VALEDICTORY ADDRESS “ 
TO THE 
GRADUATING CLASS 
OF 
JEFFERSON MEDICAL COLLEGE, 
AT THE 
FORTY-SEVENTH ANNUAL COMMENCEMENT. 
DELIVERED IN THE 
ACADEMY OF MUSIC 
MARCH 9, 1S7V. 
BY 
JOSEPH PAYCOAST, M.D., 
PROFESSOR OF GENERAL,. DESCRIPTIVE, AND SURGICAL ANATOMY, 
ETC. ETC. 
PHILADELPHIA: 
P. MADEIRA, SURGICAL INSTRUMENT MAKER, 
115 SOUTH TENTH STREET, BELOW CHESTNUT. 
1872. VALEDICTORY ADDRESS 
TO THE 
GRADUATING CLASS 
OF 
JEFFERSON MEDICAL COLLEGE, 
AT THE 
FORTY-SEVENTH ANNUAL COMMENCEMENT. 
DELIVERED IN THE 
ACADEMY OF MUSIC 
MARCH 9, 1872. 
BY 
JOSEPH PAYCOAST, M.D., 
PROFESSOR OF GENERAL, DESCRIPTIVE, AND SURGICAL ANATOMT, 
ETC. ETC. 
PHILADELPHIA: 
P. MADEIRA, SURGICAL INSTRUMENT MAKER, 
115 SOUTH TENTH STEEET, BELOW CHESTNUT. 
1872. CORRESPONDENCE. 
Jefferson Medical College, February 24th, 1872. 
At a late meeting of the Graduating Class it was unanimously 
Resolved, That the usual committee be appointed to tender the compliments of 
the Class to Prof. Pancoast, and request a copy of his Valedictory Address for pub- 
lication. 
0. P. PIPER, President. 
James K. McCrearey, Secretary. 
Professor Pancoast: 
Dear Sir : In compliance with the above resolution, it affords us great pleasure 
to present to you the compliments of the Class, and we respectfully request a copy 
of your Valedictory Address for publication. 
And allow us to express our sincere thanks for the valuable instruction which we 
have received from you during our attendance at the Jefferson Medical College. 
And may you, who have so long graced the halls of this institution and added so 
much to its fame, be spared to it for many succeeding years. 
Very respectfully, 
W. N. Nelson, Kentucky. 
, J. M. Emmert, Maryland. 
C. C. Vandrrbeck, New Jersey. 
George B. Orlady, Pennsylvania. 
Thomas L. Fountain, Alabama. 
S. G. Cloud, Texas. 
M. F. Richardson, Virginia. 
B. S. Peck, Illinois. 
George G. Topping, Iowa. 
J. N. Norcross, Vermont. 
H. G. M. Kollock, Delaware. 
John H. Abbott, Rhode Island. 
E. S. Buffington, West Virginia. 
Wm. M. AValker, New York. 
Thomas H. Williams, Tennessee. 
James L. Ord, California. 
Charles A. Bemis, Massachusetts. 
P. S. Grenameyer, Ohio. 
C. W. Johnson, Maine. 
AV. B. Harrison, South Carolina. 
A. J. Graham, Georgia. 
Donald Maccallum, Scotland. 
John E. Brunet, Cuba. 
J. McK. Graham, Nova Scotia. 
J. R. Dale, Arkansas. 
J. C. Hearne, Kentucky. 
H. M. Perry, North Carolina. 
1030 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, February 25th, 1872. 
Gentlemen : I have had the honor to receive your communication of yesterday, 
requesting- on the part of the Class a copy of my Valedictory Address for publica- 
tion. It gives me pleasure to comply with their wishes in this respect. 
Please accept for yourselves, and tender to the Class you represent, my very 
warm acknowledgments for the kind expressions with which the request is accom- 
panied. 
Very faithfully, yours, 
JOSEPH PANCOAST. 
To Messrs. AV. N. Nelson, J. W. Emmert, C. C. Vanderbeck, George B, 
Orlady, Thomas L. Fountain, and others, members of the Committee. VALEDICTORY ADDRESS. 
If there be any one justified in indulging in self-gratulation, 
it is surely the student of medicine, at the successful close of 
his collegiate course. 
He has at this period reaped the crowning result of many 
years of anxious preparation, and completed a round of 
studies more arduous, and attended with a greater sacrifice of 
health and comfort, than the public is generally apprised of. 
He is conscious of the merit of having exerted all his 
powers, in the attainment of an honorable distinction, and 
of having realized by so doing the ardent wishes of his rela- 
tives and friends. 
To him, in truth, this must needs be a proud occasion, 
and it is fit that it should be ushered in with music and 
rejoicing. 
