[REPRINTED FROM THE NEW HAMPSHIRE JOURNAL OF MEDICINE.] 
ADD RES S 
TO THE 
GRADUATES 
OF THE 
VERMONT MEDICAL COLLEGE, 
OF THE 
CLASS OF 18#:. 
BY WM. HENRY THAYER. M. I)., 
PROFESSOR OF PATHOLOGY AND THE PRACTICE OF MEDICINE. 
KEENE, N. H. 
1 856. ADDRESS. 
Gentlemen:—The Vermont Medical College has now invested 
you with the dignity of the Doctorate of Medicine. We cannot bid 
you go forth from us to the active exercise of professional duties, 
without giving you some parting words of counsel and encourage- 
ment. In the name of my colleagues I ask your attention to some 
of the thoughts that occur to us upon the subject of your relation 
to your patients and to the profession of which you are members. 
Your studies have placed you in a position of far greater responsi- 
bility than rests upon most other men. Human beings are the ma- 
terials upon which you will work. Health is the chief object of 
your attention, and life hangs upon the issue of your exertions. 
Such a career cannot be entered upon lightly ; and we are impelled 
to consecrate your embarkation on a voyage so sacred, with thoughts 
and exhortations suited to the occasion. 
All men know and acknowledge the advantage which mental labor 
possesses over physical. The primitive state of society was one of 
universal manual labor. Every individual provided himself with 
the necessaries of life with his own hands. Gradually the exercise 
of men’s minds began to indicate to them the possession of various 
degrees of original mental power; and the attempt to devise easier 
methods of procuring the means of sustenance developed their pow- 
ers to a still greater extent, and produced the first inequality in in- 
dividuals. The shrewd and intelligent soon became masters, while 
the rest were servants. The continuance of mental culture and ex- 
ercise from generation to generation, introduced new comforts and 2 
luxuries to the world. With these grew the need of them, which 
operated as a new and constantly increasing stimulus to invention 
and contrivance. Inventive power was applied more and more 
widely—extending itself to the production of the beautiful as well 
as the useful. Wherever the highest civilization prevails, men’s 
wants are fully commensurate with their possessions; and the human 
mind is still employed, and with an activity increased immeasurably 
beyond its first condition, in devising new modes of saving labor, 
new materials to make life happy and attractive. And while sci- 
ence is zealously studied, to render the mechanic arts more perfect— 
while natural philosophy is improving the machinery of our mills, 
and chemistry furnishes new metals for our implements of labor, and 
meteorology, by its revelations of air and ocean-currents, shortens 
our voyages across the seas, and saves us millions—while it is culti- 
vated for exclusively useful purposes, it is also engaged in the pur- 
suit of the beautiful, in feeding those lofty sentiments whose posses- 
sion makes the chief difference between man and man. 
All may share in the benefits that scientific studies have confer- 
red upon the world—the improvements in the arts have simplified 
labor for the very poorest, and what were once luxuries have now 
in many instances become universal necessaries. But the greatest 
privileges of all belong exclusively to those whose intellectual studies 
are procuring these common advantages. Greater than wealth, 
greater than all other possessions is a well-cultivated mind,—is the 
privilege of spending our time and faculties in the pursuit of science. 
A taste for study, and opportunity to indulge it, must be considered 
the greatest of blessings. For its tendency to the elevation of char- 
acter we must chiefly honor it. 
That intellectual cultivation has these advantages we have the 
world in evidence. With rare exceptions, it is such superiority that 
gives rank, station and authority. It will not be kept down. Uni- 
versal mental capacity lifts its possessor at once above his fellows. 
