In 1791, Charles Caldwell began to study medicine in the office of Dr. Harris, of Salisbury, N.C., and the following year entered the prestigious Medical Department of the University of Pennsylvania, where his colleagues included Benjamin Rush, William Dewees, and Caspar Wistar. After service with the Army during the Whiskey Rebellion, Caldwell received his medical degree (1796) and took up practice in Philadelphia. Due to strains in his relationship with Rush, Caldwell was never appointed to a professorship at the University, though he did accept a post as instructor in the physical sciences.

In 1819, having already declined to take part in the establishment of medical schools in New York, Baltimore and Philadelphia, Caldwell agreed to help found the Medical Department at Transylvania University in Lexington, Ky. Later, in 1837, he left Transylvania for Louisville, a larger city with greater opportunities, to became the first professor of the Louisville Medical Institute.

Caldwell's research included work on "pestilential" diseases, blood and the circulatory system, and, later in life, physical education and phrenology. As might be expected, his work drew on a strong knowledge of contemporary medical practice, particularly the work of William Cullen and other physicians of the Edinburgh school. He performed an significant role in American medical circles as an importer and translator of foreign medical works, most importantly Blumenbach's Elements of Physiology (1795), and Cullen's First lines of the practice of physic (1815). His own works included 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), An experimental inquiry respecting the vitality of the blood (1805), and Phrenology vindicated, and antiphrenology unmasked (1838). Caldwell's autobiography was published in 1855.

Scope and contents:

The manuscript lectures in this collection are unsigned, but are circumstantially attributed to Caldwell on the basis of internal references to a 30 year career in medicine, including an association with the Pennsylvania Hospital, to experience and research in pestilential epidemics, and to the author's "timely investigation of the sanguiniferous system." The manuscript probably represents a student's notes taken during a series of Caldwell's lectures in about 1825. They are not in Caldwell's hand.

The lecture series represented by this manuscript comprises an introductory course in medicine, covering nutrition, blood and the circulatory system, pathology, the nervous system, etc. Of particular interest are lectures on dreams, pleasure, memory and understanding, and differences between the sexes.

Related Collections:

The Horace Holley Papers relate to the founding of Transylvania College (Holley was its first president).

M-2927
cat. 3/93 rsc

1.	On the pulse	p. 1
2.	Physiology	5
	The internal stimuli	6
	The state of an animal in disease	13
	Of animal heat	20
	Of respiration	24
	Of coughing	26
	Of yawning	27
	Of voice and speech	28
	Of the nervous system	34
	Of the senses	37
	Of vision	43
	Of the faculties and operation of the mind	46
	Memory	50
	Of the operations of the mind	52
	Of the pleasure of the senses and the proximate causes	54
	Of the pleasures derived from the exercise of the mind, and its proximate cause	57
	Of the pleasures arriving from moral faculties	58
	Of the proximate cause of pleasure	60
	Of sleep and dreams	62
	Of the cause of dreams	64
	Of aliment	68
	Of vegetable aliment	75
	Of condiments	76
	Drinks	79
	Of hunger and the cause of apetite	81
	On mastication and digestion	83
	Of the blood	90
	Of the lacteals and lymphatics	99
	Of the secretions and excretions	103
	Of excretions	106
	Perspiration	109
	Nutrition	112
	Of the peculiarities of the female body and mind	115
	Of menstruation	120
	Of the peculiarities of the male sex	126
	Of generation	130
	Of pregnancy	135
	Of the nourishment of the foetus	138
	Of parturition	138
3.	Pathology	143
	Causes of diseases	150
	Of the effects of cold	160
	Of the putrefaction of various vegetable matters, which produce disease	167
	Of putrefaction	169
	Of specific contagions	184
	Of aliment, drink &c producing disease	189
	Of the quality of aliments	191
	Of their preparations	193
	Of condiments, influential in producing disease	197
	Of drinks	198
	Of dress	202
	Poisons	202
	Of worms	204
	Of animal substances externally applied	206
	Of excretions retained	206
	Of motion and rest sleep & watchfulness in excess	207
	Of disease, induced by the improper exercise of the faculties of the mind, and the venereal appetite	208
	Fear	209
	Of religion	212
	Of employments	213
	Of amusements	213
	Of customs	214
	Of unhealthy ancestors	214
	Of sympathy and antipathy	216
	Of the associations of motions and ideas	217
	Predisposing causes of diseases	218
	Of the proximate cause of diseases	224
	Of the translation of diseases to difft. parts of same system, and to difft systems	235
	Death	239
	Of therapeutics	241

Subject index to the Charles Caldwell Lectures

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