It is, therefore, gentlemen graduates, with peculiar pleasure 
that I offer you my congratulations, and welcome you in the 
name and on behalf of the Trustees and Faculty of Jefferson 
Medical College, most warmly welcome you, into the lists of 
our profession. 
The certificate of medical rank which you have just now 
received from honored hands is an evidence that your rela- 
tions with us and with the public have become changed. 
You have stepped this day, as it were, from one platform of 6 
existence to another and a higher one—an elevation which 
presents you with a much wider field for usefulness and 
exertion, and a vastly greater weight of personal responsi- 
bility. For disguise it as your modesty may incline you to 
do, the profession which has now thrown its mantle over you 
has conferred upon you a powerful influence for future good 
or evil. It is a profession that carries with it, in the minds of 
all, the presumption that you have acquired a knowledge of 
the means of being greatly useful hereafter, in remedying the 
physical ills of life, which prevail alike among the rich and 
the poor whenever sickness rages or wounds are inflicted. 
Yet the change effected by this day’s ceremonial is, after 
all, only a sign that you have successfully completed your 
preparations for the greater voyage of professional life which 
looms before you ; and the notes of music swelling forth on 
this occasion may be considered as the morning reveille, 
which should rouse you up to new and prolonged exertion. 
To your young eyes, the wide ocean of the future must now 
be seen, stretching out endlessly and mistily before you. To 
us you seem like so many goodly barks, about to depart from 
a quiet haven, each one on his separate track, over the wide, 
wide sea, exposed to shoal and rock and tempest, with no 
compass but your will, no chart save your diploma, filled 
with zeal and knowledge, generous feelings and noble 
impulses—a freight in value incomparably richer than ever 
was floated by the argosies of Ind. 
Can we then see you depart, most of you perhaps never 
again to greet us with your presence; you with whom we 
have been so long associated, that your countenances have 
grown to be unto us like those of our familiar friends; with- 
out the most anxious solicitude for your welfare, and a 
desire to supply you with some parting admonition? 
You have enjoyed during the past session unusual opportu- 
nities of becoming personally and practically familiar with 7 
disease, in the grand hospitals of this city—and especially in 
the extensive clinic and hospital attached to the Jefferson Medi- 
cal College, in which more than thirteen hundred patients, 
including almost every variety of medical and surgical disease, 
attracted from the city and from a wide portion of the sur- 
rounding country, have been carefully treated before you. 
In view of all this, some—the least thinking among you— 
may possibly be led to beguile themselves with the belief, 
that their days of study and their nights of watching and 
meditation are now gone by, and that they stand prepared at 
the present moment to keep the field—like knights in a 
tournament—against all the difficulties and dangers that are 
practically to be encountered. But if there be such among 
you, let them beware how they yield to so great a delusion. 
For though you have passed out of our hands, to take equal 
rank with us in the profession, the public is soon to form 
another tribunal, which will sit in judgment on your merits— 
a public that will*in the first instance be predisposed in your 
behalf, will weigh favorably your present attainments, espe- 
cially if it finds you active and studious, but will exact from 
you more and more, as your opportunities for practice and 
experience increase. In a mercantile sense of the word, you 
now go forth from us, with a certain available amount of 
credit, which by proper industrious attention to the studies 
and duties pertaining to your profession, you may almost 
extend at will. We are therefore exceedingly solicitous that 
you may start right in your professional career, and so lay 
down your plans for continuous study and improvement as 
to increase day by day in your medical attainments, and in 
the confidence of an observing public. By so doing you 
will be sure to make the outset of your career a pleasant back- 
ground for the filling up of your after life. To this course 
you should be strongly incited, not only for the immediate 
advantages flowing from it, but also for the delicious retro- 8 
spective gratification it will afford you, when advancing time 
may have brought you to fill the places of those whom you 
have heretofore looked up to for instruction. 
There are none of you now before me, of birth so humble 
or station so lowly, as to have reason to dread, in this free 
land of ours, the injurious influence of prejudice or power on 
his future life. If the res angustse domi should for a time 
debar any one from starting on a career as fair and full as 
others, the mind which knows no artificial restraints, whose 
kingdom is as large in the brain of the poor as the rich, may 
still be actively employed in hiving up wisdom and knowledge 
in readiness for an opportunity for its future display, which 
will be sure sooner or later to come, and make all the disadvan- 
tages of rank and station as nothing. Within your country’s 
broad domains, what a field for employment is opened out be- 
fore you, bustling with ever increasing industry, instinct with 
life and vigor in every part, stretching from the polar snows 
almost to the equator, and from the Atlantic Ocean to the 
Pacific; grander than the Eoman Empire in its palmiest 
days; grander than was ever ruled by ancient Csesar or 
modern Czar. There are several of you now before me, sit- 
ting side by side, whose homes are in the new Ophir by the 
Pacific, others from our extremest bounds, by the Northeast 
Atlantic. So wide when they reach their homes will they be 
apart, that while the former may be watching the sun setting 
in the Pacific wave, the latter, roused from their slumbers, 
will see him “flaming in the forehead of the morning sky.” 
