Dr. Charles Caldwell, versatile and voluminous writer of prose, was
born at Caswell, North Carolina, May 14, 1772. He entered the medical
school of the University of Pennsylvania, in 1792; and he won the
city's gratitude in the following year by his medical services during
the yellow fever epidemic. In 1810 Dr. Caldwell became professor of
natural history in the University of Pennsylvania; and four years
later he succeeded Nicholas Biddle (1786-1844) as editor of _The
Port-Folio_, a Philadelphia magazine of high character. In 1819 Dr.
Caldwell came to Lexington, Kentucky, to accept the chair of materia
medica in Transylvania University. Some months later he was sent to
Europe to purchase books and apparatus for his department. He returned
to Transylvania and continued there until 1837, when he removed to
Louisville and established a medical institute. Some years later he
and the trustees disagreed and he left. After leaving the institute,
Dr. Caldwell continued to reside at Louisville, in which city he died,
July 9, 1853. Dr. Caldwell was the first distinguished American
practitioner of phrenology, if he did not actually discover this
alleged science. From 1794 until his death, Dr. Caldwell was an
indefatigable literary worker. He was the author of more than two
hundred pamphlets, essays, and books. He translated Blumenbach's
_Elements of Physiology_ (1795); _Bachtiar Nameh_ (1813), a Persian
tale which he translated from the Arabic; edited Cullen's _Practice of
Physic_ (1816); _Memoirs of the Life and Campaigns of the Hon._
[General] _Greene_ (Philadelphia, 1819); _Elements of Phrenology_
(1824); _A Discourse on the Genius and Character of the Rev. Horace
Holley, LL.D., late President of Transylvania University_ (Boston,
1828); and _Thoughts and Experiments on Mesmerism_ (1842).
BIBLIOGRAPHY. His _Autobiography_ (Philadelphia, 1855), published
posthumously, has been regarded by many as an unfortunate work, as
in it he made some rather severe pictures of his contemporaries.
That the work contains much excellent writing, and is often very
happy in the descriptions of the country through which the author
passed, no one has arisen to gainsay; _Autobiography of Samuel D.
Gross, M. D._ (Philadelphia, 1887, v. ii).