"Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul": Seven Poems by America's Poet-Physician, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts on August 29, 1809. Oliver later reminisced about the honor and humility of his birth year in a letter to Alfred, Lord Tennyson [August 6, 1809-October 6, 1892] dated February 2^nd, 1890:

“All the world honours and praises you, and I am a part of that world. But besides that I am interested in you for one reason which very few others can assign. I had the honour of following you into atmospheric existence at an interval of only twenty-three days, having been born on the twenty-ninth of August 1809. I am proud of my birth-year and humbled when I think of who were and who are my coevals, Darwin the destroyer and creator, Lord Houghton the pleasant and kind-hearted lover of men of letters, Gladstone whom I leave it to you to characterise, but whose vast range of intellectual powers few will question, Mendelssohn, whose music still rings in our ears. . .” [Baron Hallam Tennyson, Alfred Lord Tennyson: A Memoir by his Son, p. 374]

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NOTES:

Charles Robert Darwin [February 12, 1809-April 19, 1882] was an English naturalist whose theory of evolution through natural selection was presented in one of the nineteenth century’s most famous books, On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection [London: John Murray, 1859].

William Ewart Gladstone [December 29, 1809-May 19, 1898] was a British statesman who at four terms holds the record as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. One of his special concerns was the plight of London’s prostitutes. On his walks about London, even as Prime Minister, he encouraged streetwalkers to give up their profession and seek rehabilitation.

Felix Mendelssohn [February 3, 1809-November 4, 1847] was a German musical prodigy whose compositions found great success in Great Britain as well as throughout Europe. Felix’s successful arrangement and conducting, at age 20 in 1829, of the first performance of St. Matthew Passion since its composer Johann Sebastian Bach’s death in 1750, was instrumental both in securing Felix’s reputation and in reviving interest in Bach’s music throughout Europe.

Richard Monckton Milnes, 1^st Baron Houghton [June 19, 1809-August 11, 1885] was concerned as a politician with the conditions in reformatory schools and with copyright issues. A poet and writer in his own right, Lord Houghton was also a patron of literature who generously championed the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson [May 25, 1803-April 27, 1882], Algernon Charles Swinburne [April 5, 1837-April 10, 1909], and Alfred Lord Tennyson [August 6, 1809-October 6, 1892]. Among his critical literary works was Life and Letters of Keats, which posthumously brought about the ever-widening appreciation of and respect for the forever-young poet’s works that were not achieved in Keat’s brief lifetime. Life and Letters was based mainly on information from Charles Armitage Brown [April 14, 1787-June 5, 1842], best friend of John Keat’s [October 31, 1795-February 23, 1821].

Alfred, Lord Tennyson [August 6, 1809-October 6, 1892] succeeded William Wordsworth [April 7, 1770-April 23, 1850] as Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom in 1850. Holding the position until his death in 1892, Alfred holds the record for length of service as UK's Poet Laureate.

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Oliver’s birthplace, known as the Old Gambrel-roofed House, was located on Cambridge Common, now a public park near Harvard Square. The house was torn down in 1862.

Decades later Oliver recalled the historical and personal significance of his birthplace:

“. . . the old house was General Ward’s headquarters at the breaking out of the Revolution; that the plan for fortifying Bunker’s Hill was laid, as commonly believed, in the southeast lower room, the floor of which was covered with dents, made, it was alleged, by the butts of the soldiers’ muskets. In that house, too, General Warren probably passed the night before the Bunker Hill battle, and over its threshold must the stately figure of Washington have often cast its shadow.

“But the house in which one drew his first breath, and where he one day came into the consciousness that he was a personality, an ego, a little universe with a sky over him all his own, with a persistent identity, with the terrible responsibility of a separate, independent, inalienable existence, --- that house does not ask for any historical associations to make it the centre of the earth for him” [Oliver Wendell Holmes, A Mortal Antipathy, p. 35]

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NOTES:

Artemas Ward [November 26, 1727-October 28, 1800] served as a Major General, second in command to George Washington, in the American Revolutionary War and held state judicial as well as both state and federal legislative positions.

Joseph Warren [June 11, 1741-June 17, 1775] was an American doctor who sent William Dawes Jr. [April 5, 1745-February 25, 1799] and Paul Revere [bap. January 1, 1735-May 10, 1818] on April 18, 1775, on their famous Midnight Ride warnings of approaching British troops for the Battles of Lexington and Concord [April 19, 1775]. Several months later on June 14, 1775, Joseph was appointed Major General by the Massachusetts provisional government. Against the wishes of Major General Israel Putnam [January 7, 1718-May 29, 1790] and Colonel William Prescott [February 20, 1726-October 13, 1795], Joseph volunteered to fight as a private soldier in the Battle of Bunker Hill, which took place three days later on June 17^th. Joseph died there from a musket ball shot in the head.

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Law School and Oliver's "first attack of authors' lead-poisoning"

After graduating from Harvard College in 1829, Oliver spent one year studying law. In that same year Oliver gained overnight fame as a poet. He read in the September 14, 1830 issue of the Boston Daily Advertiser that the Secretary of the Navy was recommending the scrapping of the unseaworthy U.S.S. Constitution, popularly known as Old Ironsides. In “an impromptu outburst of feeling” [The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, p. 4], Oliver immediately composed a poem, “Old Ironsides,” in which he effectively observed that it would be

“. . . better that her shattered hulk should sink beneath the wave . . . and give her to the god of storms, the lightning and the gale”

than to dismantle the battle-scarred, aging frigate into nothingness. The Advertiser published Oliver’s poem two days later. The public response to the poem was immediate, emotional, and enthusiastic. With his “impromptu outburst of feeling” Oliver saved Old Ironsides from piecemeal destruction or from burial at sea. [The historical frigate is still alive and well today in Boston harbor, pampered by her Navy crew and adored by visitors worldwide.]

Two important decisions came out of Oliver’s first year of legal study. Even though Oliver took courses with Joseph Story [September 18, 1779-September 10, 1845], a sitting Supreme Court justice [1811-1845] and Dane Professor of Law, and John Hooker Ashmun [July 3, 1800 – April 1, 1833], Royall Professor of Law [1829-1833], he decided after a year to switch to medicine. Additionally, he had “tasted the intoxicating pleasure of authorship” with the publication of his poems in a college periodical, The Collegian, as well as with the printing of “Old Ironsides” in the Boston Daily Advertiser:

“. . . there is no form of lead poisoning which more rapidly and thoroughly pervades the blood and bones and marrow than that which reaches the young author through mental contact with type—metal. Qui a bu boira, --- he who has once been a drinker will drink again, says the French proverb. So the man or woman who has tasted type is sure to return to his old indulgence sooner or later. In that fatal year I had my first attack of authors’ lead-poisoning, and I have never quite got rid of it from that day to this. But for that I might have applied myself more diligently to my legal studies, and carried a green bag in place of a stethoscope and a thermometer to the present day.” [“Farewell Address of Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes to the Medical School of Harvard University, November 28, 1882,” p. 378]

Medical School: "The skeleton, hung aloft like a gibbeted criminal, looked grimly at me. . ."

Oliver moved out of the Old Gambrel-roofed House in autumn 1830 and into a boardinghouse in Boston to begin studies in a private medical school established by Dr. Walter Channing [Professor of Midwifery and Medical Jurisprudence at Harvard Medical School], Dr. James Jackson [Professor of Theory and Practice at Harvard Medical School], Dr. Winslow Lewis, Dr. George W. Otis Jr., and Dr. John Ware [Adjunct Professor of Theory and Practice at Harvard Medical School]. He also attended medical lectures at Harvard from 1830 through 1832.

