WARREN
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WARREN
remarks, interesting and instructive
to-day. But all this gives only a very
faint idea of his ceaseless literary activity.
He was always writing; reports, memoirs,
essays, lectures poured from his pen. It
was a fluent pen, and had behind it a
brain stored with keen thoughts and
abundant information.
Always greatly interested in compar- ative anatomy and paleontology, he was able to secure, among other trophies, the most perfect skeleton of the mastodon which exists — the monster still preserved in the old building on Chestnut Street which has been known for sixty years as the Warren Museum. All through his life he devoted himself, like Hunter and Cooper before him, to the collection of anatomical specimens. This collection, together with the treasures of the Medical Improvement Society, passed years ago to the Harvard Medical School and formed the nucleus of the fine "Warren Museum" of that institution.
He was prominent also in the establish- ment of the American Medical Associa- tion, and there was that other great event with which his name is most conspicu- ously connected; the first public use in surgery of ether anesthesia. This was in October, 1846, when he was approach- ing his seventieth year. It is needless here to enter upon that most interesting and confused chapter of American sur- gery. Suffice it to admit as Jacob Bige- low admitted years afterwards, that to Warren belongs the credit, in his old age, of allowing his name and position to stand sponsor for this courageous and revolutionary experiment.
The old man lived on until 1856. Fifteen years before his death his wife died, leaving him with six grown children, and two years later he married a daugh- ter of Gov. Thomas Lindall Winthrop, who also died before him.
He kept busy almost to the end of his life, especially with his writing. His last surgical paper was published in May, 1855, just a year before his death, which closed a brief and painful illness.
Among his writings are: "Cases of
Organic Diseases of the Heart," Boston,
1809; "A Comparative View of the
Sensorial and Nervous Systems in Men
and Animals," Boston, 1822; "Surgical
Observations on Tumors," Boston, 1837;
" Inhalation of Ethereal Vapor for the
Prevention of Pain in Surgical Opera-
tions," Boston, 1846; "The Mastodon
Giganteus of North America."
J. G. M.
Johns Hopkins Hosp. Bull., July, 1903 (J. G. Mumford).
Mem. of John C. Warren (H. P. Arnold), Cambridge, 1882.
Lives of Eminent Am. Phys., S. D. Gross. Hist, and Genealog. Register, 1865. Life of John C. Warren (E. Warren), Boston, 1860, in which there is a portrait and also in the Surg. -gen. collection. Wash., D. C. Reminiscences of an Old New England Sur- geon, J. C. Warren, Jr., Marj'land Med. Jour., 1901, vol. .xliv.
Warren, Joseph (1741-1775).
Joseph Warren was born at Roxbury, June 11, 1741, and after graduating at Harvard, in 1759, was appointed master of the Roxbury grammar school. He studied medicine under Dr. James Lloyd, and at the age of twenty-three estab- lished himself permanently as a physician in Boston. By his successful treatment of small-pox patients, during the epi- demic that scourged the New England cities at that period, he acquired a high reputation among the faculty. One of his most illustrious patients was John Adams, afterwards president of the United States, who was so favorably impressed with the young doctor that he retained him as his family physician.
In 1764, he married Elizabeth Hooton, a young lady who inherited an ample fortune.
His zeal in the cause of patriotism rendered him indifferent to bright pros- pects of professional advancement, and he soon gave himself heart and soul to American freedom. At every town meeting held in Boston, from the arrival of the British troops in October, 1768, to their removal in March, 1770, his voice was heard and his influence felt. On the morning of June 17, 1775, he met the
