Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 1.djvu/260

 CABELL 1

("Transactions of American Medical Association," 1875.)

The University of Virginia owns a protrait of Dr. Cabell, and there is another in the collection of portraits in the library of the surgeon-general, Wash- ington, D. C. R. M. S.

Trans. Med. Soc. of Va., 1889.

"The CabeUs and Their Kin," Alex. Brown.

Cabell, William (1699-1774).

William Cabell, pioneer doctor, the founder of the Cabell family in Virginia, was a grandson of William C. Cabell, of Warminster, England, and the son of Nicholas Cabell. He was born in War- minster, probably in the year 1699, though the year of his birth as in- scribed upon his tombstone was 16S7. This, however, is believed by his de- scendants to have been an error.

He studied medicine in London, and was a graduate of the Royal College of Surgeons. There is a tradition that he practised for several years in London with success, and then entered the British Navy as a surgeon. He came to Virginia in 1724 or 1725, and after living for a short time in Williamsburg and in Henrico County, purchased land and settled in Goochland County. In 1726, he was deputy to Capt. John Redford, high sheriff of Henrico, and in the same year married Elizabeth Burks. She died in September, 1756, probably of pernicious malarial fever, and he says in his diary that she died of bilious fever and coma. We find him in 172S-29 one of the justices of the county of Goochland, and in the latter year appointed county coroner. In 1735 he was called to England and did not re- turn until 1741, his wife in the meanwhile managing his affairs in Virginia. He next took up land along the James River in Nelson County, fifty miles west of any then existing settlements. This tract of land extended for twenty miles along the river and contained S,000 acres of river bottom land. He built a home upon this estate, which he named Liberty Hall, and lived there for the rest of his

2 CABELL

life. He also established upon it a town, calling it Warminster, which be- came, and was for fifty years, an im- portant point of internal commerce.

There being no field for practice of medicine in this unsettled country, he acted as assistant surveyor to his friend, Col. John Mayo, and after his death in 1744, to Col. Joshua Fry until 1753, when he turned over this business to his son, John. The country having become better peopled, he now resumed the work of his profession, and did an extensive practice in the counties of Nelson, Albemarle, Augusta, Bedford, and Prince Edward. He also maintained in his home a private hospital for patients from a distance, and performed many operations. He evidently did not hesi- tate to guarantee cures, as is shown in his schedule of charges. For instance, his ordinary charge for an amputation of the leg or arm was seven pounds ten shillings, but with guarantee of twelve to fifteen pounds. He also had wooden legs made for patients, the price being ten shillings. The hospital patients paid for their board and "necessaries furnished," but profes- sional services were contracted for, gen- erally on the no cure no pay plan. His charges per visit were from one to five pounds, Virginia currency, according to distance. His materia medica em- braced various purges, boluses, cordials, pills, blisters, drops, powders, plasters, sweats, emetics, etc., and these specifics, Turlington's balsam, Bateman's drops, Stoughton's bitters and Anderson's pills. Proprietary remedies were evidently in use even in that day. That he was practising as late as 1770 is shown by the following entry in his diary: "Attended (September 1770) Col. John Fry's wife with dead child three nights and two days."

In person, he is described as having been tall and spare, but lithe and active, and of great powers of endurance. His face was handsome until disfigured by scars resulting from the bursting of a gun in his hands. He was, too, a man of moral and physical courage, the latter