HOLMES S4S HOLSTON connected with the Medical School the ques- tion of admitting women came up. The sug- gestion met with much opposition and was finally abandoned. Prof. Dwight thus de- scribes Holmes's attitude towards the subject: "On this occasion (exercises at the opening of the new building of the Harvard Medical School in 1883), after speaking in his most perfect style on woman as a nurse, with a pathos free from mawkishness which Dickens rarely reached, he concluded : 'I have always felt that this was rather the vocation of woman than general medical, aiid especially surgical, practice.' This was the signal for loud ap- plause from the conservative side. When he could resume he went on: 'Yet I myself followed the course of lectures given by the young Madame Lachapelle in Paris, and if here and there an intrepid woman insists on taking by storm the fortress of medical edu- cation, I would have the gate flung open to her as if it were that of the citadel of Orleans and she were Joan of Arc returning from the field of victory.' The enthusiasm which this sentiment called forth was so over- whelming that those of us who had led the first applause felt, perhaps looked, rather foolish. I have since suspected that Dr. Holmes, who always knew his audience, had kept beck the real climax to lure us to our destruction." Holmes was well versed in standard his- torical medical works. He presented his pri- vate medical library, a collection of 1,000 vol- umes, to the Boston Medical Library, of which he was president for thirteen years. He de- scribes these books as so dear to him that "a twig from some one of my nerves ran to every one." The collection, nearly complete and containing many first editions, is now specially guarded in a case in Holmes Hall, the main reading room, named for the library's first president and ornamented by his bust and portrait. In 1860 he published an address on "Currents and Countercurrents in medical Science," and in 1861 incorporated with this his papers on "Homeopathy" and "Puerperal Fever," and several addresses to medical stu- dents, and in 1882, a volume of "Medical Es- says," containing a few of those published in "Currents and Countercurrents" and some others. In 1874 appeared a sketch of the "Life of Jeffries Wyman," and in 1891 a "Tribute to Henry J. Bigelow, M. D." As a practitioner. Holmes was opposed to overdosing. He believed in the self-limitation of disease. "From the time of Hippocrates," he states, "to ihat of our own medical patri- arch, there has been an apostolic succession of wise and good practitioners, who place before all remedies the proper conduct of the patient." The misuse of drugs he expressed well by saying that if all drugs in the Phar- macopoeia, with a very few exceptions, were thrown into the sea, it would be all the better for mankind, and the worse for the fishes. Holmes ■ began writing graceful verse and prose when in college, and continued actively productive till the close of his life. To his wit and skill as a writer is due his chief reputation, but this side of his life cannot be adequately entered on here. After his resignation from the Harvard Medical School in 1882, he devoted himself to literary pursuits. In 1886, in company with his daughter, he made a trip to Europe, where he received much attention, and was given honorary degrees at Oxford, Cambridge and Edinburgh. On his return to America he lived quietly in Boston and at his summer home at Beverly Farms, until the end came. In the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, October 11, 1894, vol. cxxxi, and in the cata- logue of the Surgeon-general, Washington, D. C, will be found lists of his writings. Charles R. Bardeen. The best biog. of Holmes is that by J. T. Morse: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Life and Letters, 1886. On Holmes as an anatomist, see: D. W. Cheever's Oliver Wendell Holmes, the Anatomist, Har. Grad. Mag., Dec, 1894, vol. iii. T. Dwight. Reminiscences of Dr. Holmes as Prof, of Anat., Sribner's Mag., Jan., 1895, vol. xvii. On Holmes as a physician: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Johns Hopkins Hosp. Bull., Oct., 1894. W. Osier. The Med. Life of Oliver Wendell Holmes, J. H. Mason Knox, Jr., M. D., Johns Hopkins Hosp. Bull., Feb., 1897, vol. xviii. Feb.. 1897, vol. XVIII. The best bibliography of the works of Holmes is that of George B. Ives. 1897. HoUton, John G. F. (1809-1874). Holston was born in Hamburg, Germany, and his father was also a physician, but tlie opposition of John's family to his desire to follow the same calling caused him to leave home at an early age. .s a cabin-boy he visited England, the East Indies, China, and other Asi- atic countries, finally landing in Philadelphia. The cholera was then raging there, and he vol- unteered as a nurse in a cholera hospital, thus obtaining a first introduction to his profession. After the epidemic he started on foot to the West, with a companion who robbed and de- serted liim in ihe vicinity of Canonsburg, Pennsylvania. Penniless and friendless, he found employment in a brick-yard near Wash- ington College, where his knowledge of Latin and Greek attracted the attention of the stu-
