Part 3 (2/2)

The life, character, and writings of Doctor Caldwell are no doubt now well known to the medical profession through the numerous biographical notices which have appeared, especially those by the late Professor Lunsford P. Yandell, M. D., in Lindley's _Medical Annals of Tennessee_, and as amplified in the _Transactions_ of the Kentucky State Medical Society in its twenty-first annual session in 1876, and other published sketches. But it may also be studied in his somewhat unfortunate _Autobiography_, which was published in Philadelphia in 1855, two years after his death, edited by the sister of his widow, Miss Harriet W. Warner.

It is said of t.i.tian, that when in his old age he took it into his head to _improve_ some of his best pictures by retouching them, his judicious pupils mixed his paints with olive oil so they would not dry and could be easily washed off again, thus restraining him from marring or destroying his finest works and his fame together.

Fortunate would it have been for the venerable Doctor Caldwell had much of this senile production--written only seven or eight years before his death--been canceled by a friendly hand. The too harsh criticisms in which he indulged, which placed some of his late colleagues sharply on the defensive and which also gave them powerful weapons of offense, as well as defense, had then been suppressed!

On Page 315 of this autobiography he characterized the time-honored maxim, ”_De mortuis nil nisi bonum_,” as ”an ill-founded and dangerous precept.” Hence Doctor Yandell, whom he had denounced in this work in the most opprobrious terms, felt justified in his notice of this autobiography in his paper on the _Medical Literature of Kentucky_, published in the _Transactions of the Kentucky State Medical Society_, 1876, Page 62, in the following terms: ”It is not only egotistical and vainglorious beyond anything, I believe, to be found in the English language, but it is at the same time defamatory. The author holds himself up to admiration on all occasions and everywhere from boyhood to old age a very hero of romance.” And literal quotations from the unfortunate volume give support to these allegations.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHARLES CALDWELL, M. D.]

Under the provocation of Doctor Caldwell's posthumous attack, Doctor Yandell defended himself and retorted with the weapons which Doctor Caldwell himself had supplied. But, in later years, not long before his death, Doctor Yandell expressed to the writer, in a friendly letter, something like regret that he had not in this case adhered more closely to that maxim in relation to the dead, above quoted, which Doctor Caldwell had condemned as ”ill-founded and dangerous.” It must be admitted, however, that the provocation was great.[40]

Doctor Caldwell was born, the youngest son of a large family, May 14, 1772, in Caswell County, North Carolina, and died in Louisville July 9, 1853, in his eighty-third year. His parents had emigrated from Ireland. His father--who was described by Doctor James Blythe, who knew him, as ”very poor, and very, very pious”--destined Charles for the Presbyterian ministry. Accordingly he was measurably released from the labor of the farm on which the family lived and was allowed to pursue his studies in a solitary log hut which he had built for himself for the purpose--”his books his chief companions.”

He says he commenced to learn the ancient languages at twelve, and was already princ.i.p.al of a literary academy at eighteen. He says further of himself: ”From an early period of my life I was actuated by a form of ambition and a love of disquisition and mental contest, which not only marked in me somewhat of a peculiarity of native mind and spirit, but tended also to strengthen them.” In his subsequent life he delighted in debates, discussions, and mental contests. He acknowledges (Page 53) an early propensity to array himself in argument ”on the wrong side of the question under consideration, in order the more certainly to produce discussion by my advocacy of a paradox, and to make a show of my ingenuity and ability in defense of error.”

But, as he acknowledged, ”this kind of gladiators.h.i.+p began to blunt his appreciation of truth as distinguished from error, and hence he endeavored to restrain this impulse”--not always successfully, perhaps.

Although his taste and talents inclined him to the legal profession he was induced to study medicine, somewhat against his own judgment. His medical education was obtained in Philadelphia, in the Medical Department of the University of Pennsylvania, then the only medical college in America, which he entered in 1792, and from which he graduated. While there he industriously employed his time and faculties in study, debate, and discussion, and his pen in numerous publications, the princ.i.p.al of which was a translation of Blumenbach's _Elements of Physiology_--which he completed before graduation. He managed to antagonize, amongst many others, his medical preceptor, the celebrated Doctor Rush, much to his own detriment, as he in his autobiography acknowledges.

