Private Oscar C. Tugo enlisted on May 7, 1917; he was killed as a night orderly during the air raid on Base Hospital No. 5 on September 4, along with Lieutenant William Fitzsimons, Privates Rudolph Rubino, Jr., and Leslie G. Woods. On October 18,…
Private Oscar C. Tugo enlisted on May 7, 1917; he was killed as a night orderly during the air raid on Base Hospital No. 5 on September 4, along with Lieutenant William Fitzsimons, Privates Rudolph Rubino, Jr., and Leslie G. Woods. On October 18,…
Private Oscar C. Tugo enlisted on May 7, 1917; he was killed as a night orderly during the air raid on Base Hospital No. 5 on September 4, along with Lieutenant William Fitzsimons, Privates Rudolph Rubino, Jr., and Leslie G. Woods. On October 18,…
At the time of his death, Dr. Alfred Worcester—a member of the Harvard College Class of 1878—was the University’s oldest living graduate. He was also an 1883 graduate of the Medical School. In the 1940s, Dr. Worcester composed his…
Introductory lectures to new medical students were customary at the opening of each academic year and often printed in pamphlet form or, as here, in the pages of a medical journal. James C. White cautions the students against specializing too early…
The challenge to reform American medical education and bring it closer to the higher standards current in Europe started even before this editorial appeared in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal. James C. White, a member of the faculty of the…
Harvard professor James C. White was also a graduate of the Medical School. In 1898, at a meeting of the Vienna Club, he read these extracts from a diary he kept while at Harvard from 1853 until 1855. His entry for October 8, 1853, notes, “Many…
This notebook was used by John Warren as Assistant, later Associate, Professor of Anatomy, to record the daily outline of lectures and dissections for first and second-year students, from 1911 to 1916. The pages displayed record Warren's notes on…
The use of admission tickets for each course of a medical student's education was common until the late 19th century. Students paid the professor or lecturer directly and were then issued these passes for an academic session. Robert Thaxter…
Partially in the handwriting of Dr. John Warren, this volume of lecture notes, beginning on December 10, 1783, contains the earliest surviving record of teaching at Harvard Medical School. The lectures were delivered in Harvard Hall, on the campus in…
As a complement to the fund raising campaign for the new campus, Drs. H. P. Bowditch and J. Collins Warren produced this pamphlet to inspire donations to endow professorships, departments, and scholarships at the school.
Although there was doubt on the part of President Eliot that the Longwood buildings would be ready for the meeting of the American Medical Association in June 1906, as this letter of J. Collins Warren attests, the architects affirmed that, within a…
Just as his great-grandfather had been instrumental in establishing the Harvard Medical School in the eighteenth century, so Dr. J. Collins Warren provided the impetus for the construction of the buildings of the Quad at the beginning of the…
Persons depicted: President Eliot (standing), to his right: Gov. Curtis Guild, Jr., Baron Rosen, the Russian Ambassador, J.P. Morgan, and Charles H. Tweed, representing Mrs. Collis
Dr. Warren [left] was chairman of the Entertainment Committee for the AMA meeting. The woman at his side may be Mrs. Roger Wolcott who organized the afternoon teas at the Medical School.
