CHARLKS SEDGWICK MIXOT. 841 



He was a member of a lar<,'e and well known lainily, witlrinherited 

 wealth and distinguished in useful serviee. The usual course for a 

 boy in his social class would have been to go through Har\ard College 

 and it is uncertain why he went to the Institute of Technology instead. 

 The Institute had but recently been foundcfl, it was just enterini^^ 

 upon the great career which it has attained, and had the glamour of a 

 new enterprise. At that time Minot could not have obtained in the 

 Institute much stimulation in the study of natural science which 

 from boyhood he had enthusiastically followed. He had alread\-. 

 at the age of sixteen, made his appearance in scientific literature In 

 the description of the male of Hesperia Metea, a small butterfly cap- 

 tured in Dorchester and of especial interest because only the female 

 of the species had been previously found. He deri^•ed probably a 

 great stimulus from the meetings of the Boston Society of Natural 

 History, which he regularly attended and took part in the discussions. 

 He graduated from the Institute in 1872, at the age of twenty. The 

 influence of the training he acquired at the Institute can be seen in 

 his later life by the interest he had in mechanics and which led him to 

 devise a number of laboratory instruments, among them the well 

 known Minot microtome, which were characterized by simplicity of 

 structure and admirable adaptation to the end in view. The micro- 

 tome made it possible to cut thin serial sections of organs and is now, 

 with slight and unimportant modifications, the instrument almost 

 uni^■e^sally used for this purpose. 



After graduating from the Institute he studied for a time with 

 Agassiz, but he found the most congenial atmosphere in the laboratory 

 of his friend, Henry Bowditch, who had returned from Europe in 1S71 

 and established the first physiological laboratory in this country. 

 Minot was his first research student and found in the older man both 

 a congenial friend and an enthusiastic teacher. The period was one 

 in which teaching in medical science with the laboratory as a basis 

 was just beginning in this country. Pre^'ious to this the only labora- 

 tories, if they could be called such, in connection with medical schools 

 were the dissecting rooms, and in Bowditch's laboratory the torch 

 of science which was kindled in the ardent flame of the physiological 

 laboratory in Leipzig burned brightly. His work with Bowditch 

 turned his mind into channels which he afterwards followed, his earl\- 

 interest in form and structure being never lost, although modified by 

 his study in physiology of the phenomena of life. In 1874 he pub- 

 lished, in collaboration with Bowditch, a paper on the influence of 

 anaesthetics on the vasomotor system, and in 187(3 a short paper on 

 transfusion and autotransfusion. 



