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Oliver Wendell Holmes the elder, (August 29, 1809
– October 8, 1894) was a physician by profession
but achieved fame as a writer; he was one of the
best regarded American poets of the 19th century.

He was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the son
of a minister. He was educated at Phillips Academy
in Andover, Massachusetts and at Harvard
University. He first attained national prominence
with his poem \"Old Ironsides\" about the 18th
century battleship USS Constitution, which was to
be broken up for scrap; the poem generated public
sentiment that resulted in the historic ship being
preserved as a monument. One of his most popular
works was The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table.

He went to Paris for three years to study
medicine, then returned to get his doctorate at
Harvard in 1836, the same year the first book of
his verse was published. He then became a
professor of anatomy and physiology at Dartmouth
College.

He was a contributor of essays and poems to the
Atlantic Monthly from its inception, and also
published novels. His son was Supreme Court
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

In 1846, in a letter to William T. G. Morton, the
dentist who was the first practicioner to publicly
demonstrate the use of ether during surgery,
Holmes coined the word anęsthesia.

Holmes died in Boston, Massachusetts in 1894, and
is buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge,
Massachusetts.