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,…
Students attended lectures in the basement of Harvard Hall, but by 1797, the condition of this facility was described—at least for Aaron Dexter's lectures on chemistry—as "unhealthy, inconvenient, and disgraceful," and new space was then provided in…
Dr. George Franklin Grant (1847-1910) of Oswego, New York, received a degree from the Harvard Dental School in 1870 and then joined the faculty as an authority on mechanical dentistry. He was the first African-American faculty member at the…
Part of a set of photographs of members of the first graduates of the Harvard Dental School, this image of Robert Tanner Freeman (d. 1873) is particularly interesting. Dr. Freeman was born in Washington, D.C., and was the son of former slaves from…
The Harvard Corporation, at the instigation of the Medical Faculty, petitioned the Massachusetts state legislature for funds to build an adequate home for the Medical School. The Faculty received a grant of $18,000 to obtain land and erect the first…
During the 1880s, Holmes was involved with the fund-raising appeals for the Medical School’s Boylston Street building. As part of the centennial celebration and dedication of the new building in 1883, he delivered this oration, tracing the history…
During the 1880s, Holmes was involved with the fund-raising appeals for the Medical School’s Boylston Street building. As part of the centennial celebration and dedication of the new building in 1883, he delivered this oration, tracing the…
This photograph was taken on the occasion of Holmes’ retirement from teaching anatomy at Harvard and just after the opening of the school's new facility on Boylston Street. Some years later, Thomas Dwight recalled, “The scene was most…
Honored guests from medical schools in the United States and Europe were present at the dedication ceremonies. This certificate from the Registrary attests to the appointment of Sir G. Sims Woodhead (1855-1921), Professor of Pathology, as the…
This local newspaper was one of the first to report the formation of the Harvard Medical School following the plan devised by Dr. John Warren for the Harvard Corporation. The article announces the appointment of the first three faculty members and…
The Medical School received formal letters of congratulation on the opening of the new buildings from other medical schools in the United States and from institutions abroad, including this unusual greeting from the rector of the Imperial University…
While few early photographs exist of the Harvard Medical School building on North Grove Street, considerable information about the structure and its interior can be found, ironically, in the published transcripts of the 1850 murder trial of John W.…
The last external program of the Department of Legal Medicine was the Research on Fatal Highway Collisions project; Alfred L. Moseley, a psychologist, was the principal investigator. The project, funded by a five-year grant from the National…
As part of the dedication ceremonies, honorary degrees were to be presented to some distinguished physicians. In this memo, the dean of the Medical School, William L. Richardson, canvasses and records the opinions of some of the faculty members on…
Original research into medico-legal problems was one of the Department's fundamental activities from the outset, and over one hundred articles were published by members of the staff from 1940 to 1954. The article by O. J. Pollak uses a composite of…
Private Oscar C. Tugo enlisted on May 7, 1917; he was killed as a night orderly during the air raid on Base Hospital No. 5 on September 4, along with Lieutenant William Fitzsimons, Privates Rudolph Rubino, Jr., and Leslie G. Woods. On October 18,…
The so-called "Harvard Hymn" was sung by the Alumni Chorus at the Academic Session of the Dedication on September 26th. It was composed by John Knowles Paine, the University's late professor of music.
Although invited to the dedication, physician Sir William Osler—who had just been named Oxford's Regius Professor of Medicine—could not attend, but did telegraph his congratulations.
After some weeks abroad, Alan R. Moritz sent these reflections on legal medicine in an academic context to Mrs. Lee to help crystalize the direction and goals of the new department.
My greatest problem to date has been to arrive at some more or less…
The first book to be published on medical education in America was written by Dr. John Morgan, who founded the Medical Department of the University of Pennsylvania, the nation’s first medical school, in 1765. This particular copy is notable for…
Financier and industrialist J. Pierpont Morgan was the most significant benefactor to the construction of the Quad buildings. His magnificent gift of $1,135,000—the single largest donation received by Harvard to that point—underwrote the…
Dr. John George Metcalf of Mendon attended Harvard Medical School and used this notebook during the lectures of Drs. John Collins Warren, Jacob Bigelow, and Walter Channing. The notebook also served as Metcalf’s diary, and his account of life at…
This state report provided key arguments for the repeal of the 1815 Act to Protect the Sepulchres of the Dead by the Massachusetts Legislature and so legalized dissection of human bodies for anatomical study. Dr. John Collins Warren, stressing the…
