Harvard Medical School (HMS) is the graduate medical school of Harvard University and is located in the Longwood Medical Area in Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1782, HMS is one of the oldest medical schools in the United States. Unlike most other leading medical schools, HMS does not operate in conjunction with a single hospital but is directly affiliated with several teaching hospitals in the Boston area. Affiliated teaching hospitals and research institutes include Dana–Farber Cancer Institute, Massachusetts General Hospital, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston Children's Hospital, McLean Hospital, Cambridge Health Alliance, The Baker Center for Children and Families, and Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital.
Phineas P. Gage (1823–1860) was an American railroad construction foreman remembered for his improbable[B1] survival of an accident in which a large iron rod was driven completely through his head, destroying much of his brain's left frontal lobe, and for that injury's reported effects on his personality and behavior over the remaining 12 years of his life—effects sufficiently profound that friends saw him as "no longer Gage".
The Ether Dome is a surgical operating amphitheater in the Bulfinch Building at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, United States. It served as the hospital's operating room from its opening in 1821 until 1867. It was the site of the first public demonstration of the use of inhaled ether as a surgical anesthetic on October 16, 1846, otherwise known as Ether Day. Crawford Long, a surgeon in Georgia, had previously administered sulfuric ether in 1842, but this went unpublished until 1849. The Ether Dome event occurred when William Thomas Green Morton, a local dentist, used ether to anesthetize Edward Gilbert Abbott. John Collins Warren, the first dean of Harvard Medical School, then painlessly removed part of a tumor from Abbott's neck. After Warren had finished, and Abbott regained consciousness, Warren asked the patient how he felt. Reportedly, Abbott said, "Feels as if my neck's been scratched". Warren then turned to his medical audience and uttered "Gentlemen, this is no Humbug". This was presumably a reference to the unsuccessful demonstration of nitrous oxide anesthesia by Horace Wells in the same theater the previous year, which was ended by cries of "Humbug!" after the patient groaned with pain.
George Richards Minot was an American medical researcher who shared the 1934 Nobel Prize with George Hoyt Whipple and William P. Murphy for their pioneering work on pernicious anemia.
William Thomas Green Morton was an American dentist and physician who first publicly demonstrated the use of inhaled ether as a surgical anesthetic in 1846. The promotion of his questionable claim to have been the discoverer of anesthesia became an obsession for the rest of his life.
John Collins Warren was an American surgeon. In 1846 he gave permission to William T.G. Morton to provide ether anesthesia while Warren performed a minor surgical procedure. News of this first public demonstration of surgical anesthesia quickly circulated around the world. He was a founder of the New England Journal of Medicine and was the third president of the American Medical Association. He was the first Dean of Harvard Medical School and a founding member of the Massachusetts General Hospital.
Charles Thomas Jackson was an American physician and scientist who was active in medicine, chemistry, mineralogy, and geology.
Robert Latou Dickinson (1861–1950) was an American obstetrician and gynecologist, surgeon, maternal health educator, artist, sculptor and medical illustrator, research scientist, author, and public health educator. He also became a prolific artist, carver, and sculptor, who used his skills to illustrate his professional work.
Myrtelle May Moore Canavan was an American physician and medical researcher. She was one of the first female pathologists and is best known for publishing a description of Canavan disease in 1931.
Henry Jacob Bigelow was an American surgeon and Professor of Surgery at Harvard University. A dominating figure in Boston medicine for many decades, he is remembered for the Bigelow maneuver for hip dislocation, a technique for treatment of kidney stones, and other innovations. He was instrumental in bringing the anesthetic possibilities of ether to the attention of medical men, and rescuing the case of Phineas Gage from relative obscurity. He was a vocal opponent of vivisection, and played a minor role in the apprehension of the culprit in the Parkman–Webster murder case.
John Martyn Harlow was an American physician primarily remembered for his attendance on brain-injury survivor Phineas Gage, and for his published reports on Gage's accident and subsequent history.
The Boston Medical Library of Boston, Massachusetts, was originally organized to alleviate the problem that had emerged due to the scattered distribution of medical texts throughout the city. It has evolved into the "largest academic medical library in the world".
The Boston Medical Library (1805–1826) in Boston, Massachusetts, was an offshoot of the Boston Society for Medical Improvement. The library "was founded by a group of doctors, a number of officers were then appointed. John Collins Warren was the Treasurer, John G. Coffin the Secretary. James Jackson (physician) and John C. Howard were the Trustees. " In 1826 the library was transferred to the Boston Athenæum.
James Jackson Putnam was an American neurologist.
The Boston Phrenological Society was formed in 1832 upon the death of a prominent continental phrenologist, Johann Gaspar Spurzheim. Spurzheim was an anatomist and a former pupil of Franz Josef Gall. Spurzheim's brief tour and death popularized phrenology in the United States outside of its controversial place in medical lecture halls, and into the sphere of social reformers and ministers. The Society's formation launched the phrenology movement in the United States. The Boston Phrenological Society was founded by phrenology adherent Nahum Capen on the day of Spurzheim's funeral, November 17, 1832.
The Harvard Dental Museum dates from the late 1870s but the exact date of its formation is unknown. The first annual Announcement of The Dental School indicates a museum was in existence, or at least in prospect, in 1868-69. The original specimens in the collection were provided by Dental School Graduates who were required to provide specimens to the Dental Museum to be used as instructional materials for students. Dr. Arthur T. Cabot presented about 175 specimens to the Dental Museum in 1881 and is considered the museum's founder.
John Barnard Swett Jackson was an American surgeon and pathologist. He was the first curator of the Warren Anatomical Museum and was dean of Harvard Medical School from 1853 to 1855. In 1854, the Shattuck Professorship of Morbid Anatomy at Harvard Medical School was created for him. He held the post from then until his death in 1879, when the position was renamed the Shattuck Professorship of Pathological Anatomy. He was a member of the Boston Society for Medical Improvement.
William Fiske Whitney was an American anatomist, curator, and pathologist. Whitney was a pioneer in the field of the medical museum and originator of the method of quick diagnosis. An obituary describes him as "another of those early pioneers in pathology and the use of the microscope on this continent of whom his contemporaries, the late Sir William Osler and Prof. William H. Welch are notable examples." He specialized in anatomy, becoming one of the top experts in the country. Later, he was much sought after by the courts for his exceptional anatomical knowledge, especially in determining if poison had any bearing on a case.
The Boston Society for Medical Improvement was an elite society of Boston physicians, established in 1828 for "the cultivation of confidence and good feeling between members of the profession; the eliciting and imparting of information upon the different branches of medical science; and the establishment of a Museum and Library of Pathological Anatomy". It held regular meetings until at least 1917.
Maurice Howe Richardson was an American surgeon.