He who can plan and contrive is not content to pass his life in car- 
rying out the plans of others : his pre-eminence is soon acknowl- 
edged, and he is allowed the position he demands. Mental labor 
will always be superior to mere physical labor. Science investigates 
the principles upon which the works of the artisan are performed, 
and teaches him easier methods of attaining his results. This is the 3 
natural, the unavoidable tendency of things. Equal rights all have, 
if they can maintain them. Wealth, learning and power are open 
to universal competition ; but that inequality in the possession of 
these advantages which exists to-day, would appear again in the 
course of a single generation, were all men to be now reduced to a 
common level. Starting with the admission that true greatness con- 
sists in the purest Christian morality—and that the possession of 
it is not inconsistent with the entire absence of all worldly advan- 
tages—I repeat, that next to this it is intellectual pre-eminence and 
the pursuit of mental studies that give the most commanding posi- 
tion in the world. 
The great privileges which science confers upon her votaries im- 
pose upon them important obligations. If you enjoy advantages of 
which many have no knowledge, it is your solemn duty to use them 
with industry, and to render them of the greatest possible benefit to 
mankind. The point you have now reached is not the terminus of 
your studies. In the period of pupilage you have but scanned the 
general outlines of medical science. We believe you to be so faith- 
fully prepared in the rudiments of medicine, that you may be safely 
entrusted with the care of the sick. But the most industrious ap- 
plication for a long life-time will fail to exhaust all the knowledge 
of the various departments of our science. All that is known in 
medicine is not in the possession of any one individual : the three- 
score years and ten of one man’s life are not sufficient to gather all 
its treasures. Indeed, the field is boundless : what is known is lit- 
tle in comparison with all there is to know. The extension of sci- 
entific research in any direction opens new and illimitable seas for 
exploration. It is not an imaginary infinity, as with the traveller 
whose weary limbs are “ spent with the march that still lengthens 
before him,”—it is a reality. Pathological anatomy had hardly be- 
gun to exhibit a degree of clearness which admitted of generaliza- 
tion, when the application of the microscope to the animal tissues 
left us far behind, and showed us the intimate constitution of abnor- 
mal structures, of which we had hitherto seen as it were only the 
outside. And every day’s experience with this wonderful instru- 
ment proves how vast a work we have undertaken. Half a life-time 
may be spent in acquiring only the alphabet of microscopy. The 
common appearances of anatomical tissues and elements, which ap- 4 
pear so plain in description, we sometimes fail to recognise after long 
use of the instrument ; and the manner in which the natural tissues 
are created is still a subject of dispute among physiologists. What 
stronger evidence can we have of the obstacles that lie in way of 
microscopic research than the differences of opinion among such men 
as Rokitansky and Paget,Kollikerand Virchow?—or the constantly 
recurring fact of voluminous works published, entertaining certain 
explanations of phenomena in physiology which were revealed by 
the microscope, rendered obsolete by subsequent researches, even 
made by observers no more careful than the first ? Let me not be 
understood to speak in disparagement of the use of the microscope. 
Far from it. Natural science is too deeply indebted to it to allow 
me to suggest a doubt of its value. The discoverers of a new country 
carry away false impressions of what they see, and it remains for 
repeated explorations to correct one error after another. So in the 
operations of nature which come under the view of the naturalist— 
phenomena must be presented again and again to the eye and the 
mind, and seen in various connections by different observers, before 
we can reach absolute truth. 
Side by side with the microscope advances Chemistry ; and while 
the magical instrument discloses the cells and the fibrillae of fibrine 
to our eyes, chemical analysis separates one of these fibres into Car- 
bon, Hydrogen, Oxygen and Nitrogen. In the blood it detects the 
atom of iron in every blood-disc which the microscope has revealed 
—the blood-disc so minute that twenty thousand of them laid side 
by side will make a line only an inch in length. And in this other 
science we stand again upon a new spot, from which paths of light ra- 
diate like sunbeams in every direction, each one a fact; and, like the 
sun’s rays, growing broader by expansion and subdivision as we ad- 
vance. The boundaries of science are thus constantly extending, 
and it grows daily more and more difficult for any one man to be 
master of all. 
