Biographer Rev. Eli W. Caruthers reports that David Caldwell practiced medicine as a "country doctor" though not formally trained as a physician, and became commonly known as Dr. Caldwell, long before he acquired the degree of Doctor of Divinity in 1810. He read all of the medical books he could obtain and sought to learn as much as he could of medicine because there was no physician nearby to serve his congregation.

It is unknown what happened to Rev. Caldwell's collection of medical books upon his death. There were several kin with interest in these books. One of his sons, David Caldwell, was a physician, and resided in Greensboro. David Caldwell, M.D., married Susan Clark on July 15, 1811 in Guilford Co.

Perhaps they became part of the collection of his grandson, David Thomas Caldwell, a resident of Mecklenburg County, NC. The University of North Carolina has a special collection of papers related to David Caldwell, as well as the medical journals and family correspondence of David Thomas Caldwell

David Thomas Caldwell received his early education from his father Samuel Craighead Caldwell at the classical school at Sugaw Creek. He attended and obtained an A.M. Degree from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. He obtained a M.D. from the State University of Pennsylvania circa 1820, studying under Dr. McKenzie, and served as one of Mecklenburg County's few doctors.

Harriet and David Thomas Caldwell's son, Dr. William Davidson Caldwell (1829-68), was a surgeon in the Confederate Army. He married Abigail Dunlap. Their daughter, Miriam Abigail Caldwell (1860-1927), married James Hall in 1884.

There are numerous books delving into Colonial American Medicine. E.g., Oscar Reiss, M.D , Medicine and the American Revolution, McFarland & Company; Zachary B. Friedenberg M.D , The Doctor in Colonial America, Rutledge Books, Inc; Oscar Reiss M.D , Medicine in Colonial America, University Press of America; Guy Williams, The Age of Agony, Academy Chicago Publishers; Morris Harold Saffron, Surgeon to Washington, Dr. John Cochran, 1730-1807, Columbia University Press; Susan Neiburg Terkel, Colonial American Medicine, New York, Franklin Watts, 1993; C. Keith Wilbur, M.D., Revolutionary Medicine 1700 - 1800 (Second Edition), 10-13, The Globe Pequot Press, Old Saybrook, Conn., 1997.

Eighteenth century doctors did not know of effective treatment for cholera or tuberculosis, but they had learned how to treat smallpox. Jesuit Peruvian Bark, which contained the agent quinine, was found to work. Medicine had not yet recognized the need to avoid high cumulative doses, associated with delayed onset of severe loss of hearing (hypoacusis) in later life.

The medical books of the late 18th century attributed malaria to swamp water. Typical of available medical texts used by country practitioners was that of William Buchan, Domestic Medicine, 1785. The text is available on the internet: http:// americanrevolution. org/ medicine. html [spacing inserted to preserve webpage reference] There had not yet been a recognition of the role of the mosquito. In his 1785 textbook, Domestic Medcine, William Buchan wrote: "Agues [malaria] are occasioned by effluvia from putrid stagnating water. This is evident from their abounding in rainy seasons, and being most frequent in countries where the soil is marshy, as in Holland, the Fens of Cambridgeshire, the Hundreds of Essex, &c. This disease may also be occasioned by eating too much stone fruit, by a poor watery diet, damp houses, evening dews, lying upon the damp ground, watching, fatigue, depressing passions, and the like. When the inhabitants of a high country remove to a low one, they are generally seized with intermitting fevers, and to such the disease is most apt to prove fatal. In a word, whatever relaxes the solids, diminishes the perspiration, or obstructs the circulation in the capillary or small vessels, disposes the body to agues."

David Caldwell might have been among the few doctors who recognized the symptoms and knew how to treat opium addiction.

Medical knowledge of midwifery or obstetrics was very limited. The leading textbook was by William Smellie (1697-1763), a native of Lanark, Scotland, who first began to teach midwifery in 1741, and considered the founder of modern day obstetrics. The first volume of A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Midwifery was published in 1742, with the third volume of the fourth edition appearing in 1764.

During David Caldwell's lifetime, only arsenic and mercury, in the form of vapor baths, ointment, and orally, were available for treatment of syphilis. These agents proved effective if given early enough. More effective potassium iodide did not become available until more than a decade after David Caldwell's death. The antibiotic properties of Penicillin remained undiscovered for more than a century .

