Remarks on the case of Dr. Spurzheim

Remarks on the case of Dr. Spurzheim

Case files

Autopsies

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 1809-1894

Spurzheim, J. G. (Johann Gaspar), 1776-1832

During the early 1830s, Holmes was enrolled at Harvard Medical School, but also sought tuition privately with Dr. James Jackson. Of Holmes, Jackson said 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."

Two volumes of Holmes’ notes on Jackson’s lectures have survived. Here, on November 15, 1832, Jackson comments on the fever and death of phrenologist Johann Gaspar Spurzheim, who had been lecturing in Boston and died five days earlier. Jackson had attended Spurzheim at his death, and John Collins Warren performed the autopsy.

The remarks of Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894) on the death of Dr. Spurzheim from his notebook Lectures on the theory and practice of medicine

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 1809-1894

1832-1833

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Harvard Medical Library Rare Books Collection (H MS b28.3, v. 2)

text

excerpt (1 page)

English

text

DigID0002174

Transferred from the Houghton Library
to the Library of Harvard Medical School, 1956

Lecture November 15. Remarks on the case of Dr. Spurzheim. Dr. Spurzheim's case was one of simple Fever. Appearances on examination.

Head. Adhesion of dura mater to cranium._This circumstane is not very important. Slight opacity of arachnoid. This exists however in three cases out of four, and in nine out of ten there is slight effusion beneath this mean because: Pia mater red prow fulness of small vessels, but no effusion between convolutions. Redness is not necessarily sign of inflammation. As there was no thickening of effusion, the inflammation cannot account for the disease.

Thorax. Organs healthy.

Abdomin. Inflammation on night sick of pecitoneum, but not of an active kind. During life there had been no tendencies of the abdominen.

The case is remarkable from its having proved fatal without sever local affection.

- Dr. Jackson remarks that it was common for young men to begin with the belief that fever is local disease but that he never knew one without prejudice who died not relinquish it when he became older.