We are not on this account to fold our hands in despair. We 
must comfort ourselves with the assurance that every fact gained, if 
it discovers the existence of many more facts and relations, renders 
the acquisition of them at the same time more easy. Thus it is that 
Agassiz, undoubtedly the most learned naturalist living, with his vast 
basis of scientific learning, seizes upon new observations and puts 5 
them into their appropriate place in science, with a readiness that 
seems intuitive. One fact elucidates another. And every scientific 
man owes it to his fellow-men to devote himself zealously to the 
prosecution of the studies for which he has been training himself. 
Doctores in Medicinal Teachers of Medicine ! If teachers, cer- 
tainly students. Students now, and through life. 
Every mechanic above the most ordinary capacity bends his mind 
upon the improvement of his tools and his plans of work. And 
what art is there which needs more such attention than does the art 
of medicine ? Stand as well as you may at this point in your lives 
—be qualified howsoever well for the diploma you have this day 
received—if you now lay aside your books and your habits of study 
and observation, your practice will soon be a mere routine, an empir- 
ical application of remedies learned in the lecture-room. 
The first years of a physician’s life are rarely much occupied with 
practice. There are daily many hours of leisure. This is golden 
time, if well employed. This is the only time he will ever have for 
laborious study. His few cases will give a direction to his reading; 
and if he studies systematically the best authorities within his reach 
upon the subject in hand, he will be able to attain to clear ideas of 
medical principles by the opportunity to witness their application, 
and will at the same time be forming studious habits which will 
never desert him. Thus the first years of practice will want the 
tedium that is inseparable from the life of the idler while waiting 
for business. Thus only will he be enabled to compete successfully 
with the man of riper years, who is usually preferred as a medical 
adviser. A large practice is sometimes picked up by him who 
spends his idle time in street-gossip, in bar-room good-fellowship, 
and in mixing himself up in the private affairs of his neighborhood. 
But occasions come when real worth and exact knowledge bear away 
the palm. And though the people are often attracted to the one 
whose chief merit is in companionable qualities, yet, when exact 
scientific knowledge comes into competition with these characteris- 
tics, in some case where great anxiety is felt, the man of genuine 
learning is found out for his true value. A late periodical contains 
the following extract from the letter of a young practitioner—too 
apt an illustration of my remarks to be omitted here. 
He says :—“ I settled in this place about two years since, under 6 
the shadow of an old physician who had long monopolized the prac- 
tice of the town. Daring the first year and a half I had nothing 
to do ; but, undaunted, applied myself diligently to a careful re- 
view of my studies, and the perusal of the best medical periodicals. 
The opportunity finally offered, for me to*' apply my knowledge to 
good account. I was called to visit a man with dislocated thigh, 
which the old man, my rival, had in vain attempted to reduce with 
pulleys, after torturing the patient for several hours, to the horror of 
the bystanders. Before visiting the patient, I carefully reviewed 
the admirable, and to me invaluable paper of Dr. Markoe, in the 
N. Y. Journal of Medicine, on reducing dislocated femur by mani- 
pulation. I found the patient and friends alarmed, and fearful of 
having instruments again used. I placed him in the proper position 
for manipulation, and, in the presence of a multitude of bystanders, 
began the required movements of the limb. Without causing the 
slightest pain, I carried it through the proper circle, and was about 
to bring it down, when the head of the bone slipped gently into its 
socket, to the great relief of the patient and the satisfaction of the 
friends. I need hardly add, that within one month of that opera- 
tion, I had all the business I could do.” 
You should not treat any case in this early time of your practice 
without thorough reading on the subject. But let not this be all 
your study. Continue your investigations in anatomy and physiolo- 
gy. The study of comparative anatomy is always at hand, in the 
dissection of every animal that falls in your way. It furnishes re- 
creation as well as useful occupation. If you are the fortunate pos- 
sessor of a microscope, hours may be profitably spent every day in 
the use of it. Go over again a course of systematic reading, on all 
the subjects of your preparatory studies. Where you were before 
confined to general treatises on practice, and works prepared for 
text-books, you may now select the best monographs. They should 
always be the best, however. Prefer those which are the result of 
observations rather than hypothetical treatises. You want no man’s the- 
ories of any disease, unless he present his grounds for your judgment. 
