. During the same time he made for Dr. D. D. Owen, director of the State Geological Survey of Indiana, chemical anal-
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yses of thirty-three soils, subsoils, etc., which were published in the reports of that survey. As early as 1849, Dr. Peter called attention to the fact that the lower Silurian limestones always contain a notable quantity of phosphate, and that this circumstance in part accounts for the richness of the bluegrass soils of central Kentucky. In 1865, according to the educational plans of President John B. Bowman, Kentucky University was removed to Lexington and united with Transylvania University and the State Agricultural and Mechanical College was organized as a College of Kentucky University. Doctor Peter occupied the Chair of Chemistry and Experimental Philosophy in the newly organized university, having declined the Presidency of the Agricultural and Mechanical College, which was offered to him by Regent Bowman. At this period he devoted his every energy of mind and body to assist in the upbuilding of what he fondly hoped would be the great educational institution of the middle West and South: for the training especially of Kentucky's youth of every rank and creed and for the benefit of all men of all nations who sought knowledge. He accepted and accomplished, i t is said a t the time, the work of three average men. On the separation of the State College from the Kentucky University in 1878, he remained a t the head of the department of chemistry of the State College, which position he retained until 1887 when he was made emeritus professor of chemistry in the State College, after having attained the age of eighty-two, and given fifty years of active service to the science of chemistry in Kentucky. During the remaining seven years of his life he retained his activity of mind and body and his cheerfulness of spirit up to a very short time before his death which occurred in the eighty-ninth year of his age, April 26, 1894, a t Wmton, his home in the country, eight miles north of Lexington. He had, as i t is said he often wished, "Worn out rather than rusted out." A colleague of more than twenty years thus summarized his life and character: "Intense devotion to physical science and work of the laboratory, purity of speech and modesty of manner, fidelity to settled convictions and principles; above all, his long and illustrious career in educating so many thousands of the young, and in setting before them a model so worthy of their imitation and remembrance; these were the traits, this was the service that crowned his busy life of nearly ninety years with honor, admiration and renown." The foregoing biographical sketch is composed, for the most part, of excerpts from the "History of the Medical Department of Transylvania University," which forms No. 20 of the Filson Club Publications, Louisville, Ky.. 1905.