But however distant, gentlemen, you are to be placed 
asunder, the main object of your lives is to be one and the 
same. And what is this object? Is it that, which too many 
at the outset of their career deem the main aim of existence, 
the sudden and sordid accumulation of wealth? If there be 
any that think so, his place is not with us; let him go delve 
in the mine; attach himself to the rotating wheel of commerce; 9 
or break up all social ties, to court the fickle goddess of for- 
tune beneath the sun of the equator. 
The practice of your profession, while it is less subject to 
the reverses of fortune that attend the merchant or adventurer, 
and forms a reliable source of support, and chance of distinc- 
tion that cannot readily be taken from you, holds out in pros- 
pect no El Dorado, no Aladdin’s lamp, no “ open sesame” to 
the sudden acquisition of wealth. But it proffers you unu- 
sual opportunities for obtaining that which is, when rightly 
considered, a richer inducement to exertion, the respect, the 
confidence and affection, of the good, the learned and the wise. 
Your business is to be the care of lives—of human lives; an 
office second in importance to none, save that of the ministers 
of our holy religion—of the parent’s, around whose sick bed 
will be gathered so many dependent and sorrowing spirits; 
of the son’s, the future hope and stay; of the daughter’s, just 
blooming into womanhood, to form an atmosphere of light 
and life to all around her; of the infant’s, the object of so 
much present affection, the nucleus about which revolves so 
much future hope and expectation. The lives of such as these 
it is to be your duty hereafter, as far as it is in your power, 
to protect and guard, and by so doing preserve unbroken that 
chain which binds life to life, whose links are formed by love, 
duty, and all other blessed feelings—those jewels of the soul 
which constitute the wealth of the affections, a wealth, to find 
the equal of which in value, Potosi, or Golconda, or all the 
sands of all the rivers that ever flowed beneath the burning 
sun, may be searched in vain. 
Keep yourselves ready then and able to discharge so impor- 
tant a trust, to the best of the abilities with which God has 
endowed you. The path which you are to follow in its accom- 
plishment is a plain one. It is simply the path of duty and 
honor. The leisure hours that may be afforded you, before 
you become fully engrossed in the practice of your profession, 10 
cannot honorably be idled away in listless inactivity; but 
should be embraced as precious opportunities for maturing 
your minds, and increasing your professional efficiency by 
reading, observation, and reflection. 
I well know in regard to native powers and energies, 
that we are not all constituted alike; that in some persons 
these qualities are slower in coming to maturity, require more 
constant cultivation, more earnest and long protracted study, 
to bring them into full development. But let such individuals 
as may seem less favored by nature, and who are distrustful 
perhaps of their own capacities, but give to the purpose in life 
which they have chosen, more constant study and attention, 
and if they falter not in the long effort, they will most probably 
find themselves, in the end, advanced as far, perhaps even 
farther, than others endowed with quicker and more brilliant 
qualifications. At least if they aim high, even if they should 
not succeed in reaching the topmost place in their profession, 
they will be sure of obtaining some honorable position that 
ought to satisfy a well regulated ambition. Let each one adapt 
for himself if he choose, the hackneyed motto of the eagle 
bound in steady flight to his eyrie on a mountain cliff. Fix 
your eyes on the elevation that you ought to reach, and from 
now henceforward, press on quietly but unflinchingly towards 
the attainment of that goal. By day and by night let it be your 
polar star. What fixedness it will give to your aims. How it 
will prevent vacillation, arrest backsliding, and check faint- 
heartedness ; sweeten the toils by day; add a zest to the studies 
of the night; and make the petty, evanescent ills of life, which 
no one can escape, dwindle into insignificance. 
You need not necessarily the aid of any patron in the fulfil- 
ment of the task I have set before you; seek rather the per- 
sonal independence which comes from frequent and solitary 
communion with your own mind ; cultivate its powers in every 
direction; make it respectable in your own estimation, and 11 
you will soon find it valued by others, who will be more or 
less attentively observing you. It will be a good counsellor, 
stimulating you to hold on in the work of self-improvement, 
however dark and discouraging the future may for the mo- 
ment seem. . 