And as you are not at first qualified to select for yourselves, you 
may be governed in your choice by the opinions of the best Jour- 
nals. In the well-conducted medical periodical, too, you will find 
a very valuable and indispensable variety of reading—you will find 7 
the newest discoveries of the best men, many of which will enable 
you to correct the errors of previous study—errors in some degree 
inseparable from the pursuit of medical science. 
Write ! Record your observations. Publish them. But not un- 
less they are carefully observed and faithfully recorded. The exer- 
cise of writing will render you more exact in observing, and the 
necessity of exposing yourselves to public criticism in the pages of 
a Journal will strengthen you in a good course, or aid to correct a 
false one. If you look forward to preferment in the profession, to 
the enjoyment of the only honors to which medical men are likely 
to attain, or which they can enjoy consistently with scientific pur- 
suits—of which the Professor’s chair stands almost alone—nothing 
is so well calculated to secure the accomplishment of your wishes as 
the publicity acquired by successful authorship, whether in the pe- 
riodical or otherwise. I speak with visions before my eyes of the 
tide of wretched medical literature with which we are flooded—of 
the many medical periodicals whose contents are not worth the paper 
they have stained. In spite of all the tiresome experience of much 
of medical writing, I say “write.” Not to benefit your profession, 
but yourselves. You will not be read by those whose good opinion 
is worth having, unless you have written what is worth reading.— 
It your first attempts fail, persevere, and in time, success will crown 
your efforts. The art of writing well is, first, to have something to 
say; and, secondly, to say it in the fewest words and plainest man- 
ner. In composition there should be no flowers but those of spon- 
taneous growth. It is only the long-practised writer who can safely 
attempt to ornament his periods with the figures of rhetoric. And 
especially in scientific papers it is desirable to confine yourselves to 
a plain, unadorned statement of facts and arguments. 
Thus cultivating the intellect and acquiring learning, by study 
and by composition, you are securing in the surest manner the confi- 
dence of the community. To inspire general confidence is, some ca- 
ses of lucky accident excepted, a work of time. That it is so, is 
the earnest of the stability of your own reputation when you have 
earned it. As one generation will be slow to desert your elders in 
practice now for you, so will you be the long-trusted advisers of the 
next. Where your competitors are deserving of success, honest and 
able, faithful to their patients, and fair in their dealings with you, 8 
well-educated and sound in their scientific principles, you cannot 
complain that business is slow to pass from their hands into yours. 
But there are times when your temper and patience will be tried, 
and with reason. You will see ignorance successful because it is 
aged, and quackery encouraged for its large promises, by the least 
discriminating and judicious part of the community. Are you to 
attack the fallacies in opinion and the absurd practices that you 
meet with in regimen and medical treatment ? Are you to enter the 
lists against any of the follies of the day, to unmask the deceptions 
of homoeopathy and expose the shallowness of the “ water-cure ?”— 
Are you to carry on war with every phase of charlatanry as it aris- 
es? No. Men cannot fight with so unequal weapons. You may 
as well undertake to reason with your horse, as to address arguments 
to those who are totally ignorant of science, whose empirical rules 
are like the baseless fabric of a vision, growing out of the eccentri- 
cities of a dreamer, and owing their encouragement tothe love of 
novelty and the credulity of the ignorant. But when ignorance wil- 
ling to be enlightened comes in your way, it is your duty and your 
privilege to instruct it. Few persons are without favorite notions, 
—popular views in regard to disease, embodying some fallacy which 
leads to errors in living or in medical treatment. We should waste 
our time, if we tried to correct the false principles which prevail 
among-persons. It is not necessary nor to be expected that those 
without the medical profession should be acquainted with the princi- 
ples of pathology. Good sense will save them from very gross er- 
rors, and especially leads them to seek advice w'hen they are ill, 
rather than to tamper with themselves. Sensible men are content to 
receive directions from their medical friend, and leave the reasoning 
upon the case to him. With such persons it is easy to correct erro- 
neous views and mischievous habits. But it is not in general advi 
sable to combat false medical theories among extra-professional men. 
