Dr Rufus Wyman

"graduated at Harvard College in 1799; attended the study of medicine and surgery under the instruction of Dr. John Jeffries, Sen. ; and subsequently, when he had acquired a competent knowledge of the profession, commenced the practice of medicine in Chelmsford, where he was highly esteemed for his professional skill, integrity of character, and usefulness as a citizen. In 1818 he was chosen Physician and Superintendent of the McLean Asylum for the Insane, then just commencing its operations, the whole management of which he organized, and where he remained in active service seventeen years. Of his success, Dr. Luther V. Bell, twenty- four years later, speaks in these words : " The weight of responsibility and difficulty which necessarily fell upon him, must have been far greater than any of his successors in such trusts, who had the aids of his ingenuity and labors, can have experienced. Indeed, to this day, scarce any institution can be visited in the land where evidence of the operations of his mind do not present themselves on every hand, not only in details of architectural and mechanical arrangements, but in the moral regimen and internal system." " There was a moral beauty in his character, a sterling, uncompromising integrity in him, as a medical director of a public institution, and which may well serve as a model to all who may be called upon to discharge such functions." Dr. Wyman left the Asylum in 1834, on account of the failure of his health, and the remainder of his life was passed in Roxbury. During his retirement he manifested the same untiring activity and the same interest in all good works that marked his public career in previous years. In a sermon preached after his death, Dr. George Putnam used the following words in relation to him : " I cannot now, I could not in his life-time, gather any words concerning him, but words of commendation and admiring respect. He was not one of those who are prized only after death. His character was of that positive sort, so obviously and constantly ruled by high principle, that men noted it while he lived, as they only note those who are really aljove the level of common excellence, who live not by exponents but by principle, not to appearances but to fulfil righteousness for righteousness sake." He was appointed and served in various offices of trust and honor in the town where he lived ; was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences ; and, for two years previous to his decease, was President of the Massachusetts Medical Society." - Glover Memorials and Genealogies