I sincerely trust there is not one among you so weak in 
purpose, or deficient in the steady energy necessary to carry 
it out, as to be unable thus to fix his mind unalterably 
upon the attainment of some honorable position in life. If 
there be any such willing to blight the fair promise of his 
start, by idling time or wasting it in riot, or dissipating it 
by regardlessly wantoning without fixed object, like the 
butterfly from flower to flower, God help him, for great and 
sure will be his fall. He had better not have come here 
with you to-day;—better not have stept out of his chrysalis 
state—better have remained a worm. 
In the formation of your library, I would advise you at first 
to select books of the latest production, which show the ex- 
isting state of the science, and afterwards, at your leisure, 
trace backwards the stream of knowledge, gleaning what is 
valuable from the experience of the past. Cultivate with 
equal care, at your outset, the various branches of your pro- 
fession. Stop not in this course because you do not see the 
opportunity of applying immediately the knowledge you gain. 
You know not which branch in the end will most redound 
to your reputation, and you can study nothing immediately 
connected with your profession that will not well repay you 
for the trouble, and come some day into useful application. You 
will most certainly, likewise, find great advantage, as well as 
agreeable relaxation, in giving attention to some of the auxil- 
iary branches of medicine. All the departments of natural 
science will have great charms, especially to such of you as 
dwell in the country, where you may be able to do much good, 
by making such noble studies popular by the force of your ex- 12 
ample. The study of polite literature, as it is called, has a ten- 
dency to refine the feelings and enlarge the mind, and thus ren- 
der you the more acceptable companions to the literary and 
accomplished. Be not, however, terrified at the extensiveness 
of the field for study laid before you. What the intelligent 
members of other professions cultivate for pleasure and general 
information, you should be the more strongly impelled to 
undertake, in consequence of its usefulness in your calling. 
You will find the task attractive, and in fact the very ampli- 
tude of the field it presents for investigation constitutes one 
of the great charms of medical life. 
When you come to establish yourselves in practice you 
will necessarily be brought into very delicate relations with 
many of your older medical brethren, and must of course ex- 
pect to have your qualifications, your temper, and your prin- 
ciples closely scrutinized, before you will be able to obtain 
their confidence and esteem. It will be incumbent on you, 
therefore, to take especial heed to your steps, in order to avoid 
giving justifiable grounds even to the breath of suspicion. 
Be ready on all occasions to do justice to the claims of 
the members of your profession, and never indulge the weak- 
ness, common to feeble and ignoble minds, of looking upon the 
praise bestowed upon your competitors as so much wrong 
done to your own reputation. All invidious feelings, displayed 
towards rivals, either by sly insinuations, unfriendly state- 
ments of their practice, or the grosser vaunting of one’s own 
superiority, will be found but bad policy, apart from every 
other consideration. Emulate and excel, if you can, your com- 
petitors, by every just and proper means. If you should not 
succeed in this honest and noble aim, show at least the dispo- 
sition to excel them, and the public will not long remain blind 
to your merits, or be backward in promoting your fortunes. 
It is not every one, however, who proves himself suffi- 
ciently strong and high-minded, to pay, in unceasing diligence and upright demeanor, the price of all honorable distinction 
in science. Some are occasionally met with, who are turned 
aside from the path of honor by the hope of gain, or some 
equally unworthy motive, engage in the selfish practices of 
empiricism and imposture, and make, before they learn its 
proper value, shipwreck of all professional reputation. All 
such are sure to find in the end how.grievously they have 
been mistaken. For although experience has shown us, that 
empirical delusions of some sort will always be, to more or 
less extent, prevalent; it is equally apparent that they are 
short lived; spring up one after another, like waves upon the 
seashore, and as surely break each other to pieces ; and that 
they who embrace them will be able but for a short time to dis- 
turb the fair course of science, and soon, if they sink not alto- 
gether, will flounder on unheeded and despised. 
The duties of a physician do not even terminate with the 
cure of the malady he is called upon to treat. His counsels 
are still to be continued, in the hope of being able to laydown 
such rules for the patient’s observance after recovery, as to 
enable him to avoid a recurrence of the attack. The singular 
disinterestedness of our profession in this respect, so seem- 
ingly in direct opposition to its pecuniary interests, and in 
general but imperfectly appreciated by the public, is mani- 
fested not by a few members only, but, I am proud to say, by 
almost the whole body of the profession. I at least have 
never seen and seldom heard of any well-educated physician 
who had become such a monster of iniquity, as to have his 
conduct and opinions habitually influenced by mere pecu- 
niary considerations, in opposition to public or private good. 
Such a being, if met with, would soon have his infamy de- 
tected, and be compelled to crawl along, the scorn of all the 
good, and if he manage to thrive at all, he will do so by 
preying as a charlatan on the ignorant and the weak. 
While I would inspire you, gentlemen, with a desire for 14 
this high-minded and generous exercise of jour profession, I 
would also have you to determine, even if you should not 
for a time meet with all the encouragement you merit, never 
to abandon it. Few have done so without subsequent regrets. 
