sively of Harvard Medical Graduates, — societies which have
done much directly and indirectly to foster Harvard's inter-
ests. Some consideration of their objects and workings is
appropriate here.
The Boylston Medical Society of Harvard University — an
undergraduate organization — was founded in January, 1811.
It had for its purposes the promoting of emulation and in-
quiry, as well as the dissemination of medical knowledge
among students of the Medical School. Persons other than
Harvard students may be admitted to the society by a unan-
imous vote of the members. A person duly elected to the
BOSTON MEDICAL LIBRARY — HOLMES HALL.
Prom Medical Library and Bistorlcal Journal.
LAWS, SOCIETIES, LIBRARIES 699
Society pays an annual fee of three dollars. After he has per-
formed this obligation for two years, or in less time if he has
taken his degree in medicine, he may be made an honorary
member. The Society gives a diploma in the form of cer-
tificates of membership to those members who have performed
their duty to the society. Meetings are held weekly during
the academic year and as often as the Society may at other
periods determine. At these meetings the members, each in
his turn, present dissertations and cases, and other casual
topics are discussed. The funds of the Society arising from
the entrance fees and fines, after defraying the incidental ex-
penses, were originally devoted to the purposes of establishing
a library. Since the Medical Faculty undertook the expense
of providing and maintaining a free library for the members
of the Medical School, the funds of the Boylston Society have
been appropriated in prizes for the best anatomical prepara-
tion made by members during the terms of the Lectures. All
these prize preparations have become the property of the Boyl-
ston Society, and form the valuable cabinet which that Society
has presented to the school.
In 1902 recent graduates of the School, former Boylston
members, formed the Aesculapian Club, to carry on the meet-
ings in which, as undergraduates, they had taken part. This
Club adds to its membership, annually, such Boylston men as
are graduated in Medicine. One of its objects is to stimulate
and perpetuate interest in and loyalty to the Harvard Medical
School.
The Boston Society for Medical Improvement was incor-
porated by an Act of the Legislature, March 20, 1839. The
names mentioned in the first section of that Act arc those of
John Ware, Jacob Bigelow, and Enoch Hale. The objects
stated arc the cultivation of confidence and good feeling be
tween members of the profession, and the eliciting and im-
parting of information upon the different branches of medical
700 HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL
science. This Society founded a library, and its meetings
were held fortnightly. In 1839 the Society had been in exist-
ence since February 19, 1828, and had already come to be the
leading medical society of Boston. It started with the follow-
ing members: Zabdiel B. Adams, John P. Spooner, George
W. Otis, Jr., Joshua H. Hayward, D. Humphreys Storer,
Horatio Robinson, Jas. M. Whittemore, J. G. Stevenson, Jo-
seph W. McKearn, Enoch Hale, and John Ware. The list
was soon increased to twenty-five, and included Winslow
Lewis, Benjamin Lincoln, George Parkman, Walter Chan-
ning, and John D. Wells. The first meetings were held at the
homes of members, and were quite informal. Each member
reported verbally such cases or observations as interested him,
especially on obstetrical practice and infectious diseases. A
pathological museum was started, and the new born "Bos-
ton Medical and Surgical Journal" received the Society's sup-
port. In 1830 the Society procured rooms over Smith and
Clark's drug store on Washington Street. It started a library
for its members, and with the stimulus afforded by the elec-
tion to membership of J. B. S. Jackson, O. W. Holmes, Jacob
Bigelow and Jeffries Wyman the growth of the museum was
increased. About the year 1840 interest began to wane; new
blood was needed. Of this it received the best; Samuel Cabot,
Jr., Henry J. Bigelow, George Hayward and Morrill Wyman;
while S. L. Abbott, B. E. Cotting, N. B. Shurtlefr, Buckmin-
ster Brown, Lyman, Moreland, Oliver, Townsend, Gay, Derby
and Francis Minot were among those admitted to the Society
during the 1840-50 decade. With Bigelow, Warren, and
Charles T. Jackson attending the meetings, and with the intro-
duction of ether agitating the public, much valuable discussion
must have taken place, but nowhere in the records of the
Society does there appear any of that rancor and bitterness
which characterized the ether controversy elsewhere. The roll
abounds in famous Boston medical names : J. Mason War-
LAWS, SOCIETIES, LIBRARIES 701
ren, J. C. White, C. D. Homans, R. M. Hodges, Samuel
Cabot, Calvin Ellis, J. N. Borland, J. P. Reynolds are a few
noted in the transactions of the Society. With the introduc-
tion of the epoch known in medicine as that of "aseptic sur-
gery," and with the rise of bacteriology, the Society became
the forum for many important discussions. From the leth-
argy which age and divided interests had produced in this
Society, the strong positive mind of James C. White gathered
the nucleus of the present organization. This was in 1880.