Oliver confessed to the necessity of overcoming certain sensitivities in his chosen field of study:

"I can scarcely credit my memory when I recall the first impressions produced upon me by sights afterwards become so familiar that they could no more disturb a pulse-beat than the commonest of every-day experiences. The skelton, hung aloft like a gibbeted criminal, looked grimly at me as I entered the room devoted to the students of the school I had joined . . . The white faces in the beds at the hospital found their reflection in my cheeks, which lost color as I looked upon them. All this had to pass away in a little time; I had chosen my profession, and must meet its painful and repulsive aspects until they lost their power over my sensibilities." ["Farewell Address," p. 379]

Normally the next steps after three years of courses were writing a dissertation and taking a practical examination in order to receive Harvard’s medical degree. Instead Oliver decided to expand his medical knowledge by continuing his studies abroad. He studied at l'École de Médecine [School of Medicine] in Paris from April 1833 through October 1835. Undaunted by his unfamiliarity with French, Oliver applied himself until he achieved fluency.

In 1834 he described his routine:

“Nearly five hours in the day I pass at the bedside of patients, and you may imagine that this is no trifling occupation, when I tell you that it is always with my note-book in my hand; that I often devote nearly two hours to investigating a difficult case, in order that no element can escape me, and that I have always a hundred patients under my eye.” [Reginald Fitz, “My Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes,” p. 542]

His professors there were of the highest caliber. Alexis Boyer [March 1, 1757 – November 23, 1833] was famous for his nine volumes on surgery, "whose clearness of style . . . makes it a kind of classic.” Although a “bent old man,” the illustrious Boyer diligently led students through morning visits at Hôpital de la Charité [“Charity Hospital”].

“He slashes away at a terrible rate, they say, when he gets hold of the subject of fistula in its most frequent habitat, --- but I never saw him do more than look as if he wanted to cut a good collop out a patient he was examining.” [“Farewell Address,” p. 380]

Even today Dominique Jean Larrey [July 8, 1766 – July 25, 1842] is considered the first modern military surgeon. He was the favorite surgeon of Napoleon Bonaparte [August 15, 1769 – May 5, 1821].

“To go round the Hôtel des Invalides with Larrey was to live over the campaigns of Napoleon, to look on the sun of Austerlitz, to hear the cannons of Marengo, to struggle through the icy waters of the Beresina, to shiver in the snows of the Russian retreat, and to gaze through the battle smoke upon the last charge of the red lancers on the redder field of Waterloo.” [“Farewell Address,” p. 380]

Guillaume Dupuytren [October 5, 1777 – February 8, 1835], considered the master-surgeon of his day, taught at the Hôtel-Dieu [“Hostel of God”]. Among his many achievements was the successful treatment of Napoleon’s hemorrhoids.

“He spoke in low, even tones, with quiet fluency, and was listened to with that hush of rapt attention which I have hardly seen in any circle of listeners unless when such men as ex-President John Quincy Adams or Daniel Webster were the speakers.” [“Farewell Address,” p. 380]

Pierre Charles Alexandre Louis [1787-1872], an internal pathologist at the Hôpital de la Pitié [“Hospital of Pity ”], was “. . . the favorite, almost the idol, of many students, especially Genevese and Bostonians . . .” [“Farewell Address,” p. 383] . Dr. Louis introduced the numerical method into medicine, whereby patient data contribute to medical knowledge of the symptoms and treatments of diseases. Dr. Louis emphasized that “The edifice of Medicine reposes entirely on facts. The truth cannot be elicited except from facts which have been well and carefully observed.” ["My Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes," p. 542]

Dr. Louis was a major proponent of the méthode expectante, which sees the physician’s role as aiding natural healing processes during disease recovery.

“There is one part of their business that certain medical practitioners are too apt to forget; namely, that what they should most of all try to do is to ward off disease, to alleviate suffering, to preserve life, or at least to prolong it if possible. . . . We learned that a very large proportion of diseases get well of themselves, without any special medication. . . ” [“Farewell Address,” p. 382]

Dr. Louis required that his students unlearn the “detestable practice” of “drugging for its own sake.” This practice began with English “’general practitioners,’ a sort of prescribing apothecaries” who were paid for their visits by charging for their medicine. Overly and unnecessarily prescribing drugs result from this practice:

“Wherever this is the practice, medicine is sure to become a trade, and the people learn to expect drugging, and to consider it necessary, because drugs are so universally given to the patients of the man who gets his living by them. It was something to have unlearned the pernicious habit of constantly giving poisons to a patient, as if they were good in themselves, of drawing off the blood which he would want in his struggle with disease, of making him sore and wretched with needless blisters, of turning his stomach with unnecessary nauseous draughts and mixtures, --- only because he was sick and something must be done.” [“Farewell Address,” pp. 382-383]

Oliver summarized Dr. Louis’ influence as instilling in his students “. . .the love of truth, the habit of passionless listening to the teachings of nature, the most careful and searching methods of observation, and the sure means of getting at the results to be obtained from them in the constant employment of accurate tabulation.” [“Farewell Address,” p. 383]

Oliver also joined Le Société d’Observation Médicale [Society for Medical Observation], of which Dr.Louis was made President for Life. Recently formed in 1832 by three of Dr. Louis’ students, John Bizot, Marc d’Espine [April 29, 1806-March 15, 1860], and Théodore Maunoir[June 1, 1806-April 26, 1869]. the society met frequently, with its members presenting original papers and holding serious discussions. Thus, in addition to putting in long hours daily in hospital wards and in studies, Oliver devoted many more hours to gathering

“. . . the details and laborious examination of all the organs of the body in such cases as are fatal --- the demands of a Society of which I am a member --- which in the course of two months has called on me for memoirs to the extent of thirty thick-set pages --- all in French, and almost all facts hewn out one by one from the quarry. . .” [“My Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes,” p. 542]

In October 1835 Oliver bid adieu to his Parisian haunts and returned to Boston to complete his medical studies. Writing his dissertation on acute pericarditis, he was awarded his M.D. from Harvard Medical School on February 11, 1836.

Oliver's primary medical goal was to teach at his beloved Harvard Medical School. That quest took eleven years. Along the way Oliver continued to accumulate achievements and recognition.

BOYLSTON MEDICAL PRIZES

Upon receiving his Ph.D., Oliver promptly won Harvard’s prestigious Boylston Medical Prize two years in a row with three dissertations.

In 1836 the Boylston prize topics were “How far are the external means of exploring the conditions of the internal organs to be considered useful and important in medical practice?” and “To what extent is an active medical practice useful in the common continued fevers of the country?” The August 24, 1836 issue of the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal announced that three prizes --- instead of one --- on the topic of internal organ exploration were being awarded because of an unbreakable tie for highest quality among the three finalists:

1) Dr. Luther V. Bell [December 20, 1806-February 11, 1862] of Derry, New Hampshire, who subsequently was appointed as joint physician and superintendent of McLean Asylum for the Insane in Charlestown [present-day Somerville], Massachusetts, and who already had won a Boylston Prize Medal on November 11, 1835 for his dissertation on the best diet for New England laborers

2) Dr. Robert W. Haxall of Richmond, Virginia, whose prize-winning dissertation, "A Dissertation on the Importance of Physical Signs in the Various Diseases of the Abdomen and Thorax," was subsequently reviewed by Edgar Allan Poe, who summarized:

"The chief diagnostic signs he maintains to be physical, but enters into a minute account of all the symptoms of the disorder. The Essay is embraced in a pamphlet, beautifully printed, of 108 pages." [Edgar Allan Poe, "A Dissertation on the Importance of Physical Signs in the Various Diseases of the Abdomen and Thorax by Robert W. Haxall, M.D. of Richmond, VA"]

