Charles Caldwell (physician)

Charles Caldwell was born on May 14, 1772, in Caswell County, North Carolina. His parents were Irish immigrants. Caldwell earned an M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in 1796 while studying under Benjamin Rush.

Caldwell practiced medicine in Philadelphia and was a lecturer at his alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania. He also edited the "Port Folio" (one of the day's primary medical magazines) and published over 200 medical publications.{{Cite AMB1920|wstitle=Caldwell, Charles}}

Caldwell was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society in 1815.[http://www.americanantiquarian.org/memberlistc American Antiquarian Society Members Directory] A significant number of copies of Caldwell's 18th and 19th century publications, including copies of the Port folio, survive in the collections of the AAS.[http://catalog.mwa.org/vwebv/search?searchArg=caldwell%2C&searchArgt2=charles&searchCode=NAME%2B&recCount=10&searchType=4&page.search.search.button=Search AAS online catalog name search for "Caldwell, Charles"] Other institutions holding original copies of Caldwell's publications include the United States National Library of Medicine, and Harvard's Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine.{{citation needed |date=November 2023}}

In 1819, Caldwell left Philadelphia to join the fledgling medical school at Lexington, Kentucky's Transylvania University, where he quickly turned the school into the region's strongest. In 1821, he became a Francophile and convinced the Kentucky General Assembly to purchase $10,000 (~${{Format price|{{Inflation|index=US-GDP|value=10000|start_year=1821}}}} in {{Inflation/year|US-GDP}}) worth of science and medical books from France, many of which are still held at the university. Despite his success, his "abrasive" and "arrogant" temperament created enemies at Transylvania. The university's medical program would fold soon afterwards. The school dismissed him in 1837, and he then traveled with several colleagues to Louisville, where they created the Louisville Medical Institute. As at Transylvania, he made the new school an instant success, with its rapid growth into one of the region's best medical schools. However, he was forced out in 1849 due to a personal rivalry with Lunsford Yandell.{{citation needed |date=June 2022 |reason=detail about personal rivalry}}

Caldwell was one of the earliest supporters of polygenism in America. Caldwell attacked the position that environment was the cause of racial differences and argued instead that four races, Caucasian, Mongolian, American Indian, and Africans, were four different species, created separately by God.John P. Jackson, Nadine M. Weidman Race, Racism, and science: social impact and interaction, Rutgers University Press, 2005, p. 45. Caldwell's best-known work on polygenism was [https://archive.org/stream/thoughtsonorigi00caldgoog#page/n6/mode/2up Thoughts on the Original Unity of Mankind (New York: E. Bliss 1830)]. Caldwell was one of the earlier of the U.S. physicians who argued for polygenism; his work was subsequently cited by Josiah Nott in Types of Mankind,J.C. Nott & George R. Gliddon, Types of Mankind (Philadelphia, Lippincott, Grambo, & Co. 1854): 397-98. and he was followed by physicians such as Samuel Henry Dickson and John Edwards Holbrook. Caldwell used his theories to defend the institution of slavery in the United States and owned domestic slaves himself.{{cite journal |jstor=230972 |title=The Anthropology of Charles Caldwell, M.D. |first=Paul |last=Erickson |journal=Isis |volume=72 |number=2 |date=June 1981 |pages=252–256 |doi=10.1086/352721 |s2cid=145124720 }}

Caldwell died on July 9, 1853, Louisville, Kentucky. He was buried at Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville.{{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/LouisvillePastAndPresent/page/n227/mode/2up |title=Louisville Past and Present |year=1875 |pages=192–203 |access-date=2022-05-29 |via=archive.org}}

• [http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/2545011R An attempt to establish the original sameness of three phenomena of fever (1796)]
• [http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/2545029R A semi-annual oration, on the origin of pestilential diseases (1799)]
• [http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/2545017R An eulogium to the memory of Dr. Samuel Cooper (1799)]
• [http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/2545023R Medical & physical memoirs: containing, among other subjects, a particular enquiry into the origin and nature of the late pestilential epidemics of the United States (1801)]
• [http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/2545026R An oration on the causes of the difference, in point of frequency and force, between the endemic diseases of the United States of America, and those of the countries of Europe (1802)]
• [http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/2545018R An eulogium to the memory of Mr. George Lee (1802)]
• [http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/2545015R An essay on the pestilential or yellow fever: as it prevailed in Philadelphia in the year eighteen hundred and five (1807)]
• [http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/2545010R An anniversary oration on the subject of quarantines (1807)]
• [http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/2545016R An eulogium on Caspar Wistar, M.D., professor of anatomy (1818)]
• [http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/2545027R Outlines of a course of lectures on the institutes of medicine (1823)]
• [http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/2545013R Elements of phrenology (1824)]
• [http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/2545021R Introductory address on independence of intellect (1825)]
• [http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/2545030R Thoughts on febrile miasms (1830)]
• [http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/60540020R An address on the vice of gambling (1834)]
• [https://books.google.com/books?id=cekqAQAAIAAJ&q=milton Thoughts on Physical Education, being a Discourse delivered to a Convention of Teachers in Lexington, KY. on the 6th and 7th of Nov., 1833] (1834).
• [http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/2545032R Thoughts on the spirit of improvement, the selection of its objects, and its proper direction (1835)]
• [http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/0364146 Phrenology vindicated, and antiphrenology unmasked (1838)]
• [http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/55320120R Autobiography of Charles Caldwell, M.D (1855)]

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Category:1772 births

Category:1853 deaths

Category:Physicians from Kentucky

Category:Transylvania University faculty

Category:Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania alumni

Category:American slave owners

Category:American people of Irish descent

Category:Burials at Cave Hill Cemetery

Category:University of Louisville School of Medicine faculty