had more attraction for him than had the lectures of Pro-
fessors Story and Ashnum, and one of his contributions, " Old
Ironsides," made him a hero in his little world. In the autumn
of 1830 Holmes began the study of medicine in Boston, first
at the private school of James Jackson and others, and then
at the Harvard Medical School. In April, 1833, he went to
Europe, and continued his medical studies there until Octo-
ber, 1835; ne reached home in December of that year.

Holmes could not explain why he changed from law to
medicine. He tells us that he was drawn to' the mysterious
and obscure " ever since I payed ten cents for a peep through
the telescope on the Common, and saw the transit of Venus."
Here is one of his own charming passages :

'There is something very solemn and depressing about the first entrance
upon the study of medicine The white faces of the sick thai till the long
row of beds in the hospital wards saddened me, and produced a feeling
of awe-stricken sympathy. The dreadful scenes in the operating theatre —
for this was before the days of ether — were a great shock to my sensibilil
though 1 did not faint, as students occasionally do. When 1 first entered
the room where medical students were seated at a table with a skeleton
hanging over it. and bones lying about, 1 was deeply impressed, and more
disposed to moralize Upon mortality than to take up the task in OSteoli
which lay before me. It took hut a short time In wear off this earliesl



772 HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL

impression. I had my way in the world to make, and meant to follow
it faithfully. I soon found an interest in matters which at the outset
seemed uninviting and repulsive, and, after the first difficulties and repug-
nance were overcome, I began to enjoy my new acquisition of knowledge."

Holmes did not take a medical degree before he sailed for
Europe. He evidently did not think this lack a serious handi-
cap, for he writes, "I have found no difficulty whatever from
not having my degree. They are not taken the least notice of, —
nobody uses the title of Doctor, and I would not give a copper
for any advantage it would give me." Those letters of his
illuminate some of the dark old medical centres : "It is no
trifle to be a medical student in Paris. I had attended a lecture
of an hour and a half, and gone through a tedious dissection
this morning before breakfast — that is, I left my bed at half
after six, and did not sit down to breakfast till after eleven."
Later he writes, "I am more and more attached every day to
the study of my profession. * * * The whole walls round
the Ecole de Medecine are covered with notices of lectures,
the greater part of them gratuitous; the dissecting-rooms,
which accommodate six hundred students, are open ; the lessons
are ringing aloud through all the great hospitals."

Again, he writes of Louis, "of serene and grave aspect, but
with a pleasant smile and kindly voice for the student with
whom he came into personal relations ; modest in the presence
of nature, fearless in the face of authority, unwearying in the
pursuit of truth, he was a man whom any student might be
happy and proud to claim as his teacher and friend." "Andral
was by far the most eloquent and popular." "Brotissais was
like an old volcano, which has pretty much used up its fire and
brimstone, but is still boiling and bubbling in its interior, and
now and then sends up a spurt of lava and a volley of pebbles."
Lisfranc was evidently not to Holmes' liking, for he writes,
"I can say little more of him, than that he was a great drawer
of blood and hewer of members;" and of Baron Larrey, Napo-



EMINENT ALUMNI 773

leon's famous surgeon, "Short, square, substantial man with
iron-gray hair, rudely face and white apron. To go round the
Hotel des Invalides with Larrey was to live over the campaigns
of Napoleon, to look on the sun of Austerlitz, to hear the can-
non of Marengo, to struggle through the icy waters of the
Beresina, to shiver in the snows of the Russian retreat, and to
gaze through the battle smoke upon the last charge of the red
lancers on the redder fields of Waterloo." At the Hotel Dieu
the great Dupuytren was in his zenith ; "A square, solid look-
ing man, with a fine head, soft-spoken, undemonstrative, unless
opposed or interfered with, when he would treat his students,
I have heard, as a huntsman does his hounds." Ricord, "viva-
cious * * * the Voltaire of pelvic literature, who would
have submitted Diana to treatment with his mineral specifics,
and ordered a course of blue pills for the vestal virgins." Vel-
peau "looked as if he might have wielded the sledge-hammer
rather than the lancet."