Now and then we meet with a person of high intelligence, whose 
tastes have led him to the study of medical science, and with wdiom 
it is a pleasure to discuss principles. But ordinarily it is a debate 
with knowledge on one side and ignorance on the other, and no less 
absurd than it would be for one of us to argue a point of law with 
an attorney. 9 
Medicine differs from every other occupation in one respect—it is 
eminently a benevolent profession. We take it up as a means of 
earning a living, but we practise it with the understanding that our 
services are never to be refused to those who are too poor to buy 
them at their rated value. It is proper that the regular fees should 
be liberal, and exacted as strictly as those of any other men, of 
those who are fully able to pay for our services. But the poor 
must never be turned away from your door, because they are poor. 
Day and night, summer and winter, sunshine and storm, affect 
not the promptness and constancy of your attendance upon the 
affluent ; let them make no difference to the poor. They 
should see as great alacrity in answering their calls, as marked 
respect for their human nature, as constant, unremitting and cheer- 
fully rendered attendance, as if they had the means of compensating 
you fully for your labor. Perhaps I need not dwell upon this point, 
if I can read your hearts from my own, there is no call for length- 
ened exhortation here. “The poor are my best patients, for God is 
their paymaster,” says one of our profession. You will find it true. 
The greatest happiness derived from my professional life has been, I 
think, in the care of the poor,—when poverty has been graced with 
genuine Christian trustfulness, and the outpourings of a grateful 
heart towards the physician. Such kindly relations we may of course 
have with other than the indigent, but in their case we can indulge 
in cordial communication with them, without being exposed to the 
charge of mercenary motives. 
Medicine stands on a different basis from other professions, in the 
relation which exists between physician and patient. In all profes- 
sional intercourse the feelings are more or less enlisted on both sides. 
We are selected with great deliberation, taken on trial—and when 
we prove skilful, and are received into confidence, it is bestowed 
without reserve, and with a degree of warmth which is found in 
hardly any other profession. The attachment of a woman to her 
physician—I speak of woman because it is with her we have most 
frequent dealing in the sickroom—her attachment to her physician 
is one of the strongest she knows. And the benefit his attendance 
confers upon her is much increased by this bond. The drugs he ad- 
ministers have a magical influence ; the advice he gives is more pal- 
atable than that of all others; general doubts and want of faith do 10 
not include him; the clouds of despondency that have gathered 
thickly around her couch in the night-watches are dispelled by his 
entrance— 
His “morning visit in itself combines 
The best of cordials, tonics, anodynes.” 
Mercenary calculations have little connection with such feelings. 
The nature of our relation to our patients involves a knowledge of 
their affairs such as is not revealed to others. We soon learn, of 
course, all those peculiarities of temper which rarely appear in pub- 
lic, but are kept for the unreserved intercourse of home. Vanities 
and weaknesses come to light, which we had never connected with 
their possessors. Those who are ordinarily troubled by trifles, of- 
ten grow strong and brave in the time of affliction ; and many a 
one gives way to slight trials, in whom we expected fortitude. For 
us the general mask is stripped off: vice is painted in vain ; the 
modest veil of virtue cannot hide her from us. 
Many of those who consult us, come to pour out their private 
griefs : our known acquaintance with the woes of life, suggests us as 
those most easy to confide in when they are in trouble. 
