Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Olde Cambridge

[84] success in medical practice. Dr. Walter Channing of Boston, grandfather of the present physician of that name, was fond of telling a story of his taking Dr. Holmes with him in consultation to visit an invalid lady in a suburb of Boston, who rose in her bed as they entered the room and said peevishly: “Dr. Channing, why do you bring that little boy in here? Take him away! This is no place for boys.” Upon which the young physician retired in wrath and refused to reenter the room when the patient was propitiated.

Dr. Holmes did not remain long in the active practice of his profession, but for many years he was — as some boy by a fortunate blunder described him--“Professor of Monotony” in the Harvard Medical School; not that his teachings were ever monotonous, for they were always marked with vivacity and variety; but it is possible that the employment may have sometimes grown fatiguing. He varied it by much vivacious social life and by a good deal of lecturing before the popular lyceums then so much in vogue. He did not go to distant parts of the country, but was in New England one of the