In 1847, through the liberality of Doctor George C. Shattuck, Sr., a professorship of pathological anatomy was established, and Doctor John Barnard Swett Jackson was appointed to fill the chair. It was during this year that Doctor Oliver Wendell Holmes was chosen Parkman professor of anatomy and physiology.
In 1849 Doctor Henry J. Bigelow was appointed to the chair of surgery left vacant by the resignation of Doctor George Hayward, and in 1854, Doctor Walter Channing was succeeded by Doctor David Humphreys Storer. In 1855 Doctor Jacob Bigelow resigned, and was succeeded by Doctor Edward Hammond Clarke.
The building on North Grove street, erected by a grant of the State upon land donated by Doctor George Parkman, was first occupied by the school in 1846. In this building, which was considered amply commodious at that time, were stored the Warren Anatomical Museum, the physiological library founded by George Woodbury Swett, the gifts to the chemical department by Doctor John Bacon, and the collection of microscopes given by Doctor Ellis. Since then the number of medical students has constantly increased and the accommodations becoming inadequate, steps were taken for the erection of the new building.
CHAPTER XIX.
TOKENS OF ESTEEM.
SAID one of the medical students in Doctor Holmes' last class at Harvard:
"We always welcomed Professor Holmes with enthusiastic cheers when he came into the class room, and his lectures were so brimful of witty anecdotes that we sometimes forgot it was a lesson in anatomy we had come to learn. But the instruction—deep, sound and thorough—was there all the same, and we never left the room without feeling what a fund of knowledge and what a clear insight upon difficult points in medical science had been imparted to us through the sparkling medium!"
The position of Parkman Professor of Anatomy in Harvard University, was resigned by Doctor Holmes in the autumn of 1882, that he might give his time more exclusively to literary pursuits. He was immediately appointed Professor Emeritus by the college, and Doctor Thomas Dwight, a teacher in the Medical School, succeeded him in the active duties of the chair.
The last lecture of Doctor Holmes before his students, was delivered in the anatomical room, on the twenty-eighth of November. As he entered the room, a storm of applause greeted him, and then as it died away, one of the students came forward and presented him, in behalf of his last class, with an exquisite "Loving Cup." On one side of this beautiful souvenir was the happy quotation from his own writings: "Love bless thee, joy crown thee, God speed thy career."