Letter from Oliver Wendell Holmes to John Collins Warren

Letter from Oliver Wendell Holmes to John Collins Warren

Correspondence

Phrenology

Homeopathy

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 1809-1894 (author)

Warren, John Collins, 1778-1856

While Holmes' views on homeopathy are well attested, this letter to Dr. John Collins Warren (1778-1856) indicates he had at least some early interest in the concurrent phrenological movement. Holmes here invites Warren to attend his lecture on the subject at Harvard and modestly states, "I can truly say that the limited time and attention, which the hurry so apt to attend the close of lectures has allowed me, render me very diffident in approaching the subject at all, and especially so in the presence of one who, however lenient in his judgment, could hardly avoid seeing the imperfections which must attend my brief glance at the subject."In 1849, Warren had taken possession of the Boston Phrenological Society's collection of casts and skulls, including the skull of Johann Gaspar Spurzheim. That collection now resides with the Warren Anatomical Museum.

By 1861, however, Holmes’ views on phrenology were set. He said, “I am not one of its haters; on the contrary, I am grateful for the incidental good it has done…. Yet I should not have devoted so many words to it, did I not recognize the light it has thrown on human actions by its study of congenital organic tendencies. Its maps of the surface of the head are, I feel sure, founded on a delusion, but its studies of individual character are always interesting and instructive.”

Letter from Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894) to John Collins Warren (1778-1856) concerning homeopathy and phrenology

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 1809-1894

1850 February 28

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Warren Library of the Harvard Medical Library (1.Mw.1921.W)

text

1 manuscript letter (2 pages)

English

text

DigID0002201

DigID0002202

Bequest of Dr. John Warren to the Library of Harvard Medical School, 1928