AN ADDRESS 
Delivered at the Opening of the Twenty-fifth Annual Meeting of 
the Medical Society of the State of California, 
held in San Francisco, April, 1895. 
BY 
G. L. SIMMONS, M. D., President, 
Sacramento, Cal. 
PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF THE SOCIETY. AN ADDRESS 
Delivered at the Opening of the Twenty-fifth Annual Meeting of 
the Medical Society of the State of California, 
held in San Francisco, April, 1895. 
G. L. SIMMONS, M. D., President, 
BY 
Sacramento, Cal. 
PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF THE SOCIETY AN ADDRESS 
Delivered at the Opening of the Twenty-fifth Annual Meeting of the 
Medical Society of the State of California, held in 
San Francisco, April, 1895. 
By G. L. Simmons, M.D., President, Sacramento, Cal. 
Ladies and Gentlemen, Members of the Medical Society of the State 
of California: One year ago, when I received notice of my election 
as your President, I was in the midst of preparations for a prolonged 
vacation from the State. A radical change was deemed necessary 
for my health, and. had I earlier known of a mention of my name in 
this connection, I should at once have declined the honor, believing 
that I would not be able to serve you in an acceptable manner. As the 
selection was had, however, without this knowledge, I felt it to be 
my duty to accept the position, to somewhat abridge my vacation 
and to return home with an earnest desire to do all in my power to 
maintain this State organization of medical men; now the chief rep- 
resentative body of the two thousand practitioners of California. In 
acknowledging my indebtedness to you for the great honor you have 
done me by elevating me to this highest office in the gift of my pro- 
fession, I ask your kind indulgence for any errors I may unwittingly 
commit as your presiding officer. 
The San Francisco Meeting of the American Medical Association. 
It would seem proper that I should first refer to the important 
medical event which has taken place in our State since your last 
meeting, and towards the success of which a liberal sum was voted 
from your treasury. The gathering of the American Medical Asso- 
ciation in San Francisco last June under your auspices, should be a 
subject for general congratulation. Not only were members present 
from all over the Union, in excess of the most sanguine anticipa- 
tions, but the character of the papers received and read gave to the 
proceedings an unusual interest, and must secure to such a represen- 
tative national body an enlarged influence. In accordance with the 
instructions given to your delegates, it was voted to make no change 
in the code, a majority believing that “the Ethics of the Fathers” 
are clear, concise and applicable to the varying conditions of profes- 
sional life and knowledge. The magnificent entertainments given 4 
to members of the Association in this city and the good fellowships 
engendered therefrom, are also subjects of pride and universal satis- 
faction. T feel that we should specially recognize the value oi the 
services of a few of our members in first presenting our claims for 
this national meeting, and in afterwards carrying out the preliminary 
work essential for its success. 
Reasons for Deficiencies in Medical Organization in California. 
It is made my duty in the Constitution to address you “upon some 
subject in harmony with the objects and aims of the Society.” I 
propose, therefore, to offer some practical remarks upon a few topics 
which have already been discussed by the distinguished gentlemen 
who have preceded me, but which, in my judgment, so intimately 
concern our welfare that their reintroduction may not be unprofitable. 
There are two prominent characteristics of age in physicians who 
have passed the mid-period of active professional life, which prevents 
them from being wholly impersonal. The first is to deal largely in 
retrospection, and the second (from having seen the rise and fall of 
innumerable supposed systems and specifics for the cure of disease) 
to lack the essential credulity for unlimited faith in new discoveries 
in medicine, until time and patiently recorded results and compari- 
sons aid a solution of the important problems. Acknowledging 
these tendencies in my own case. I need not apologize for a reference 
to the history of our profession in California. I do this with more 
confidence because my personal interest in medical science as youth 
and man about covers the period since the tide of gold seekers liter- 
ally rushed to the then territory of California, and it is to the peculiar 
nature of this immigration that I have attributed not only many of 
the striking characteristics of our present population, but also the 
presence of these earlier pioneer traits in the medical profession itself, 
which has no doubt been one of the chief causes for the lack of inter- 
est in the fraternal association of its members. 
