1. On the Treatment of Aneurism, published in the Transylvania Journal of Medicine, edited by Professor Ethelbert L. Dudley, July, 1849.
2. On the Treatment of Gunshot Wounds. Ibid., December, 1849.
3. On the Treatment of Fractures by the Roller Bandage. Ibid., 1850.
This journal was a bi-weekly publication, the successor of the old Transylvania Medical Journal above mentioned.
These were the latest productions of Doctor B. W. Dudley. Engaged as he continually was in a daily round of engrossing surgical and medical practice, lecturing twice a day in the Medical School during its sessions, there was left to him but little time for the record or promulgation of his ample experience by his pen.
As a medical practitioner also he was original. He was among the first to discard the lancet in his treatment of disease. He used instead small doses of tartar emetic, or more recently, of ipecacuanha frequently repeated, with low diet; or cholagogue purgatives combined with ipecacuanha, etc. He confined himself to but few medicines, but in the application of these, and of diet and regimen, his clear and correct judgment was usually apparent. Polypharmacy he despised. New remedies were looked upon by him with incredulity and suspicion. Quinine, iodine, and other novelties in his time never were accorded approbation by him.
As a man and a citizen he was eminently liberal, charitable, magnanimous, public-spirited, and energetic. He bound his friends to him with the strongest ties and treated his hostile enemies—who were few—with a cordial hatred. His sense of honor and personal dignity was very delicate and high. No one so deeply despised a mean action. No one so readily forgave an injury which was confessed.
An exemplification of his character was given in 1817–18. A difficulty having originated between himself and Doctor Drake, in relation to the resignation of the latter and some matters connected with a post-mortem examination of an Irishman who had been killed in a quarrel, sharp pamphlets passed between them and a challenge to mortal combat from Dudley to Drake, which the latter declined, but which was vicariously accepted by his next friend, Doctor William H. Richardson. A duel resulted in which, at the first fire, Richardson was seriously wounded in the groin by the ball of Dudley, severing the inguinal artery. Richardson would have speedily bled to death—as it could not be controlled by the tourniquet—but for the ready skill and magnanimity of Dudley. He immediately asked permission of his adversary to arrest the hemorrhage, and by the pressure with his thumb over the ilium gave time for the application of the ligature by the surgeon of Richardson—thus converting his deadly antagonist into a lifelong friend.
Notwithstanding Doctor Dudley had contributed tens of thousands to public improvement and to private charities, and never regularly kept accounts against his patients, he acquired a considerable fortune. His latter days were passed in the society of his children and grandchildren in the household of his son, the late William A. Dudley, surrounded by all the comforts which a large competency and a devoted family could provide. Thus, in the quiet of domestic retirement, passed away the last days of a most active and eminently useful and distinguished life.[20]