Oliver Wendell Holmes was an American physician, poet, and polymath based in Boston. A member of the Fireside Poets, he was acclaimed by his peers as one of the best writers of the day. His most famous prose works are the "Breakfast-Table" series, which began with The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table . He was also an important medical reformer. In addition to his work as an author and poet, Holmes also served as a physician, professor, lecturer and inventor and, although he never practiced it, he received formal training in law.
Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Holmes was educated at Phillips Academy and Harvard College. After graduating from Harvard in 1829, he briefly studied law before turning to the medical profession. He began writing poetry at an early age; one of his most famous works, "Old Ironsides", was published in 1830 and was influential in the eventual preservation of the USS Constitution. Following training at the prestigious medical schools of Paris, Holmes was granted his Doctor of Medicine degree from Harvard Medical School in 1836. He taught at Dartmouth Medical School before returning to teach at Harvard and, for a time, served as dean there. During his long professorship, he became an advocate for various medical reforms and notably posited the controversial idea that doctors were capable of carrying puerperal fever from patient to patient. Holmes retired from Harvard in 1882 and continued writing poetry, novels and essays until his death in 1894.
Surrounded by Boston's literary elite—which included friends such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and James Russell Lowell—Holmes made an indelible imprint on the literary world of the 19th century. Many of his works were published in The Atlantic Monthly, a magazine that he named. For his literary achievements and other accomplishments, he was awarded numerous honorary degrees from universities around the world. Holmes's writing often commemorated his native Boston area, and much of it was meant to be humorous or conversational. Some of his medical writings, notably his 1843 essay regarding the contagiousness of puerperal fever, were considered innovative for their time. He was often called upon to issue occasional poetry, or poems written specifically for an event, including many occasions at Harvard. Holmes also popularized several terms, including Boston Brahmin and anesthesia. He was the father of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. of the Supreme Court of the United States.
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“I have always considered my face a convenience rather than an ornament.”
Letter http://books.google.com/books?id=sIE7AAAAYAAJ&q=%22I+have+always+considered+my+face+a+convenience+rather+than+an+ornament%22&pg=PA103#v=onpage to James Russell Lowell (18 March 1882)
“A general flavor of mild decay.”
The Deacon's Masterpiece; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
“Lean, hungry, savage anti-everythings.”
A modest Request; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
“Put not your trust in money, but put your money in trust.”
The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1858)
Source: The Professor at the Breakfast Table (1859), Ch. I.
The chambered Nautilus; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Part of a statement at the annual meeting of the Massachusetts Medical Society (30 May 1860), generally quoted in a simplified form omitting Holmes's exceptions including opium and anaesthetics.
Throw out opium, which the Creator himself seems to prescribe, for we often see the scarlet poppy growing in the cornfields, as if it were foreseen that wherever there is hunger to be fed there must also be a pain to be soothed; throw out a few specifics which our art did not discover, and it is hardly needed to apply; throw out wine, which is a food, and the vapors which produce the miracle of anaesthesia, and I firmly believe that if the whole materia medica [medical drugs], as now used, could be sunk to the bottom of the sea, it would be all the better for mankind,—and all the worse for the fishes.
As quoted in a review of Currents and Counter-currents in Medical Science (1860) in The American Journal of the Medical Sciences, Vol. 40 (1860), p. 467 http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=zHdDAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA467
Paraphrased variant: If all the medicine in the world were thrown into the sea, it would be bad for the fish and good for humanity.
“How many people live on the reputation of the reputation they might have made!”
The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1858)
“The freeman casting with unpurchased hand
The vote that shakes the turrets of the land.”
Poetry, a Metrical Essay; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Source: The Professor at the Breakfast Table (1859), Ch. VI.
The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1858)
"Daily Trials" in Companion Poets (1871).
“All generous minds have a horror of what are commonly called “facts.””
They are the brute beasts of the intellectual domain.
The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1858)