3) Oliver, who, in over 100 clearly and carefully written pages, thoroughly scrutinized all external evaluations, such as auscultation [sense of hearing] and palpitation [sense of touch]. He also considered the topic of his Harvard Medical School Ph.D. dissertation, pericarditis, for ". . . the manner in which it has been forced to unmask itself under the eye of direct exploration." [Boylston Prize Dissertations for the Years 1836 and 1837, p. 324] Oliver took the opportunity to acknowledge his mentor, Dr. Louis' contributions that brought ". . . into light more fully the value of the signs derived from inspection and percussion, to reduce this evasive disease into the rank of those which may be confidently diagnosticated." [Boylston Prize Dissertations for the Years 1836 and 1837, p. 326]

The topics for 1837 were “What is the Nature of Neuralgia and what is the best mode of treating it?” and “To what extent, and in what places has intermittent Fever been indigenous in New England?” Oliver wrote dissertations on both topics and was awarded two Boylston Prizes, one for each dissertation. The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal observed:

“Dr. Holmes has again won two of the Boylston prize medals. It is almost useless to contend with him in an enterprise of this kind.” ["Prize Questions," August 23, 1837, Vol. XVII, p. 50]

Oliver's conscientiousness is immediately noticeable for he tackled the question on neuralgia by perfecting its definition:

". . . I propose the following definition of neuralgia. Pain in the continuity of a nervous trunk or filament; or in its expanded extremities, when unattended by, or in obvious disproportion to, any organic changes in the part to which the pain is referred." [Boylston Prize Dissertations, p. 139]

In his research on intermittent fever, Oliver devoted over 130 pages to a painstaking analysis of historical records and a comprehensive assessment of geographical and geological influences. Oliver systematically organized his findings under concise headings, such as "Testimony of earlier writers on New England" and "Evidence derived from more recent sources." His facts related "to localities upon the Atlantic shore and its inlets," "to places situated upon the large rivers and their tributaries," and "to regions bordering upon lakes and ponds." Stray factors were presented as "Facts not embraced in the foregoing divisions." The dissertation characterizes Oliver's dedication to detailed research and to fine writing. The reader does not have to be an expert in the field to enjoy and learn from Oliver's expertise.

When the dissertations were published in 1838, Oliver dedicated the publication to his revered mentor in Paris, Dr. Louis, "in the recollection of his invaluable instructions and unvarying kindness."

TREMONT MEDICAL SCHOOL

In fall 1838 Oliver joined three prestigious partners in establishing Tremont Medical School, a small medical school in Boston. His partners were Dr. Jacob Bigelow [February 7, 1787-January 10, 1879], Professor of Materia Medica at Harvard, Dr. Edward Reynolds [1793-December 25, 1881], the leading ophthalmic surgeon in New England, and Dr. David Humphreys Storer [March 26, 1804-September 10, 1891], subsequently Professor of Obstetrics at Harvard.

The curriculum was insightfully designed to dovetail with Harvard by offering sessions during Harvard’s breaks and providing courses that filled omissions in Harvard’s curriculum. Tremont adopted Harvard Medical School’s old, abandoned plan of required courses in predictable order; for example, anatomy, chemistry, physics, and pathology were taught in the first year, with the second year devoted to clinical work, and a voluntary third year for making up individual deficiencies. Tremont’s curriculum was so successful that it influenced subsequent reforms to Harvard Medical School.

PROFESSORSHIP IN ANATOMY, DARTMOUTH MEDICAL SCHOOL

Also in 1838 Oliver was offered a Professorship in Anatomy in Dartmouth College. He accepted this “very amicable appointment” [“My Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes,” p. 8]. Beginning in 1839 Oliver divided his time between Hanover, New Hampshire [where his presence was required for fourteen weeks August through September] and his beloved Boston.

MARRIAGE

At the end of the school year in 1840 Oliver resigned from his position at Dartmouth because of burgeoning professional and personal commitments in Boston and also because of his impending marriage.

Oliver married Amelia Lee Jackson [May 22, 1818-February 6, 1888] on June 15, 1840 in King's Chapel in Boston. Amelia's father was Charles Jackson [May 31, 1775-December 13, 1855], a former Associate Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. Her uncle was Dr. James Jackson [October 3, 1777-August 27, 1867], who had mentored Oliver through Harvard Medical School.

Oliver and Amelia had three children: Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. [March 8, 1841-March 6, 1935], Amelia Jackson Holmes [October 20, 1843-April 3, 1889], and Edward Jackson Holmes [October 17, 1846-July 17, 1884]. Oliver's namesake gained fame as a Supreme Court justice, trailblazing in a field that captured his father's interest for only one year.

PUERPERAL [CHILDBED] FEVER

In 1843 Oliver tackled the maelstrom issue of puerperal fever. It was also known as childbed fever because it appeared as potentially life-threatening blood poisoning [sepsis] in women during or after childbirth, miscarriage, or abortion. The medical controversy that raged for several centuries stemmed from the refusal of many medical practitioners to believe that their unhygienic practices were spreading the disease from patient to patient.

Oliver's decision to tackle this heated controversy bespeaks his endearing and enduring traits of compassion, courage, and wisdom. A leading proponent of the non-contagiousness of puerperal fever was Charles Delucena Meigs [February 19, 1792-June 22, 1869]. A renowned obstetrician, he was Professor of Midwifery and the Diseases of Women and Children at Jefferson Medical College [now Thomas Jefferson University] in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Dr. Meigs fervently argued:

"He is a gentleman who is scrupulously careful of his personal appearance, of great experience as a practitioner, and well informed as to modern opinions on the contagion of childbed fever. Still, those of you who are contagionists will say that he carried the poison from house to house; and if so, then you ought to give some rationale of the fact. Did he carry it on his hands? But a gentleman's hands are clean." [Charles D. Meigs, "Letter VI: Contagion in Childbed Fever,"].

Oliver belonged to the Boston Society for Medical Improvement, a prestigious monthly medical and social club whose members included fellow Bostonians who had studied in Paris with Oliver. Beginning in June 1842, the Society noted outbursts of puerperal fever locally as well as in New Hampshire and New York. On January 9 and 23, 1843, Dr. John Barnard Swett Jackson [June 5, 1806-January 6, 1879], a pathologist who was the first paternal cousin once removed of Oliver's wife, reported his patient's swift fatality on Sunday, January 8, after exposure to a puerperal fever victim on Monday, January 2nd: in addition to having open sores on both hands, Dr. Barker of Lynn had pricked himself at the end of the postmortem examination on the previous Monday and died at six o'clock the previous evening. The question of the contagiousness of puerperal fever was animatedly discussed, and "on the motion of Dr. Jackson it was voted that it be continued at the next meeting" on February 13, 1843, three weeks later. [Henry R. Viets, "A Mind Prepared," p. 324]

In that brief interval between meetings, Oliver wrote his medical magnum opus, "The Contagiousness of Puerperal Fever." The paper was enthusiastically received by the Society, with a voted recommendation to seek publication. Oliver's paper, "The Contagiousness of Puerperal Fever," was printed in the April issue of The New England Quarterly Journal of Medicine. A new journal with limited circulation, the journal folded withn about a year and thereby did not direct sufficient attention to Oliver's significant article.

Twelve years later in 1855 with the puerperal fever controversy still raging, Oliver published the paper with the title Puerperal Fever as Private Pestilence [Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1855] and included a stirring introduction. This time Oliver's article received widespread attention not only locally but also on both sides of the Atlantic.

Oliver's paper thoroughly and succinctly documented the historical record as well as recent widespread incidences. Oliver concisely stated his point:

"The practical point to be illustrated is the following: The disease known as Puerperal Fever is so far contagious as to be frequently carried from patient to patient by physicians and nurses."

