CALDWELL
CALDWELL
Wistar, Caspar. Eulogium on Dr. William
Shippen, delivered before the College of
Physicians, March, 1S09. Philadelphia, 1818.
There is a portrait in the Surg.-gen. Library,
Wash. D. C.
Caldwell, Charles (1772-1853).
He was born in Caswell County, North Carolina, May 14, 1772. His father came to this country from the North of Ireland and Charles probably inherited from his father his tenacity of purpose and possibly a certain belligerency which characterized his whole life. His opportunities for education were very limited, yet so great was his mental ability and activity that at the age of eighteen he was elected principal of a literary academy. Having decided to make medicine his profession, he spent a year and a half with a precep- tor and then went to Philadelphia where he entered at the University of Penn- sylvania in 1792. Here he was pupil and friend of the eminent Dr. Benjamin Rush, but his overweening self-confidence and self-assertiveness finally made a breach in their friendship and aroused the antagon- ism of Rush and also of the trustees, so he was never able to secure the coveted position of professor. Being disappointed in his expectations in Philadelphia, he turned his eyes to the growing west where, largely through his influence, Transylva- nia University, at Lexington, Kentucky, was starting a medical department. In November, 1819, he began work in his new field there as professor of the insti- tutes of medicine and clinical medicine and with indomitable energy labored to make this the leading school in Pennsyl- vania. His brilliancy as a writer and speaker undoubtedly did much to attract the very large classes which soon gathered at Lexington.
With the increasing facilities for travel Lexington soon felt the keen competition of the rival towns, Louisville and Cincin- nati. Public-spirited citizens planned the establishment of medical schools and sought the valuable aid of Dr. Caldwell. He decided upon Louisville and, in 1837, went to that city and by his eloquence and zeal soon secured the active coopera-
tion of leading citizens in founding the
Louisville Medical Institute, afterwards
merged into the University of Louisville
as its medical department. With this
institution he continued until within a
few years of his death which occurred in
Louisville on July 9, 1S53.
In person, Dr. Caldwell was tall and commanding; a fluent forcible and grace- ful speaker ; a writer gifted with an unusual vocabulary, singularlj' clear and incisive. His catalogue of published writings enumerates over two hundred different essays, addresses, pamphlets and books. His bent of mind was controversial and was the cause of the many antagonisms which embittered his life. The strong self-reliance, assertiveness and egotism which perhaps offended many were the necessary elements of character which enabled him to be the "pioneer of medical schools and medical philosophy in the Mississippi Valley and premier in the founding and establishment of two of its most famous schools." A full list of his many writings is given in his Auto- biography. It includes:
"An Attempt to Establish the Original Sameness of Three Phenomena of Fever, (Principally confined to Infants and Children)." Philadelphia, T. Dobson, 1796.
"A Semi-annual Oration on the Origin of Pestilential Diseases," delivered before the Academy of Medicine of Philadel- phia.
"An Oration on the Causes of the Dif- ference, in Point of Frequency and Force, between the Endemic Diseases of the United States of America and Those of the Countrie s of Europe." Philadelphia, 1S02.
"An Essay on the Pestilential or Yellow Fever, as it prevailed in Philadelphia in the year, 1805. "
"An Eulogium on Caspar Wistar, M. D." Philadelphia, 1818.
Thoughts on febrile miasms, intended as an answer to the Boylston medical prize question, for the year 1830, " Whether Fever is produced by the De- composition of Animal or Vegetable
