Life of Oliver Wendell HolmesBrown, E. E. (Emma Elizabeth)
General
Life of Oliver Wendell Holmes
Brown, E. E. (Emma Elizabeth)
Authors, American -- 19th century -- Biography; Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 1809-1894
"With thankfulness for the past, with reasonable satisfaction in the
present, and with joyful hope in the future, the medical faculty
celebrate this anniversary festival, welcoming their guests, thanking
their benefactors, and exchanging with their colleagues, their students,
and the governing boards mutual congratulations and good wishes as the
school sets bravely out upon its second century."
At the close of his address President Eliot turned to the large
audience, and said:
"I have now the pleasure of presenting to you our oldest professor and
our youngest; our man of science, and our man of letters; our teacher
and our friend, Doctor Holmes."
From the delightful and characteristic address of Doctor Holmes, we are
permitted to give the following extracts:
"We are in the habit of counting a generation as completed in thirty
years, but two lives cover a whole century by an easy act of memory. I,
who am now addressing you, distinctly remember the Boston practitioner
who walked among the dead after the battle of Bunker Hill, and pointed
out the body of Joseph Warren among the heaps of the slain. Look forward
a little while from that time to the period at which this medical school
was founded. Eight years had passed since John Jeffries was treading the
bloody turf on yonder hillside. The independence of the United States
had just been recognized by Great Britain. The lessons of the war were
fresh in the minds of those who had served as military surgeons. They
knew what anatomical knowledge means to the man called upon to deal with
every form of injury to every organ of the body. They knew what fever
and dysentery are in the camp, and what skill is needed by those who
have to treat the diseases more fatal than the conflicts of the
battlefield. They know also, and too well, how imperfectly taught were
most of those to whom the health of the whole community was
entrusted....
"And now I will ask you to take a stride of half a century, from the
year 1783 to the year 1833. Of this last date I can speak from my own
recollection. In April, 1833, I had been more than two years a medical
student attending the winter lectures of this school, and have therefore
a vivid recollection of the professors of that day. I will only briefly
characterize them by their various merits, not so much troubling myself
about what may have been their short-comings. The shadowy procession
moves almost visibly by me as I speak: John Collins Warren, a cool and
skilful operator, a man of unshaken nerves, of determined purpose, of
stern ambition, equipped with a fine library, but remarkable quite as
much for knowledge of the world as for erudition, and keeping a steady
eye on professional and social distinctions, which he attained and
transmitted.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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