Oliver also credited Dr. Alexander Gordon [1752-1799] of Aberdeen, Scotland, for his earlier significant but often unnoticed work, A Treatise on the Epidemic Puerperal Fever of Aberdeen. Oliver complimented thusly:

"A part of his testimony has been occasionally copied into other works, but his expressions are so clear, his experience is given with such manly distinctness and disinterested honesty, that it may be quoted as a model which might have been often followed with advantage."

Oliver was impressed particularly by Dr. Gordon's ability to predict the disease's occurrences:

"For the present I shall only remark that, by observation, I plainly perceived the channel by which it is propagated; and I arrived at the certainty in the matter, that I could venture to foretell what women would be affected with the disease, upon hearing by what midwife they were to be delivered or by what nurse they were to be attended during their lying-in; and almost in every instance my prediction was verified."

Oliver emphatically ended his controversial paper with a strong condemnation of naysayers and skeptics:

"Whatever indulgence may be granted to those who have heretofore been the ignorant causes of so much misery, the time has come when the existence of a private pestilence in the sphere of a single physician should be looked upon, not as a misfortune, but a crime; and in the knowledge of such occurrences the duties of the practitioner to his profession should give way to his paramount obligations to society." [Oliver Wendell Holmes, “The Contagious of Puerperal Fever"]

Oliver has come to be regarded as one of the pioneers in the history of the germ theory of medicine. His paper is recognized as a landmark work in the field.

When publisher P.F. Collier and Son contacted Harvard University President Charles William Eliot [March 20, 1834-August 22, 1926] about compiling an anthology of critical works from world literature, The Harvard Classics, President Eliot unhesitatingly included "The Contagiousness of Puerperal Fever." Oliver's essay shares Volume 38 with such prestigious works as "The Hippocratic Oath"; "On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals" by William Harvey [April 1, 1578-June 3, 1657]; "The Three Original Publications on Vaccination Against Smallpox" by the Father of Immunology, Edward Jenner [May 17, 1749-January 26, 1823]; "On the Antiseptic Principles of the Practice of Surgery" by antiseptic surgery pioneer Joseph Lister [April 5, 1827-February 10, 1912]; and scientific papers by one of the greatest medical researchers and one of the founders of microbiology, Louis Pasteur [December 27, 1822-September 28, 1895].

"THE STATE SHOULD, I THINK, BE CALLED ANAESTHESIA"

On September 30, 1846, a tooth was painlessly extracted from an anesthetized Boston merchant, Eben Frost, by his dentist, Dr. William Morton [August 9, 1819-July 15, 1868]. Several weeks later on October 16, 1846, a public demonstration of the wonders of ether was given in an ampitheater [now The Ether Dome] in Massachusetts General Hospital. Renowed surgeon John Collins Warren [August 1, 1778-May 4, 1856] painlessly removed a tumor from the neck of Edward Gilbert Abbot [September 2, 1825-November 27, 1855].

A little over a month later, in a letter dated November 21, 1846, to Dr. Morton, Oliver suggested the name of anesthesia for the physiological state induced by the application of ether:

"Everybody wants to have a hand in the great discovery. All I will do is give you a hint or two as to names, or the name, to be applied to the state produced, and to the agent.

"The state should, I think, be called anaesthesia. This signifies insensibility, more particularly . . . to objects of touch. The adjective will be anaesthetic. . . ."

In closing, Oliver recommended that Dr. Morton consult

". . . some accomplished scholar such as President Everett, or Dr. Bigelow, Sr., before fixing upon the terms which will be repeated by the tongues of every civilized race of mankind. You could mention these words which I suggest, for their consideration; but there may be others more appropriate and agreeable."

But, of course, there could be no more appropriate term because bons mots ["witticisms"] and mots justes ["perfect word choices"] epitomized Oliver's literary style. It was Oliver's nature to identify the essence of the issue at hand.

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NOTES:

Edward Everett [April 11, 1794-January 15, 1865] was President of Harvard University from 1846-1849.

Dr. Jacob Bigelow Sr. [February 7, 1787-January 10, 1879] was Professor of Materia Medica in Harvard Medical School as well as Rumford Professor and Professor of Botany at Harvard University. He also succeeded in establishing Mount Auburn Cemetery, the final resting place of so many of Massachusett's luminaries, including Oliver.

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BERKSHIRE MEDICAL INSTITUTION, PITTSFIELD

During the summer months Oliver gave lectures at the Berkshire Medical Institution in Pittsfield, in the western part of Massachusetts.

For seven years from 1849 to 1856 Oliver spent summers in a cottage that he built in 1848 on Holmes Road on his great-grandfather Colonel Jacob Wendell's land in Pittsfield. The area was popular with literati such as Nathaniel Hawthorne [July 4, 1804-May 19, 1864], Herman Melville [August 1, 1819-September 28, 1891], and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who journalized a visit to Oliver on August 5, 1848:

"Afternoon, drove over, to Dr. Holmes's house on the old Wendell farm; a snug little place, with views of the river and the mountains." [Samuel Longfellow, Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, With Extracts from His Journals and Correspondence, p. 64]

In January 1857 Oliver reminisced about those halcyon summers in Pittsfield:

"Seven sweet summers, the happiest of my life. I wouldn't exchange the recollection of them for a suburban villa. One thing I shall always be glad of; that I planted seven hundred trees for somebody to sit in the shade of." [J.E.A. Smith, The Poet Among the Hills: Oliver Wendell Holmes in Berkshire, p. 90]

Interestingly, the "cottage" was advertised for sale by Helen Gasparina, Roberts & Associates Realty of Lenox, Massachusetts in the January/February 2008 issue of Yankee magazine. Of the original 280 acres, only 16 remain with the cottage. Apparently Oliver's trees not only still provide shade for sitting but also shade the 15-room cottage from views of the nearby Berkshire Hills and of the Housatonic River. Oliver's cottage has been updated over the years to include an in-law cottage, an in-ground solar-heated pool, and an enclosed solarium. The house has five working fireplaces and seven bathrooms. The asking price was listed at $2.3 million 

PROFESSORSHIP OF ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY, HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL

In 1847 Oliver realized his dream when he was offered the Parkman Professorship of Anatomy and Physiology at Harvard Medical School. In accepting the position, Oliver promised, “I will do what I can to prove myself not unworthy of the good opinion implied by this choice. None of us can accept any office in our ancient University without a feeling of pleasure and pride.” [“My Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes,” p. 14]

Oliver remained on the staff of Harvard Medical School for thirty-five years. Although he felt that professors should not outlive their usefulness and that professors' knowledge needed to reflect progress in their professions, he recognized that anatomy was a discipline with a longstanding codification:

“If I myself needed an apology for holding my office so long, I should find it in the fact that human anatomy is much the same study that it was in the days of Vesalius and Fallopius, and that the greater part of my teaching was of such a nature that it could never become antiquated.” [“Farewell Address,” p. 378]

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NOTES:

Andreas Vesalius [December 31, 1514 – October 15, 1564], a sixteenth-century anatomist/physician from Brussels, authored De Humani Corporis Fabrica [On the Workings of the Human Body], one of the most important works on human anatomy. He is known as the father of modern human anatomy. Andreas Vesalius is the Latinized form of Andreas van Wesel.

Fallopius is the Latin name for Gabriele Falloppio [1523-October 9, 1562], a sixteenth-century anatomist/physician from Modena, Italy. Fallopius advanced the science of anatomy with his detailed descriptions of the anatomy of the head, specifically the internal ear, the lacrimal ducts in the eye, and the ethmoid bone in the nose. The Fallopian Canal [aquaeductus Fallopii], the facial nerve's canal in the middle ear, was discovered by him and named after him. Another more well-known discovery by Fallopius was of the two tubes, named Fallopian tubes in his honor, leading from the ovaries to the uterus in female mammals.