Let it grow old with you. Live on such terms with it while 
you are young, that as you advance in life you will feel in- 
clined to cherish it the more. Now, you will need it for your 
support, and when you become older and more experienced, 
your services will, in all probability, be held in such high 
estimation, that the satisfaction with which they are received 
will serve in a good degree, to compensate for the additional 
attendant toil. 
By a similar train of reasoning, I believe you will find it 
to be your duty to communicate such valuable materials as 
you may gather from observation, in the way in which they 
will be most useful, through the authorized medical channels, 
and not by the medium of the public prints, which course 
might lay you open to the suspicion of ignoble motives. 
Favorable opportunities may lead you to discover some valu- 
able remedial agents among our indigenous plants, and you 
will directly enhance your reputation, and possibly do a 
service to your country, in making them generally known. 
You may also be enabled to contrive some great improvements 
in the apparatus for the treatment of surgical diseases, and if 
such improvements should be found on trial particularly ad- 
vantageous, self-interest in its unworthy promptings might 
possibly suggest to some of you the securing of the exclu- 
sive advantage of their sale. 
But recollect that no one man really invents much that is 
absolutely new, and seldom brings to much useful perfection 
the little that he does invent. His efforts are usually re- 
restricted to the borrowing, directly or indirectly, from others, 
and to the improvement or new application of that which he 
has borrowed. This is especially the case in reference to our 15 
profession, and if you search into the history of the secret 
or patented articles that encumber our shops, you will per- 
ceive that their self-styled inventors have obtained all the 
valuable knowledge they possess, and which is usually but 
very little, from the free, benevolent, broadcast dispensation 
of it, made by the liberal members of our profession; and it is, 
at least, in my estimation, a questionable point, whether any- 
one has the moral right so to pervert the labors of others to his 
own selfish advantage. The adding of the little that the best 
of us are enabled to do, in the way of observation, invention, 
or improvement, to the common stock of knowledge for the 
alleviation of human sufferings, is to make but an insignificant 
return for the precious privilege we all enjoy, of feasting 
freely at the public table of science, upon which, for more 
than two thousand years, the wisest and the noblest of our 
profession have laid with open hands the rich fruits of their 
labors and experience. 
Self-interest, even, if it were not too short-sighted to look 
beyond the momentary advantage, should give to every one a 
higher aim; for by assiduously struggling on in the acqui- 
sition of knowledge, and the maintenance of a fair reputation, 
you must assuredly, if your lives are protracted, reach a point 
of high consideration with the public; and persons, in gene- 
ral, are too sensitive to suffering not to learn to appreciate 
rightly high medical attainments, and too wise not to know, 
that learning, worth, and talent cannot long be retained in 
any situation, in which they do not meet with adequate re- 
ward. 
The embarrassments and vexations that checker the phy- 
sician’s career, most of you are already apprised of. If time 
were allowed me, 1 would like to parade them all before you 
now, in their strongest colors, in order to avoid any future 
disappointment on the part of those who deem the greatest 16 
difficulty in life to be passed over with the trying ordeal pre- 
paratory to graduation. 
With men who purpose to pursue a manly and elevated 
course, to know the difficulties in the path is, in part, to con- 
quer them. Sore trials, which are to be borne with and mas- 
tered, are to be met with in ours as in every other pursuit of 
life. Perhaps such evils are not altogether to be deprecated, 
inasmuch as they serve to brighten other scenes by contrast, 
for life itself would be insipid without some vicissitudes of 
pain and pleasure—those ups and downs of the feelings—• 
and we well know that the halcyon weather always comes 
after the storm. 
You will frequently be pained with the necessity of reply- 
ing to importunate inquiries, in regard to the risks which a 
patient runs, when a sudden and nearly hopeless sickness has 
fallen like a blight upon him, and be tempted—a mistake 
which too many are apt to commit—from your native amia- 
bility, and an instinctive desire to soothe the anxious distress 
of relatives—to wrong yourselves by making, for the time, 
lighter of the disease than your cooler judgment warrants. 
This would be a great error and ought to be avoided; for the 
public are not, in general, generous enough to give you credit 
for so amiable a weakness, and will remember an incorrect 
opinion, thus given, to your future disadvantage. 
