WYMAN, Morrill, physician, born in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, 25 July, 1812. He was graduated at Harvard in 1833, and at the medical department in 1837. Meanwhile he served as assistant engineer on the Boston and Worcester railroad during 1833, and during 1836 was house physician to the Massachusetts general hospital. On the completion of his medical studies he settled in Cambridge, where he has since followed his profession. In 1853 he became adjunct professor of the theory and practice of medicine in Harvard, but he relinquished this chair after three years' occupation, he invented in 1850 an instrument for removing fluids from the cavities of the body, especially the chest, consisting essentially of a trocar and cannula of a very small diameter fitted to an exhausting-syringe. By its use an operation, which was previously considered dangerous, and was often fatal, has been rendered effectual, safe, and almost painless. Dr. Wyman is a member of the Massachusetts medical society and of the American academy of arts and sciences. In 1875 he was elected an overseer of Harvard, and he has since been re-elected. The degree of LL.D. was given him by Harvard in 1885. He has published a "Memoir of Daniel Treadwell" (Cambridge, 1888), and in book-form "A Practical Treatise on Ventilation" (Cambridge, 1846) ; " Progress in School Discipline" (1868): and "Autumnal Catarrh" (New York, 1872).

 Jeffries Wyman

WYMAN, Jeffries, his brother, comparative anatomist, born in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, 11 August, 1814; died in Bethlehem. New Hampshire, 4 September, 1874, was graduated at Harvard in 1833, and at the medical school in 1837. In 1836 he was appointed house physician in the Massachusetts a general hospital he settled in Boston, became demonstrator of anatomy under Dr. John C. Warren, was appointed curator of the newly founded Lowell institute in 1839, and in 1840-'1 delivered a course of twelve lectures on comparative anatomy and physiology. With the money that he derived from this source he went to Europe and studied human anatomy at the School of medicine, and comparative anatomy at the Jardin des plantes in Paris, after which he spent some time at the Royal college of surgeons in London. He returned to Boston in 1843, and in the autumn accepted the professorship of anatomy and physiology in Hampden Sidney college, Virginia, where he continued for five years, except during the summers which he spent in Boston. In 1847 he was appointed to the chair of anatomy in Harvard, succeeding Dr. John C. Warten, remained at the head of the department until his death, and during all the time he was noted as a clear and conscientious teacher and lecturer. He at once began the formation of a Museum of comparative anatomy, which was one of the earliest in this country, and is intended to show some of the important modifications of the organs of animals in connection with the physiological processes of which they are the seat, as well as the conditions of embryological development and the successive phases through which the embryo passes. After his death it became the property of the Boston society of natural history. 

In 1849 he delivered a second course of lectures before the Lowell institute on "Comparative Physiology," which gained for him a high rank among American anatomists and physiologists. In 1856 he visited, Surinam, Guiana, and penetrated in canoes far into the interior, making important researches upon the ground, and enriching his museum with animals of great anatomical interest. He made a voyage to La Plata river in 1858-'9, ascended the Uruguay and the Parana in a small iron steamer, and then crossed the pampas to Mendoza, and the Cordilleras to Santiago and Valparaiso, whence he returned by way of the Peruvian coast and the Isthmus of Panama. His investigations were first in the domain of comparative anatomy and physiology and then in paleontology, but with his great knowledge of the branches he was able in later years to concentrate his maturer powers on investigations in ethnology, and more especially in archaeology. Of his early studies, that "On the External Characters, Habits, and Osteology of the Gorilla" (1847) was the first, scientific description of that animal, whose specific name of gorilla was bestowed on it by Dr. Wyman. His paper "In the Nervous System of the Bull-Frog," published by the Smithsonian institution (1853), is said to be the "clearest introduction to the most complex of animal structures" that was issued up to that time. 

He was also the author of a series of papers on the anatomy of the blind fish of the Mammoth cave. To this subject, and to the comparative anatomy of the higher apes, he returned from time to time as material was afforded. He exposed the fraudulent nature of the skeleton called the Hydrachus Sillimani, alleged to be that of an extinct sea-serpent. His "Observations on the Development of the Skate" (1864) showed most conclusively that it ranks higher than the shark, since the latter retains through life a general form resembling one of the stages through which the former passes during its development. One of his most interesting researches was "Observations and Experiments on Living Organisms in Heated Water" (1867), which showed that no life appeared in water that is boiled more than five hours. Although reluctant to express an opinion on the subjects of spontaneous generation and the theory of descent, still his experiments convinced him that the former does not exist, and his teaching was favorable to the latter. He was a member of the faculty of the Museum of comparative zoology from the first, and he taught comparative anatomy in the Lawrence scientific school of Harvard. On the foundation of the Peabody museum of American ethnology and archaeology at Cambridge in 1866, he was named as one of the seven trustees, and was chosen its curator by his associates. Under these circumstances his work naturally tended toward archaeology, and, spending his winters in Florida, he was led to investigate the ancient shell-heaps there. In these he found evidences of prehistoric peoples, one of which was cannibal in its habits, he also discovered and studied similar refuse-piles along the coast of New England. He published several papers on this subject in the "American Naturalist" and in the "Reports of the Trustees of the Peabody Museum " (7 vols., Cambridge, 1867-'74), but his results are most fully given in a posthumous memoir on the "Fresh-water Shell-mounds of the St. John's River, Florida" (Salem, 1875). 

Professor Wyman was a member of the Linnaan society of London, and of the Anthropological institute of Great Britain and Ireland, and, besides membership in various other societies in this country, was a fellow and councilor of the American academy of arts and sciences. In 1856 he was chosen president of the American association for the advancement of science, but he was unable to be present at the subsequent meeting. His relations with the Boston society of natural history were very close. From 1839 to 1841 he was its recording secretary, and then successively curator of ichthyology and herpetology and comparative anatomy, and from 1856 to 1870 he was its president. He was one of the corporate members of the National academy of sciences, named by act of congress in 1863, and, although he soon resigned, his name was retained on the list of honorary members, his bibliography includes 175 titles, a full list of which, compiled by Alpheus S. Packard, accompanies the sketch of Dr. Wyman by him, which is published in the "Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences" (vol. ii., Washington, 1886). Asa Gray, Oliver Wendell Holmes, S. Weir Mitchell, Frederick W. Putnam, and Burr G. Wilder published sketches of his life, and James Russell Lowell a memorial sonnet.