**************************************************

On December 3, 1879, Oliver's dedication to his profession and to Harvard University were praised by Charles William Eliot, Harvard University's longest-serving President [1869-1909], at a breakfast honoring Oliver given by the Atlantic Monthly [the magazine which owed its name and its success to Oliver].

". . . . I know him as the professor of anatomy and physiology in the medical school of Harvard University for the last thirty-two years, and I know him to-day as one of the most active, hard-working of our lecturers. . . . Dr. Holmes delivers four lectures every week for nine months of the year. . . that task requires an extraordinary amount of mental and physical vigor. . . . I never heard anymortal exhibit such enthusiasm over an elegant dissection. And perhaps you think that it is the pen with which Dr. Holmes is chiefly skilful. I assure you that he is equally skilful with scalpel and with microscope. And I think that none of us can understand the meaning and scope of Dr. Holmes's writings unless we have observed that the main work of his life has been to study and teach an exact science, the noble science of anatomy. It is his to know with absolute precision the form of every bone in this wonderful body of ours, the course of every artery and vein, of every nerve, the form and function of every muscle; and not only to know it, but to describe it with a fascinating precision and enthusiasm. When I read his writings I find the traces of this life-work of his on every page. There are three thousand men scattered through New England at this moment, who will remember Dr. Holmes through their lives, and transmit to their children the memory of him as student and teacher of exact science. . . ." ["The Main Work of Oliver Wendell Holmes," p. 10]

Oliver had reached the grand old age of 73 when he finally hung up his professorial stethoscope. He had devoted almost half his life to teaching at Harvard, and the rigors of his schedule were catching up with him.

". . . I bid farewell to this edifice which I have known so long. I am grateful to the roof which has sheltered me, to the floors which have sustained me. . . . I have helped to wear these stairs into hollows, --- stairs which I trod when they were smooth and level, fresh from the plane. There are just thirty-two of them, as there were five and thirty years ago, but they are steeper and harder to climb, it seems to me, than they were then." ["Farewell Address," p. 384]

Throughout his life Oliver continued writing literary poetry and prose. He wrote hundreds of poems. Many of them were special requests honoring luminaries ["To James Russell Lowell at the Dinner Given in his Honor at the Tavern Club, on his Seventieth Birthday, February 22, 1889"] and events ["For the Dedication of the New City Library, Boston, November 26, 1888"].

“The Last Leaf,” one of his most famous poems, and "To an Insect" were written in 1831, the year that he entered Harvard Medical School. "The Chambered Nautilus" and "The Deacon's Masterpiece" flowed from his genius in 1858.

Two essays, both entitled “The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table,” were published in the November 1831 and February 1832 issues of The New England Magazine. These early breakfast-table essays purportedly presented daily conversations round the breakfast table of the boardinghouse where Oliver roomed as a young medical student.

Twenty-five years later Oliver wittily revived and continued those breakfast table conversations under the same title in popular installments in The Atlantic Monthly. The opening Atlantic installment famously began: “I was just going to say, when I was interrupted. . .” As noted in “The Autocrat’s Autobiography” which preceded the installment, the referenced interruption “was just a quarter of a century in duration.” [The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, p. 1]

In the prefatory autobiography, Oliver criticized the two initial essays as “crude products of his uncombed literary boyhood," included “a sentence of two from them” which “perhaps bear reproducing, . . ." and opined, "They will not, therefore, be reprinted here, nor as I hope, anywhere." One such example reveals that despite the demands of medical school, Oliver’s unique sense of humor was very much intact:

“Once on a time, a notion was started, that if all the people in the world would shout at once, it might be heard in the moon. So the projectors agreed it should be done in just ten years. Some thousand shiploads of chronometers were distributed to the selectmen and other great folks of all the different nations. For a year beforehand, nothing else was talked about but the awful noise that was to be made on the great occasion. When the time came, everybody had their ears so wide open, to hear the universal ejaculation of Boo, --- the word agreed upon, --- that nobody spoke except a deaf man in one of the Fejee Islands, and a woman in Pekin, so that the world was never so still since the creation.” [“The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table,” The New-England Magazine, p. 429]

ATLANTIC MONTHLY

The Saturday Club, which was started in 1855, was responsible for the creation of The Atlantic Monthly in 1857. The literary and cultural magazine was edited by James Russell Lowell [February 22, 1819-August 12, 1891]. Oliver suggested the magazine's name. His articles, often popularly combining prose with poetry in essays, contributed to the magazine's success.

The Saturday Club's members included not only such literary luminaries as Ralph Waldo Emerson [May 25, 1803-April 27, 1882] and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow [February 27, 1807-March 24, 1882] but also famed scientist Louis Agassiz [May 28, 1807-December 14, 1873] renowned botanist Asa Gray [November 18, 1810-January 30, 1888]. The Club's regular meeting place was Parker House, the sleek Boston hotel where Boston cream pie and Parker House rolls were invented.

Oliver was the Saturday Club's President for many years. In fact, the week before his death, he had made a trip to Parker House to arrange for an upcoming meeting.

THE DANTE CLUB

Started by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in 1864, the Dante Club met weekly on Wednesdays. The Club purposed to translate the La Divina Commedia [The Divine Comedy] by Dante Alighieri [c. 1265-September 14, 1321]. Regular members included Oliver, James Russell Lowell, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow along with famed author and critic William Dean Howells [March 1, 1837-May 11, 1920]. The translation was published in three volumes in 1867 [Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz]. [The Club and some of its members serve as a backdrop to Matthew Pearl's fiction thriller, The Dante Club, published in 2003 by Random House.]

". . . HIS MAGIC POWER OVER US . . ."

Oliver's life stretched across the core of nineteenth century America and Europe. He was surrounded by the best of the best, living the rarefied existence of a Boston Brahmin, a term which he coined ["The Professor's Story," pp. 91-93]. His high level of intelligence challenged him to be mentally active. He was widely loved and respected. His sociability made him welcome wherever he found himself. Dr. Elisha Bartlett [October 6, 1804-July 19, 1855], Professor of Pathological Anatomy and Materia Medica at the Berkshire Medical Institute in Pittsfield and first Mayor of Lowell [1836-1838], described the effect of Oliver's presence as follows:

"His mind is quick as lightning and sharp as a razor. His conversational powers are absolutely wonderful. His talk at table is all spontaneous, unpremeditated, andhe pours himself forth --- words and thoughts --- in a perfect torrent. His wit and humour are quite lost in the prodigal exuberance of his thoughts and language." ["My Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes," p. 13]

Oliver was recognized as one of the elite quartet of "most noted literary gentlemen in this country" [p. 280]. In addition to Oliver, the quartet of literary giants comprised Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and John Greenleaf Whittier [December 17, 1807-September 7, 1892].

A grand celebration of Oliver's seventieth birthday was hosted by the Atlantic Monthly in 1879. Although Oliver's birthday was in August, the celebration was scheduled for December 3rd in order to accommodate the summer schedules of the party's illustrious participants. Henry Oscar Houghton [April 30, 1823-August 25, 1895], co-founder of Boston's Houghton Mifflin Publishing Company and publisher of the Atlantic Monthly, opened the ceremonies at the Hotel Brunswick. praising Oliver's generosity of spirit and vast intellect:

"Some writer has said that a pure despotism and a pure democracy are identical. We have present here to-day a despot who rules us with imperial sway, and we all acknowledge his authority, and even claim that it is not his power, but our own, which he exercises over us. It is our thoughts which he speaks; it is our humor to which he gives expression; it is the pictures of our own fancy that he clothes in words, and shows us what we ourselves thought, and only lacked the means of expressing. We never realized, until he taught us by his magic power over us, how much each of us had of genius, and invention, and expression. . . " ["The Holmes Breakfast," pp. 861]

On Sunday afternoon, October 7, 1894, Oliver passed away in his beloved study with its views of the Charles River at 296 Beacon Street. His son, Oliver Jr., had just settled his father into his favorite armchair. Oliver's last words were "That is better, thank you."

