Harvard Class of 1832
Married April 30, 1839

~


퐉. 퐌퐚퐬퐨퐧 퐖퐚퐫퐫퐞퐧, 퐨퐧퐞 퐨퐟 퐭퐡퐞 퐟퐨퐫퐞퐦퐨퐬퐭 퐬퐮퐫퐠퐞퐨퐧퐬 퐨퐟 퐭퐡퐞 퐂퐢퐯퐢퐥 퐖퐚퐫 퐞퐫퐚…

…was no army sawbones. Not a hundred-dollars-a-month contract "acting assistant surgeon," Dr. Jonathan Mason Warren earned nearly $25,000 income in 1864 as visiting surgeon and chief of staff of Massachusetts General Hospital, as a consulting surgeon to the Boston Dispensary, as medical adviser to the John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company, as a physician in private practice, and as a member of the wartime Medical Commission of Massachusetts.

"Mason" took his first breath in 1811, in the home of his ancestors, Boston, Massachusetts. Named to honor his maternal grandfather, Senator Jonathan Mason, he was born into a veritable medical dynasty on his paternal side. Grandfather John Warren had been a Continental Army surgeon at Cambridge at the time of the Battle of Bunker Hill and, traveling with Washington's army, he ran hospitals on Long Island and at Trenton and Princeton. A graduate of Harvard University, he founded its medical school in 1782. Mason's great uncle, Dr. Joseph Warren, served on Boston's patriot Committee of Correspondence, drafted the Suffolk Resolves, sent Paul Revere and Williams Dawes on their storied midnight ride and, promoted from surgeon to major general of militia, was fatally wounded leading his troops on Breed's Hill. Mason's father, John Collins Warren, followed in his own father's footsteps to Harvard, becoming a professor at, and then dean of, its medical school. From his private study collection, he established the school's Webster Anatomical Museum in 1847. He was a founding member of Massachusetts General Hospital and of the 형혦호 혌혯혨혭혢혯혥 협혰혶혳혯혢혭 혰혧 혔혦혥혪혤혪혯혦. "To his son… it seemed to stand not within the prospect of belief that a Warren should be anything but a surgeon, or could fail to lend his aid toward perpetuating the fame, policy, and traditions of his family."

Educated at Boston Latin School and under private tutelage, Mason Warren enrolled at his ancestors' alma mater, graduating Harvard Medical School in 1832 at age 21. What followed was an unusual Grand Tour, somewhat upset by a cholera pandemic, in which he visited Europe's hospitals and shipped home instruments, specimens, books and papers. After a year of formal study at the Clinical School of Medicine in the Latin Quarter and then further travels, Mason returned to a residency in Paris's hospitals. Finally, he sailed for home in spring 1835, and worked in his father's practice two years before taking it over during the elder surgeon's own trip abroad.

With a physical expansion of Massachusetts General Hospital completed in early 1846, Dr. J. Mason Warren was appointed a visiting surgeon—again subordinate to his famous father—although he had performed operations there as early as 1837.

Massachusetts General, founded largely to treat the poor and to serve as a teaching hospital for Harvard, was the site of various firsts, the most important being the earliest documented use of ether as a general anesthesia in surgery. In 1846, dentist William T.G. Morton had performed a painless tooth extraction after administering ether. J. Collins Warren invited Morton to demonstrate anesthesia in Massachusetts General's operating theater as Dr. Warren removed a tumor from the neck of a patient. This success led to broad publicity and ether's broad application. Less than a month later, J. Mason Warren performed his own first surgery with the gas, again administered by Dr. Morton. The next spring, Mason published a journal article on its use. The surgeons were sensible of the historic nature of the advance, and J. Collins Warren commissioned a series of daguerreotypes to document these experimental operations. Mason Warren quickly dismissed unsuccessful parallel experiments with nitrous oxide. During the Civil War, he would restate his preference for ether over chloroform—in fact, he would recommend Congress remunerate Dr. Morton in the amount of $100,000 for his "gift" to the world—while acknowledging chloroform's advantages of portability and ease of use on the battlefield.

Dr. J. Mason Warren began to step out of the shadow of his father—who died in 1856—in both accomplishments and reputation. He performed the first rhinoplasty on this side of the Atlantic and repaired cleft palates and hare lips. He was the first Boston doctor to amputate a leg at the hip joint, an operation he would perform successfully again, noting it had been always fatal in field hospitals of the Crimean War—and merely usually fatal during the American Civil War. Such advances in reconstructive surgery and amputation would prove of use during the latter conflict. In his private practice, Mason increasingly saw socially prominent patients. It did not hurt that he married Annie Caspar Crowninshield, daughter of a former Congressman and Secretary of the Navy. Present at the death of Senator Daniel Webster, Warren was depicted in Joseph Ames's painting of that event—and in Mottram's engraving from the painting, published by Smith and Parmalee in 1856.

