Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. (August 29, 1809 - October 7, 1894) was an American polymath based in Boston. A member of the Fireside Poets, Elsie Venner: A Romance of Destiny is an 1861 novel by American author and physician Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. Later dubbed the first of his "medicated novels", it tells the story of a neurotic young woman whose mother was bitten by a rattlesnake while pregnant, which imbued the child with some characteristics of the reptile.The novel is narrated by an unnamed medical professor. One of his students, Bernard Langdon, had to interrupt his medical studies to earn money as a teacher, first at a public school, then at the Apollinean Female Institute.