White became its first president. Probably there is to-day no
one semi-private Society in Boston, if anywhere in the coun-
try, which has upon its active roll so many teachers of medi-
cine and leaders in medical thought and action as has the Bos-
ton Society for Medical Improvement. In April, 1876, the
Improvement Society transferred its library, then amounting
to 474 volumes, to the Boston Medical Library Association.
The members of the Society were by the terms of the contract
permitted to retain full ownership of their library and book-
cases, and the right to take from the rooms their own books.
They were to bind their own journals and insure their own
collection. From 1848 to 1855 the Transactions of the So-
ciety had been published in the "American Journal of the Med-
ical Sciences." In January, 1855, they were transferred to
the "Boston Medical and Surgical Journal," in which they
still appear.*
In 1894 the Society united with the Boston Society for
Medical Observation. This latter Society had been founded
in 1835 by John Ware and Henry I. Bowditch. It was com-
posed at first of medical students, and as a student society
it existed for two years when it was discontinued until 1846.
*"The Story of the Boston Society for Medical Improvement," by
J. G. Mumford, M. D. ; in " Boston Medical and Surgical Journal," March
14, 1901.
702 HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL
Then Bowditch and seven others* revived it under the same
name. It was called a society of the younger men of the pro-
fession, and it had a creditable existence. The Boston Med-
ical Library Association took its birth from this Society. As
time went on the kindred interests and associations of the
Medical Improvement Society and the Observation Society
made a union of forces profitable and advantageous to both,
and it was arranged to unite them, retaining the name of the
older, The Boston Society for Medical Improvement. The
Observation Society had for its object the reading of original
papers. They tell how the criticism was so unsparing that at
least one member resigned on account of his unwillingness to
stand the fire. The Society was fashioned after the society
of Paris bearing the same name, — that Society which had
Louis for its President. The purpose sought by the Boston
Observation Society was "to make its members good observ-
ers of disease, to collect and arrange accurately recorded facts
in furtherance of the cause of medical science, and to publish
from time to time the results of the examination of such facts."
* Charles E. Buckingham, George Derby, John D. Fisher, Samuel Knee-
land, Jr., Fitch E. Oliver, William H. Thayer, and John B. Walker.
EMINENT ALUMNI.
JACOB BIGELOW.
A. B. 1806; A. M.; LI.. I). 1857; M. I). I'niversity Pennsylvania L810;
Professor of Materia Medica 1815-1855.
EMINENT ALUMNI 705
CHAPTER XXVIII.
EMINENT ALUMNI.
I.
JACOB BIGELOW.
In the history of every University there must be found in-
stances in which important teaching positions have not always
been awarded to merit, and Harvard is no exception. Round
pegs have sometimes been forced into square holes, but Jacob
Bigelow seems born for the place which Harvard created for
him. In the year 1815 he was elected to the Lectureship of
Materia Medica and Botany. Here was a young man only
twenty-eight years of age, without social distinction; with no
inheritance other than a strong body and a fertile brain ; with
no friends other than his college chums, and these too young
to help him ; yet he had already won prominence by his suc-
cessful competition in four successive years of the Boylston
Prize contest, an achievement which necessity keenly stimu-
lated and one which no doubt was the means of winning for
him the friendship of James Jackson. Becoming his asso-
ciate in the practice of medicine (1811), Bigelow was placed
in the best atmosphere to develop those varied talents which
in after years secured the respect of all cultivated men.