With Holmes in Paris were Henry I. Bowditch, J. Mason
Warren, Waldo Emerson, James Russell, Hooper, and Greene.
He spent much of his time while in Europe at the Ecole de
Medecine, and under Louis at La Pitie. He was able also to
travel and his letters describing peoples, places and events show
us those times.

For Holmes, as for most other students in medicine who
visited Paris then, Louis was the central figure. Favored by
the good impression created on Louis by the younger James
Jackson, Holmes found the great-teacher a friend as well as
an instructor. It is probably no exaggeration to say that the
medical students of that date revered Louis almost to idolatry.
H< ilmes' letters from Paris during those student days are full
of historical observations, interwoven with biographical
sketches of the more celebrated teachers in that great school.
Besides Louis, Holmes studied under Andral, Broussais, Lis-
franc. Baron Larrey, Dupuytren, Ricord, and Boyer. Even if



774 HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL

we had not Holmes' own assurance that he was "more and
more determined to do what I can to give my own country one
citizen among others who has profited somewhat by the ad-
vantages offered him in Europe," we might be sure that that
quick-witted, keen observer, and earnest worker would bring
home more than one mind's share of intellectual fruit for the
benefit of other workers. Remember the difference in the
anatomy laws at this period in France and in America. The
tale is told in another chapter. Suffice it to state that in France
dissection was allowed in full measure, while in America the
only method by which bodies could be procured was by body-
snatching. Holmes was schooled in Paris, and we see the
impress of Paris reflected fifty years later at the opening of
the new building for the Harvard Medical School,* on that
occasion the younger, and some of the older members of the
Faculty, influenced no doubt by a recent agitation concerning
supposed abuses in dissection, took every precaution that the
public should not inspect the dissecting room. To their confu-
sion the venerable teacher not only dwelt with great plainness,
upon the question of dissection, but actually invited his aud-
ience to visit the dissecting-room.

In one of his letters § from Paris (dated April 30th, 1834)
Holmes gives the following account of his first year's stay
there :

"My aim has been to qualify myself so far as my faculties would
allow me, not for a mere scholar, for a follower of other men's opinions,
for a dependent on their authority, but for the character of a man who
has seen, and therefore knows; who has thought and therefore has
arrived at his own conclusions ... I am perfectly certain that I
might have lived until I was gray without acquiring the experience
I have gained in part, and hope still farther to improve by changing the
scene of my life and Studies."

* Boylston Street Medical School Building, dedicated 1883.
§ From "Life and Letters of Oliver Wendell Holmes," by John T.
Morse, Jr., vol. I, pp. 130-31.



EMINENT ALUMNI 775

In a letter of Sept. 3, 1834, he writes:

"I am just going to become a member of a society of medical observa-
tion, which comprehends some of the most intelligent young French and
foreign students. I have free access to the wards of M. Louis, a favor
which he has granted only to a few ; . . . I am devoted to my pro-
fession, and wish to return second to no young man in it."

Concerning this Society he writes later, "my belonging to
the Society * * * brings me into contact with young
men in confidential stations in most of the hospitals, lays their
experience before me, and puts me under the obligation to be
exact, methodical, and rigorous." In a letter of May 14th,
1835, he speaks of turning his attention to operations, and
says that the supply of anatomical material is so 1 good that
"one who knows how to use his hands, and who gives his atten-
tion exclusively to the subject for a time, may, as I have said
I have done, become an expert operator in a few weeks." Such
was his equipment for his new position in the Medical School.
He arrived home in December, 1835, and in 1836 was gradu-
ated M. D. at Harvard.

If the publication of "Old Ironsides," "The Last Leaf," and
other poems had a tendency to militate against his gaining
footing in private practice, such literary interests did not turn
him from medical studies. He won the Boylston prize three
years in succession, and was physician at the Massachusetts
General Hospital for three years. In 1838 he was "mightily
pleased" to receive the appointment as Professor of Anatomy
at Dartmouth College. This position he held during 1839 and
1840. In 1838 he helped to start a private medical school in
Boston. In this he was associated with H. J. Bigelow, E.
Reynolds, and D. H. Storer. and the school became known as
the Tremont Street School. Its relations with the Harvard
School have been sketched in the chapter on Private Medical
Schools. Holmes' special branch of teaching there was the
Practice of Medicine, and his ability as a lecturer and teacher



776 HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL

in that branch has always been praised by his many pupils.
While at the Tremont School, Holmes and Bigelow published
a book on the "Practice of Medicine." They prepared this by
taking Marshall Hall's "Theory and Practice of Medicine,"
and enlarging, correcting and improving it.

