Morrill Wyman was an American physician and social reformer. Best known today for his work on hay fever, he was one of the most respected doctors of his time, a social reformer, Harvard overseer, hospital president, and author in his long lifetime. Wyman was the son of Dr. Rufus Wyman, first director of the McLean Asylum, and Elizabeth Morrill. He and his brother Jeffries Wyman graduated from Harvard in 1833 and received medical degrees in 1837. Soon thereafter he set up a medical practice in Cambridge which he continued for over 50 years. Another brother, Edward Wyman, was a prominent merchant and the captain of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts.
Medical Work
Early in his career Wyman became interested in ventilation, and became an expert on the ventilation of sickrooms and public buildings. A paper on the subject won an award from the Massachusetts Medical Society, and he published a book on the subject in 1846. He also devised a method and device for removing excess fluid from the chest cavity. During the Civil War he served on a Sanitary Committee that inspected army medical facilities, being considered too old and too busy of a doctor to send to the front lines. After the Civil War Wyman became interested in hay fever, which he and members of his family suffered from, and he conducted experiments that convinced him that ragweed was a cause of what he called "Autumnal Cattarh"; gathering data from correspondents, he published the first pollen maps of the United States so that sufferers could plan vacations in low pollen areas. In 1850, Wyman performed the first recorded thoracentesis, later described by Henry Ingersoll Bowditch after performing the procedure on one of Bowditch's patients the same year. Wyman lectured on medical subjects for many years, both at a private medical school which he and his brother Jeffries conducted in Boston and at Harvard, where he served as interim professor of anatomy 1853-1856. He took a special interest in the Harvard Medical School during his terms as a Harvard overseer.
The whipping of a 16-year-old girl named Josephine Foster in a Cambridge school in 1866 gave Wyman a new cause. Convinced that it was harmful to use corporal punishment on young women and girls, Wyman led a petition drive, spoke and wrote on the subject, and ultimately served terms on the Cambridge School Board. He soon allied with others such as Bostonian John P. Ordway who wished to ban corporal punishment in the public schools for both sexes. Wyman testified at a hearing in 1868 on a bill to abolish all corporal punishment in public schools in Massachusetts - a bill which passed the lower house of the General Court, but failed in the Senate. His efforts did not lead to a long-standing ban on corporal punishment in Cambridge schools, but increased public awareness of it, and new reporting requirements probably reduced it considerably.
Other Accomplishments
Morrill Wyman also served as president of "Cambridge Hospital" during the construction of its first building; a building at the hospital now bears his name. After formally closing his practice in 1892, Wyman wrote an article and later a book on the life of Daniel Treadwell, inventor and Harvard professor, who had been a friend of Wyman's. During his long career as a physician, he treated many prominent patients, including Theodore Roosevelt, Charles Eliot, and Louis Agassiz. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Personal life
Wyman married Elizabeth Aspinwall Pulsifer, the orphan daughter of a ship's captain, and they had four children. He was greatly saddened by the death of his brother Jeffries in 1872. His son Morrill Wyman Jr. wrote a short book on the lives of his father and grandfather; it was published privately not long before his own death in 1913.
