Henry M. (Henry Munson) Lyman

Born in 1835 in Hawaii, Henry Munson Lyman grew up with firsthand memories of the islands that later became the basis for Hawaiian Yesterdays, a memoir published after his death. He went on to study at Williams College and then at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, building a career that joined wide learning with close clinical observation.

After the Civil War era, he settled in Chicago and became an important medical teacher at Rush Medical College. Sources describe him as a physician especially associated with physiology, general medicine, and nervous diseases, and as one of the figures involved in the early development of neurology in Chicago.

Lyman also wrote substantial medical works, including Insomnia; and Other Disorders of Sleep and A Text-Book of the Principles and Practice of Medicine. Today, he is remembered both for his serious medical writing and for the vivid way he preserved a picture of 19th-century Hawaiian life.