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omy and Surgei'y, the office of professor being held by his father 

 to whom he succeeded in 1818, and continued to perform the 

 duties of the office till 1847, when, at the age of 70, after a 

 service of forty years, he resigned. 



He was not the slave of habit ; no new opei'ation was an- 

 nounced, nor any new instrument invented that did not at once 

 arrest his attention. He was always ready to give novelties and 

 innovations a fair trial. His readiness to embark in the introduc- 

 tion of etherization was characteristic. As soon as the subject 

 was brought faii'ly to his notice, he improved the first opportunity 

 to make a practical use of it, and performed the first opei-ation, 

 beyond the extraction of a tooth, which it had fallen to the lot of 

 any surgeon to do, upon a patient in the condition of induced 

 ana3sthesia. He was immediately followed by others, and with a 

 rapidity previously unknown ui the history of innovations, etheri- 

 zation was adopted all over the world. To take the step which 

 he and others took, required no ordinary firmness. Now, that all 

 are familiar with it, it is not easy to go back to the position in 

 which they then stood. In weighing the probabilities, until the 

 experiment was fairly tried, it could not but have occurred to 

 those by whom this boon was conferred on mankind and to him, 

 that the lost consciousness might never return, that the deep 

 sleep which they had induced might be the sleep of death. 



As a human anatomist, a pupil of Chaussier, he had taken for 

 his model the French standard of descriptive anatomy. His 

 lectures, whether on Anatomy or Surgery, were always conducted 

 with great method, and were strictly demonstrative. He appre- 

 ciated the value of comparative anatomy, and introduced it as far 

 as practicable into his lectures. 



While Professor of Anatomy, he devoted much time, labor, 

 and money to the formation of a museum, which, on his resigna- 

 tion, was presented to the Massachusetts Medical College, and 

 with it a handsome endowment for its care and increase. Under 

 the scientific direction of its present faithful and indefatigable 

 Curator, it has become one of the most useful anatomical mu- 

 seums in the country, and is the best visible monument to the 

 memory of its founder. 



An important service rendered by Dr. Warren to science, and 

 which should not be overlooked, was the effort he made in behalf 