You will occasionally be placed under still more painful 
circumstances when you find your patient, from the severity 
of disease, or native feebleness of constitution, wavering, as it 
were, between life and death, perchance with slight prospects 
of recovery, and he solicits from you a candid opinion in re. 
ference to his state. As men of truth and honor, you cannot 
fail to reply; but as physicians, sensible how much any in- 
creased moral depression may weaken the already attenuated 
thread of existence, and knowing likewise how often the re- 
cuperative energies of the system, when properly aided, can overmaster disease, you should so couch your reply that you 
may not shock your patient, and yet allow him, by inference, 
to perceive your anxiety in regard to the result. But, as mo- 
ralists and Christians, you should, through one of his nearest 
and most judicious friends, have him, in the gentlest manner 
and at the most propitious moment, made acquainted with his 
evanescent hold on human things. Having thus placed your- 
selves in a right position, you will still be looked to by your 
patient as the source of his physical relief; may inspire hope 
by your ministrations so as to occasionally arouse the failing 
energies of his system, and if it be impossible to cure, have 
at least the sad satisfaction of assuaging suffering and length- 
ening life. 
You must expect, at times, to be called to patients suffering 
from severe injury or protracted disease, and be placed under 
the painful necessity of having to determine whether he is to 
continue to risk, and probably lose his life, or submit, as the 
surest means of saving it, to some fearful operation. In what- 
ever way, and however conscientiously and ably you decide 
a question of such moment, you must not expect but that 
there will be some persons, so uninformed or so unreasonable, 
as to believe and to state, that the course which they have seen 
pursued to the end was less appropriate than some other 
which they had not seen tested. 
The very best of our profession—the most humane and the 
most skilful—have thus suffered. It is the way the weak and 
the wavering review their own conduct, and you must expect 
to meet with and to bear it. 
It is not necessary that I should dwell longer on this dark 
side of the picture: these difficulties and anxieties attendant 
on a medical career, or the line of conduct by which they 
are to be overcome or averted. It will be sufficient for me 
to say, in all cases of trial or embarrassment, deal openly and 
high mindedly with those about you, following the golden 18 
rule, to act as you would wisli done, were you and your pa- 
tient to change positions. Yet never shrink from the respon- 
sibility, which science, justice, or humanity imposes on you ; 
for a firm and manly course will prove in the end most ad- 
vantageous for those under your care, and most successful in 
winning for yourselves the esteem and confidence of the 
noble and good. 
Gentlemen, you will perceive that I have not drawn on my 
imagination to paint your prospective career with the seduc- 
tive allurements of fancy. I have endeavored to set forth 
the difficulties, the advantages, and the importance of your 
mission in their true colors. Such as your mission is, it is 
worthy of, and demands from you, the unceasing exertion of 
all your energies. I wish that I had the power to inspire you 
with the intensest zeal in its cultivation; for if you aspire to 
be anything beyond mediocrity you have even now no time 
to waste. You should determine to commence the effort at 
once—this day—this hour. 
If we urge you so strongly in the direction in which we 
know your best interests will be promoted, it is partly from 
the anxiety with which we shall seek to hear good tidings 
from you hereafter, and partly on the account of those allied 
to you by blood and station, who are now looking with deep 
interest upon you. The distinguished men, as well, who 
occupy these seats, with the memory of their own early out- 
set into life revived on this occasion all fresh and green, 
survey you with interest, and with the anxious hope that you 
may realize our wishes, and, in very truth, each one of you 
become the good physician. The beauty, fashion, and elegance 
assembled here, to-day, strangers to you though they may be, 
have, I make no doubt, from their hearts, those rich storehouses 
of all kindly feelings, put up their orisons, that you, who go out 
from us here, to battle for the lives of others with sickness, 
pestilence, and death, may be protected by Providence, and stimulated to acquire such a mastery of your art that the 
sick and the suffering may not appeal to you in vain. 
This day—this scene, with its sea of upturned faces—the 
new emotions that are now stirring within your breasts—the 
mingled feelings of hope and anxiety with which you look to 
the future—the newly awakened interest which you can 
scarcely fail to feel in each other’s fortunes, will never be 
forgotten by you. In after-times, when some of you chance 
to meet, how vividly your memories will recall this day’s 
events as you wistfully inquire in regard to the fate of your 
old comrades of the class. What will the tidings be? Who 
can divine them ? 
“ And now, farewell, the friends, the faithful-hearted 
Sharers in many a toil and stern employ ; 
Oft will you tell this tale of days departed, 
When the worn graybeard kindles to a boy.” 
God’s benison be upon you! and may the winds blow kindly, 
and the sunlight fall cheerily upon your path, as you go forth 
upon your beneficent mission, to assuage the sufferings and 
heal the infirmities, of the sick, injured, and afflicted! GRADUATES 
JEFFERSON MEDICAL COLLEGE OF PHILADELPHIA, 
OF THE 
MARCH, 1872. 
At a Public Commencement, held at the American Academy of Music.on the 9th 
of March, 1872, the Degree of Doctor of Medicine was conferred on the following 
gentlemen by the Hon. J. R. Burden, M. D., Acting President of the Institution, 
after which a Valedictory Address to the Graduates was delivered by Prof. 
