author
Robert Peter
1805–1894
An English-born physician, chemist, botanist, and teacher, he spent more than half a century shaping scientific and medical education in Kentucky. His writing grew out of a wide-ranging career that mixed laboratory work, field study, and university life.
1 Audiobook
The History of the Medical Department of Transylvania University
by Robert Peter
About the author
Born in Cornwall, England, in 1805, he came to the United States as a boy in 1817. Sources from the Kentucky Historical Society, the University of Kentucky, and American Medical Biographies describe him as a physician, chemist, botanist, teacher, and author whose career joined medicine with the natural sciences.
After study at the Rensselaer School and early teaching in Pittsburgh, he moved to Lexington, Kentucky, in 1832. There he became closely associated with Transylvania University for more than fifty years, later also teaching at Kentucky University and serving as dean of the medical school. His published work included scientific studies as well as educational and historical writing.
He is also remembered for practical scientific work in Kentucky, including chemistry, geology, and botany, and for encouraging students through lively teaching and broad curiosity. He died in 1894, leaving behind papers and correspondence that reflect a long life in nineteenth-century American science and education.