DISSECTION IN MEDICAL SCHOOLS OF NEW ENGLAND 207 



ous, bright and cheerful in disposition. He was successful in 

 robbing the material of dryness, even when describing bones, 

 yet he was concise, exact, clean-cut and employed a scholarly 

 rhetoric. In other traits, he was careful, conscientious, punctual 

 and painstaking. Although he was given the last lecture hour of 

 the day, he could hold the attention and interest of a weary 

 class continuously week-after-week. As an example of his manner 

 of dressing up a statement is the following: about the female pel- 

 vis: "gentlemen! this is the triumphal arch under which every 

 candidate for immortality has to pass" (Miscellany, 1894). Ap- 

 parently, he was enthusiastic when excellent preparations were 

 made by his students. President Eliot of Harvard made the state- 

 ment that he had never "heard any other mortal exhibit such 

 enthusiasm over an elegant dissection." He rewarded his demon- 

 strators with high praise when they performed excellent work. 



As a professor of anatomy, he had a particular liking for the 

 old masters of anatomy. He was tolerant of their misconceptions, 

 caught the quaintness of them and handed them down to his 

 students ever more unique by the transmission (D wight, 1894). 

 To the pioneers, he felt we owe much and he was understanding 

 of their merits and limitations. He was able to trace the evolu- 

 tion of a theory or doctrine from a vague origin to its ultimate 

 development or collapse. Harmony was something he liked and 

 he was able to keep himself free from professional jealousies. 



All anatomical exams, given during his tenure, were of the 

 oral type and he seemed to adjust them to the individual he was 

 quizzing. At one of these, he asked William James, who later 

 became famous, to describe a small nerve in the head. When it 

 was answered correctly, Holmes said, "If you know that, you 

 know everything! Now tell me about your dear old father" (Til- 

 ton, '47). His approach to examinations was very casual which 

 probably tended to neutralize any tension built up on the part 

 of a student. On the question of admission of women in medi- 

 cine, he did not take a decided stand but voted with the majority 

 I of professors in the negative. He said he was willing to teach 

 anatomy to women, but in classes and dissecting-rooms separate 