An unidentified friend remarked, "His passing away was an ideal one. There was no pain. It was as peaceful as was his life." ["Dr. Holmes's Peaceful End," New York Times, October 9, 1894]

Oliver's full, long life is beautiful summarized by Canada's world-renowned physician, Sir William Osler [July 12, 1849-December 29, 1919] and succinctly echoed in his Obituary in The British Medical Journal:

"He will always occupy a unique position in the affections of medical men. . . . as the most successful combination which the world has ever seen of the physician and the man of letters . . ." [Sir William Osler, quoted in John Torrey Morse Jr., Life and Letters of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Vol. 1, p. 188]

"Any work done by Wendell Holmes was sure to be brilliant. . ." ["Obituary," The British Medical Journal, October 13, 1894]

Oliver's funeral was simple and private. There was no eulogy. The service was conducted at King's Chapel by Edward Everett Hale [April 3, 1822-June 10, 1909]. Afterwards Oliver was quietly buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery, sharing a simple marker with his wife who had predeceased him. ["No Display at Dr. Holmes's Funeral," The New York Times, October 10, 1894]

Although Oliver's marker in Mount Auburn bears no epitaph, a splendid epitaph for this grand poet-physician may be found on his memorial tablet in the church where he worshipped every Sunday, Boston's King's Chapel:

"Miscuit utile dulci

Teacher of Anatomy, Essayist and Poet"

The Latin words, miscuit utile dulci, are from Ars Poetica by antiquity's famed philosopher-poet, Horace [December 8, 65 BC - November 27, 8 BC]:

Omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci lectorem delectando pariterque monendo

"He wins every point who mingles the useful with the agreeable by delighting and instructing the reader in equal measure"

Oliver observed that his chambered nautilus, the Pearly Nautilus [Nautilus pompilius], has "long been compared to a ship." He also referred readers to Peter Mark Roget's Bridgewater Treatise [Vol. 5: Animal and Vegetable Physiology Considered with Reference to Natural Theology] for an illustration that shows "the series of enlarging compartments successively dwelt in by the animal that inhabits the shell, which is built in a widening spiral." [The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, p. 149]

This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,
Sails the unshadowed main,--
The venturous bark that flings
On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings
In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings,
And coral reefs lie bare,
Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;
Wrecked is the ship of pearl!
And every chambered cell,
Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,
Before thee lies revealed,--
Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!

Year after year beheld the silent toil
That spread his lustrous coil;
Still, as the spiral grew,
He left the past year's dwelling for the new,
Stole with soft step its shining archway through,
Built up its idle door,
Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,
Child of the wandering sea,
Cast from her lap, forlorn!
From thy dead lips a clearer note is born
Than ever Triton blew from wreathèd horn!
While on mine ear it rings,
Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:--

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!

Oliver was catapulted into the literary limelight, beyond his immediate rarefied circle, with the publication of "Old Ironsides" in 1830. The effect of Oliver's stirring words and vivid imagery was similar to a "shot heard round the world" [Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803-April 27, 1882), "Concord Hymn"].

"Old Ironsides" epitomizes the rare power of one poem to bring about immediate, positive change by touching and inspiring untold multitudes near and far.

Ay, tear her tattered ensign down!
Long has it waved on high,
And many an eye has danced to see
That banner in the sky;
Beneath it rung the battle shout,
And burst the cannon's roar;
The meteor of the ocean air
Shall sweep the clouds no more.

Her deck, once red with heroes' blood,
Where knelt the vanquished foe,
When winds were hurrying o'er the flood,
And waves were white below,
No more shall feel the victor's tread,
Or know the conquered knee;
The harpies of the shore shall pluck
The eagle of the sea!

Oh, better that her shattered bulk
Should sink beneath the wave;
Her thunders shook the mighty deep,
And there should be her grave;
Nail to the mast her holy flag,
Set every threadbare sail,
And give her to the god of storms,
The lightning and the gale!

John Albion Andrew [May 31, 1818-October 30, 1867], 25th Governor of Massachusetts, told Oliver that "Good Abraham Lincoln had a great liking for the poem, and repeated it from memory to Governor Andrew. . ." [The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, p. 5]

Edgar Allan Poe [January 19, 1809-October 7, 1849] apparently was drawn to the poem as Oliver writes, "I have a copy of it made by the hand of Edgar Allan Poe." [The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, p. 5]

"The Last Leaf" concerned Thomas Melvill [June 16, 1751-September 16, 1832], who was the paternal grandfather of Moby Dick's Herman Melville [August 1, 1819-September 28, 1891]. Thomas had participated in the Boston Tea Party in 1773 and was a major in the American Revolution. After his glory days, Thomas maintained an old-fashioned style of dress, including knee breeches and a three-cornered [tricorne] hat,

I saw him once before,
As he passed by the door,
And again
The pavement stones resound,
As he totters o'er the ground
With his cane.

They say that in his prime,
Ere the pruning-knife of Time
Cut him down,
Not a better man was found
By the Crier on his round
Through the town.

But now he walks the streets,
And he looks at all he meets
Sad and wan,
And he shakes his feeble head,
That it seems as if he said,
They are gone.

The mossy marbles rest
On the lips that he has prest
In their bloom,
And the names he loved to hear
Have been carved for many a year
On the tomb.

My grandmamma has said --
Poor old lady, she is dead
Long ago --
That he had a Roman nose,
And his cheek was like a rose
In the snow.

But now his nose is thin,
And it rests upon his chin
Like a staff,
And a crook is in his back,
And a melancholy crack
In his laugh.

I know it is a sin
For me to sit and grin
At him here;
But the old three-cornered hat,
And the breeches, and all that,
Are so queer!

And if I should live to be
The last leaf upon the tree
In the spring,
Let them smile, as I do now,
At the old forsaken bough
Where I cling.

Oliver noted that the underlying conception of "The Wonderful One-Hoss Shay" is that

". . . a being of an order superior to humanity should so understand the conditions of matter that he couldconstruct a machine which should go to pieces, if not into its constituent atoms, at a given moment of the future. . . . The event follows as a logical consequence of the presupposed condition of things."

The poem's practical lesson is that

"Observation shows us in what point any particular mechanism is most likely to give way. In a wagon, for instance, the weak point is where the axle enters the hub or nave. When the wagon breaks down, three times out of four, I think, it is at this point that the accident occurs. The workman should see to it that this part should never give way; then find the next vulnerable place, and so on, until he arrives logically at the perfect result attained by the deacon." [The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, p. 158]

The one-hoss shay that inspired this poem is housed in the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield. Its first owner was Samuel A. McKay [1793-1834].

The shay was next owned by Amansa Rice [April 25, 1809-1896] as part of his stagecoach business between Springfield, Massachusetts and Albany, New York. According to Amansa's son, Robert A. Rice [born March 19, 1850], Oliver frequently visited Amansa's business to admire the shay from 1848 until 1856 when he summered in Pittsfield.

Massachusetts legislator Francis W. Rockwell [May 26, 1844-June 26, 1929], the last owner, donated the shay to the Berkshire Museum in 1914. [Rosemary E. Bachelor, "Poet's Famous One-hoss Shay in Museum," suite 101.com]

A Logical Story

Have you heard of the wonderful one-horse shay,
That was built in such a logical way
It ran a hundred years to a day,
And then, of a sudden, it--ah but stay,
I'll tell you what happened without delay,
Scaring the parson into fits,
Frightening people out of their wits,
Have you ever heard of that, I say?

