Charles Martin Caravati (31 May 1899–21 April 1991), medical educator, was born in Richmond and was the son of Henry L. Caravati, a native of Italy, and Lena M. Mahoney Caravati. His father died when Caravati was still a child, and he grew up with his two brothers in a Richmond household composed of his mother, his Irish maternal grandmother, and his uncle. After completing high school at a Catholic academy in Baltimore, Caravati attended Richmond College (later the University of Richmond) during the 1916–1918 academic years. He entered the Medical College of Virginia in 1918, was a private in the Student Army Training Corps during World War I, and in 1922 received an M.D. Caravati served his internship and residency at Providence Hospital, in Washington, D.C., from 1922 to 1924 and then returned to Richmond, where he opened a private practice and began a long career as a member of the faculty at the Medical College of Virginia (later the Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center). On 15 November 1929 he married Mary Virginia Dore, a Staunton nurse, who died on 30 January 1950. They had one son, named for Caravati, who became a Richmond dermatologist and was president of the Medical Society of Virginia for the 1985–1986 term. On 19 October 1956 Caravati married Virginia Tabb Mason Love, a Hampton widow. They had no children, and she died on 20 September 1985.
Caravati maintained a general practice from 1924 to 1932, when he began to concentrate on internal medicine, especially gastroenterology. In 1941 he completed postgraduate study at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and Clinic in Baltimore and later became a diplomate of the American Board of Internal Medicine. During World War II, Caravati served in the United States Army Medical Corps and rose from major to colonel. He was posted to Walter Reed General Hospital, in Washington, D.C., from July to October 1942, was chief of gastrointestinal services and then chief of medical services at Percy Jones General Hospital, in Battle Creek, Michigan, from October 1942 to November 1944, and was chief of medical services at Woodrow Wilson General Hospital, near Staunton, from late in 1944 until January 1946, when he retired from the service. During the war his family accompanied him to each station.
Caravati resumed his Richmond practice and professorship at the Medical College of Virginia in 1947. He was assistant dean and director of continuing education from 1966 until his retirement in June 1969. Named emeritus professor of medicine at MCV in July 1969, he continued to teach until 1972. Caravati also served as a senior medical consultant at McGuire Veterans Hospital, in Richmond, and as a consultant to other Richmond-area hospitals. During his long career he published more than thirty articles in such professional medical journals as the American Journal of Digestive Disease, Annals of Internal Medicine, Gastroenterology, and the Journal of the American Medical Association, as well as the Southern Medical Journal and Virginia Medical Monthly. Caravati was a fellow, governor, regent, and master of the American College of Physicians and chaired the gastroenterology sections of both the Southern and American Medical Associations. He received the first annual Louise Obici Memorial Hospital award in 1965 for outstanding contributions to medicine, the Golden Apple Award for teaching from MCV's class of 1971, a distinguished service award from the Southern Medical Association in 1972, and a special citation from its gastroenterology section five years later. He was elected in 1970 an alumnus member of Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society.
In October 1949 Caravati was surprised to read in a newspaper that Pope Pius XII had named him a Knight Commander of the Order of Saint Sylvester for his wartime service to his country, outstanding medical service to Richmond-area priests and nuns, and tireless efforts toward establishing a Catholic hospital in Richmond. In 1976 Caravati received the Brotherhood award of the Richmond chapter of the National Conference of Christians and Jews (later the National Conference for Community and Justice). He sat on the boards of the Dooley School, Elk Hill Farm, the Little Sisters of the Poor, the Medical College of Virginia Foundation, Saint Joseph's Villa, and Sheltering Arms Hospital.
A charming man of genial personality and wit, Caravati was deeply attached to his hometown. His hobbies included fishing and managing the Goochland County farm that he bought about 1950, an interest he shared with his daughter-in-law. A member for many years of the Deep Run Hunt Club, Caravati was injured in a fall in October 1935. His ear was severely lacerated, and for the rest of his life he wore a prosthetic ear. After his retirement Caravati turned his research talents to history. He wrote Medicine in Richmond, 1900–1975 (1975) for the Richmond Academy of Medicine and Major Dooley (1978), a biography of the Richmond attorney and railroad executive James Henry Dooley, for the Maymont Foundation. Charles Martin Caravati died in Richmond on 21 April 1991 and was buried in the city's Mount Calvary Cemetery.
Sources Consulted:
Birth date in Caravati's military service record in Virginia War History Commission, Individual Service Records (Questionnaires), 1919–1924, Accession 37219, Library of Virginia (LVA); Marriage Register, Richmond City (1929), Bureau of Vital Statistics, Commonwealth of Virginia Department of Health, Record Group 36, LVA; information provided by son, Charles Martin Caravati (2003); Caravati interview, 15 Jan. 1987, in MCV Oral History Collection, Caravati alumnus file in Records of MCV Alumni Association, Caravati Faculty File in Emeriti Faculty, Records of the Vice President for Health Sciences 86/Apr/4, all at Virginia Commonwealth University Health Sciences Library, Richmond; Richmond Catholic Virginian, 28 Oct., 4 Nov. (portrait), 16 Dec. 1949; Richmond Times-Dispatch, 20 Oct. 1956, 14 Mar. 1965, 17 Oct. 1976; Virginius Dabney, Virginia Commonwealth University: A Sesquicentennial History (1987), 364–365; obituaries and editorial tributes in Richmond News Leader and Richmond Times-Dispatch, both 22 (portrait), 23 Apr. 1991; memorial in Virginia Medical Quarterly 119 (1992): 115–116.
Written for the Dictionary of Virginia Biography by Gail V. Tatum.
How to cite this page:
Gail V. Tatum, "Charles Martin Caravati (1899–1991)," Dictionary of Virginia Biography, Library of Virginia (1998– ), published 2006 (http://www.lva.virginia.gov/public/dvb/bio.asp?b=Caravati_Charles_Martin, accessed [today's date]).