With the outbreak of the Civil War, Dr. Warren was appointed to the Medical Commission of Massachusetts, examining candidates for appointment as surgeons to the state's volunteer regiments. The commission considered preparation of a manual for surgeons and initially recommended a ban on chloroform as dangerous to patients—while promoting the stockpiling of ether. Mason also served as an associate of the new U.S. Sanitary Commission, a member of its Massachusetts branch. He was an author of an 1862 혙혦혱혰혳혵 혰혧 혢 혊혰혮혮혪혵혵혦혦 혰혧 혵혩혦 혈혴혴혰혤혪혢혵혦 혔혦혥혪혤혢혭 혔혦혮혣혦혳혴 혰혧 혵혩혦 혚혢혯혪혵혢혳혺 혊혰혮혮혪혴혴혪혰혯 혰혯 혵혩혦 혚혶혣혫혦혤혵 혰혧 혌혹혤혪혴혪혰혯 혰혧 협혰혪혯혵혴 혧혰혳 혛혳혢혶혮혢혵혪혤 혊혢혶혴혦, regarding surgery to remove lesions from the extremities as an alternative to amputation.

Of course, from Boston, Dr. Warren's participation in the war was largely remote. In May 1861, he organized the first course on military surgery, taught by his colleague Henry J. Bigelow, M.D. That November, he penned a letter to the doctor at Richmond's Libby Prison requesting kind treatment of men of the 20th Massachusetts—the "Harvard Regiment"—captured at Ball's Bluff. His name appeared with those of prominent doctors and scientists on a January 1864 circular demanding that Surgeon General William Hammond, who had been demoted by a hostile Secretary of War, be reinstated or have an opportunity to defend himself against formal charges—of which he was eventually acquitted.

In October 1863, Dr. Warren joined other Massachusetts physicians in a petition for a Congressional investigation and improvement of the Army's ambulance and hospital system. The genesis of the petition was an 1862 visit to Washington by Warren's college chum and close medical colleague, Dr. Henry I. Bowditch. While at the nation's capital, Bowditch had responded to a plea from the Surgeon General for volunteers to treat the wounded on the Centreville battlefield and, witnessing conditions for himself, took up the cause of improving medical care for the troops. He appealed to medical associations, to his senator, to General McClellan, and even to his medical school class. At Warren's urging, he finally published a tract on the subject—delayed because his own son, Lieutenant Nathaniel Bowditch of the First Massachusetts Cavalry, was mortally wounded leading a charge at Kelly's Ford. The father's cause was now personal, the anger palpable in his writing: "Two surgeons saw him, but they evidently had no means for carrying off the wounded officer, and it is believed 혯혰 혰혯혦 혤혰혯혯혦혤혵혦혥 호혪혵혩 혢혯 혈혮혣혶혭혢혯혤혦 혊혰혳혱혴 혦혷혦혳 혢혱혱혳혰혢혤혩혦혥 혩혪혮 혵혩혦혳혦…. Three days after the fight, I heard several staff officers… saying that they ‘thought' a flag of truce ought to be sent over the river, to see to our wounded…"

And so the war came quickly home to the Hub. Massachusetts General admitted soldiers free of charge. As surgeon and, from 1863, chief of the hospital's professional staff, Dr. Warren saw plenty who had been shipped home from field and general hospitals. He was among a minority of doctors who had treated gunshot wounds prior to the Civil War. Suddenly, the subject was of the most pressing medical interest; Warren served as secretary of Harvard's Boylston Medical Prize committee for best dissertation on assigned topics, which now included blood poisoning and "treatment of painful affections of the Nerves following Gun Shot wounds." He witnessed many surgeries and observed colleagues' cases. He personally treated several wounded from early battles who had been captured and paroled, having to re-open old wounds to extract pieces of bullet, bone splinters, or foreign matter. It was morphine for the pain, and ether to put the patients under. As one might expect, he found no saber cuts or bayonet punctures, and only a whiff of grapeshot.

Among the first of his soldier-patients was Richard P. Rowe, a 31-year-old butcher and private of the Boston Fusiliers that had been incorporated into the First Massachusetts Infantry as Company G. At First Bull Run, the company was ordered to skirmish downhill into woods occupied by the enemy. Rowe "was struck by a ball in the heel; the ball passing around the os calcis, and coming out on the other side…. Shortly afterwards, he exposed the other foot, when another ball struck him in exactly the same spot on that foot… He was carried a prisoner to Richmond, where he was under the care of Dr. Charles Bell Gibson, of the Confederate Army. Inflammation was so extensive, and the pain so severe, that he at one time requested Dr. Gibson to amputate the foot, which he very properly declined to do." It was not until October that Rowe was exchanged and sent North, where he landed at Massachusetts General. After two operations by Mason and the passage of several months, his ability to walk was restored, but he healed completely, minus a little osseus matter, only in 1867.