The success of medical treatment depends so much on our 
thorough knowledge of all the circumstances of a patient’s life, the 
mental influences to which he is subjected, as well as his bodily con- 
dition, that we necessarily demand his fullest confidence. The per- 
plexities of business, the consciousness of crime, or even any of 
the lesser troubles which need not be enumerated, all are poured 
out into our ears and hearts. We know the whole. Then only7 can 
we 
“ Raze out the written troubles of the brain, 
And, with some sweet oblivious antidote, 
Cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous grief, 
Which weighs upon the heart.” 
Then only can we apply to the body the remedies suited to its re- 
lief. 
By the frequency of such confidences, we become worthy of them. 
Confidence begets honor. The temptation to retail the affairs of 
our patients cannot long continue with any one who has a spark of 
honorable feeling. 
We should also avoid talking of the medical history of those un- 
der our charge. It is a miserable, a contemptible way of getting 11 
notoriety. It may be very agreeable to excite the wonder and ad- 
miration of a crowd of idlers in the town lounging-places, at the re- 
lation of your successes in medical treatment—but it is a taste that 
had better not be cultivated. You will secure some patients—but 
you are contributing your part to induce fickleness in them, unfound- 
ed confidence and equally unfounded distrust. If all our profession 
were honest, and no one claimed to have special and peculiar power 
and ability—if that part of our code of ethics were universally re- 
garded, which places us all on the same honorable level, using the 
same remedial means and enjoying equal opportunities of acquiring 
a knowledge of diseases—the learned and unassuming would not be 
so often deserted for the ignorant pretender. 
It is indeed too often the fault of the educated physician that he 
is left for the ignoramus : had he never claimed unusual power, had 
he not spoken of himself as one whose opinion was better than that 
of other men, no more would be expected of him, and his efforts, 
when unavailing, would not occasion so bitter disappointment. It 
is from our promising more than it is in the power of man to per- 
form, that people lose confidence in medicine. The power of prog- 
nosticating in disease is the most valuable that a physician can pos- 
sess : to foretell correctly the result of a case, wins him more fame 
than anything else he can do. It matters not whether the result be 
in life or death—if he predicts it, he will gain the confidence of his 
patients. And justly—for nothing is more important to their hap- 
piness, and nothing indicates more acumen in him or more thorough 
study and observation. Be careful then not to give a prognosis 
more favorable than the case warrants. Do not excite in your pa- 
tient and his friends expectations which are sure to be disappointed. 
Do not expect that you will be able to control a disease which has 
hitherto proved incurable. It is such wanton and ignorant blun- 
ders that have brought great opprobrium on our profession, and lost 
for medicine so much of the general confidence. It is this which 
has given rise to many of the prosecutions of surgeons in courts of 
law. They have promised complete restoration of injured parts, 
where such restoration was impossible from the nature of the case , 
or have neglected to inform the patient at the outset that a perfect 
cure could not be made—and in either case have been held respon- 
sible for the result. Do not therefore excite expectations which can 12 
never be realized—do not promise more than medical art can accom- 
plish—for it is this which brings it into disrepute. 
Confidence readily bestowed is easily withdrawn. If you make 
friends, you will make enemies. You cannot avoid it. 
“ Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, 
Thou shalt not escape calumny.” 
The language that Hamlet addressed to Ophelia is applicable to us 
all. A physician’s course is peculiarly open to remark : his cases 
are discussed from one end of the village to the other ; his merits 
are canvassed by all the empty-headed gossips of the town. Where 
the actions of others excites only distaste in their neighbors, the 
physician often gets downright hatred. He has been too near his 
patients, too much in their confidence, to be discarded with any more - 
moderate feelings. Rivalry between two members of our profession 
is often strong enough to enlist active parties, which embitter the life 
of the town with their criminations and recriminations. Actions 
are commented on, severe remarks made, reputations stabbed, confi- 
dence destroyed. It rests with you to prevent this. If you are so 
unfortunate as to be the subjects of calumnious reports, you may 
give them a continued life or not, according to your manner of treat- 
ing them. He who is anxiously inquiring about his public reputa- 
tion will certainly hear what is disagreeable; and if slander is busy 
with his name, it will grow stronger whenever he notices it. Disre- 
garded, it sinks into contempt, and is soon forgotten. No man’s rep- 
utation was ever protected or restored by his talking about it. If 
you are calumniated, live down the slander; prove by your course 
that it is not true. If you do not talk about yourselves and your af- 
fairs out of doors, people will not mention them to you—and they 
will very soon grow tired of discussing you among themselves. 