Pancoast. 
NAME. 
Abbott, Jno. II. 
Allison, T. D. Mutter 
Amos, Enos 
Armstrong, Harrison 
Badger, Emile B. G. 
Baker, J. William 
Bemis, Charles A. 
Bertolette, Daniel N. 
Beutel, Peter 
Bonebrake, Andrew S. 
Bott, Martin Luther 
Brush, James A. (M.D.) 
Buck, Michael J. 
Buffington, E. Stanard 
Bush, Lewis 
Byers, W. Churchman 
Closson, C. H. 
Cloud, S. G. 
Cochran, Frank T. 
Crise, David 
Criswell, J. T. 
Cummings, John B. 
STATE OR COUNTRY. 
Rhode Island. 
Pennsylvania. 
West Virginia. 
Ohio. 
Pennsylvania. 
West Virginia. 
Massachusetts. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
West Virginia. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Texas. 
New York. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Tennessee. 
SUBJECT OF THESIS. 
Scarlet Fever. 
Pneumonia. 
Diphtheria. 
The Great Epidemics. 
Malaria. 
Reproduction. 
Relation of the Nerves to Inflam- 
mation. 
Quinia as a Prophylactic. 
Magnetism and Electricity. 
Pneumonia. 
Rubeola. 
Science of Medicine. 
Typhoid Fever. 
Gonorrhoea. 
Scarlatina. 
Veratrum Viride. 
Acute Dysentery. 
Cholera Infantum. 
Typhoid Fever. 
Acute Dysentery. 
The Circumstances Modifying the 
Action of Malaria. 
Diabetes Mellitus. 2 
NAME. 
Dale, Ewing 
Dale, John R. 
Dold, Harry M. 
Driesbach, Harvey 
Duncan, E. M. 
Emmert, Jos. M. 
Eshleman, Norton A. 
Farrar, Preston W. 
Feick, J. F. 
Fisher, H. M. 
Fisher, John F. 
Fitzpatrick, James A. 
Fountain, T. L. 
Fraunfelter, Jas. 
Frey, Clarence L. 
Glenn, John B. 
Graham, Aquila John 
Graham, John McK. 
Green, Charles S. 
Greene, Benj. F. 
Greenamyer, P. S. 
Greenwald, Lamartine W. 
Gross, Jacob M. 
Haly, J. S. 
Handy, S. W. 
Harrison, Jas. Henry 
Harrison, Willis Benson 
Ilearne, Jos. C. 
Hilliard, G. Himes 
Ishmael, J. W. 
Johnson, Charles W. 
Kollock, Harry G. M. 
Lebo, William 
Lenow, James H. 
Louder, Austin J. 
Mathews, Franklin 
McCallum, Donald 
STATE OR COUNTRY. 
Illinois. 
Arkansas. 
Virginia. 
Ohio. 
Kentucky. 
Maryland. 
Pennsylvania. 
Illinois. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Alabama. 
Ohio. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Georgia. 
Nova Scotia. 
West Virginia. 
Pennsylvania. 
Ohio. 
Ohio. 
Pennsylvania. 
Ohio. 
Maryland. 
South Carolina. 
South Carolina. 
Kentucky. 
Pennsylvania. 
Kentucky. 
Maine. 
Delaware. 
Pennsylvania. 
Tennessee. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Scotland. 
SUBJECT OF THESIS. 
Intermittent Fever. 
Malarial Fevers. 
The Pointings of Nature. 
Nutrition. 
Internal Hemorrhoids. 
Morbus Coxarius. 
The Human Skeleton. 
Effects of Cold. 
Scarlet Fever. 
Treatment of Scarlatina. 
Hemorrhage. 
The Principal Causes of Disease in 
Children. 
Inflammation. 
Hepatalgia Calculosa. 
Apoplexy. 
Abortion. 
Remittent Fever. 
Puerperal Convulsions. 
Anaesthetics in Parturition. 
Organic Changes during Pregnancy. 
Exophthalmic Bronchocele. 
Rheumatismus Acutus. 
Cholera Infantum. 
Physiology of Respiration. 
Stomach Digestion. 
Intemperance. 
Typhoid Fever. 
Stricture of the Male Urethra. 
Relations of Mind and Body. 
Pneumonia. 
Rheumatism. 
Gastric Ulcer. 
Conduct of Labor. 
Pustula Pestifera. 
Medical Diagnosis. 
Popular Medicines. 
Pathological Anatomy. NAME. 
McClurg, Walter A. 
McCrearey, J. K. 
Meals, I. J. 
Meliard, Jas. W. 
