Welch the credit for the chapters on pathological anatomy in
his more recent works. His writings do not aim at extensive
original research, but rather endeavor to popularize the latest
and best in medical thought. His works on percussion and
auscultation are his best original productions. In his writing as
in his teaching, he was modest, clear, painstaking and accurate.
He used to say, "It is a positive enjoyment for me to write, and
when the work of the day is done, I sit in my office and fre-
quently write until eleven, twelve, one, and perhaps two o'clock
in the morning, before I feel tired enough to go to bed." 'The
Lancet" called him "The Watson of America." As a teacher
Flint had a high reputation. He taught general medicine, and
developed a systematic presentation of his subject. Both his
clinical and didactic lectures were prepared with care, and
never were extemporaneous.
In 1862 Flint became a member of the New York Academy
of Medicine; he was its orator in 1868. its Nice president in
S06 HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL
1871 and 1872, and its president in 1873 and 1874. On his
induction into office. Peaslee said : "We have always found
you the high-minded and sympathetic man, and the genial gen-
tleman, as well as the finished scholor, the distinguished author
and the skilful practitioner." Flint remained a member of the
Academy until a short time before his death. In the fracas
over the "Code," although a strong party man, as every man
of prominence in the profession then was, he could not be
classed as a bitter partisan. His aim was to promote peace,
harmony, and brotherhood ; failure in that aim caused him
the keenest mortification. In 1883 he was elected president of
the American Medical Association, and it was his suggestion
which led to the meeting of the International Medical Congress
in this country in 1887. He was to have delivered the presi-
dential address, as Samuel D. Gross's successor, had not death
intervened. He was the first American to deliver the address
in medicine before the British Medical Association (August,
1885).
Flint's ambition to raise the standard of medical education
was early shown in the New York convention to organize the
American Medical Association, May 5th, 1846, when his com-
mittee reported, "That it be recommended to all the colleges
to extend the period employed in lecturing from four to six
months." Forty subsequent years of labor failed to realize
these hopes of his younger days. In one of his last works,
"Medicine in the Future," he shows almost prophetic sight:
"The meditations of a medical practitioner, whose retrospection extends
over half a century, may naturally be expected to revert to the past .
If our retrospection extend half a century, it is worth while to inquire:
How will the present appear in a retrospective view at the end of the
next fifty years? "
From such a hight of observation he looked forward as well
as backward, and predicted,
EMINENT ALUMNI 807
" That the history of medicine will have a steady acceleration in prog-
ress ; that knowledge with reference to anatomy, histology and chemistry
will advance ; that our senses will be aided and augmented ; that hearing
will be vastly improved by means of microphonic stethoscopes ; that a
judicious bloodletting will be revived, and that the lancet will again find
a place which it lost through over-use ; that bacterial etiology will be
established and revolutionize the treatment of certain diseases ; that the
little understood functions of the spleen and liver, the thyroid body,
the lymphatic glands, the suprarenal capsules offer problems which will
form ' a vast and fruitful field for future clinical research.' '
EMINENT ALUMNI
(CONTINUED)
EMINENT ALUMNI 811
CHAPTER XXX.
EMINENT ALUMNI (CONTINUED).
GEORGE CHEYNE SHATTUCK.
George C. Shattuck is a strong link in the chain of medical
men bearing the Shattuck name. With a father eminent as a
physician, and a grandfather typical of the best in the medicine
of his generation, he was in turn the father of two sons not un-
known to the profession.
The subject of this memoir was born in Boston, July 22,
18 1 3. Educated at the famous Round Hill School at North-
ampton and at the Boston Latin School, he entered Harvard
College, and was graduated in the class of 1831. During
these formative years Shattuck was under influences of the
highest character. His father was the personification of
benevolence, his mother the ideal of charity. The output of
the Northampton School in Shattuck's class alone shows the
sort of character fostered there. J. M. Forbes, Wendell
Phillips, J. L. Motley, J. T. Morse, T. G. Appleton, Francis
Boott, John Morrison, F. W. Brune and J. C. Brune were some
of the members of his class both there and at College ; — men
who were distinguished later in American history and in
American literature. The following words from his own
address at the founding of St. Paul's School reflect some-
thing of Shattuck's character :
" Physical and moral culture can best be carried on where boys live
with, and are constantly under the supervision of, the teachers, and in
the country. Outdoor exercise is thus secured. Green holds and trees,
streams and ponds, beautiful scenery, flowers and minerals, are educators.