In 1812, recognizing the success of young Gorham in his
popular lectures on Chemistry, Bigelow suggested to some
friends the wisdom of such a course in Botany. This gave
him a chance to utilize his early experience of country life and
his studies of the nature and habits of plants. More impor-
706 HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL
tant still, it associated him with Professor Peck, of the
Harvard Botanic Garden; it opened a correspondence with
famous American and European botanists; it resulted in the
publication of "Florula Bostoniensis" (1814), and made the
author the obvious choice of the Harvard Corporation for the
position of Lecturer on Botany and Materia Medica, first cre-
ated for the growing Medical School. His success in this
office designated him for the Rumford Professorship, to which
he was appointed a year later ( 1816). Let us then learn some-
thing of this genius, upon whom Harvard College conferred
a dual position, a circumstance unique in her long history.
Perhaps that was the most remarkable life in Harvard Med-
ical Annals. Oliver Wendell Holmes said of Bigelow : "1 do
not believe that I wrong any of the distinguished physicians
and surgeons I have known, either in this country or in Eu-
rope, when I say that I think he had the most capacious and
best-furnished, many chambered brain of all the medical men
I have known. Others may have excelled him in this or in
that particular, but he touched more subjects in literature,
science, practical life, art; and not only adorned but improved
more that he dwelt with, than any other member of the pro-
fession I have been personally acquainted with."*
Jacob Bigelow was born in that part of Watertown which is
now Waltham, on February 27, 1787. His American an-
cestry goes back to John and Mary (Warren) Bigelow, who
were married at Watertown in 1642, when they allowed an
English legacy to lapse on account of John Bigelow's refusal
to return to England. Our young Bigelow lived at the old
homestead until the age of thirteen, spending five or six
months of the year at such schooling as the neighborhood
afforded. The rest of the year was occupied with minor duties
* Remarks at a meeting of Massachusetts Historical Society, February,
1879. Mass. Hist. Proceedings, vol. XVII, p. 41.
EMINENT ALUMNI 707
about the farm, and "wasting my time in roving about the
woods, puzzling myself with speculations on natural objects,
and taking intense delight in the construction of miniature saw-
mills, machinery for entrapping rats and squirrels, and rude at-
tempts at drawing and carving." How much of his future suc-
cess came from these simple joys we will see presently. In his
brief, modest autobiography he alludes feelingly to the high de-
gree of cultivation possessed by his mother, and how he antici-
pated difficulty in procuring a college education from the mea-
gre resources of his father's income as minister of the parish.
His father, Jacob Bigelow, Sr., was graduated at Harvard
College in 1766, and ordained minister of Sudbury in 1772.
Custom and tradition procured for the son a course at Har-
vard, notwithstanding the father's poverty, the depressed state
of the College after the trials and losses of the Revolutionary
War, and the heated religious controversy then being waged
between orthodox and liberal schools. During his college
life Bigelow showed that catholicity of spirit which marked
his future career, for we find him enrolled in all the societies
and clubs then existing in Cambridge. He was the poet of his
Commencement Day in 1806.
Then came the choice of a profession — Divinity, Law,
Medicine. Willi Divinity he was already somewhat familiar
both at home and at school. The dogmatism of the day re-
pelled him. His refusal to pronounce the oration necessary
to secure the Master's Degree from his Alma Mater indicates
his attitude towards public speaking, while his natural aver-
sion to medicne was inherently strong. However, he attended
the lectures of the medical professors during his senior year
at Cambridge, as was then the custom. Here he shared the
fate which had befallen many students before and for years
after. He came under the spell of that fluent and charming
John Warren. "1 thought 1 discovered that a physician might
be fluent and accomplished, and serve his generation in other
708 HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL
ways than as a mere vehicle of pills and plasters. I began to
think that if a man could obtain a foothold in a city, and
diversify his calling with the additional function of a lecturer
or professor, he might find his position agreeable and advan-
tageous."
He decided to be a physician, and he aimed at the highest
and best in medicine. By spending a year at Worcester in
teaching a small class of boys, he earned money enough to
go to Boston and matriculate (1808) in medicine at Har-
vard. At the same time he entered as a pupil the office of John
Gorham. During this first year in Boston, Bigelow taught
in the Latin School. This enabled him to pay his expenses
without calling further on the resources of his parents, "al-
ready overburdened by the cost of my previous education."
While occupying this position he acquired a sound knowledge
of the Greek and Latin classics, verifying the truism that the
best learning is gained through teaching.