It was in 1843 tnat Holmes published his essay on the "Con-
tagiousness of Puerperal Fever." Before that, his "Medical
Essays" had given him a local reputation as a trenchant writer
on medical topics ; now, however, he showed an originality in
thought and research which brought him into international
prominence. In the face of fierce and abusive contradictions
to the young writer by old and accepted authorities on obstet-
rical practice, one sees Holmes using that same calm, logical,
convincing, clean-cut line of argument which leaves no doubt
in the mind of his readers as to the reasonableness and sound-
ness of his case, for he silences contention. One of his aphor-
isms was that it was better to prove something, than partly to
prove many things. If Holmes never proved anything other
than the contagiousness of puerperal fever, posterity owes him
a debt. So it will be seen that he was a strong candidate for
one of the new professorships created in the School.

On April 3rd, 1847, Holmes was appointed Parkman Pro-
fessor of Anatomy and Physiology in the Harvard Medical
School ; in addition to these subjects he often gave instruction
in microscopy and in psychology. In 1871 his title was
changed, and the "whole settee," as he was wont to term his
manifold duties, became a "chair," the Parkman Professorship
of Anatomy. Holmes graciously and honorably filled it until
his resignation on November 20th, 1882, when he was made
Emeritus. During this period of thirty-five years of contin-
uous service at the School, Holmes was Dean from 1847 to
T853; University Lecturer in 1863-64; and Overseer of Har-
vard College from 1876 to 1882.

This new professor in the Medical School belonged to the



EMINENT ALUMNI 777

Brahmin caste, as he used to call it ; he was schooled under the
best masters of Europe ; he had enjoyed the highest advantages
abroad and at home for acquiring that practical knowledge
best fitted to supplement his scientific tastes; he was a faithful
anatomist ; a writer with few equals ; an entertaining and fas-
cinating teacher, with a charming personality. Indeed he was
a great drawing card.

In my wide search for material for this history of our School,
I have interviewed alumni ranging from the oldest living grad-
uate* down to the youngest teachers in the School. Of the
many reminiscences given me, none surpass in number, sweet-
ness and enthusiasm those of Holmes' old pupils. No* general
estimate would satisfy them or do* him justice. Some speak
of his witty, bright, cheerful disposition, which robbed the dry
study of anatomy of its weariness ; some learned their lesson
from his plain, concise, unpretentious homilies ; others from his
exact, clean-cut, well chosen, scholarly rhetoric; some were
able to satisfy their conscience as practitioners of medicine with
the outlines of anatomy and physiology as taught by Holmes;
others found in him the embryologist, the histologist and the
microscopist far in advance of his time. Some few, like R. M.
Hodges, D. W. Cheever, Thomas Dwight, C. B. Porter, H. H.
A. Beach, and M. H. Richardson, were privileged to serve
him as assistants.

Holmes was a good anatomist. He strove incessantly, both
by the preparation of his own dissections and by the constant
study of authors, to give his pupils the best. To the lay reader
who finds it difficult to reconcile the supposed hard-hearted
anatomist with the genial, sympathetic, poetical medical stu-
dent who failed as a general practitioner on account of his
sensibility to the sufferings of others, this estimate may appear
paradoxical. To such let me say that such a view lacks per-

* Samuel L. Abbot, A. B. i8.}8, M. D. 18.11. died July 1st, 1004.



778 HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL

spective. Holmes loved the study of anatomy, and, tempting
as must have been the promises held out to him from other
sources, he steadfastly adhered to it. He did more; he gave
freely, generously, and often to the gatherings of his fellows
in Medicine those gifts which were refused to eager would-be
purchasers. Osier puts it truly when he says of Holmes : "He
will always occupy a unique position in the affections of med-
ical men. Not a practitioner, yet he retained for the greater
part of his active life the most intimate connection with the
profession. * * * The festivals at Epidaurus were never
neglected by him ; and as the most successful combination which
the world has ever seen of the physician and the man of let-
ters, he has for years sat amid the Aesculapians in the seat of
honor."