812 HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL
The things which are seen are very valuable, and may be used to teach of
Him Who made them, and thus of the things unseen. Religious teaching
and training for beings such as we are, is all important. The things
of this world are engrossing; but boys ought to be trained not only for
this life, but so as to enter into and enjoy eternal and unseen realities.
The life of this world is short and uncertain. To live well here, in the
fear and love of God, and with love to our fellow-men, is not easy, and
teachers and instructors, who have learned and practiced the arts of so
living and passing through this world as not to lose the things eternal,
are essential to the success of a boarding school for boys."
With Shattuck these were not idle words ; they came from
his heart.
After graduating from Harvard, he entered the law school
in obedience to the wish of his father, who thought the youth
unequal to the strain of medical practice. After he had studied
a year at the law school, "a perfect martyr to his fidelity," his
father consented to his taking up medicine, and in 1835 ne
received the M. D. from Harvard. After some time spent in
further study at Bowdoin, and with Professor Lincoln at Bur-
lington, he passed three years in Paris and London. In Paris
he was an enthusiastic admirer of Louis, and early became one
of his favorite pupils. His translation of Louis' work on
Yellow Fever was one of his achievements during this course
of study. Upon the suggestion of Louis, Shattuck visited the
Fever Hospital in London, to study the symptoms and course
of typhoid and typhus fevers, and to gather material for use
by Louis in his work on the differential diagnosis of these two
diseases, which were then often confounded. In this research
Shattuck was aided by Stille of Philadelphia, a fellow student
who had had exceptional opportunities to observe the course
of typhus fever at home, an experience not to be found in the
Paris hospitals. These two young men, Shattuck and Stille,
presented a paper at the Paris Observation Society in 1838,
and demonstrated the differential diagnosis of the two diseases.
With such exceptional equipment for the practice of med-
EMINENT ALUMNI 813
icine, Shattuck returned to Boston, and became associated with
his father, then a leader in the medical and social circles of the
city. On April 9th, 1840, he married, in Baltimore, Anne
Henrietta Brune, a sister of his college classsmate.
Upon the resignation of Oliver Wendell Holmes from the
visiting staff of the Massachusetts General Hospital, Shattuck
was appointed to the vacancy. This position he held until
1885, when he was made consultant to the Hospital. At a
meeting of the Corporation of Harvard College, December
30, 1854, Jacob Bigelow resigned the Professorship of Materia
Medica, and the Lectureship in Clinical Medicine. It was
thereupon voted to establish a Professorship of Clinical Med-
icine in place of the Lectureship, and Shattuck was selected
to fill the place. Lie resigned this Professorship January 22,
1859, and at the same meeting he was elected Hersey Professor
of Theory and Practice of Physic as successor to John Ware.
He held this position until November 29, 1873. He was Dean
of the Medical School from 1864 to 1869. To these different
offices Shattuck brought a keen understanding of human na-
ture, admirable judgment, rare unselfishness, and a firmness of
purpose which won respect. In the council of his associates he
was a constant advocate of devotion to the interests of the
School they served, as above all self-seeking. A fellow teacher
says of Shattuck : " Several of the School's best teachers
would have been lost to it without his persistent advocacy of
their appointment, and in more than one instance places were
made in his own department for those who could not be pro-
vided for in other departments." As a teacher he was prac-
tical. He established clinical conferences in the teaching of
medicine, and was an advocate of the benefits to be derived
from quiz classes among the students, outside their regular
lectures. For the encouragement of this latter plan he pro-
vided rooms in his own office building. "Had he been sup-
ported in these efforts, the school might have had an earlier
814 HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL
development in this important direction." That Shattuck's
interest in the promotion of medical education was genuine
and unselfish, is further attested by his sacrifice of time,
strength and money, in delivering for many years an annual
course of lectures on physiology and hygiene at Trinity Col-
lege, and at St. James College, Maryland. He gave these lec-
tures without compensation.