In 1809 he went to Philadelphia, where he entered the Uni-
versity of Pennsylvania as a medical student under Rush,
Wister, Physick, Barton and Coxe. Here he found greater
opportunities for research and experiment than were offered
at Boston. He became a private pupil of Barton, then the
leading botanist of America. It was while at Philadelphia
that he won the Boylston prize. The incident was so charac-
teristic of the man that it is worth telling in his own words :
" Although a medical student in my second year, my presumption was
excited to hecome a competitor for one of these premiums. Yet so great
was my diffidence at the thought of presuming at a mark far beyond my
reach, that I concealed my purpose from every one, and wrote a long
essay on ' Cynanche maligna.' in winter time, in a cold chamber, being
obliged to wear a glove on my right hand to preserve the flexibility of
my fingers. At length, the work being completed, I sallied out in a
dark evening, and left it at the door of Dr. Lemuel Hayward, chairman
of the committee. Anxiously did I wait for days and weeks, expecting
to see the success of some person announced in the newspapers. But at
length appeared a notice from the committee, announcing no award, but
EMINENT ALUMNI 709
simply continuing the same subjects for another year. Mortified, but
not exactly disappointed, I sent to reclaim my unworthy dissertation,
and found within, on the envelope, ' Received Jan. 2, too late for exami-
nation.'
" Thus although my ambitious dream was not realized, yet I felt
relieved rather than rebuked, for it at once occurred to me that I could
now devote a whole year to perfecting my production, and offer it at the
end of that time with a more reasonable prospect of success. This
vision, however, was succeeded by a better one, to wit, that I might again
offer the same dissertation as it was, and add to it another essay on one
of the other subjects proposed by the committee, thus taking my chance
for two premiums instead of one. A new dissertation was therefore
undertaken on ' Phthisis Pulmonalis,' and, that the two might not appear
to be written by the same individual, I procured the former essay to be
copied in a different hand In the following winter I
received letters in Philadelphia informing me that each of my disserta-
tions had been successful in carrying off its prize. This little event
was of unspeakable value to me at the time. Literary prizes ....
were at that day a novelty, and did not fail to entail upon the author
a degree of eclat which, though small, was nevertheless far beyond his
dessert, and more than cancelled any debt which the world might have
incurred to me on the occasion. I am constrained to add that the small
remittence of cash which followed this award was of far more conse-
quence to me than the optional substitute of a gold medal, which I
should have been unable to eat."
The Bovlston Prize was won again in the two succeeding:
years by Bigelow. In the meantime (1810) he had obtained
his degree in medicine. It is said that one of the inducements
for going to Philadelphia was his wish for the highest degree
in medicine, an M. D., which could not then be obtained at
home.* He wrote this characteristic letter:
" Philadelphia, March 6, 1810.
"Dear Parents, As my friends Bemis and Claiming leave this place
tomorrow for Boston, I cannot let the opportunity of writing escape.
I have been not a little engaged this month nr two past in preparing for an
examination (the last, I trust, to which T shall ever be subjected in the
medical line) for a degree of M. D., that is to say, Doctor in Medicine.
The medical lectures being concluded, our professors have set their mill
a-going for manufacturing doctors. Happening to pass by the university
*M. B. was the degree granted by Harvard until the year [8ll
710 HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL
to-day, I got one foot entangled in the mill, and not being able to dis-
engage myself, was drawn in and ground over for about an hour, and
then came out Dr. Bigelow. I have now to wait only for the Commence-
ment, which takes place the last of April, after which I flatter myself
with the prospect of seeing home speedily. During the rest of the time
1 shall employ my time in attending the practice of the hospital, and
looking round the city, which as yet I have seen very little of.
" I can now see no obstacle in the way to my coming and settling
with Dr. Mosman and laying siege to part of the practice of Cedar
Swamp and Dungy Hole. As the Doctor's wagon is pretty capacious,
I think I might, with a little persuasion, induce him to allow me a seat
at his left hand, besides learning me to make bullets, pills, and sleeve-
buttons.
