OF CHARLES CALDWELL, M.D. WITH A PREFACE, NOTES, AND APPENDIX, LANE N.Y. Academy of Medicina, "LIBRARY, HARRIO 12 West 31st St., New York. MEDICAL LIBRARY 113/8 8AN FRANCISCO PHILADELPHIA: 1855. D Entered according to the Act of Congress; in the year 1855, by LIPPINCOTT, GRAMBO, AND CO., in the Office of the Clerk of the District Court of the United States, in and for the Eastern District of the State of Pennsylvania. H154 C14W 1855 PREFACE BY THE EDITRESS. THE Autobiography of Dr. Caldwell was composed during the last seven or eight years of his life. It was also revised, corrected, and prepared by himself for the press, and committed to my care, to be preserved, and presented to the public, when the proper time should arrive for its publication. It was my earnest wish to leave it untouched by any other hand. On submitting it, however, to friends and publishers, it was pronounced somewhat too voluminous to be printed entire; and it became necessary, therefore, to abstract from it such portions as could best be removed, without detracting from the interest and character of the work. Wholly unaccustomed to such an office, and entirely unassisted in its execution, I am not without serious apprehensions that the task may have been very imperfectly performed. I make this statement, therefore, in order that, if there should appear in the body of the work, any discrepancy or other imperfection of manner or matter, it may be attributed to the true cause; for the work, as given from the hand of its author, was singularly congruous and complete. It was my original intention to append to the author's name, on the title page of this book, all the degrees and titles of honor which have been conferred upon him by the numerous universities and societies, literary, scientific, and philosophical, of which he was a member, both at home and abroad. Finding them, however, to be inconveniently numerous, and remembering, moreover, that, in his lifetime, he took no pains to collect and preserve such testimonials, nor ever appended a single title to his name (that of M.D. alone excepted) in any of his printed publications, I have deemed it most consistent with his character and mode of acting, to give his Autobiography to the public under the sanction and influence of his name alone. |