Ernest Valdemar

Doctor Ernest Valdemar was a medical doctor who had studied at Harvard College.

Valdemar had became friends with Benjamin Legrand while studying there. The two had had occasions to discuss Legrand's father's dental problems. Valdemar had a low opinion of the practise of transplanting teeth and especially of the individuals (who he called "harvesters") that collected them for sale to dentists. Rather than collect them from health young men who had fallen in battle, they were grave robbers who stole them from local graves by the light of the moon.

Literary Note
The name "Ernest Valdemar" comes from the Edgar Allan Poe short story The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar. This character (as well as "Vankirk" from Poe's Mesmeric Revelation) was a deathbed patient who was hypnotized just prior to his death to learn if there was existence afterwards.