"Upon looking back for a few years. I cannot but consider myself as
having been peculiarly fortunate thus far. After being three years out of
college, two and a half of which I had kept school, and two of which,
properly speaking, I had studied medicine, I found myself in possession
of a certificate of license from the medical society, and also of two disser-
tations which, I learn, have been so fortunate as to obtain prizes. In
this place I have obtained a degree after four months residence, a thing
very uncommon, as most students spend two or three winters in the city
before obtaining it.
" Should I ever be so successful as to obtain a competent establishment
in business, it will afford me no small satisfaction to reward in part the
kindness of my friends, and to contribute as far as is in my power to
support and console the declining age of my parents. But as it would be
improper to presume on future events, I can only at present asure you
of my best wishes and unaltered affection.
"Rev. Jacob Bigelow. " JaCOB Bigelow/ '
" Sudbury."
Following his determination to settle in a large town rather
than in a narrower and less attractive region, he came to Bos-
ton, where acquaintances were few, and friends or connections
unknown, other than his faithful and devoted brother, Henry,
who " generously offered to guarantee my support for one
year in Boston, if I should determine to make the experiment
of the city." The memory of that brotherly kindness was per-
petuated in the name of the future eminent surgeon, Henry
Jacob Bigelow. Already assured of an entree into the best
medical circles by reason of his membership in the Massachu-
EMINENT ALUMNI 711
setts Medical Society, acquired in 1809, Bigelow soon gained
access to the best among the social, professional, and literary
groupings of the men of that day. This association, together
with the business partnership formed (1811) with the newly
elected Professor of the Theory and Practice, James Jackson,
was the needed stimulus and outlet for his genius. As Ellis
says, he was artificer, draughtsman, machinist, and inventor,
with natural gifts for all. Any one of these qualities would
have served him well had he directed his thoughts towards
surgery rather than medicine. The student of psychogenesis
will find material for speculation in the consideration of these
qualities of the father showing themselves later to such a
marked degree in the son.
We have already told how he came to be elected a Professor
in Harvard College. Thirty years of age, a full professor in
one department and a lecturer in another; the colleague of
Warren, Jackson, Gorham and Channing; a correspondent of
European wise men, and the author of the only lucid Ameri-
can work on botany; rapidly making new friends, and con-
stantly extending his professional labors, we can safely call
Jacob Bigelow a leader among Boston physicians, and a valu-
able addition to that group of great teachers who adorned our
Alma Mater during the first half of the Nineteenth century.
Bigelow was a member of the Faculty until 1855. Besides
his " Florula Bostoniensis," the second edition of which ( 1824)
added to popular enthusiasm for and interest in the study of
botany, he published the " American Medical Botany " in 1818.
The art of lithography and photography was then unknown,
but we find Bigelow devising a method of printing the colored
illustrations which added greatly to his reputation for resource-
fulness. When he wanted models and drawings to illustrate
the Rumford lectures, he again called upon his inventive mind.
He visited the glassblower, the clock maker, the type caster,
the printer, the turner, the moulder, and the engraver. No
712 HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL
garret was too humble, no cellar too damp, no work shop too
dusty or too noisy for this active, inquisitive, practical man.
The information gleaned or the knowledge acquired was al-
ways returned with manifold interest to the good of his fel-
lowmen. Few works have proved more useful than his " Ele-
ments of Technology, etc.," published in 1829. It is a verita-
ble scientific encyclopaedia, as it is a dictionary authority for
the word " technology " itself.
Naturally he supervised the construction and placing of a
statue to Franklin, now standing before the City Hall, Boston.
With keen foresight he suggested, urged and planned the exe-
cution of one of the greatest agencies for public health ever
undertaken by a single man. Not only did the project of
Mount Auburn Cemetery originate with Bigelow, but he
planned the grounds, designed the gate, the chapel, the tower,
and even the iron fence, and finished his labors by the selection,
donation and placing of that granite sphinx, symbolizing by
the lion a just, calm, and dignified self-reliance, and by woman,
beauty and benignity. As a valued editor of the first " United
States Pharmacopoeia," in 1820, we see his practical mind
complete a scheme for simplifying our medical nomenclature,
which has ever since remained intelligible.
In 1832, when other men were holding back, Bigelow, with
Ware and Flint, visited New York in the cholera epidemic,
amid scenes of devastation said to have been unparalleled in
modern times, and worked for the relief of the victims, ready
to suffer martyrdom, as the phrase then was, in order to pre-