In his daily professional life one sees his marked religious
convictions. He was indeed the good physician. The belief
he professed at church on Sunday he practiced daily in his
hospital wards, and in the homes of the sick and poor. So
much were these principles a part of him that he seriously con-
sidered taking orders. He was regarded as the foremost lay-
man in the Episcopal Church in Massachusetts. Samuel Eliot
says : "He was a member of almost every society board in his
diocese, a delegate to every diocesan and every general conven-
tion, a trustee of the General Theological Seminary, and of
other bodies beyond the diocese." Few instances occur to me in
which there is a more perfect blending of the spiritual, mental,
and social nature; and the beauty of it all is, that he seemed
to be unconscious of its workings, so modest and simple was
his faith. Of the many objects of his generosity two flourish
vigorously, — St. Paul's School, and the Faribault School. St.
Paul's School at Concord, New Hampshire, was founded in
1856. It was established in accordance with Shattuck's well
grounded belief that boys should be trained in body, mind,
and soul. It will be recognized that he built upon good foun-
dations ; for the little beginning in the house which was
his summer home has grown to the great institution which
he had the satisfaction <A seeing before his death. Besides
St. Paul's School. Shattuck founded a school which bears his
name at Faribault, Minnesota ; — a beacon light in the new
north-west.
Besides his publication of the translation of Louis "On
JEFFRIES WYMAN.
A. B. 1833; A. M.; M. I). 1837.
Hersey Professor Anatomy 1847-1874.
EMINENT ALUMNI 815
Yellow Fever," Shattuck gave the annual discourse before
the Massachusetts Medical Society in 1866, on "The Medical
Profession and Society." He was president of the Society
in 1872-1874. He was a member of the American Academy
of Arts and Sciences, vice-president of the American Sta-
tistical Association, Honorary Fellow of the Philadelphia Col-
lege of Physicians, member of the Paris Society for Medical
Observation and of the New England Historic-Geneological
Society. As a companion and friend his lively sense of humor
and his genuine hospitality were very charming. He died in
Boston, on March 22, 1893. The College of Physicians of
Philadelphia passed the following resolution :
" By Dr. Shattuck's earnest devotion to the duties and interests of the
profession for which he felt an hereditary attachment, and which he illus-
trated by a long career of fruitful teaching and practice and by the upright-
ness, unselfishness and simplicity of his life and his genial and benevolent
disposition, he exerted a beneficial influence while he lived, and has left
behind him the memory of a character worthy of admiration, and which
should serve as an example and encouragement to all who aspire to be
held in honor and affectionate remembrance."
JEFFRIES WYMAN.
Jeffries Wyman was born in the town of Chelmsford, Mas-
sachusetts, near what is now the city of Lowell, on the nth
of August, 18 1 4. His father, Rufus Wyman, previously men-
tioned in these pages as the first physician to the McLean
Asylum for the Insane, was a partner of the well known John
Jeffries, of Boston, after whom the son was named.
Jeffries Wyman was fitted for college at Phillips Academy.
Exeter, and entered Harvard in 1829. While at college he
was an earnest student, and showed such ability in the natural
sciences that his college room was known as a curiosity shop
of anatomical preparations. There yon might see tadpoles
and frogs skillfully dissected and neatly arranged in a man-
816 HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL
ner which marked the budding scientist. He was graduated
in 1833, and after four years of study under John C. Dalton
and his own father, received his medical degree from Harvard
in 1837. During those four years also, he had been a house
pupil at the Massachusetts General Hospital. Howbeit, his
taste was for research and teaching rather than for the prac-
tice of his profession.
Wyman's first appointment was as Demonstrator (1838)
to John C. Warren : "He was unwilling to tax the limited
resources of a father to whom he was fondly attached, and
was living at this time with an economy which it would be
painful to think of, if we did not remember how many of
the heroes of knowledge have eaten the bread of poverty,
and found in it the nourishment of steady endeavor and serene
self possession." From the proceeds of a course of lectures
given in 1841 before the Lowell Institute, of which he had
been Curator, he was enabled to pursue his studies in Europe,
giving his whole attention to human and comparative anat-
omy, and to natural history and physiology. He was a stu-
dent of Flourens, Magendie, Louget, De Blainville, Valen-
ciennes, Dremeril, Isidore St. Hilaire, and Milne-Edwards.
