INTRODUCTORY NOTE 



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES was born in Cambridge, Massachu- 

 setts, August 29, 1809, and educated at Phillips Academy, An- 

 dover, and Harvard College. After graduation, he entered the 

 Law School, but soon gave up law for medicine. He studied 

 first in Boston, and later spent two years in medical schools in 

 Europe, mainly in Paris. On his return he began to practise in 

 Boston, but in two years he was appointed professor of anatomy 

 at Dartmouth College, a position which he held from 1838 to 

 1840, when he again took up his Boston practise. It was soon 

 after this, in 1843, that he published his essay on the "Contagious' 

 ness of Puerperal Fever," his only contribution of high distinction 

 to medical science. From 1847 to 1882 he was Parktnan professor 

 of anatomy and physiology in the Harvard Medical School. He 

 died in Boston, October 7, 1804. 



In spite of the importance of the paper here printed, Holmes's 

 reputation as a scientist was overshadowed by that won by him 

 as a wit and a man of fetters. When he was only twenty-one 

 his "Old Ironsides 1 ' brought him into notice; and through his 

 poetry and fiction, and the sparkling talk of the "Breakfast 

 Table" series, he took a high place among the most distinguished 

 group of writers that America has yet produced. 