Ever since our first annual meeting in San Francisco, just a quarter 
of a century ago, we have had the presidential services of men whose 
unselfish lives and devotion to principle have led them to deplore 
the want of a fully organized profession; but I believe no one has 
pointed out the fact that it is probable our feeble cohesive elements 
resulted from exceptional conditions which were not present in any 
other section of the American Union. Without question, our immi- 
gration was originally composed of representatives from the most 
active and ambitious elements of the present century. For the first 
time in history, there was offered to men of every nation a free and 5 
untrammeled field for the mining of precious metals. The cost of 
journey by sea or land to this State, then far removed from the center 
of population, the courage to face the greatest dangers, the health 
and youth essential to lead exposed pioneer lives, all combined to 
bring here an independent and self-reliant people, overwhelmed by the 
desire for the sudden accumulation of wealth. The ambitions and 
mental peculiarities of such a population formed a most original field 
for observation, and the leading traits were certainly those of inde- 
pendence, self-reliance, love of excitement, change, speculation and 
criticism. 
Very naturally the same features were also evident in the ranks of 
the medical profession. Here were representatives from all the lead- 
ing medical schools of the world, each having the most unbounded 
faith in his own methods and education, speaking different lan- 
guages, with habits and prejudices that had not been worn smooth 
by the rapidity of international travel and without the refining influ- 
ence of home life, is it strange that they were restless, impatient of 
restraint and ready to ignore the qualifications of rival practitioners. 
To the credit of many of these educated men we should place the 
fact that they were often the best organizers to develop out of chaotic 
conditions, the institutions of this State, even if their medical work 
was marred by personalities and their dignity lowered by aggressive 
disputations. 
Perhaps no better description of the profession as it existed at an 
early period can be given than that presented by our second Presi- 
dent in his annual address. He said : “We are a heterogeneous 
mass, an army of incompatibles. No country in the world is sup- 
plied with physicians so diverse in character. We have all the 
peculiarities of all the schools in the world coupled with all the pecu- 
liarities of all the nations of the world. The physicians of California 
know less of each other than the physicians of any other land, and 
they care less for each other. There is no fraternity. Every man is 
for himself, and thinks the best way to raise himself is by treading 
down others.” With such an arraignment how necessary the first 
clause of our constitution that our objects are “To encourage the 
unity and harmony of the profession throughout the State.” 
From 1850 to i860, several attempts were made to organize the 
profession into local and State Societies, but, with few exceptions, 
efforts in this direction were not a success. A review of the medical 
literature of that period, however, shows that even under the most 
unfavorable conditions for study, and amid all the excitements and 
changes incident to our pioneer life, a fair proportion of the prac- 6 
titioners here applied themselves to original work and investigations. 
It should also be noted that many of our members were prominently 
interested in microscopy and botanical work, and that some of the 
most serious and important operations ever attempted were success- 
fully performed and reported by the earlier surgeons of California. 
It is also certain they first demonstrated that the serous cavities of 
the human body and the larger joints could be successfully invaded 
by the knife when necessary to preserve life or limb. At this period 
there were laid the foundations for our medical schools and hospitals 
which now stand among the best of our educational land-marks. 
The self-sacrifice of the founders of these institutions, their dis- 
couragements and disappointments, their large donations of money, 
all show the grandest results of individual devotion to medical 
science. 
Since the first decade, in some sections of the State, the value of an 
organized profession has been recognized and maintained, but in 
others many practitioners stand aloof from association, and do not see 
(as stated by your last President, Kenyon) the power of combined 
effort to elevate the profession and to maintain its influence. How 
to reach this class who add so little to the sum of medical knowledge, 
is an important question. In my judgment, much could be accom- 
plished by this Society lending its influence to the formation of small 
district societies. This could be attained in the same way as has 
been done by organizers for fraternal and benefit societies. As 
a practical method in an endeavor to add to our numbers and 
increase our associated influence, I respectfully recommend the 
appointment of an officer whose duty should be to visit certain sec- 
tions of the State and perform the initial work in this field of pioneer 
isolation and degrading jealousies. Pet us so act that the close of 
this century, so fraught with the grandest discoveries in medicine and 
surgery, may see us a united profession and in close fellowship with 
our fellows throughout the world in the saving of human life and 
the relief of human suffering. 
Serum-Therapy. 