Holmes was not a great anatomist or a great scientist; his
success as a teacher was due in large degree to this fact. He
might easily have become either, had he been less generously
diffuse. As a teacher he was careful, conscientious, punctual
and painstaking. He was clear, with a remarkable fund of
wit and humor which won for him the title of "the best lecturer
on anatomy of his time in this country." No other lecturer
could hold the attention of a wearied and turbulent class of
students in the fifth consecutive hour of daily lectures, as
Holmes could hold them. "Even over the dry bones, his wit
sparkled ; his similes and imagery delighted the crude and often
rough youths before him ; his courtesy, his patience, his amiable
temper, subdued them into comparative quietude and even at-
tention. It was his rule always to address himself to the lower
rather than to the higher half of the class, as Professor Dwight
says, it being a part of his humanity to do so." He was al-
ways the scholar ; whether as lecturer, post-prandial speaker,
writer, philosopher or wit, he never failed to leave the mark
of his attainments. Few were as well able as he to trace much
of our present knowledge, especially in anatomy, back to the



EMINENT ALUMNI 779

old masters, whose true worth he recognized. Hear him talk
about those ancients, follow his description of their writings
and their illustrations, accompany him through a copy of Al-
bums, of Vesalius, of Bedloe, or of Mascagni, and you may
appreciate his remark accompanying the gift of his library to
the Boston Medical Library Association : "These books were
very dear to me as they stood upon my shelves. A twig from
some one of my nerves ran to every one of them. From the
time when I first opened Bell's 'Anatomy' to that in which I
closed my Sharpey and Ouain and my Braithwaite's 'Retro-
spect' they marked the progress of my studies and stood before
me as the stepping-stones of my professional life. I am pleased
that they can be kept together, at least for the present ; and if
any of them can be to others what many of them have been to
me, I am glad to part with them, even though it cost me a
little heartache to take leave of such old and beloved compan-
ions."

Holmes' love for the old masters was inherited. His father
had been a poetaster, and wrote "Annals of America," a useful
volume of historical research. Acquaintance with such work
taught the son, in his various undertakings, an accurate and
painstaking method which is not usually associated with the
quick, rapid, almost intuitive mind of the wit and genius. He
was one of the earliest microscopists in this country, and a
good one. He was fortunate in securing one of the few micro-
scopes in Paris, and he brought it home with him. He fitted
up a special room in the North Grove Street building and gave
special instruction. Thomas Dwight says of him, in this con-
nection, that he "took the greatest interest in the manufacture
of the microscope, speaking always enthusiastically of its dis-
covery and successive perfections. * * * In 1847 he
made, or certainly believed that he made, a discovery of cells
in bone, which he showed at a meeting of the Society for
Medical Observation. 'T was on the look-out,' he wrote me in



780 HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL

1889, 'for bone-cells, in the medical journals and books, and
found nothing until about two years after my discovery of
these (from the cancelli of the neck of the human adult femur).
M. Robin described some cells which he had found not corre-
sponding very well with mine.' The last note which I ever
received from him, dated May 30th, 1894, was to request me
to find the pictures which he had had made of these cells."

Holmes early gave up the practice for the science of med-
icine. Even if fortune had favored the aspirations he ex-
pressed in the Paris letters, it is doubtful whether he would
have continued in practice. Cheever.says of him in this con-
nection : "Too sympathetic to practice medicine, he soon aban-
doned the art for the science, and always manifested the same
reverence for death, and tenderness for animals. When it be-
came necessary to have a freshly-killed rabbit for his lecture,
he always ran out of the room, left me to chloroform it, and
besought me not to let it squeak."

