ston, Dr. Keep, in the year 1846. In that year the
new medical college was formally opened. Dr. Parkman, a wealthy and
public-spirited citizen of Boston, had given the piece of land, on which
the college had been erected. He had been invited to be present at the
opening ceremony. In anticipation of being asked to make a speech on
this occasion Dr. Parkman, whose teeth were few and far between, had
himself fitted by Dr. Keep with a complete set of false teeth. Oliver
Wendell Holmes, then Professor of Anatomy at Harvard, who was present at
the opening of the college, noticed how very nice and white the doctor's
teeth appeared to be. It was the discovery of the remains of these same
admirable teeth three years later in the furnace in Professor Webster's
lower laboratory that led to the conviction of Dr. Parkman's murderer.
By a strange coincidence the doctor met his death in the very college
which his generosity had helped to build. Though to-day the state of the
college has declined from the medical to the dental, his memory still
lives within its walls by the cast of his jaws preserved in the dental
museum as a relic of a case, in which the art of dentistry did signal
service to the cause of justice.

In his lifetime Dr. Parkman was a well-known figure in the streets of
Boston. His peculiar personal appearance and eccentric habits combined
to make him something of a character. As he walked through the streets
he presented a remarkable appearance. He was exceptionally tall, longer
in the body than the legs; his lower jaw protruded some half an inch
beyond the upper; he carried his body bent forward from the small of his
back. He seemed to be always in a hurry; so impetuous was he that, if
his horse did not travel fast enough to please him, he would get off its
back, and, leaving the steed in the middle of the street, hasten on his
way on foot. A just and generous man, he was extremely punctilious in
matters of business, and uncompromising in his resentment of any form
of falsehood or deceit. It was the force of his resentment in such a
case that cost him his life.

The doctor was unfailingly punctual in taking his meals. Dr. Kingsley,
during the fourteen years he had acted as his agent, had always been
able to make sure of finding him at home at his dinner hour, half-past
two o'clock. But on Friday, November 23, 1849, to his surprise and
that of his family, Dr. Parkman did not come home to dinner; and their
anxiety was i