496 JEFFRIES WYMAN. 



JEFFRIES WYMAN. 



Jeffries "Wyman was elected a Fellow of the Academy in 1843. 

 In 18;3o he was made a Councillor in Class TI., and continued to serve 

 the Academy in this capacity until the Annual Meeting previous to 

 the sudden close of his useful life on the 4th of September last. 



At the time of his birth, Aug. 11, 1814, his parents were residing in 

 Chelmsford, Mass., where his father was a practising physician. The 

 latter. Dr. Riifus Wyman, was born in Woburn, Mass., and was a 

 graduate of Harvard in the class of 1799. His mother was Ann 

 Morrill, of Boston. Jeffries, who was the third son, was named for 

 his father's friend, Dr. John Jeffries, of Boston. When he was but 

 four years old, his parents moved to Charlestown, as his father had 

 received the appointment of physician to the McLean Asjdum for the 

 Insane. Jeffries obtained the rudiments of his education at a jjrivate 

 school in Charlestown, but soon 'entered the academy in Chelmsfoi'd 

 where he remained until 182G, when he was sent to Phillips Academy 

 in Exeter and was there fitted for college. Entering Harvard in 1829, 

 he graduated in 1833 in a class of fifty-six, of which number Jeffries 

 "Wyman and five others were afterwards called to professorships in the 

 University. 



During his senior year in college he had a severe attack of pneu- 

 monia, which, probably, was the beginning of the pulmonary trouble 

 that in after life became so serious an obstacle. His life was finally 

 terminated by a sudden hemorrhage while he was at Bethlehem, New 

 Hampshire, where he had gone to escape the autumnal catari-h with 

 which he was affected when he remained in Cambridse during that 

 period of the year. 



Owing to his poor health he was often compelled to make distant 

 journeys, in order to avoid the harshness of the New England climate. 

 The first of these was to the Southern States, in the winter of 1833-34. 

 Returning from this trip, he began the study of medicine under the 

 direction of Dr. John C. Dalton, of Chelmsford, and his father at the 

 McLean Asylum. Entering the Medical College in Boston, he was 

 soon elected house-student in the Medical Department at tlie IMassa- 

 chusetts General Hospital. He received his degree of Doctor of Medi- 

 cine in 1837, presenting as his thesis a treatise upon the eye, which, 

 probably, was the basis of his first publication in the Boston INIedical 

 and Surgical Journal of September, of the same year, imder the title 

 of " Indistinctness of Images formed by Oblique Rays of Light." 



Not finding a suitable opening for the practice of his profession, he 



