He then studied medicine in Baltimore, Philadelphia and Paris, and became Professor of Anatomy and Surgery at the University of Virginia, where he was chairman of the faculty in 1846 and 1847.

Cabell was a full professor at the School of Medicine for 52 years (1842-1889) and was an early pioneer of the sanitary preparation of the surgical patient following Lister's principles.

When yellow fever broke out in Memphis, Tennessee he was appointed chairman of the National Sanitary Conference and devised a plan that checked the spread of the epidemic.

He wrote The Testimony of Modern Science to the Unity of Mankind (New York, 1858).

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