Oliver Wendell Holmes, American Physician and Poet

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Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809-1894) was an American physician, professor, lecturer, and author. Regarded by his peers as one of the best writers of the 19th century, he is considered a member of the Fireside Poets. His most famous prose works are the "Breakfast-Table" series, which began with The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table (1858). He is recognized as an important medical reformer. He lectured on pathology, taught the use of microscopes and supervised dissections of cadavers. He often criticized traditional medical practices. In 1843, Holmes published "The Contagiousness of Puerperal Fever" in which he stated that the cause of puerperal fever, a deadly infection contracted by women during or shortly after childbirth, stems from patient to patient contact via their physicians which predated germ theory. He coined the word "anesthesia".

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