The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris (88 page)

100
We do not know which most to admire: NewYork Mirror
, November 2, 1833.

100
Eventually it was bought:
Silverman,
Lightning Man
,129–30.

100
Morse had hoped to get:
Ibid., 129.

101
That
The Gallery:
New York Times
, July 30, 1982.

The wealth of material in the letters of the American medical students in Paris is extraordinary, and again one is struck by how extremely well written they are, even though the young men writing them (with the exception of Oliver Wendell Holmes) did not aspire to be writers or to write “writing.” Those by Mason Warren, for example, are exemplary in their thoroughness and clarity. But then it was a day and age when young people were expected to write letters to their families and to use the English language properly. Holmes’s letters are notable for their wit and his consistent, irrepressible love of learning.

Of books written at the time,
Old Wine in New Bottles
by Augustus Kinsley Gardener is particularly good on student life in Paris, and John Harley Warner’s excellent
Against the Spirit of System: The French Impulse in Nineteenth-Century American Medicine
(1998) has also been of great value in understanding the long-range effect of the Paris training.

PAGE

103
It is no trifle: Morse,
Life and Letters of Oliver Wendell Holmes
, Vol. I, 86.

104
Largest of the hospitals:
Warren,
The Parisian Education of an American Surgeon
, 13.

104
This one hospital:
Ibid., 13–14.

104
Second in size:
Ibid., 14.

104
The Hôpital des Enfants Malades:
Ibid., 15.

105
In the single year of 1833:
Ibid., 13.

105
In Boston, by comparison:
Ibid.

105
Velpeau, as everyone knew:
Ibid., 29.

106
Compared to the hospitals:
Stewart,
Eminent French Surgeons
, 129.

106
Its central amphitheater for lectures:
The École de Médecine’s central amphitheater is still much as it was and still in use.

106
Further, for foreign students:
Warren,
The Parisian Education of an American Surgeon
, 3.

106
There were still, in the 1830s:
Jones, “American Doctors and the Parisian Medical World, 1830–1840,”
Bulletin of the History of Medicine
, January–February 1973, 50.

106
[
At about age eighteen
]
the lad:
Cooper,
The Pioneers
, 72–73.

107
Enrollment was as high as:
Jones, “American Doctors and the Parisian Medical World, 1830–1840,” 50.

107
The American students:
Ibid., 47.

107
“attachment”:
Ashbel Smith to Eugene Rousseau, January 1, 1832, Center for American History, University of Texas.

107
“I dislike to fix”:
Ashbel Smith to Daniel Seymour, February 6, 1832, Center for American History, University of Texas.

108
“The glory of the week”:
James Jackson, Jr., to James Jackson, Sr., November 1, 1832, Jackson Papers, Countway Library, Harvard Medical School.

108
“perfect ignoramus”:
Bowditch,
Life and Correspondence of Henry Ingersoll Bowditch
, Vol. II, 128.

108
“quite overwhelmed”:
Warren,
The Parisian Education of an American Surgeon
, 158.

108
“very nice”:
Oliver Wendell Holmes to his parents, May 31, 1833, Holmes Papers, Houghton Library, Harvard University.

108
A “little extra”:
Ibid.

108
Holmes found he could make it:
Though the house where Holmes lived is no longer there on the rue Monsieur-le-Prince, the walk to the École can still be made in under four minutes, even by one more than three times his age.

108
I commonly rise:
Warren,
The Parisian Education of an American Surgeon
, 100.

109
“No one ever heard”:
Arnold,
Memoir of Jonathan Mason Warren, M.D.
, 269.

109
he “never for a moment”:
Ibid., 119.

109
In a pencil drawing:
See Warren,
The Parisian Education of an American Surgeon
, 10.

109
“He was, in truth”:
Arnold,
Memoir of Jonathan Mason Warren, M.D.
, 171–72.

110
“in regard to the necessities”:
Warren,
The Parisian Education of an American Surgeon
, 70.

110
“Observe operations”:
Arnold,
Memoir of Jonathan Mason Warren, M.D.
, 306.

110
“Send me without delay”:
Ibid., 309.

111
“There is a face”:
Jackson,
Memoir of James Jackson
,
Jr., M.D.
, 212.

111
In the United States:
Jones, “American Doctors and the Parisian Medical World, 1830–1840,” 50.

111
“a French head”:
James Jackson, Jr., to James Jackson, Sr., July 27, 1831, Jackson Papers, Countway Library, Harvard Medical School.

112
“shake them off from his broad shoulders”:
Morse,
Life and Letters of Oliver Wendell Holmes
, Vol. I, 93.

112
Holmes had from the start:
See ibid., 102.

112
Dupuytren, one of the medical giants:
See ibid., 93.

112
“a lesser kind of deity”:
Ibid.

112
“make a show”:
Warren,
The Parisian Education of an American Surgeon
, 89.

112
“His operations are always brilliant”:
Arnold,
Memoir of Jonathan Mason Warren, M.D.
, 84.

112
“He is always endeavoring”:
Warren,
The Parisian Education of an American Surgeon
, 108.

112
“very neat and rapid”:
Ibid., 167.

113
“kind of off-hand way”:
Ibid.

113
“a great drawer of blood”:
Morse,
Life and Letters of Oliver Wendell Holmes
, Vol. I, 92.

113
“Without it he would probably”:
Warren,
The Parisian Education of an American Surgeon
, 205.

114
If his orders:
Ibid., 108.

114
“In his lectures”:
Ibid., 116.

114
“le brigand”: Warren,
The Parisian Education of an American Surgeon
, 84.

115
“a good sound head”:
Holmes, “Some of My Early Teachers,” in
Medical Essays
,
1842–1882
, 429.

115
“The French woman”:
Gardener,
Old Wine in New Bottles
, 161.

115
The second great difference:
Truax,
The Doctors Warren of Boston
, 153.

116
In the South:
Shafer,
The American Medical Profession, 1783–1850
, 62.

116
“living a kind of student’s life”:
Sanderson,
The American in Paris
, Vol. I, 184.

116
“cut him into inch pieces”:
Warren,
The Parisian Education of an American Surgeon
, 51.

116
Here the assiduous student:
Gardener,
Old Wine in New Bottles
, 68–69.

117
I never was so busy:
Morse,
Life and Letters of Oliver Wendell Holmes
, Vol. I, 89.

117
By comparison, the library:
Shafer,
The American Medical Profession: 1783–1850
, 73.

117
“What a feast”:
Warner,
Against the Spirit of System
, 110.

118
“By the blessing of God”:
Bowditch,
Life and Correspondence of Henry Ingersoll Bowditch
, Vol. I, 20.

118
“devotes himself”:
Ibid., 28.

119
“The days are so much occupied”:
Warren,
The Parisian Education of an American Surgeon
, 221.

119
“an entire new field”:
Ibid., 191–92.

119
Madame Marie-Louise LaChapelle:
Ibid.

119
Bowditch was to say:
Arnold,
Memoir of Jonathan Mason Warren, M.D.
, 205 n.

119
To Wendell Holmes:
Morse,
Life and Letters of Oliver Wendell Holmes
, Vol. I, 186.

119
“I send you by ship”:
Warren,
The Parisian Education of an American Surgeon
, 107.

120
Trois Frères:
Ibid., 59.

120
“sad on finding himself”:
Ibid., 111.

120
There is no doubt:
Ibid.

121
“There is a notion”:
Morse,
Life and Letters of Oliver Wendell Holmes
, Vol. I, 106.

121
The King is caricatured:
Ibid.