This letter from Holmes’ tenure as dean of Harvard Medical School relates to the education of two African-American students, Daniel Laing, Jr., and Isaac H. Snowden. The Massachusetts Colonization Society promoted the education of Laing and…
Video recording of a lecture by psychiatrist Erich Lindemann, presented in 1966 at the Visiting Faculty Seminar in the Harvard Medical School Laboratory of Community Psychiatry. The meeting was chaired by Gerald Caplan (1917-2008). The film is by…
Published in the period following the resignation of Alan R. Moritz's and the appointment of Richard Ford, this article from The Saturday Evening Post criticizes the coroner system and promotes the importance of the medical-legal research work at…
Published in the period following the resignation of Alan R. Moritz's and the appointment of Richard Ford, this article from The Saturday Evening Post criticizes the coroner system and promotes the importance of the medical-legal research work at…
An MGM film originally intended as a documentary on the work of the Department of Legal Medicine was later recast as a fictional drama—Mystery Street (also known as Murder at Harvard.) The plot concerns a police detective (Ricardo Montalban)…
Part of a collection of photographic negatives for images taken by Richard U. Light (1902-1994) of senior medical and surgical staff of the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, from 1930 to 1935, during the period of his surgical…
Part of a collection of photographic negatives for images taken by Richard U. Light (1902-1994) of senior medical and surgical staff of the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, from 1930 to 1935, during the period of his surgical…
Pierre Laterrière, who first studied medicine under M. de la Rochambeau in France, came to Harvard and received the degree of Bachelor of Medicine in 1789. He went on to practice medicine in Canada. Laterrière’s Mémoires,…
In 1847, Harvard Medical School erected a new building, on North Grove Street, adjoining Massachusetts General Hospital, on land donated by Dr. George Parkman—whose body would all too soon be found buried beneath it. The school building itself…
This 19th century guidebook to Harvard University describes the current—and overcrowded—conditions of the Medical School on North Grove Street as well as some of the collections of the Warren Anatomical Museum. A building on Cambridge Street was…
From large wooden slide box with "Pictures of Camiers / 1914-1915" written on lid, and with a slip of paper reading "Camiers / World War I / also / Ste Croix." Box contains images of Camiers, as well as assorted images from a family vacation to…
Although he never practiced as a physician, William James—philosopher and psychologist best known for The Varieties of Religious Experience(1902)—received a degree from Harvard Medical School in 1869 and taught physiology during the…
Harvard’s first professor of clinical medicine, James Jackson, found that the time spent with his students on the wards at Massachusetts General Hospital detracted from his formal lecturing, and so he published these brief notes of his lectures…
At the opening of the term and the beginnings of debate over educational reform at the Medical School, Holmes gave this address to the students, partly in defense of the summer term of practical instruction over the formal lectures of the winter.…
This letter from Holmes’ tenure as dean of Harvard Medical School relates to the education of two African-American students, Daniel Laing, Jr., and Isaac H. Snowden. Here, at Brooks’ appeal, Holmes waives the lecture fees for Laing…
In his will, Hingham physician Ezekiel Hersey bequeathed £1,000 to the Harvard Corporation to fund a professorship in anatomy and physic [physiology]. Although it took some years for the Corporation to establish a program of medical study, in…
In 1780, during the Revolutionary War, surgeon John Warren (1753-1815) began to deliver anatomical lectures to physicians at the military hospital in Boston. Warren went on to deliver public lectures during the winter of 1781-1782, at the invitation…
Harvard Medical School established a library of its own in 1816. This pamphlet of rules was printed and distributed to students following the collection's unification with the Boston Medical Library in 1819.
While unclear how or even whether this statement of beliefs was ever used, it provides an overview of the purpose and function of the Department of Legal Medicine.
Following the gift of the Magrath endowment, the Medical School formed a committee to examine the scope, nature, and activities related to legal medicine. These minutes of the committee’s initial meeting outline the proposed activities, association…
The Department of Anatomy produced and distributed this step-by-step manual for dissection "to help the student in the important task of displaying for study the structure of the human body. It represents one plan for completing each day's work with…
David Davis Rutstein (1909-1986), S.B., 1930, Harvard College, M.D.; 1934, Harvard Medical School, Boston, joined the faculty at Harvard Medical School in 1947 as Professor of Preventive Medicine and was head of the Department of Preventive Medicine…
Although Thomas Francis Harrington published a three-volume history of the Medical School in 1905, the dedication of the new buildings prompted the appearance of this shorter commemorative work, with a history of the individual departments and a…