Wilder, Burt Green

Wilder, Burt Green (1841–1925) zoologist, neurologist, composer; born in Boston, Mass. After interrupting his education at Harvard to serve as a Union surgeon during the Civil War, he completed his M.D. (1866). From 1867 to 1910 he was a professor of neurology and vertebrate zoology at Cornell University. He was widely known for his meticulous studies of vertebrate brains, although science has rejected his premise that the contours of brains reveal the characteristics of the owner. He encouraged the donation of brains of intellectual leaders to balance the preponderance of those of the criminal and insane that were the basis of so many studies (and his own brain was added to his collection after his death). A man of wide interests—he was an ardent advocate of temperance and a member of the Non-Smokers' Protective League and the Simplified Spelling Board—he was an amateur musician who composed hymns and an orchestral setting of "Old Ironsides" by his fellow physician, Oliver Wendell Holmes. His varied publications include What Young People Should Know (1874) and The Brain of Sheep (1903).