498 JEFFRIES "WYMAN. 



Professor of Anatomy at Harvard, which position he filled at the time 

 of his death, though on account of his feeble health the college had 

 relieved him from the duties of instruction for several years precedino-, 

 and, thanks to the thoughtfulness of the late Thomas Lee and the late 

 Dr. W. J. Walker, his life from 1856 was made free from pecuniary 

 difficulties, and his mind was relieved from the anxieties which narrow 

 means had caused ; but throughout all his trials he worked on with 

 a cheerful, uncomplaining spirit, and, though not ambitious in the 

 general acceptance of the term, he was always full of hope and faith. 



On accepting the chair at Harvard, he at once began the formation 

 of the perfect little IMuscum of Anatomy and Physiology, to which 

 ho added the results of all his anatomical work. Only once, durincc 

 the several years of very fi-equent and coi-dial intercourse which the 

 writer was so fortunate as to have with Professor Wyman, both in 

 the laboratory and by the camp fire, was any thiug heard from his lijDS 

 that was contrary to his usual hopefulness ; and this occurred after 

 a protracted absence from his museum, when, going to a case to look 

 up a special preparation he had made many years before, in order 

 to illusti-ate a subject which had been brought to his notice, he 

 pointed to a few preparations that had been misplaced during his ab- 

 sence and to the dust that had collected in the cases, and asked, in a 

 grieved tone of voice, if there was any use in making anatomical col- 

 lections, and if, after all, it was not work thrown away. He then 

 instanced a once famous European Anatomical Museum, and said that 

 during his last trip abroad he had hunted in vain for preparations 

 which he had seen in their perfection duriug his first visit. "Then," 

 he said, " the man who made them was alive, but on my last visit he 

 had been dead several years." Let us trust that the gems, which he 

 has left as examples of his delicate manii)ulation for the instruction 

 of others, will receive the care in their new depository which he would 

 have given had a similar collection been placed in his charge, when 

 he was an active curator of the society which has assumed the trust. 



pjver ready, in his quiet and faithful manner, to do his part towards 

 advancing the interests of science, we find that Dr. Wymcn was an 

 active curator of the Boston Society of jN'atural- History for many 

 yeai's after his return from his first European trip, and that he was 

 continued as Curator of Comparative Anatomy during the time, and 

 for several years after, he was President of the Society, which last 

 office he held from 1856 to 1870, when the condition of his health 

 was such that he could no longer take a constant part in the meetings, 

 and he resigned his position. 