A little undeserved abuse—ay, a great deal—is useful. It teach- 
es you to depend less upon the opinions of others, to look within for 
the direction of your course, and not to desire chiefly the approba- 
tion of men, or to dread their displeasure. 
One evil, indeed, sometimes arises from being the mark of unde- 
served persecution. It is that our friends, in the warmth of their 
regard, take up our cause with unwarrantable ardor. They magnify 
our virtues to a degree that is trying to a sensitive person, as well 
as eventually detrimental to his reputation. 13 
Always discourage their well-meant practice of sounding your 
praises for the performance of the ordinary services of our profes- 
sion. Friends will cease talking extravagantly in your favor, when 
it is apparent that it is distasteful to you. Men cannot be altogether 
insensible to public opinion—nor is it desirable they should be so. 
All of us owe a certain degree of allegiance to the general views of 
the community and the world ; it is no more than a just compensa- 
tion for the privileges of society. But conformity is only binding 
on us in degree. Its excess is the American vice ; individual thought 
and action are swallowed up in it. We dare not differ from others 
in the least of our habits—we sacrifice grace, comfort and health to 
the tyrannical dictation of fashion. So too in higher matters than dress 
and social habits, we see the same slavish propensity to follow other 
men, the same dread of standing alone. The independent thinker 
gets hardly decent treatment from his fellows. First scoffed at and 
ridiculed, and finally quite overlooked when we are tired of laughing 
at and abusing him, he grows strong by being driven to his own re- 
sources and forced to depend solely upon himself. Great deeds and 
great thoughts are never the work of a multitude—they must be 
wrought out by individual minds, acting alone. Whatever people 
may say, whatever may be the public sentiment on any subject rela- 
ting to you, it is clear that when the time of action comes, the whole 
responsibility rests upon you alone. It is therefore far more for your 
peace of mind that you should acquire a decision of character which 
will prevent your waiting to know what your friends think, before 
you take up a course of action, or listening for the remarks of your 
enemies after you are committed to it, 
But I am treading ground that is common to every profession ; to 
all mankind. Let us return, for a brief space, to matters that per- 
tain exclusively to ourselves. In the few remaining moments let me 
add one more hint upon your strictly professional relations. 
It is unnecessary that you should now be reminded with how much 
greater prospect of success we may attempt to ward off the attacks 
of disease than to attempt to cure it. If the medical lectures in 
this College have failed to convince you of this truth, a few years 
experience in practice will satisfy you that the subject has not been 
misstated. Bearing this fact in mind, be pursuaded that your great- 
est duty is to instruct those in your professional circle in all the dai- 14 
ly habits of life, which have a bearing on the health. It will be 
your fault if your patients and neighbors live with an entire disre- 
gard of those physiological laws, whose observance is required to 
preserve their vigor and activity, and to train their children into 
robust men and women. Your duty does not permit you to confine 
your advice to the sickroom; but the families which employ you as 
a medical adviser have a constant claim upon your counsel, and you 
will be highly culpable if you suffer them to continue in the practice 
of physical abuses without remonstrance. In matters of public con- 
cern,—the erection of public buildings, the construction of aque- 
ducts and the selection of water, and in the drainage of towns, for 
example,—be ready to watch over the general interest, to point out 
the manner in which dangers may be avoided and nuisances abated. 