Dr. Warren seldom disclosed the names of patients, Rowe being an exception. In nineteenth-century fashion, he often concealed identities behind initials, such as "Captain G.," shot in the neck at far Chickamauga. He kept anonymous, for instance, a likely member of the mauled 12th or 15th Massachusetts shot through the elbow and into the knee while stooping to apply a tourniquet to one of his comrades at Antietam. But the doctor often provided enough hints to identify his subjects, once his accounts are compared to other sources. For instance, he extracted from the thigh of Major Robert Hooper Stevenson—brother and subordinate of the celebrated commander of the 24th Massachusetts—an entire bullet that had entered at the Battle of New Bern and had since eluded other doctors.

William O. Young, an eighteen-year-old druggist's clerk from Southie and a private of the First Massachusetts Infantry, was hit twice at the Battle of Williamsburg: once in the upper arm, with the ball emerging from the chest, and the other disappearing into the left hip. "He was disabled, though not in great pain at first. A week after, he was seized with a most excruciating pain in the course of the sciatic nerve of that side. He was taken to Baltimore, from which place he was brought on to Boston by steamboat and railroad, being carried always in his father's arms, to lessen the jar from the motion of travel." Another writer summarized Warren's procedure as "a difficult ball extraction… through a track leading for several inches through the gluteal muscles, to a chipped fracture at the inner edge of the great sciatic notch, and excruciating neuralgia being relieved by the removal of the missile." Still, the trauma may have shortened the aptly named Young's life; he passed away in his early 30s.

At the Second Battle of Petersburg, Major George W. Sabine of the First Maine Heavy Artillery (Photo 5) had a bullet pass through his left thigh and break the femur in his right. It spared him from taking a grim part in the regiment's disastrous charge of Confederate breastworks the next day but, after discharge and a failure to recover, he left his Maine home in May 1865 for succor at Massachusetts General. Dr. Warren considered amputation of the right leg, but opted for a more limited procedure. Sabine "for a time seemed to improve… [but] gradually failed, being worn out with the combined effects of suppuration, bedsores, and the bleedings which occurred," perishing after his own battle of eleven and a half months.

Dr. Warren seems to have recorded what he considered successes, even if the patient ultimately died of causes he did not attribute to his own work. That may be entirely fair, given the severity of wounds, the available technology and the lack of sterilization. When pension records are again available post-pandemic, it may prove interesting to see how the health of his former patients fared later in life. Too cheery sounds Warren's finding of "complete" recovery in the case of Private Robert Nelson of the 29th Massachusetts. The soldier was twenty years old when he escaped capture in the pre-dawn Confederate assault on Fort Stedman outside Petersburg, but he came away with hot lead in awkward places. "The ball entered the penis," attested a pension examiner, "passed through the right testis and neck of the bladder, and emerged from the left natis near the cleft. A fistulous opening now exists, from which his urine escapes. The right testis is atrophied, and its functions are evidently greatly impaired. The disability is total and permanent…" Perhaps this was an instance of Nelson being "informed that nothing could be done to relieve him," which the confident Dr. Warren dismissed. Surgery three months after the injury did provide some relief and, after periodic visits over five months, the patient was declared cured. A U.S. Army surgeon later examined the case notes, however, and characterized the "ulterior result" as "less satisfactory than had been anticipated." Although healed to a certain degree, it is difficult to believe Private Nelson was free of lingering problems, likely in the reproductive sphere. All that can be said at the moment is that he appears not to have married within five years following his injury. Maybe Warren's view was representative of the surgeon of the era, that if a patient could walk away—and walked away with no more holes than he was born with—the treatment was successful.

A happier ending was that of 24-year-old Private George B. Burt of the Seventh Massachusetts Infantry. Shot in the lower abdomen near Salem Church during the Chancellorsville campaign, he was sent to the Sixth Corps field hospital the following day, whose surgeons discovered the projectile had punctured the colon. It was more than a month before he was forwarded to Point Lookout, Maryland, where he was treated more than four months. Pieces of bone and fecal matter were occasionally discharged from the exit wound. Not healed but somehow furloughed, Burt made his way home and to Massachusetts General. Dr. Warren saw him in January 1864—not long before his regiment reported him deserted. The surgeon withdrew several bone fragments, but could not dislodge another and thought it best to wait and see. Several days later, "on visiting the patient in the morning, he, in great delight, held up a piece of bone which he had passed the day before from his rectum… The discharge from both apertures at once diminished; and, at the end of the week, they were almost closed. He left the Hospital, March 28th, being advised to maintain the horizontal posture, and avoid much motion until the wound had become perfectly sound… I saw this patient, in 1866, in a complete state of health." A pension examiner had rated Private Burt totally disabled in 1864. By 1870, the verdict was that he was "soundly healed," albeit having discomfort. "There can be little disability in this case," was the conclusion, because the Taunton machinist stated "that he works constantly and carries a magnificent pile of flesh." Still, the board granted him five-eighths disability. So much for a strong constitution and a positive disposition.

