JOHN BARNARD SWETT JACKSON. 347 



work that a distinguished Philadelphia Professor spoke, as the most 

 important contribution yet made in America to pathological anatomy. 



In 1847, he was appointed to the Chair of Pathological Anatomy 

 in the Medical School of Harvard University, a new professorship 

 created and endowed by the liberality of the late Dr. George Cheyne 

 Shattuck, with express reference to its being conferred upon Dr. Jack- 

 son. With this office was joined that of Curator of the Warren Ana- 

 tomical Museum. This collection, which had been formed by the late 

 Dr. John Collins Warren, in the midst of the incessant cares and labors 

 of a great practice, contained much that was of value, but absolutely 

 required the most complete revision and reorganization. To this 

 work Dr. Jackson devoted himself with his usual energy. Every 

 specimen was carefully examined, its proper preservation attended to, 

 its fitting display obtained by readjustment, its history sought out, — 

 in short, the same loving care bestowed upon it as had been lavished 

 on the specimens which belonged to the collection he had himself 

 brought together and labored over with paternal devotion. He re- 

 tained the office of Curator until the time of his death, and it was on 

 returning from his work-room in the Medical College that he com- 

 plained of t-he first symptoms of the disease which in a week's time 

 brought his labors with his life to a close. For the last few years he 

 had not lectured, but his time was still given without stint to caring 

 for and building up the Warren Museum with which he had incor- 

 porated so much of his time aud toil. 



In addition to the two important volumes which I have mentioned, 

 Dr. Jackson published a very large number of separate communica- 

 tions to the Medical Journals, and left behind him a great mass of 

 manuscripts. His recorded cases are two thousand and sixty-two in 

 number. The first autopsy entry was in 1830, the last was in 1869. 

 These records fill five large quartos of nine hundred pages each, and 

 seven small quartos of five hundred pages each, all in his own small 

 and compact handwriting. These he had reviewed and tabulated, 

 with the intention of making them more valuable and probably of 

 publishing them. Those who know his fidelity, his patience, his keen- 

 ness of observation, his scrupulous accuracy, will feel assured that, if 

 this labor is completed by those who come after him, he will need no 

 other monument. 



He diversified his heavier work with pleasant excursions into the 

 field of comparative anatomy. He dissected an elephant, a spermaceti 

 whale, a rhinoceros, a male and female dromedary, a horse, and 

 very numerous lesser animals, often detectiug some point which others 



