LINNEAN SOCIETY OF LONDON. IxXl 



scholarsliip, but was fond of chemistry, and his preference for 

 anatomical studies was then already developed. Some of his 

 companions rememher the interest wliich was excited among tliem 

 by a skeleton which lie made of a mammoth bull-frog, supposed 

 to be one of those still preserved in his museum of compara- 

 tive anatomy. His skill and taste in drawing, as well as his habit 

 of close observation of natural objects, were manifested even in 

 boyhood. 



An attack of pneumonia during his last year in college caused 

 much anxiety, and perhaps laid the foundation of the pulmonary 

 affection which burdened and finally shortened his life. To re- 

 cover from the effects of the attack and to guard against its re- 

 turn, he made, in the winter of 1833-31, the first of those pilgri- 

 mages to the coast of the Southern States which in later years 

 were so often repeated. Returning with strength renewed in the 

 course of the following spring, he began the study of medicine, 

 and about two years afterwards he was elected house-student in 

 the Medical department, at the Massachusetts G-eneral Hospital, 

 a responsible position, advantageous for the study of disease, and 

 well adapted to sharpen a young man's power of observation. 



In 1837, after receiving the degree of Doctor of Medicine, he 

 looked about among the larger country towns for a field in which 

 to practice his profession. Fortunately for science, he found no 

 opening to his mind ; so he took an office in Boston and accepted 

 the honourable, but far from lucrative, post of Demonstrator of 

 Anatomy under Dr. John C. Warren, theHersey Professor. His 

 means were very slender, and his life abstemious to the verge of 

 privation ; for he was unwilling to burden his father, who, indeed, 

 had done all he could in providing for the education of two sons. 



The turning-point in his life, i. e. an opportunity which he 

 could seize of devoting it to science, came when Mr. John A. 

 Lowell offered him the Curatorship of the Lowell Institute, then 

 just brought into operation. He delivered a course of twelve 

 lectures upon Comparative Anatomy and Physiology in the winter 

 of 1840-41 ; and with the money earned by this first essay in in- 

 structing others, he went to Europe to seek further instruction 

 ior himself He reached Paris in May, 1841, and studied Human 

 Anatomy at the School of Medicine, and Comparative Anatomy 

 and Natural History at the Garden of Plants. Later in the year 

 he went to London, but was recalled by the illness of his father, 

 who died before Dr. Wyman reached Halifiix. 



