[1] Best known today for his work on hay fever, he was one of the most respected doctors of his time, a social reformer, Harvard overseer, hospital president, and author in his long lifetime.

During the Civil War he served on a Sanitary Committee that inspected army medical facilities, being considered too old and too busy of a doctor to send to the front lines.

During his long career as a physician, he treated many prominent patients, including Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,[3] Theodore Roosevelt,[4] Charles Eliot,[5] and Louis Agassiz.

Convinced that it was harmful to use corporal punishment on young women and girls, Wyman led a petition drive, spoke and wrote on the subject, and ultimately served terms on the Cambridge School Board.

His efforts did not lead to a long-standing ban on corporal punishment in Cambridge schools, but increased public awareness of it, and new reporting requirements probably reduced it considerably.