In the following year, 1793, on the outbreak of the yellow fever in Philadelphia, he distinguished himself by his courage and self-sacrifice in voluntarily attending and nursing the sick. And again, by his pen and otherwise, in theoretical discussions on the origin of the pestilence.

According to his own representations and the testimony of his friends, he was exceedingly methodical in his habits, dividing his time with rigorous system; but we may well feel a little skeptical as to his a.s.sertion that he ”rarely slept more than four hours,” and at one time but three hours and a half. His mental activity and labor, however, in his youth, must have been very great. Apart from his necessary studies and his active and constant partic.i.p.ation in the discussions of the Medical Society, he delivered more public addresses, for the Society and on other occasions, ”than all the other members of the inst.i.tution united” (Page 254), besides employing his pen in numerous ephemeral productions for the press.

In speaking of his early life in Philadelphia (Page 330) he says: ”I was a young man for the scenes in which I had acted; proud and ambitious certainly, and probably not altogether untinctured with vanity.... In truth it is hardly to be denied that, for a time at least, I was somewhat spoiled [by the compliments paid him] on account of my attributes and performances, both mental and corporal.... No wonder, therefore, that I felt, or conceited I felt, a decided superiority to most medical pupils, as well as the ordinary cast of young physicians.... I certainly did both indulge and manifest it to the extent, at times, of giving serious offense.” This was not the worst.

His bold self-confidence and a.s.sertion having placed him in a position of antagonism toward his friend and preceptor, Doctor Rush, as well as toward other influential medical men of Philadelphia, defeated the great ambition of his life--that of occupying the chair of the Inst.i.tutes of Medicine in the Medical College of the University of Pennsylvania.

When informed by Doctor Rush (Page 290, autobiography) that although his friends spoke in flattering terms of ”your talents, attainments, and powers in lecturing and instruction ... they are reluctant to recommend you to the Board of Trustees in the light of a professor,”

he indignantly declared that ”if the door of the University of Pennsylvania was thus closed to him he would soon occupy a chair equally honorable with that of Doctor Rush in some other school.” And he shortly thereafter was induced to push his fortunes in the great and growing West.

Coming to Lexington with his s.h.i.+ning and commanding talents, his determination to conquer success, and the brilliant reputation he then had as an independent writer and lecturer; to become a.s.sociated with the yet more brilliant President Holley, and the already well-known and appreciated medical teachers, Doctors Dudley and Brown; at an auspicious time when the rapidly improving country felt the want of medical instruction at home--the rapid success of the Medical Department of Transylvania (to which he materially contributed by his able efforts before the public) might well excuse him in his belief[41] that he had come to Lexington to be the ”_premier of the school_,”[42] that he had come to train and induct his colleagues (”a most miserable Faculty,” he calls them) into efficiency and fame, and that the success of medical education in Lexington was due mainly to his individual efforts. Candor obliges us to admit, however, that there is some truth in the statement of the late Professor Yandell, in the memoir above quoted. Doctor Yandell was a student in the Medical Department of Transylvania in 1823, and a most ardent admirer of the brilliant talents of Professor Caldwell, yet he found that both Professors Dudley and Drake were more popular with the students, as teachers, than he. He says (Page 56): ”Students, in truth, generally turned listlessly away from his polished discourses on Sympathy, Phrenology,[43] the Vital Principle, and other kindred themes, and hurried off to the lectures on Materia Medica and Anatomy.”[44]

In short, Doctor Caldwell excelled in the brilliant discussion of speculative and theoretical subjects. The extent of his positive knowledge, as remarked by Doctor Yandell, was greater in superficial area than in depth; whilst in the terse and lucid exposition of definite facts, which characterized the instruction of Professor Dudley, the student felt he was acquiring knowledge which not only was real but was of practical utility.

