12 



spring, he began the study of medicine under Dr. John C. 

 Dalton, who had succeeded to his father's practice at Chelms- 

 ford, but who soon removed to the adjacent and thriving 

 town of Lowell. Here, and with his father at the McLean 

 Asylum, and at the Medical College in Boston, he passed two 

 years of profitable study. At the commencement of the 

 third year he was elected house-student in the Medical 

 Department, at the Massachusetts General Hospital, — then 

 under the charge of Doctors James Jackson, John Ware 

 and Walter Channing — a responsible position, not only most 

 advantageous for the study of disease, but well adapted to 

 sharpen a young man's power of observation. 



In 1837, after receiving the degree of Doctor of Medicine, 

 he cast about among the larger country towns for a field in 

 which to practice his profession. Fortunately for science he 

 found no opening to his mind ; so he took an office in Bos- 

 ton, on Washington Street, and accepted the honorable, but 

 far from lucrative post of Demonstrator of Anatomy under 

 Dr. John C. Warren, the Hersey Professor. His means were 

 very slender, and his life abstemious to the verge of priva- 

 tion ; for he was unwilling to burden his father, who, in- 

 deed, had done all he could in providing for the education of 

 two sons. It may be interesting to know that, to eke out his 

 subsistence, he became at this time a member of the Boston 

 Fire Department, under an appointment of Samuel A. Eliot, 

 Mayor, dated Sept. 1, 1838. He was assigned to Engine 

 No. 18. The rule was that the first-comer to the engine- 

 house should bear the lantern, and be absolved from other 

 work. Wyman lived near by, and his promptitude generally 

 saved him from all severer labor than that of enlightening 

 his company. 