Since your last meeting, the medical profession every where has 
been confronted with a question of great importance, involving, as it 
seems to do, a change in our system of therapeutics more radical 
than any advocated for many years. In the midst of the poly- 
pharmacy of the present day, with an accumulation of supposed 
remedies, even the names of which tax the best of memories, we 
witness a revival along bacteriological lines, and see that the evil 
effects of diphtheria are often controlled by the injection into the 7 
circulation of a specially prepared serum. The literature upon this 
subject is so well known to you, as also the observation of certain 
cases, that it is unnecessary to refer to this branch of the subject. 
It may be said, however, that at no time in the history of medical 
science, have societies like this assembled under a greater pressure 
of public interest in the determination of a question of a scientific 
nature. On both continents, the public press is constantly publish- 
ing successes to such an extent as to interfere with accurate investi- 
gation, and governing boards, that have persistently opposed and 
neglected the investment of funds for healthy water supplies and 
proper sewage disposal, are urging appropriations for experiments 
upon pathogenic germs, often generated by their own neglect of the 
simplest rules of preventive medicine. 
Let us trust that here and elsewhere, the pangs of disappointed 
hopes raised in many a poor sufferer from tuberculosis may not be 
repeated in the parents of diphtheritic children. Ready as our pro- 
fession always has been to examine the claims of any new agent in 
the treatment of disease, adopting from any source all means which 
may possibly inure to the benefit of the lives of those entrusted to 
our charge, may we not also in the case of the new theory, with the 
State aid for the distribution of antitoxine so recently bestowed, 
“Prove all things and hold fast to that which is good.’’ 
Professional Remuneration. 
Of a few subjects of special interest to California practitioners, one 
of the most important is that relating to compensation for professional 
work from those who are able to pay for the same. When it is con- 
sidered that the length of time and expense attending a good medi- 
cal education have been nearly doubled during the last twenty years, 
is it not deplorable that the incomes of a majority of physicians have 
been reduced to such an extent that many are in an impecunious 
position, and find it difficult under modern demands to balance their 
receipts and expenditures. While a few practitioners in larger cen- 
ters have been paid extra fees and have obtained a certain degree of 
independence, the great mass are held down poverty. On all 
sides the services of medical men are underrated, and courts, corpora- 
tions and beneficiary societies appear to combine to reduce our com- 
pensation. The upright judge, who, without a smile, allows pro- 
bate fees of thousands to young attorneys, haggles over an account 
of hundreds for medical services which generally involve a night and 
day attention in the presence of sights and scenes of the saddest and 
most terrible character. Corporation directors arrange a plan by 
which thousands of their well paid employes receive in hospitals or 8 
private homes the services of the most competent physicians and sur- 
geons at a cost per capita so low that its insignificance should never 
be mentioned as an honest recompense, and a beneficiary society 
(one of the largest in our State) has recruited its membership upon 
the representation that doctor’s bills will cost the members compara- 
tively nothing. 
With facts like these before us, how long will it be before the sit- 
uation of our practitioners will be analagous to that which now 
obtains in some European cities, where medical clubs absorb 90 per 
cent, of the male population, or, as in Birmingham, where it is said 
competent medical men give their services and medicines at a rate of 
a penny per head per week. Without any desire to advocate inter- 
ference with the freedom of individual action in so important a mat- 
ter, I would respectfully ask, is not this growing custom a blow to 
equity and justice? In these days of the general recognition of the 
principle that “the laborer is worthy of his hire,’’ how comes it 
that the members of that calling who give more to the poor and to 
communities than all other professions put together, should have 
the value of their services cheapened, where present returns offer the 
smallest hope for, independence? My own feelings prompt me to 
say that if medical organizations do not adopt some means to remedy 
this evil, the profession as a whole deserves to be kept in poverty 
and to feel the pangs of leaving unprovided loved ones. 
Publicity in Professional Matters. 
For many years the unwritten law of our profession has prevented 
its members from contributing articles upon medical subjects to the 
public press, even when they were smarting under the greatest mis- 
representations. Publicity has been considered as belonging to the 
irregular and charlatan, and as the life career of the honest physician 
is one of confidence, it has not been deemed possible to attempt even 
a mild innovation which might lead to a betrayal of such an import- 
ant feature. As a result of this close policy we fiud a general mis- 
apprehension existing in the United States in regard to the educa- 
rion and methods of what we call the regular medical profession, and 
this misapprehension, or want of knowledge of truth, has, in my 
judgment, had much to do with the spread of quackery and irregular 
practices throughout the Union. IYet any one of you lose your 
identity as a physician (as I have done during the past year) and 
mingle in general society and I am sure you will be amazed at the 
statements you will hear as to the practices of your chosen calling. 