J. Mason Warren's relatives in uniform undoubtedly sought out their accomplished kinsman, "a cool and skillful operator." His 23-year-old cousin, Captain Herbert Cowpland Mason of the 20th Massachusetts (Photo 6), was wounded in the groin on the second day of Gettysburg and, three weeks later, the surgeon pulled the minie ball from where it had lodged against the hip joint. Young Mason was discharged for disability; the pain was such that he could no longer ride a horse and could only walk with difficulty.

Mrs. Warren's nephew, Francis Welch Crowninshield, "enthusiastic and ardent, brave and generous," left Harvard at age seventeen to accept a commission as second lieutenant in the Second Massachusetts Infantry—and proceeded to be serially promoted as he was serially wounded. Dr. Warren had set the rambunctious boy's broken limbs before the war, but what first brought him to Massachusetts General was a bullet wound in the left calf sustained March 25, 1862, when he was nearly the last man covering the retreat of Banks's army from Strasburg to Winchester. An exploding shell killed another man within his packed ambulance. Warren presented Frank's case in detail, he said, "to show what extent the soldier is exposed, independently of the danger from his wounds. That a young man, scarcely eighteen, should be able to march thirty-five miles with his regiment, constantly fighting, and without food, keep guard all night, engage in a battle lasting four hours the next morning, be wounded, and, while suffering and bleeding, lie twenty hours with a man on his swollen limb, with nothing to sustain him, except on the second day a swallow of whiskey,—shows how much the human frame will bear when assisted by spirit and determination." But Crowninshield's frame was due for much more: another leg wound at Antietam, and struck in the chest by a spent ball at Chancellorsville. A chronicler of the regiment described their bivouac after Brandy Station as "unusually cheerful, for we had brought every officer of ‘ours' safely out of the fight alive and well. Even Captain Frank Crowninshield, who generally got a bullet into him somewhere, came off, like the Irishman at the fair, with only a hole in the crown of his hat." Less amusing was Gettysburg, where a bullet struck and spiraled around the ulna of the now-captain, causing excruciating pain and nerve damage that paralyzed his forearm for months. Back on duty during the Atlanta campaign, Frank was again hit in the leg, this time by fire from guerrillas near Raccoon Creek. J. Mason Warren operated on these last, more serious wounds. Crowninshield was sent home for recruiting service and promoted to major, but never returned to duty. After the war, he traveled to Europe "hoping to repair a constitution shattered by wounds and hardships," but the "human frame" succumbed at Albano, Italy to the cumulative effects of injuries and exposure.

A number of publications detail medical cases over Warren's career, including 혛혩혦 혔혦혥혪혤혢혭 혢혯혥 혚혶혳혨혪혤혢혭 혏혪혴혵혰혳혺 혰혧 혵혩혦 혞혢혳 혰혧 혵혩혦 혙혦혣혦혭혭혪혰혯, but especially his numerous articles and his own book 혚혶혳혨혪혤혢혭 혖혣혴혦혳혷혢혵혪혰혯혴, 혞혪혵혩 혊혢혴혦혴 혢혯혥 혖혱혦혳혢혵혪혰혯혴, among the last of his contributions before his death from cancer in 1867. He was buried with his ancestors at Forest Hills Cemetery, Jamaica Plain. Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes delivered a eulogy for the surgeon at a special meeting of the Suffolk District Medical Society, one of Warren's many medical associations. Samuel Eliot, then an overseer at Harvard and a trustee of Massachusetts General, delivered the medical school commencement address the following year, observing of the late doctor that, "If any man could speak in the cause of medical education it was he; hereditary attachment, personal devotion, judgment, knowledge and skill, gave weight to his opinions while he lived, and give weight to them still. Who could plead for this school if he could not?" Indeed, in addition to his work for the hospital, he had raised money for its new operating theater, donated equipment and publications, and endowed an annual prize for the best dissertation in physiology, surgery or pathological anatomy. As a relative of Dr. Joseph Warren, he was a major booster of the effort to erect the Bunker Hill monument, and as a friend of Edward Everett, he contributed to his memorial. He had also carried on, and added to the collections of, his father's Warren Museum of Natural History on Chestnut. Among J. Mason Warren's greatest legacies were a son, two grandsons and a great-grandson who became physicians, carrying on the family tradition and its association with Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General.