One of the most renowned American surgeons of the 19th century, Dr. John Collins Warren (born on August 1, 1778) graduated from Harvard College in 1797, then began the study of medicine with his father, Dr. John Warren. In 1799, he went abroad, continuing his medical studies in London and Paris, working with such luminaries as the pioneer anatomist Sir Astley Cooper (1768-1841). He received an honorary medical degree from Harvard in 1819.

On his return to America in 1802, Dr. John Collins Warren entered into partnership with his father and also began to assist him with anatomical lectures, dissections, and demonstrations at Harvard Medical School. He was named Adjunct Professor of Anatomy and Surgery in 1809, then, at his father's death, assumed the Hersey Professorship of Anatomy and Surgery. He held that post until he was granted professor emeritus status in 1847. Dr. Warren was also the first dean of the Medical School and promoted its removal from Cambridge to Boston to obtain better access to clinical facilities. Over the course of his long career, he assembled an extraordinary teaching collection of anatomical and pathological specimens. He presented it to the Harvard Corporation in 1847 along with $5000. This was the beginning of the Warren Anatomical Museum.

Attributed to American artist John Pope (1820-1880), this portrait was made from a mask and bust, probably just after the death of Dr. Warren.

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One of the most renowned American surgeons of the 19th century, Dr. John Collins Warren (born on August 1, 1778) graduated from Harvard College in 1797, then began the study of medicine with his father, Dr. John Warren. In 1799, he went abroad, continuing his medical studies in London and Paris, working with such luminaries as the pioneer anatomist Sir Astley Cooper (1768-1841). He received an honorary medical degree from Harvard in 1819.

On his return to America in 1802, Dr. John Collins Warren entered into partnership with his father and also began to assist him with anatomical lectures, dissections, and demonstrations at Harvard Medical School. He was named Adjunct Professor of Anatomy and Surgery in 1809, then, at his father's death, assumed the Hersey Professorship of Anatomy and Surgery. He held that post until he was granted professor emeritus status in 1847. Dr. Warren was also the first dean of the Medical School and promoted its removal from Cambridge to Boston to obtain better access to clinical facilities. Over the course of his long career, he assembled an extraordinary teaching collection of anatomical and pathological specimens. He presented it to the Harvard Corporation in 1847 along with $5000. This was the beginning of the Warren Anatomical Museum.

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added by Joseph L. Bates
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“the necessary sittings were irksome to the subject.” After Holmes’ death, the City of Boston commissioned a bust to be made, and Bartlett secured the work for one of his former students, Richard Edwin Brooks (1865-1919), and passed over to him the glass negatives of the photographs. The original bronze bust was sculpted in Paris by Brooks in 1896 and presented to the Boston Public Library; a copy was made for the Boston Medical Library and placed in Holmes Hall.]]> “I was very glad to have somebody get profit and pleasure from my contrivance, and made him quite welcome to whatever there was to be gained by its manufacture…. From his establishment have come certain improvements of much value, particularly the sliding arrangement for adjusting the focus, in place of the original slots, or narrow grooves, and the method of holding the pictures.”

The Wheeler and Bazin-type folding stereoscope, with its own sliding focus, was patented in 1863. The stereographic view displayed here belonged to Holmes who mentions it in a letter to Mrs. Asa Gray, in 1871: “I have stereographs of the Boston Elm, before its present condition of decadence, and one of the Washington Elm, the last a fair specimen of the tree….”

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The Boston Medical Library copy was certainly in the library by 1900; incised “Richard E. Brooks, Paris, 1896” on side, and was possibly a gift of James Read Chadwick.

A photographic series of studies was made of Holmes “aet. 75,” or circa 1884. According to the BMSJ (1894), v. 131, p. 376, “The portrait of Dr. Holmes which we publish this week is at once an excellent likeness and a very pleasing picture of him in his later years—for us by far the most so of any which we know. The photograph was taken by the Boston sculptor, Bartlett, with a view to making a bust. The design was given up, as the necessary sittings were irksome to the subject, and we are indebted to Mr. Bartlett and Dr. J. R. Chadwick for the right to the picture. It was not easy for the painter’s brush or the sculptor’s chisel to do justice to Dr. Holmes’s mobile features.”

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"Take it that way; that does not show the old man’s wrinkles, does it?" ]]> “a case of justifiable domicide,” it was demolished in 1883.]]> “It is there; the age is there; the wrinkles are there. It is a likeness. It is the portrait of an old man, dew-lap and all.” He later wrote, “I consider Mr. Billings’ portrait of myself an excellent likeness and so far as I can judge a good painting. I have had many pictures and photographs taken, but it seems to me that no one of them has been so satisfactory as this.”]]> "too gorgeous—too grand—for such a humble literary work-bench…. The riddle on it is one of the best in the English language. I doubt if there are ten, or even five—I am not sure there are three which can compare with it in finish and in the perfection of its graceful double-meanings…. If you meant it for me, I can only say I thank you most heartily for a gift of which any author might be proud, engraved with lines which he will never look upon without wishing he had written them."]]>