CADWALADER
CADWALADER
1885. One son, Arthur T., became a
surgeon. A. T. C.
Cadwalader, Thomas (1708-1779).
Thomas Cadwalader was the son of John Cadwalader, who came to Pennsyl- vania in 1669 with William Penn, and of Martha, daughter of Dr. Edward Jones. When nineteen or twenty years of age, his father sent him to England and France to complete his medical education. In France he is said to have studied at Rheims University and in England to have spent a year studying and dissecting under William Cheselden, the distinguish- ed anatomist and surgeon.
On his return to Philadelphia, he soon secured a large practice and became a very influential citizen. He was associ- ated with Franklin in the establishment of the Philadelphia Library and was among the first to adopt the method of inocula- tion as a preventive against small-pox, in this country.
So far as now known, Thomas Cadwala- der was the first teacher of practical anat- omy in this country. According to Caspar Wistar, Cadwalader, upon his return from Europe, "made dissections and demon- strations for the instruction of the elder Dr. Shippen and some others who had not been abroad." According to Dr. Charles Winslow Dulles, the date of this instruc- tion was probably 1730 or 1731, because this was the time of his return from Eu- rope, and the time when the elder Dr. Shippen was eighteen or nineteen years old and engaged in his medical studies. The place in which these instructions were given, Wistar says, "was in a building on the back part of a lot, on which the Bank of Pennsylvania now stands."
In 1738 Dr. Cadwalader married the daughter of Thomas Lampert of New Jersey, and for several years spent the greater part of his time in that state, near the site of the present city of Trenton but about 1750 he appears to have returned to Philadelphia.
In 1742 he performed an autopsy said to be probably the first scientific one in
this country. The only known publica-
tion of Dr. Cadwalader's is an essay, the
title-page of which reads, "An Essay on
the West India Dry Gripes, to which is
added an extraordinary case in physic.
Philadelphia. Printed and sold by Ben-
jamin Franklin, MDCCXLV."
Dr. Cadwalader was one of the founders of the Pennsylvania Hospital, and trustee of the Academy and College of Philadelphia. He was one of the original members of the Philadelphia Medical Society, and the first named of the three vice-presidents chosen when the Ameri- can Society for Promoting Useful Knowl- edge was consolidated with the American Philosophical Society in 176S of which Franklin was president. He died No- vember 14, 1779 in Philadelphia.
Dr. Cadwalader's professional services during the War of the Revolution seem to have been restricted to the occasional performance of duties laid upon him by Congress and assisting his friend and junior, Dr. Morgan, who was at that time director-general of the military hospitals. It is supposed that Dr. Cadwalader had from him some appointment, but I cannot find any satisfactory evidence of this. It is certain that Congress from time to time requested him to do for it certain things among which requests was one on January 30, 1775, that he inquire into the state of health of Gen. Prescott, a British prisoner, and the sanitary conditions in which he was placed in the jail. This duty Dr. Cadwalader performed so promptly and with such judgment and humanity that Gen. Prescott undoubtedly owed his life to him. Being paroled on April 9, he carried with him so great an appreciation of the services of Dr. Cad- walader, and so high a regard for him as a man, that when his son, Col. Lambert Cadwalader, was taken prisoner at the capture of Fort Washington, in Novem- ber of the same year, Gen. Prescott secured his prompt liberation.
F. R. P.
Dulles, C. W., M. D. Life of Dr. Thomas Cadwalader, Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, July, 1903.