When David Caldwell began practicing medicine, the notion that clinical practice should be based upon evidence of the efficacy of the practice rather than tradition had already taken root. James Lind, a ship's surgeon, had conducted the first known clinical trial in 1747, testing whether the dreaded disease of scurvy could be cured. He divided twelve seamen into six groups, each receiving different treatment. The group that ate two oranges and one lemon daily were cured after six days, a far better outcome than achieved with any of the alternate treatments.

Morphine became available as a pain killer at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Although drug addiction was a common ailment among physicians, there is no hint that the Rev. David Caldwell ever abused the substance or became addicted.

David Caldwell might have subscribed to the Philadelphia Medical and Physical Journal.

David Caldwell corresponded often with Dr. Benjamin Rush (1745-1813 [Some authorities provide a birthdate of January 4, 1746, due to a change in the calendar]), a Professor of Chemistry at the school of medicine at the College of Philadelphia, whom he had first met at the College of New Jersey. (. W. Caruthers, The Life of David Caldwell, D.D., supra, p. 41.)

Dr. Rush had grown up nearby and had attended West Nottingham Academy in what is now Rising Sun, Maryland, and probably knew a lot of the first members of the Buffalo Church congregation who had migrated from Rising Sun to what is now Greensboro, North Carolina.

Dr. Rush is considered one of the greatest physicians in American history. Dr. Rush was a man of contradiction: he practiced the backward art of bloodletting and purging, yet was far ahead of his time in the treatment of the mentally ill. He served a year as Surgeon General of the Middle Department of the Army during the Revolutionary War but resigned in 1778 when Gen. George Washington did not support his complaint that his superior was mismanaging military hospitals.

Rush wrote the first American textbook on psychiatry, "Medical Inquiries and Observations upon the Diseases of the Mind." The American Psychiatric Association has designated him as the "Father of American Psychiatry." The association’s official seal bears his portrait. He founded the Philadelphia Dispensary for the relief of the poor, the first of its kind in the United States. He founded Dickinson College in 1783, a Presbyterian sectarian college, and thereafter served as one of its trustees. He was a Professor of Chemistry at the medical school of the College of Philadelphia (known today as the University of Pennsylvania).

Dr. Rush is credited with discovering that alcoholism is a disease. He called for restriction of alcohol and tobacco use. He worked to treat the sick during the outbreak of yellow fever in 1793 in Philadelphia, successfully applying certain medications, but was censured for his debilitating practice of bloodletting. He resigned his position from the College of Physicians in 1793 because of a dispute over this practice. He published a pamphlet on the inequity of the slave trade and in 1774 helped organize and a society for abolition of slavery and served as its President in 1803 and for several additional years. He was a member of the Pennsylvania Provincial Convention in 1776 that advocated independence, the Continental Congress in 1776, and was one of the signatories of the Declaration of Independence. President Adams appointed him Treasurer of the Mint, an office that he held until his death. He was a vigorous proponent of prison and penal reform (including attacks on capital punishment, and advocating replacement of public punishment with solitary confinement), free public schools, and other social progress. Alexander Leitch, A Princeton Companion, Princeton University Press, 1978.

The curriculum of the College of Philadelphia, which included practical studies and science, may have influenced the curriculum of David Caldwell’s Log College. The College of Philadelphia was the first college in the United States that introduced a curriculum not deriving from a medieval tradition nor intending to serve a religious purpose, but reflecting the ideas of the Enlightenment. The College supported professorships of mathematics, physics, medicine, and chemistry.

Without application for it, but in recognition of his knowledge of medicine, David Caldwell received a medical diploma from the medical department of the College of Philadelphia, now known as the University of Pennsylvania. (Ethel Stephens Arnett, Greensboro North Carolina, The County Seat of Guilford, Chapel Hill, Univ. of North Carolina Press, pp. 343-344.)

We have no information how successful Rev. Caldwell was in treating patients. If we give substantial weight to his near 100 years of life, we would have to say he knew well how to maintain health.

Perhaps he avoided the bloodletting favored by Dr. Rush, but which contributed to the death of President George Washington.

He was known to have exercised even in old age. Rev Caruthers describes him chopping wood vigorously, and walking frequently long distances. Medical books of the time favored exercise to prolong life and improve energy.

(c) 2002 David Andrew Caldwell