Topic: Oliver Wendell Holmes

Oliver Wendell Holmes 1809-94, American author and physician, b. Cambridge, Mass., grad. Harvard (B.A., 1829; M.D., 1836); father of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. He began his medical career as a general practitioner but shifted into the academic field, becoming professor of anatomy and physiology at Dartmouth (1838-40), dean of the Harvard medical school (1847-53), and Parkman professor of anatomy and physiology at Harvard (1847-82). A stimulating and popular speaker, he published two important medical lectures, one in opposition to the practice of homeopathy and the other on the nature of fevers.... Read more