Make it appear that these things are of vital importance, and that 
you are ready to join in the adoption of every means to improve the 
general health. In a village the physician may become the worthy 
oracle of the place, if he shows a lively interest in what most con- 
cerns the comfort of his neighbers. 
But one thing more is requisite—a matter less often thought of 
than the imparting of instruction. It is that his example should ac- 
cord with his teaching. Let him regulate his own life and house- 
hold in conformity with his doctrine, that all may see that he be- 
lieves what he teaches. It is idle to tell men that excesses in eat- 
ing and drinking are ruinous, that sickness comes of improper food, 
careless exposures, and still more foolish confinement, if we live no 
more wisely than our neighbors. 
To the faithful discharge of the duties of the sickroom, add a 
constant thoughtfulness on the means by which a higher grade of 
health can be obtained, and by which disease may from year to year 
become a greater stranger to our doors ; and, like Jenner, you will 
win an undying name, and the still higher rewards that wait on 
duty well-performed. 
We can bear to be reproached with failure to discover specific 
remedies for disease—for we have prouder monuments. The care- 
ful study of the natural history of diseases has robbed many of them 
of factitious terrors. The self-sacrificing labors of medical men 
have introduced improvements in the sanitary regulations of towns 
and cities, by which health has been improved and bills of mortality 15 
have grown less formidable. Fevers that kept on their deadly march 
in defiance of the whnle artillery of the Pharmacopeia, have struck 
their colors at the summons of the goddess that presides over health. 
The simple elements of nature, which have been so sedulously denied 
'to the sick, in negligence, are exhibiting their power- 
ful influence as healing agents. Water, light and air are recovering 
their merited place, and the traditionary errors of opinion which 
denied them an entrance to the sickroom are falling gradually but 
surely into complete discredit. 
For all this we claim the meed of praise. If, almost discouraged 
that Panacea so seldom heeded our prayers, we have allowed our- 
selves to neglect -her worship, we have become devout and faithfu 1 
votaries at the shrine of Hygeia. 
Gentlemen! how can I in an hour do justice to the subjects 
which naturally occur to us all as appropriate to this era in your 
lives ? I can only sketch a few hints of the most prominent of the 
thoughts that crowd upon my mind. 
We are like travelers in a new country, sending back to you 
who are setting out on the same journey the results of our experi- 
ence. As we mount the hill whose foot you have just reached, our 
position gives us a more comprehensive view of the whole region 
through which you are about to pass. We can see many spots where 
we were met by trials and disappointment; there are far more 
whose sight brings the recollection of unalloyed satisfaction. We 
well remember the feelings with which we entered upon professional 
life—when the future was filled with beatific visions, when success, 
popular admiration, honors and preferments were marked out in 
glowing colors on the chart of our future career. As one point af- 
ter another was passed, disrobed of the enchantment which distance 
had lent it—when the light which had drawn us onward proved a 
mere ignis fatuus—we were fain to sit down sometimes in 
till some new beacon light far onward aroused us to new efforts, in 
which disappointment was changed to success. 
And thus, with honest purpose, with energy and perseverance, 
shall we all sooner or later attain to the supreme object of our just 
desires. Whatever in life or eternity is worth possessing, deserves 16 
labor and strife. Through difficulties bravely encountered, is all 
true progress made. 
Go forth then, friends, with our cordial “ God-speed,” ready to 
sustain your part in the great battle of life ! Armed .with faith 
and hope, you are proof against the daily trials that will surround 
you. Nay, by resisting them you will grow strong—until, by a 
long and honorable course in your profession, having won the crown 
of honor, the success, and the respect which you shall have richly 
earned by continued effort, you stand at last 
“As some tall cliff, that lifts its awful form, 
Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm— 
Though round its breas t the rolling clouds are spread, 
Eternal sunshine settles on its head !”