Museum activities were directed by curators. John James 
Audubon served briefly in 1819-1820; Robert Best, later a well- 
known chemist, was another; and a third was Joseph Dorfeulle, a 
wandering French naturalist of uncertain antecedents. When the 
Western Museum Society finally folded, Dorfeulle took over the 
exhibits and showed them along with his examples of antiquities, 
natural curiosities, and wax figures in a popular museum that 
flourished in Cincinnati for some years. 
and 
I Society was active for but a few years 
joals set for it by Drake. His personal 
interest flagged when he became involved with the organization 
and promotion of the Medical College of Ohio, fought a losing 
battle for control, and left Cincinnati for Lexington. The 
business decline that began in the East in 1819 hit Cincinnati 
about 1821, and Drake and others suffered financial reverses. 
affected, too, and in 1825 had to close 
for a time. All°these things together cut short a promising, 
was 
and it was 
another attempt was 
was booming 
Drake 
was back in Cincinnati and was once again its chief booster. 
The citv nnw haH o nnnni^tion of 35,000 with an annual business 
grammar schools, anew church, and 
two banking houses. One hundred and fifty "handsome private 
ected within the year. Its inhabitants 
, and six weekly newspapers. Most important 
periodicals was James Hall's Western Monthll MiS^ 
$6 
dwellings 
and Daniel Drake ' s Western Journal of the Medical anl^5Z§l£|i 
Sciences. Cincinnati College had been revived in 1834, 
>vwu, a. uieuicai aepariment nau uccu Inauguraieo y • ,. -i 
Also the Medical College of Ohio was flourishing, a *iospiia 
»as in operation, and there were many physicians engage 
private «7.o^+<«« „„j »« <.««ohoT.ci in the medical schools, a 
lyceum, 
work. 
an Atheneum, a College of Teachers, and a Vorki^gmen^^ 
e were enthusiastically attended, and Lyman Beecner 
Beecher Stowe had begun their educational and litera 3 
was under these conditions that Dr. Drake and 
*». HAS uaaer inese u ouu a l a who k^-- — 3 2 . 
organized the Vpstern Arademv of Natural Sciences, au 
Ap 
_ wa; h;id in th^ Hall of the Medical Soc-y on 
1835. There were present twenty-one ^e^' ^^^^ ^ 
-- doctors. Of the other ten. three ^^'^H'^'Xali 
»as a manufacturer, two were newspaper and °iagf ;°; ^q<i 
was the T-t^fxio+l^T of thP United States Land 
four 
annot 
240 