In the Faculty deliberations he was both progressive and
conservative. In the important changes inaugurated in 1870
he was at heart in favor of new things, but he was timid as to
the losses and dangers of radical measures, although not
strongly opposed. The following letter of his to J. L. Motley,
in December, 1872, is a good pen-picture of the state of mind
of the older men in the Faculty at that time :

"Firstly, then, our new President Eliot, has turned the whole Uni-
versity over like a Rap-jack. There "never was such a bouleversement

as that in our Medical Faculty. The Corporation has taken the whole
management of it out of our hands and changed everything. We are paid
salaries, which I rather like, though 1 doubt if we gain in pocket by it.
We have, partly in consequence Ol outside pressure, remodelled our whole
course of instruction. Con equentlj we have a smaller class, but hctter
students, each of whom pays more than under the old plan of manage-
ment. It is curious to sec a young man like Eliot; a grave, calm, digni-
fied presence, taking the ribbons of our classical coach and six, feeling
the horses' mouths, putting a check on this one's capers, and touching
that one with the lash,— turning up everywhere, in every Faculty (I



EMINENT ALUMNI 781

belong to three), on every public occasion, at every dinner orne, and
taking it all so naturally, as if he had been born President."

At the dedication of the new building, for a school in keep-
ing with the advances inaugurated, Holmes was the orator,
October 17, 1883, and said :

" To one of the great interests of society, the education of those who
are to be the guardians of its health, the stately edifice which opens its
doors to us for the first time today is devoted. It is a lasting record
of the spirit and confidence of the young men of the medical profession,
who led their elders in the brave enterprise, an enduring proof of the
liberality of the citizens of Boston and of friends beyond our narrow
boundaries, a monument to those who, a hundred years ago, added a
School of Medicine to our honored, cherished, revered University."

In regard to another important question discussed about this
time, — the admission of women to the Medical School —
Holmes voted with the majority in the negative, although many
of his public utterances seem to make it appear that he
was in favor of coeducation : "I have always felt that this
(nursing) was rather the vocation of women than general
medical, and especially surgical practice, yet I myself followed
the course of lectures given by the young Madame Lachapelle
in Paris; and if here and there an intrepid woman insists on
taking by storm the fortress of medical education, I would
have the gates flung open to her, as if it were that of the citadel
of Orleans and she were Joan of Arc returning from the field
of victory." Further than this he affirmed, "that he was will-
ing to teach women anatomy, but not with men in the same
classes; and, above all, that he should insist on two dissecting
rooms, which should strictly separate the sexes." Probably,
on this question as in the administration controversy, he was a
passive sympathizer rather than an active partisan.

Holmes became a memlier of the Massachusetts Medical
Society in 1836; he was anniversary chairman in 1852, and
delivered the annual discourse in i860, on "Currents and



782 HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL

Counter-Currents in Medical Science." This, with his paper
on "Homeopathy and Kindred Delusions," aroused a great
deal of feeling. At the Centennial Anniversary Dinner of the
Society in June, 1881, he read a poem. He received from
Harvard College, besides his A. B. (1829) and M. D. (1836),
the honorary degree A. M. (1889) and LL. D. (1880.) In
1886 he went to Europe, when Edinburgh took the opportunity
to confer upon him the LL. D. ; Cambridge gave him the Litt.
Doc. and Oxford the D. C. L. degree. The warmth of hos-
pitality extended to him during this visit is courteously recog-
nized in his "One Hundred Days in Europe."

On June 27th, 1874, the General Court of Massachusetts
incorporated the Boston Medical Library Association. Holmes
was one of the six original incorporators, and when the Society
took form on August 20th, 1875, he was elected president.
He continued in that office until 1888. In his address dedi-
catory of the new building, December 3rd, 1878, Holmes evi-
dently spoke the dictate of his heart, when he said :

" A scholar's library is to him what a temple is to the worshipper who
frequents it. There is the altar sacred to his holiest experiences. There is
the font where his new-born thought was baptized and first had a name in
his consciousness. There is the monumental tablet of a dead belief,

sacred still in the memory of what it was while yet alive

every volume has a language which none but he can interpret. Be
patient with the book-collector who loves his companions too well to
let them go. Books arc not buried with their owners, and the veriest
book-miser that ever lived was probably doing far more for his successors
than his more liberal neighbor who dispised his learned or unlearned
avarice. Let the fruit fall with the leaves still clinging round it. Who
would have stripped Southey's walls of the books that filled them,
when, bis mind no longer callable of taking m their meaning, he would
still pat and fondle them with the vague loving sense of what they had
once been to him, — to him, the great scholar, now like a child among his
playthings? "

Twenty-three years later the Association dedicated the beau-
tiful reading room in its present building to the memory of



EMINENT ALUMNI 783