Seventeen hundred and fifty-five,
Georgius Secundus was then alive,
Snuffy old drone from the German hive.
That was the year when Lisbon-town
Saw the earth open and gulp her down
And Braddock's army was done so brown,
Left without a scalp to its crown.
It was on the terrible Earthquake-day
That the Deacon finished the one-hoss shay.

Now in building of chaises, I tell you what,
There is always somewhere a weakest spot, -
In hub, tire, felloe, in spring or thill,
In panel, or crossbar, or floor, or sill,
In screw, bolt, thoroughbrace,--lurking still,
Find it somewhere you must and will,--
Above or below, or within or without,--
And that's the reason, beyond a doubt,
That a chaise breaks down, but doesn't wear out.

But the Deacon swore (as Deacons do,
With an "I dew vum," or an "I tell yeou,")
He would build one shay to beat the taown
'n' the keounty 'n' all the kentry raoun';
It should be so built that it couldn' break daown,
"Fur," said the Deacon, "It's mighty plain
Thut the weakes' place mus' Stan' the strain;
'n' the way t' fix it, uz I maintain,
Is only jest
T' make that place uz strong uz the rest."

So the Deacon inquired of the village folk
Where he could find the strongest oak,
That couldn't be split nor bent nor broke,
That was for spokes and floor and sills;
He sent for lancewood to make the thins;
The crossbars were ash, from the straightest trees.
The panels of white-wood, that cuts like cheese,
But lasts like iron for things like these;
The hubs of logs from the "Settler's ellum,"--

Last of its timber,--they couldn't sell 'em,
Never an axe had seen their chips,
And the wedges flew from between their lips,
Their blunt ends frizzled like celery-tips;
Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw,
Spring, tire, axle, and linchpin too,
Steel of the finest, bright and blue;
Thoroughbrace bison-skin, thick and wide;
Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hide
Found in the pit when the tanner died.
That was the way he "put her through."
"There!" said the Deacon, "naow she'll dew!"

Do! I tell you, I rather guess
She was a wonder, and nothing less!
Colts grew horses, beards turned gray,
Deacon and deaconess dropped away,
Children and grandchildren--where were they?
But there stood the stout old one-hoss shay
As fresh as on Lisbon-earthquake-day

EIGHTEEN HUNDRED; -it came and found
The Deacon's masterpiece strong and sound.
Eighteen hundred increased by ten;--
"Hahnsum kerridge" they called it then.
Eighteen hundred and twenty came;--
Running as usual; much the same.
Thirty and forty at last arrive,
And then come fifty, and FIFTY-FIVE.

Little of all we value here
Wakes on the morn of its hundredth year
Without both feeling and looking queer.
In fact, there's nothing that keeps its youth,
So far as I know but a tree and truth.
(This is a moral that runs at large;
Take it.--You're welcome.--No extra charge.)

FIRST of NOVEMBER,--the Earthquake-day--
There are traces of age in the one-hoss shay,
A general flavor of mild decay,
But nothing local, as one may say.
There couldn't be,--for the Deacon's art
Had made it so like in every part
That there wasn't a chance for one to start.
For the wheels were just as strong as the thins,
And the floor was just as strong as the sills,
And the panels just as strong as the floors
And the whipple-tree neither less nor more,
And the back-crossbar as strong as the fore,
And spring and axle and hub encore.
And yet, as a whole, it is past a doubt
In another hour it will be worn out!

First of November, 'Fifty-five!
This morning the parson takes a drive.
Now, small boys, get out of the way!
Here comes the wonderful one-hoss shay,
Drawn by a rat-tailed, ewe-necked bay.
"Huddup!" said the parson.--Off went they.
The parson was working his Sunday's text,--
Had got to fifthly, and stopped perplexed
At what the--Moses--was coming next.

All at once the horse stood still,
Close by the meet'n'-house on the hill.
First a shiver, and then a thrill,
Then something decidedly like a spill,--
And the parson was sitting upon a rock,
At half past nine by the meet'n'-house clock--
Just the hour of the Earthquake shock!

What do you think the parson found,
When he got up and stared around?
The poor old chaise in a heap or mound,
As if it had been to the mill and ground!
You see, of course, if you're not a dunce,
How it went to pieces all at once,
All at once, and nothing first,
Just as bubbles do when they burst.

End of the wonderful one-boss shay.
Logic is logic. That's all I say.

-THE END-

Oliver explained that "the terrible witchcraft drama of 1692" was a "delusion, commonly spoken of as it if belonged to Salem," that in reality

". . . was more widely diffused through the towns of Essex County. Looking upon it as a pitiful and long dead and buried superstition, I trust my poem will no more offend the good people of Essex County than Tam O'Shanter worries the honest folk of Ayrshire. The localities referred to are those with which I am familiar in my drives about Essex County." [The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, p. 302]

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NOTES:

A poem by legendary Scottish poet Robert Burns [January 25, 1759-July 21, 1796], “Tam o’Shanter” narrates a horrifying encounter, after too much alcohol at a tavern, with the devil and his witches.

Ayrshire is a land registration county in southwest Scotland.

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LOOK out! Look out boys! Clear the track!
The witches are here! They've all come back!
They hanged them high--No use! No use!
What cares a witch for a hangman's noose?
They buried them deep but they wouldn't lie still
For cats and witches are hard to kill;
They swore they shouldn't and wouldn't die--
Books said they did but they lie! they lie!

A couple of hundred years or so
They had knocked about in the world below
When an Essex Deacon dropped in to call
And a homesick feeling seized them all;
For he came from a place they knew full well
And many a tale he had to tell.
They longed to visit the haunts of men
To see the old dwellings they knew again
And ride on their broomsticks all around
Their wide domain of unhallowed ground.

In Essex county there's many a roof
Well known to him of the cloven hoof;
The small square windows are full in view
Which the midnight hags went sailing through
On their well-trained broomsticks mounted high
Seen like shadows against the sky;
Crossing the track of owls and bats
Hugging before them their coal-black cats.

Well did they know those gray old wives
The sights we see in our daily drives
Shimmer of lake and shine of sea
Browne's bare hill with its lonely tree
(It was n't then as we see it now
With one scant scalp-lock to shade its brow;)
Dusky nooks in the Essex woods
Dark dim Dante-like solitudes
Where the tree-toad watches the sinuous snake
Glide through his forests of fern and brake;
Ipswich River; its old stone bridge;
Far off Andover's Indian Ridge
And many a scene where history tells
Some shadow of bygone terror dwells--
Of "Norman's Woe" with its tale of dread
Of the Screeching Woman of Marblehead
(The fearful story that turns men pale
Don't bid me tell it--my speech would fail.)

Who would not will not if he can
Bathe in the breezes of fair Cape Ann--
Rest in the bowers her bays enfold
Loved by the sachems and squaws of old?
Home where the white magnolias bloom
Sweet with the bayberry's chaste perfume
Hugged by the woods and kissed by the sea!
Where is the Eden like to thee?
For that "couple of hundred years or so"
There had been no peace in the world below;
The witches still grumbling "It is n't fair;
Come give us a taste of the upper air!
We 've had enough of your sulphur springs
And the evil odor that round them clings;
We long for a drink that is cool and nice--
Great buckets of water with Wenham ice;
We've served you well up-stairs you know;
You 're a good old--fellow--come let us go!"

I don't feel sure of his being good
But he happened to be in a pleasant mood--
As fiends with their skins full sometimes are--
(He'd been drinking with "roughs" at a Boston bar.)
So what does he do but up and shout
To a graybeard turnkey "Let 'em out!"

