Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 1.djvu/550

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the details of a difficult though inter- esting study.

And how he loved anatomy! as a mother her child. He was never tired, always fresh, always eager in learning and teaching it. In earnest himself, enthusiastic, and of a happy temper- ament, he shed the glow of his ardent spirit over his followers, and gave to me, his demonstrator and assistant for eight years, some of the most at- tractive and happy hours of my life.

During that autumn, writes Prof. Dwight, I frequently recited to Dr. Holmes, and saw the great patience and interest with which he demon- strated the more difficult parts of the skeleton. In November began the dreary season of perpetual lectures, from morn- ing till night, to large classes of more or less turbulent students.

To make head against these odds he did his utmost to adopt a sprightly manner, and let no opportunity for a jest escape him. These would be re- ceived with quiet appreciation by the lower benches, and with uproarious demonstrations from the 'mountain,' where, as in the French Assembly of the Revolution, the noisiest spirits congregated. He gave his imagination full play in comparisons often charm- ing and always quaint. None but Holmes could have compared the mi- croscopical coiled tube of a sweat-gland to a fairy's intestine. Medical read- ers will appreciate the aptness of liken- ing the mesentery to the shirt ruffles of a preceding generation, which from a short line of attachment expanded into yards of complicated folds. He has compared the fibers connecting the two symmetrical halves of the brain to the band uniting the Siamese twins.

One would think, from Dr. Holmes's wonderful facility of expression, that lecturing year after year on the same subject, the lectures would have been as child's play. But I am convinced that this was not so. "You will find," said he to me at the time that I suc- ceeded him, "that the day that you

2 HOLMES

have lectured something has gone out from you." To his sensitive organiza- tion I imagine that the trials incident to the tired, and in early years more or less unruly, class were greater than his friends suspected. I remember once his telling Dr. Cheever and myself how exceedingly annoying it is to the lecturer to have any one leave the room before the close. I often marvelled at the patience he displayed.

Holmes at an early period took an interest in the microscope. He was one of the early microscopists, and was a very good one. The instrument was not among the tools of the instruct- ing physicians when he was studying in Paris, but soon afterwards it came into general use. He brought one home with him from Europe. It fascinated him, as indeed it did many another. He had a great taste for everything ingenious, and playing with this new machine devoured many an hour. He was forever taking his own to pieces and putting it together, and trying all sorts of experiments with it, both as to the mechanism itself, and as to the subjects of examination. How well I recollect the intense absorption with which he would thus pass long hours — hours which were not wasted, for "he was no mean authority on this subject in his day," says Dr. Cheever.

While a popular teacher, Holmes can scarcely be designated a scien- tific anatomist, since no discoveries, either in the field of microscopic or in that of macroscopic anatomy, are to be attributed to him. The nearest ap- proach to a contribution to histology was a paper which he read at a meet- ing of a medical society in 1851, in which he described some cells at the ends of long bones. He was, however, always ready to give lessons in the use of the microscope before its value was generally appreciated. The mechan- ical skill which he showed in this aided him in inventing a stereoscope for hand use, which was much esteemed.