The history of the _rise and fall_ of this school of medicine is ill.u.s.trated in the detailed list of its cla.s.ses and graduates as shown in the annexed _Schedule B_.

The total number of students in the Medical School of Transylvania during the term of its existence was, as far as can now be ascertained, more than six thousand four hundred (6,456); the total number of its medical graduates eighteen hundred and eighty-one (1,881).[45] During the late civil war the commodious Medical Hall of Transylvania, built in 1839 by the munificence of the city of Lexington, and which had been seized by the United States Government for use as a United States General Hospital, was destroyed by fire while occupied for that purpose.[46] But the medical library,[47] apparatus and museum, etc., were mainly preserved, and are now in the custody of the Curators of Kentucky University, with which inst.i.tution old Transylvania University was consolidated in 1865, ”all the trusts and conditions” of her property being preserved in the Act of Consolidation.

The Medical Department may yet be resuscitated when in the course of events our city again becomes an eligible site for modern medical instruction, and when special means can be obtained properly to equip and re-establish it on a basis suited to the existing times.

The gradual decline of this school, like its rapid rise, was due greatly to the changing conditions of the country. When, shortly after 1812, steamboat navigation began to manifest its superiority and influence on the channels of commerce, population and business deserted measurably the interior routes and locations and transferred themselves to the river valleys and neighborhoods. Gradually during this change--notwithstanding the talents, ability, and fame of our Brown, Dudley, Caldwell, Cooke, Short, Yandell, Bartlett, Mitch.e.l.l, Smith, and others, and the generous support of the city--the school declined; more especially because of the establishment of rival colleges at more eligible points, in growing and populous cities.

Lexington lost its pre-eminence as the ”_Metropolis of the Western Country_,” and Cincinnati, Louisville, St. Louis, and other places which had been villages supplied with her manufactures, rapidly became great cities; while she declined from a population of about eight thousand in 1814, down to a little over four thousand in 1820, with an immense loss to her citizens in the value of her property and the destruction of her industries. In this year (1820) the population of Cincinnati, which in 1810 had been only two thousand, three hundred and twenty, had risen to nine thousand, six hundred and forty-four; and in 1830, when the population of Lexington was yet only five thousand, six hundred and sixty-two, that of Cincinnati was twenty-four thousand, eight hundred and thirty-one. When the present writer came to Lexington in 1832 the population had remained nearly the same, and an era of decrepitude and decline of all her industries still prevailed. Lexington had not yet finished her first railroad.

This railroad, the ”Lexington & Ohio,” was begun in 1831 and completed as far as Frankfort--twenty-eight miles--in 1835. It was composed of stone sills laid side by side, with a dressed surface on the portion upon which the wheels were to run. The cars resembled an old pattern of street car and were drawn by horses.

The imposing ceremony of laying the first ”stone sill” took place on Water Street, October 21, 1831, ”amid a vast throng of people.” Indeed, it was made a very great occasion, which might have been marked with still greater pomp and circ.u.mstance, as the newspapers inform us, had ”more notice been given beforehand.” As it was, a large procession, civic and military, was formed, marshaled by General Leslie Combs, the renowned ”boy-captain of 1812,” a.s.sisted by handsome James B. Coleman.

Three military companies, including ”Hunt's Artillery” and ”Captain Neet's Rifle Guards,” were on parade with a fine military band playing ”Yankee Doodle,” ”Hail, Columbia,” and other patriotic airs.

Major-General Pendleton and staff, on horseback, led the march. Governor Metcalfe and Reverend Nathan H. Hall supported the orator of the day.

The Trustees of the town, the President and Directors of the railroad, the President and all the officers and Trustees of Transylvania University, and all the societies of the University and of the town, were in line. ”At eleven o'clock,” says the _Lexington Reporter_, ”the three military companies which formed the escort marched from the place of rendezvous to the college lawn, where they were met by the various societies and individuals. For many years we have not witnessed such a pageant, and never a more interesting.

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