In all parts of cultivated Europe, government so controls this sub- 
ject that the same evils do not exist, and the irregular is relegated 9 
to his proper position. But here in free America, our people for 
years have been led into the most erroneous conceptions, and no 
attempt has been made to publicly explain the true position occupied 
by the medical profession. The average citizen divides all practi- 
tioners into three “pathies,” the oldest fashioned of which is allo- 
pathy. In vain we say individually that there is no school of medi- 
cine in the world that teaches such a “pathy” and no physicians 
who practice it or allow such a classification, that the name and 
definition were an invention of Hahnemann for his own purposes, 
the use of which conveys to the popular mind the idea of exclusive 
methods and dogmas or an exactly opposite conception to what is 
true. 
early in the history of the American Medical Association, 
the eminent Dr. Geo. A. Wood, in an annual address as President, 
made use of the following language on this subject, which certainly 
embodies the sentiment of the regular profession: “As intelligent 
men we were taught and have always practised the cure of disease 
by any and all methods which can be proven to be for the best inter- 
ests of our patients, and we are bound by no limits other than those 
of truth and honor. Let us show when the epithet of ‘allopathist’ is 
applied to us by others that it is false, inappropriate and offensive, 
and that the use of it is contrary to gentlemanly courtesy and the 
proprieties of cultivated society.” 
Our own State Society years ago passed resolutions in regard to 
this subject, which was published in our proceedings. As these 
books are seldom read by the public, no apparent benefit was ever 
made manifest, and many editors, lawyers, the clergy and citizens 
generally, still continue the use of the erroneous appellation. Hav- 
ing the fullest faith in the intelligence and fairness of my countrymen, 
and believing that when the truth is presented in a proper manner, 
a majority will accept it, I recommend that effort be made to 
enlighten the public upon the question of the true position of the 
medical profession, and the relation it sustains to all ’pathies, healers 
and faith cures. 
The Public and Preventive Medicine. 
One of the most difficult questions to present to the governing 
boards of cities and town is that concerning the public health, and 
few outside of the profession understand, as stated by the best 
authority, “that so common a disease as typhoid increases in propor- 
tion to the saturation of the soil with decomposing organic matter, 
and decreases in proportion as a city is well sewered and uses only 
pure drinking water.” My object in referring to this particular sub- ject is to emphasize the effort to discuss questions relating to preven- 
tive medicine before the public by means of free popular lectures. I 
believe it to be the duty of each one of us to aid college extension in 
this direction, and to give to every town the knowledge so necessary 
to maintain the public health. 
Another direction in which our efforts would result in benefit to 
sufferers from disease, and to our State at large, is in keeping before 
the people of the whole country the superiority of our climate in 
many of the gravest affections. While it might appear that this 
subject has already been presented to the fullest extent by our mem- 
bers and Boards of Health, my opinion is that thousands of eastern 
invalids are not aware that we have in many portions of our State 
peculiarly favorable conditions for the open air treatment of con- 
sumptives, which do not obtain in other sections. It should be 
remembered that one of the first causes for the rise and import- 
ance of the southern sections of California resulted from the reports 
on the climate of the coast section made by our first President. 
During the past winter I have made some personal and comparative 
observations of the climate of the “Riviera,” and it can easily be 
shown by the meteorological tables of Nice, Mentone or Cannes, 
that we have a greatly superior climate in winter, while the number 
of our sunny days are beyond their utmost claims. For clima- 
tic reasons alone thousands of Americans still seek this section 
of the old world, ignorant of the fact that in their own country, 
hardly five days journey from the Atlantic seaboard, without the 
risks and annoyances of a longer trip by water, there exists a land 
of winter flowers, more beautiful and healthy than any in Southern 
Europe. I)r. R. F. Rooney, of Auburn, has recently published a 
valuable article in the Occidental Medical Times, upon “The Climate 
of the Sierra Nevada Foothills, and its Influence on Diseases of the 
Respiratory Organs.” The general circulation of such observations 
as he has been able to make should certainly insure the attention of 
physicians of the whole country to an extensive section of our State 
for the relief of patients suffering from genuine asthma, bronchitis 
or incipient phthisis. 
