EDWARD REYNOLDS, M.D. 415 



Among his schoolmates were Harrison Gray Otis, Nathaniel L. 

 Frothingham, and Edward Everett. 



He entered Harvard College in 1807, at the age of fourteen, and 

 graduated in 1811. After graduating, he tried his father's counting- 

 room for a few months, but finding himself not inclined to business 

 pursuits, gave them up and began the study of medicine witli Dr. John 

 Collins Warren, From 1815 to 1818 he continued his medical studies 

 in London and in Paris. He worked very hard, as is shown by the 

 eiglit or ten manuscript volumes of lectures copied out carefully, and all 

 carefully indexed. He was conspicuous by his stature of six feet four 

 inches, and the story is told that when a Briton was expatiating on 

 the degeneracy and diminished size of the Anglo-Saxon in America, 

 he and his companion, General McNeil, also a man of very large 

 development, rose and introduced themselves as exam[)les of the de- 

 generacy spoken of 



Having finished his studies in Europe and having been admitted as 

 Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, he returned to Boston in 

 1818, and established himself there as a practitioner. His favorite 

 branch was surgery, but his attention was called to one of its special- 

 ties by a particular circumstance. He found, on his return, that his 

 father, now sixty years old. was the subject of cataract in both eyes, 

 upon which he performed his first operation, confidently and success- 

 fully. This happy event naturally turned his attention to diseases of 

 the eye, and led others who were the subjects of them to apply to 

 him. Thus, though he never chose to be called an oculist, he was 

 largely consulted in that class of affections. Being impressed with 

 their frequency, and the difficulty of treating them properly among 

 the poor, he in conjunction with the late Dr. John Jeffries, set on foot, 

 and finally succeeded in permanently establishing, the Massachusetts 

 Eye and Ear Infirmary, now one of our most valued public institu- 

 tions. To this infirmary he devoted many years of faithful service, 

 and when, in the course of time, it passed into the care of younger 

 hands, he still retained all his interest in its welfare, and watched 

 with honest pride its growth and prosperity. 



In the year 1837, during the absence of Dr. "Warren, the Professor 

 of Anatomy and Surgery in Harvard University, Dr. Reynolds de- 

 livered the course on Anatomy, having had a very limited time for 

 preparation, but performing the task in a most acceptable manner. At 

 about the same time he joined Dr. David Humphreys Storer in a 

 plan for giving a more complete course of private instruction than had 

 hitherto been known in Boston. They associated with themselves Dr. 



