The Scalpel
After a brief period studying law, Holmes turned to medicine, working with Dr. James Jackson (1777-1867) and also matriculating at Harvard Medical School in 1830. “I know I might have made an indifferent lawyer, —I think I may make a tolerable physician.—I did not like the one, and I do like the other. And so you must know that for the last several months I have been quietly occupying a room in Boston, attending medical lectures, going to the Massachusetts Hospital, and slicing and slivering the carcasses of better men and women than I ever was myself or am like to be. It is a sin for a puny little fellow like me to mutilate one of your six-foot men as if he was a sheep,--but vive la science!" Of Holmes at this time, Jackson remarked to his son, “He can tell you much that is interesting. Do not mind his apparent frivolity and you will soon find that he is intelligent and well-informed. He has the true zeal." Holmes studied in Europe as well, returning to Boston to receive his medical degree in 1836, after completing his thesis in just three days. He also received Harvard’s Boylston Prize that year and twice more in 1837.
Holmes began to practice in Boston and spent the rest of his life moving between the spheres of letters and medicine, achieving renown in both.