Oliver Wendell Holmes. 
In closing this address, I need not apologize for a brief reference 
to the loss our profession has recently sustained by the death of Dr. 
Oliver Wendell Holmes. Although to the public he was known, 
loved and honored for his literary work, among medical men, his 
real labor was recognized as belonging to medical science. For 
thirty-five years he acted as full Professor in the Medical Department ot Harvard, and in his earlier career, gave to the world a series of prize 
medical dissertations full of original thought and investigation. If 
he had done nothing else for medical science than to bring the 
weight of his mind to the discussion in 1843 of the question of the 
communicability of puerperal fever from one patient to another by 
the “accoucheur,” that one effort to establish a theorjq now every- 
where acknowledged to be correct, and which has saved the lives of 
many mothers, entitles him to the gratitude of the entire profession. 
As a professor of anatomy, he was recognized as prominent long 
before his abilities in general literature had shown upon the world. 
In the earlier efforts to develop the study of microscopy, Holmes was 
most active and original. Although at that time exercises in this 
department were not required by the faculty, his interest was so 
great that he formed classes for private instruction at his home on 
Montgomery Place, and I well remember the enthusiasm with which 
he related the fact that his object-glass was of Americam manufac- 
ture and had been taken to Europe by Dr. Burnett who, after chal- 
lenging comparisons, had found it to be superior to any then known 
in the world. In connection with his earlier work in microscopy, 
attention has been called in the American Microscopical Journal, by 
Dr. Ephraim Cutter, now of New York, to the fact that Holmes 
then taught the use of the instrument with direct illumination. The 
professor having an arrangement of his own—a six inch black disk 
fastened to the tube and graduated so that turning the disk would 
act as a fine adjustment. 
With such a professional record, and while his name is being hon- 
ored by laymen in Europe as well as in America, is it not most fit- 
ting that medical organizations, even on the shores of the Pacific, 
should not allow the brightness of his fame as poet and novelist to 
obscure the labors of years for medical science of a man, spoken of 
in a late number of the British Medical Journal as “one of the most 
lovable and notable figures of modern medicine.” 
Apart, however, from his position of medical author and professor, 
we owe to Holmes a debt of gratitude for his constant desire, evident 
in his general literary work, to place the profession of medicine in 
its true position before the public. His keenest satires and vigorous 
treatment against charlatanism and irregular medicine may be found 
in connection with his most highly prized papers in literary maga- 
zines of the day. In him the good doctor always spoke, although 
often under the name of “Autocrat” or “Professor.” Without 
exception, the medical students who listened to his teachings 
carried through their lives a continual interest in what has been 12 
called his delightful personality, and his genial medical wisdom, 
interspersed throughout his writings, has done much to enliven the 
paths of these “toilers who have no rest”—the overworked practi- 
tioners. 
In i860 Dr. Holmes delivered an address before the Massachusetts 
Medical Society, entitled “Currents and Counter Currents in Medi- 
cal Science,” afterwards published with an essay upon “Homeopathy 
and Kindred Delusions, and the Four Topics of ‘The Weapon Oint- 
ment,’ the Tar Water Mania of Bishop Berkeley—the Royal Cure of 
the Scrofula, and the History of Perkins’ Metallic Tractors.” All, 
as the author says, “published to illustrate the ease with which nu- 
merous facts are accumulated to prove the most fanciful and senseless 
extravagances.” If this work could be placed in the hands of the peo- 
ple to-day there would be less quackery and fewer delusions. On the 
tenth of last October, it was my privilege to stand by his open grave 
in the beautiful cemetery of Mount Auburn, and to pay silent wor- 
ship to all that remained of the great man always in fellowship with 
youth, who, forty years before, had received me as a struggling 
medical student from the Pacific coast. In common with others, I 
am sure that his kindly encouragement made easy a most difficult 
path. Truly he deserved a cheerful and serene old age, and a place 
among “modern immortals.” 
“In love he practised, and in patience taught, 
The sacred art that battles with disease; 
Nor stained by one disloyal act or thought, 
The holy symbol of Hippocrates.”