174 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE 



August, 1861, he married Anna "Williams Whitney, who died in February, 1864, shortly 

 after the birth of an only and a surviving son. 



Of his later days, of the slow, yet all too rapid progress of fatal pulmonary disease, it 

 is needless to protract the story. Winter after winter, as he exchanged our bleak climate 

 for that of Florida, we could only hope that he might return. Spring after spring he 

 came back to us invigorated, thanks to the bland air and the open life in boat and tent, 

 which acted like a charm; — thanks, too, to the watchful care of his attached friend, 

 Mr. Peabody, his constant companion in Florida life. One winter was passed in Europe, 

 partly in reference to the Archaeological Museum, partly in hope of better health ; but no 

 benefit was received. The past winter in Florida produced the usual amelioration, and 

 the amount of work which Dr. Wyman undertook and accomplished last summer might 

 have tasked a robust man. There were important accessions to the archaeological collec- 

 tions, upon which much labor, very trying to ordinarj^ patience, had to be expended. 

 And in the last interview I had with him, he told me that he had gone through his own 

 museum of comparative anatomy, which had somewhat suffered in consequence of the 

 alterations in Boylston Hall, and had put the whole into perfect order. It was late in 

 August when he left Cambridge for his usual visit to the White Mountain region, by 

 which he avoided the autumnal catarrh ; and there, at Bethlehem, New Hampshire, on 

 the 4th of September, a severe hemorrhage from the lungs suddenly closed his valuable 

 life. 



Let us tiirn to his relations with this Society. He entered it in October, 18-37, just 

 thirty-seven years ago, and shortly after he had taken his degree of Doctor in Medicine. 

 He was Recording Secretary from 1839 to 1841 ; Curator of Ichthyology and Herpetol- 

 ogy from 1841 to 1847, of Herpetology from 1847 to 1855, of Comparative Anatomy 

 from 1865 to 1874. While in these latter years his duties may have been almost nominal, 

 it should be remembered that in the earlier days a curator not only took charge of his 

 portion of the Museum, but in a great degree created it. Then for fourteen years, from 

 1856 to 1870, he was the President of this Society, as assiduous in all its duties as he was 

 wise in council ; and he resigned the chair which he so long adorned and dignified only 

 when the increasing delicacy of his health, to which night-exposure was prejudicial, made 

 it unsafe for him any longer to undertake its duties. The record shows that he has made 

 here one hundred and five scientific communications, several of them very important 

 papers, every one of some positive value ; for you all know that Prof Wyman never 

 spoke or wrote except to a direct purpose, and because there was something which it was 

 worth while to communicate. He bore his part also in the American Academy of Arts 

 and Sciences, of which he was a Fellow from the year 1843, and for many years a Coun- 

 cillor. To it he made a good number of communications ; among them one of the long- 

 est and ablest of his memoirs. 



Dr. Gray then went on to give a brief account of Prof. Wyman's scientific work, as 

 recorded in his published j^i^pers which have appeared in the Journal and Proceedings of 

 this Society, in the Proceedings of the American Academy, in the Boston Medical Jour- 

 nal, in Sillimau's Journal and in the Smithsonian Contributions. Of several of them he 

 presented interesting analyses which may be found in the published records of the meet> 

 ing. After notice of what he had done Dr. Gray continued his remarks as foUows : 



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