While in London in 1842 he was called back to this country
by his father's death. June 22, 1842. In 1843 Jeffries Wyman
was appointed Professor of Anatomy and Physiology in the
Medical Department of Hampden Sidney College, Richmond.
Upon the resignation of John C. Warren, in 1847, the Hersey
Professorship of Anatomy at Harvard was established in place
of the Hersey Professorship of Anatomy and Surgery, and
was at the same time removed from the Medical School to
Cambridge. Jeffries Wyman was elected, April 3, 1847, to
this new professorship. To illustrate his lectures he began
the formation of the Museum of Comparative Anatomy and
Physiology which has since remained a valuable legacy to
science and a monument to his name. In it are collected speci-
EMINENT ALUMNI 817
mens almost innumerable in variety, type, stage of develop-
ment, normal and abnormal, of animal and human life. No
cheap rubbish found a place on those shelves; each specimen
had its special object, and all were systematically arranged
so as to carry out some idea of the collector. Every speci-
men labeled by the same hand speaks for painstaking labor.
During his college course Wyman had become the victim
of a pulmonary affection which kept him an invalid, and
eventually caused his death. In his many journeys seeking
health, and to escape New England winters, he was not idle.
Each excursion was employed in some scientific investigation
and in adding some new treasure to his life's work.
In 1866 George Peabody of London founded at Harvard
an archaeological and ethnological museum which to-day
bears the name of Peabody. From the funds then available
there was created the position of Curator, and Jeffries Wyman
was asked to accept the office. He shared with Louis Agassiz
the labors of the Faculty of the Museum of Comparative Zo-
ology. From 1856 until 1870 he held the office of president
of the Boston Society of Natural History. He joined this
Society in October, 1837. He was Recording Secretary
1839-41, Curator of Icthyology and Herpetology 1841-47,
of Herptology 1847-55, of Comparative Anatomy 1855-74.
In 1857 he was chosen president of the American Association
for the Promotion of Science, but did not serve. He was
councillor in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences,
and a member of the Faculty of the Museum of Comparative
Anatomy. His death occurred at Bethlehem. New Hamp-
shire, on September 4, 1874.
As a physician there is nothing to say concerning the life
and labors of Jeffries Wyman. Like his colleagues, Agassiz
and Gray, he early found that a life's best work may be done
in channels other than those first entered. A gentle manner,
a pleasant smile, keen observation, logical reasoning, a love
818 HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL
of work, and the power to express the truth of his convictions
marked him as a man who would have succeeded in practice.
A life of practice, however, does not always satisfy the
scientific mind. Jeffries Wyman had natural gifts of acute-
ness and accuracy of observation, deep penetration, fine power
of definition, and a modesty and generosity which admirably
fitted him for the labor of his choice. He developed such
traits at an early age. Here is the tribute of a fellow-student*
at Exeter when Wyman was a lad of fourteen, — playful,
frank, generous, a child of nature rather than a student of
books :
" He would take long rambles in the woods, and go into the water and
a-fishing, and draw funny outline-sketches in his school-books, and whittle
out gimcracks with his penknife, and pitch stones or a ball farther and
higher than anybody in the academy, when he ought to have been study-
ing his lessons. Only a few years ago, when we were chattering together
about our early life at Exeter and in college, he said in his frank and
simple way, with a laugh and half a sigh, ' Bowen, I made a great mis-
take in so neglecting distasteful studies, though you may think I made up
for it by following the bent of my inclination for catching and dissecting
bull-frogs ; I have been obliged, even of late years, to study hard on
some subjects distinct from and yet collateral with my special pursuits,
which I ought to have mastered in my boyhood.' The boy was very like
the man, only with age, as was natural, he became more earnest, per-
sistent and methodical."
Wyman's earliest publication is "On the Indistinctness of
Images Formed by Oblique Rays of Light," published in
1837.1 His contributions to science during the remaining
thirty-seven years of his life embrace a wide range of sub-
jects :§ Anatomy, human and comparative; physiological ob-
servations ; microscopical researches ; paleontological and eth-
* Professor Francis Bowen.
f " Boston Medical and Surgical Journal. Sept. 1837.
