I 



206 HUMAN DISSECTION. ITS DRAMA AND STRUGGLE 



allotting bodies for dissection to any other person or organization 

 during their academic sessions. 



Although Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894), who suc- 

 ceeded John C. Warren, has been classified as a man of letters, 

 rather than a great anatomist, there were certain events which 

 transpired during his academic career at Harvard Medical School 

 worthy of mention. He served as chairman and professor of 

 anatomy between 1847 and 1882. Prior to that he held the same 

 titles at Dartmouth, 1838-1840; spending fourteen weeks there 

 annually at a salary of $400. Of the many events in his productive 

 life, only those relating to his anatomical career will be chronicled. 



Holmes described his introduction to medical school as fol- 

 lows: "I have been going to Massachusetts General Hospital and 

 slicing and slivering the carcasses of better men and women thanj 

 I ever was myself or am like to be. It is a sin for a puny little 

 fellow like me to mutilate one of your six-foot men as if h 

 were sheep, but vive la science" (Knox, '07). This was during 

 the fall of 1830 when he was twenty-one years of age. In the 

 spring of 1833, he went to Paris to complete his medical educa- 

 tion where he made further human dissections; there he found 

 that subjects were easily obtained and cheap. He paid 50 sous 

 for one, about 50 cents in the then prevailing currency, and he 

 said that it could be cut into one-inch pieces by nightfall. Speci- 

 mens were also available, upon which, surgeons in training coulcj 

 perform trial operations. It was not a trifling matter to be a 

 medical student in Paris, he found. Before breakfast each morn- 

 ing, he was required to attend an hour and a half lecture followed 

 by a tedious dissection. To give an idea of the scope of the an^ 

 atomizing rooms at the flcole de MMicine, he said they would 

 accommodate 600 students. He was so much impressed with the 

 spaciousness and cleanliness there that he mentioned, by contrast 

 the "little infernal, suffocating holes in which the unhappy native 

 of our uncivilized land is often obliged to pursue his labors" 

 (Tilton, '47). 



By some, he was not regarded as a great anatomist but as 

 probably the best lecturer in the country on the subject. In the 

 latter respect, his students remembered him as being witty, humor- 