To mind his orders was all he knew;
The gates swung open and out they flew.
"Where are our broomsticks?" the beldams cried.
"Here are your broomsticks" an imp replied.
"They 've been in--the place you know--so long
They smell of brimstone uncommon strong;
But they've gained by being left alone--
Just look and you'll see how tall they've grown."
"And where is my cat?" a vixen squalled.
"Yes where are our cats?" the witches bawled
And began to call them all by name
As fast as they called the cats they came
There was bob-tailed Tommy and long-tailed Tim
And wall-eyed Jacky and green-eyed Jim
And splay-foot Benny and slim-legged Beau
And Skinny and Squally and Jerry and Joe
And many another that came at call--
It would take too long to count them all.
All black--one could hardly tell which was which
But every cat knew his own old witch;
And she knew hers as hers knew her--
Ah didn't they curl their tails and purr!

No sooner the withered hags were free
Than out they swarmed for a midnight spree;
I couldn't tell all they did in rhymes
But the Essex people had dreadful times.
The Swampscott fishermen still relate
How a strange sea-monster stole their bait;
How their nets were tangled in loops and knots
And they found dead crabs in their lobster-pots.
Poor Danvers grieved for her blasted crops
And Wilmington mourned over mildewed hops.
A blight played havoc with Beverly beans--
It was all the work of those hateful queans!
A dreadful panic began at "Pride's"
Where the witches stopped in their midnight rides
And there rose strange rumors and vague alarms
'Mid the peaceful dwellers at Beverly Farms.

Now when the Boss of the Beldams found
That without his leave they were ramping round
He called--they could hear him twenty miles
From Chelsea beach to the Misery Isles;
The deafest old granny knew his tone
Without the trick of the telephone.
"Come here you witches! Come here!" says he--
"At your games of old without asking me!
I'll give you a little job to do
That will keep you stirring you godless crew!"

They came of course at their master's call
The witches the broomsticks the cats and all;
He led the hags to a railway train
The horses were trying to drag in vain.
"Now then" says he "you've had your fun
And here are the cars you've got to run.
The driver may just unhitch his team
We don't want horses we don't want steam;
You may keep your old black cats to hug
But the loaded train you've got to lug."

Since then on many a car you 'll see
A broomstick plain as plain can be;
On every stick there's a witch astride--
The string you see to her leg is tied.
She will do a mischief if she can
But the string is held by a careful man
And whenever the evil-minded witch
Would cut some caper he gives a twitch.
As for the hag you can't see her
But hark! you can hear her black cat's purr
And now and then as a car goes by
You may catch a gleam from her wicked eye.

Often you've looked on a rushing train
But just what moved it was not so plain.
It couldn't be those wires above
For they could neither pull nor shove;
Where was the motor that made it go
You couldn't guess but now you know.

Remember my rhymes when you ride again
On the rattling rail by the broomstick train!

"Dorothy Q." was inspired by a painting of Oliver's maternal great-grandmother as a young girl.

Dorothy Quincy Jackson [January 4, 1709-1762] was the daughter of Judge Edmund Quincy [October 14, 1681-February 23, 1738], a Boston/Braintree merchant who held such critical colonial positions as selectman, justice of the peace, colonel of militia, representative in the General Court, and justice of the Superior Court of Judicature.

Her uncle was Josiah Quincy [February 23, 1744-April 26, 1775], "the young patriot and orator who died just before the American Revolution of which he was one of the most eloquent and effective promoters."

Dorothy's cousin, Josiah's namesake son [February 4, 1772-July 1, 1864], was mayor of Boston [1823-1828] as well as President of Harvard University [1829-1845] and "lived to a great age, one of the most useful and honored citizens of his time." [The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, pp. 186-187]

A family portrait.

Grandmother's mother: her age, I guess,
Thirteen summers, or something less;
Girlish bust, but womanly air;
Smooth, square forehead with uprolled hair,
Lips that lover has never kissed;
Taper fingers and slender wrist;
Hanging sleeves of stiff brocade;
So they painted the little maid.

On her hand a parrot green
Sits unmoving and broods serene.
Hold up the canvas full in view, --
Look! there's a rent the light shines through,
Dark with a century's fringe of dust, --
That was a Red-Coat's rapier-thrust!
Such is the tale the lady old,
Dorothy's daughter's daughter, told.

Who the painter was none may tell, --
One whose best was not over well;
Hard and dry, it must be confessed,
Flat as a rose that has long been pressed;
Yet in her cheek the hues are bright,
Dainty colors of red and white,
And in her slender shape are seen
Hint and promise of stately mien.

Look not on her with eyes of scorn, --
Dorothy Q. was a lady born!
Ay! since the galloping Normans came,
England's annals have known her name;
And still to the three-hilled rebel town
Dear is that ancient name's renown,
For many a civic wreath they won,
The youthful sire and the gray-haired son.

O Damsel Dorothy! Dorothy Q.!
Strange is the gift that I owe to you;
Such a gift as never a king
Save to daughter or son might bring, --
All my tenure of heart and hand,
All my title to house and land;
Mother and sister and child and wife
And joy and sorrow and death and life!

What if a hundred years ago
Those close-shut lips had answered No,
When forth the tremulous question came
That cost the maiden her Norman name,
And under the folds that look so still
The bodice swelled with the bosom's thrill?
Should I be I, or would it be
One tenth another, to nine tenths me?

Soft is the breath of a maiden's YES:
Not the light gossamer stirs with less;
But never a cable that holds so fast
Through all the battles of wave and blast,
And never an echo of speech or song
That lives in the babbling air so long!
There were tones in the voice that whispered then
You may hear to-day in a hundred men.

O lady and lover, how faint and far
Your images hover, --and here we are,
Solid and stirring in flesh and bone, --
Edward's and Dorothy's -- all their own, --
A goodly record for Time to show
Of a syllable spoken so long ago! --
Shall I bless you, Dorothy, or forgive
For the tender whisper that bade me live?

It shall be a blessing, my little maid!
I will heal the stab of the Red-Coat's blade,
And freshen the gold of the tarnished frame,
And gild with a rhyme your household name;
So you shall smile on us brave and bright
As first you greeted the morning's light,
And live untroubled by woes and fears
Through a second youth of a hundred years.

The insect presented in Oliver's poem, "To an Insect," is a katydid. They are in the Tettigoniidae family. They are known as kaydids in the United States. British English knows them as bush crickets. Male tettigoniids stridulate, i.e., they produce sound by rubbing together sound-producing organs.

Oliver remembered hearing katydids in Providence, Rhode Island, ". . .but I do not remember hearing it in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where I passed my boyhood. It is well known in other towns in the neighborhood of Boston." [The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, p. 7]

I love to hear thine earnest voice,
Wherever thou art hid,
Thou testy little dogmatist,
Thou pretty Katydid!
Thou mindest me of gentlefolks, --
Old gentlefolks are they, --
Thou say'st an undisputed thing
In such a solemn way.

Thou art a female, Katydid
I know it by the trill
That quivers through thy piercing notes,
So petulant and shrill.
I think there is a knot of you
Beneath'the hollow tree, --
A knot of spinster Katydids, --
Do Katydids drink tea?

O tell me where did Katy live,
And what did Katy do?
And was she very fair and young,
And yet so wicked, too?
Did Katy love a naughty man,
Or kiss more cheeks than one?
I warrant Katy did no more
Than many a Kate has done.

Dear me! I'll tell you all about
My fuss with little Jane,
And Ann, with whom I used to walk
So often down the lane,
And all that tore their locks of black,
Or wet their eyes of blue, --
Pray tell me, sweetest Katydid,
What did poor Katy do?

Ah no! the living oak shall crash,
That stood for ages still,
The rock shall rend its mossy base
And thunder down the hill,
Before the little Katydid
Shall add one word, to tell
The mystic story of the maid
Whose name she knows so well.

Peace to the ever-murmuring race!
And when the latest one
Shall fold in death her feeble wings
Beneath the autumn sun,
Then shall she raise her fainting voice
And lift her drooping lid,
And then the child of future years
Shall hear what Katy did.

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