§ Catalogue of Scientific Papers compiled and published by the Royal
Society of London 111 the year 1863 contains 64 papers by Professor
Wyman, and four others with associates.
EMINENT ALUMNI 819
nological studies of fossils and relics ; notices of the habits of
animals; fossil rain-drop impressions; and upon questions re-
lating to the planes and angles of the cells of bees. In his
''Observations on Crania," as well as in his description of
the arrangement of the spiculae of bone in the neck of the
femur, are valuable contributions to histology and compar-
ative anatomy. The drawings in these, as well as the various
illustrations used in his other works, exhibit skill and clear-
ness of a high order. His description of the brain and skull
of Daniel Webster, and his original account of a fracture of
the two lower lumbar vertibrae dependent on their anatomical
peculiarities, have practical interest. In the Webster murder
trial his evidence relating to bones which had been submitted
to great heat, and his restoration of the fragments, is a mas-
terpiece of medico-legal testimony. It was no small honor
to have Holmes say of him: "It need hardly be said that,
while he did not concentrate his attention chiefly on human
anatomy, few of those who teach that branch alone are as
thoroughly masters of it as he was."f
Wyman's convincing exposition of the true nature of the
so-called sea-serpent, Hydrarchus Sillimani, made him famous
outside of the profession. In comparative anatomy his trea-
tise on "The Nervous System of Rana Pipiens," and on "The
Embryology of Raia Batis" are notable. Under this head
one observes his papers on the gorilla, which owes to him its
famous name and introduction to the scientific world ; papers
on the eye and organ of hearing in the "blind fishes" of the
Mammoth Cave of Kentucky ; on the passage of nerves across
the median line; on a thread-worm in the brain of the snail-
bird.
In physiological research his long series of experiments on
f Memoir of Professor Jeffries Wyman," by Oliver Wendell Holmes.
Massachusetts Historical Proceedings, vol. xiv, from which much of this
sketch is taken.
820 HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL
the formation of infusoria in boiled solutions of organic mat-
ter contained in hermetically-sealed vessels was an important
contribution to biogenesis. Other contributions were his ob-
servations on the development of mould in the interior of
eggs; the effects of heated water on living organisms; the
effect of light on the development of tadpoles ; his contrivance
for measuring the velocity and force of ciliary movements,
and his ingenious explanation of the mechanism of the tibio-
tarsal joint in the ostrich. His great work in this department
was the "Description of a Double Foetus." His article on
the symmetry and homology of limbs was the first of a long
series of similar papers by various observers since that time.
From his physiological papers one learns something of his
natural history work. In 1857 he visited Dutch Guiana in
order to study the method of gestation of certain species of
fishes there. In "Notes on the Cells of the Bee" one finds him
controverting much that hitherto had been generally accepted.
As Curator of the Peabody Museum he carefully arranged,
labeled and classified that great variety of specimens illus-
trating ever}' grade of change through which the human form
has passed. This work occupied many of his later years.
We have seen in the story of the Medical School the appre-
ciation of Wyman by one of Boston's generous citizens,
Thomas Lee. Other men helped the College directly by con-
tributing collections for the museum. All unite in describing
Jeffries Wyman as a man of the most amiable and unselfish
disposition, given neither to jealousy nor disputation, and
with a natural modesty which often was a barrier to the rec-
ognition of his merits. Few scientists and lovers of their kind
have left a sweeter memory to posterity than has this phy-
sician.
One should mention especially Wyman's course of twelve
lectures on Comparative Physiology, delivered in 1849 before
the Lowell Institute. These were illustrated with that clear-
EMINENT ALUMNI 821
ness, method and soundness which came to be characteristic
of him as a teacher. His brother, Morrill Wyman, says of
him:
'He early showed an interest in natural history. When less than ten
years old he spent half his holidays in solitary walks along the banks of
the Charles River and the margin of the creek near the Asylum, to pick
up from the sedge anything of interest that might be driven ashore. It
was seldom that he returned from these walks without something either
dead or alive as a reward of his search. In college the same preferment
continued, and although he did not neglect the prescribed course, he made
many dissections and some skeletons, especially one of a mammoth bull-
frog, once an inhabitant of Fresh Pond, which was a subject of much