Miles, J. Hunter 
Mitchell, A. B. 
Morris, Spencer (M.D.) 
Morrow, Francis Gayle} 
Mundorff, E. A. 
Nelson, Will N. 
Norcross, J. N. 
Orlady, Geo. B. 
Parry, Wm. C, 
Paschall, D. A. 
Peck, Barnard S. (A.M. 
Pemberton, Harry H. 
Perry, Hext. M. 
Person, 0. F. 
Pettigrew, S. H. 
Pflueger, C. F. 
Piper, Oliver Perry 
Porter, William 
Ried, J. H. (A.M.) 
Richardson, Marcus F. 
Riggs, W. Judson 
Rushmore, Edward 
Rynard,John A. 
Sample, Geo. W. 
Sanford, S. W. 
Sawyer, Charles Milton 
Sellards, A. G. (M.D.) 
Sharp, Francis Alex. 
Sharpnack, T. H. 
Shivers, C. Hendry 
Siegfried, Chas. A. 
Stone, Edward R. 
Swartzlander, Fred. 
Taylor, Thos. A. 
Thompson, John M. 
STATE OR COUNTRY. 
Pennsylvania. 
Kentucky. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Kentucky. 
Vermont. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Texas. 
Illinois. 
New Jersey. 
South Carolina. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Colorado. 
Virginia. 
Pennsylvania. 
New York. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Tennessee. 
Massachusetts. 
Ohio. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
New Jersey. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
South Carolina. 
SUBJECT OF THESIS. 
Epilepsy. 
Scarlet Fever. 
Arsenious Acid. 
Chancre. 
Syncope as a Complication in Par- 
turition. 
Diabetes Mellitus. 
Cream vs. Cod Liver Oil. 
Valvular Lesions of the Heart. 
Exsection of the Knee-joint. 
Chronic Ulcers. 
Scarlatina. 
Conservative Medicine. 
Sympathy of the Uterus. 
Typhoid Fever. 
The Brain and its Relations to the 
Body. 
Acute Pericarditis. 
Hydrate of Chloral. 
Typhoid Fever. 
Morbilli. 
Scarlatina. 
Puerperal Peritonitis. 
Cirrhosis. 
Mountain Fever. 
Phthisis Pulmonalis. 
Causes of Epileptiform Convul- 
sions. 
Pleuritis. 
Labour. 
Cynanche Tonsillaris. 
Menstruation. 
Hydrate of Chloral. 
Typhoid Fever. 
Menstruation. 
Eclampsia. 
Enteric Fever. 
The Osseous System. 
Aneurism. 
Expectant Treatment. 
The Duties of the Physician. 
Acute Rheumatism. NAME. 
STATE OR COUNTRY. 
SUBJECT OF THESIS. 
Thompson, Sam’l W. (M.D.) 
Tiernan, F. Win. 
Tolson, B. Franklin 
Tomlinson, Edwin 
Topping, George G. 
Trowbridge, F. Logan 
Uberroth, Adams S. 
Vanderbeck, C. C. 
Waggener, James R. 
Walker, W. M. 
Walton, G. Taylor 
Weaver, S. J. 
White, J. M. 
Williams, Thomas H. 
Wood, Geo. G. 
Wynn, Ephraim S. 
Indiana. 
Kentucky. 
Delaware. 
New Jersey. 
Iowa. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
New Jersey. 
Kentucky. 
New York. 
Georgia. 
Pennsylvania. 
West Virginia. 
Texas. 
Pennsylvania. 
New Jersey. 
Traumatic Tetanus. 
Digestion. 
Chloroform. 
The Physician and Quackery. 
Typlio-malarial Fever. 
Cretinism. 
Purulent Ophthalmia. 
Obscure Sources of Disease. 
Cinchona. 
Catarrhal Fever. 
Malaria. 
Management of Infants. 
Treatment of Syphilis. 
Apostematous Phthisis synony- 
mous with Chronic Pneumonia 
with Abscess. 
Dyspepsia. 
Foundation of Medical Education. 
Of the above there were from— 
Pennsylvania . . . 54 
Ohio .... 8 
Kentucky .... 7 
West Virginia . . . 5 
New Jersey ... 5 
South Carolina . . . 4 
Tennessee . ... 3 
Texas .... 3 
New York .... 3 
Delaware .... 2 
Illinois .... 2 
Massachusetts ... 2 
Virginia .... 2 
Georgia . . . 2 
Maryland .... 2 
Rhode Island ... 1 
Arkansas .... 1 
Alabama .... 1 
Indiana .... 1 
Iowa ..... 1 
Maine .... 1 
Vermont .... 1 
Colorado .... 1 
Nova Scotia ... 1 
Scotland .... 1 
Total . . .114