ADDRESS, 
DELIVERED BV 
Dr. L.C. Lane, 
PROFESSOR OF SURGERY, 
At the Commencement Exercises of the Medical 
College of the (Pacific, 
November 5 I. « 
jSaN j^RANCISCO; 
Bonnard & I)aly, Book and Job Printers, 63J Merchant Street. PACIFIC 
'pcdical and Jlurjtral Journal. 
Vol. XIX.—DECEMBER, 1876.—No. 7. 
ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. 
Address Delivered by Dr. L. C. Lane, Professor of Surgery, 
AT THE COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES OF THE MEDICAL 
COLLEGE OF THE PACIFIC, NOV. 2, 1876. 
Gentlemen Graduates—About the first of March of the present 
year I received a letter from the Dean of our Faculty announcing 
that I had been selected to deliver the valedictory address to the 
graduating class of this year, and he wished to know if I would 
perform the task. Such a request, I may here note, was presum- 
ing considerably upon the future, both as regards you and myself. 
My reply to him was yes, if railroads, steamship, oceans, rivers, 
would safely return me to our own dear California; dear I call it, 
since I am sure that if biblical commentators had had the precious 
memories which I have of a fifteen years’ residence in it, they 
would, by unanimous accord, have placed the garden of Eden 
here. Your Dean also wrote that ifpould be expected to narrate 
something of what I had seen abroad, and thus, that I might give 
some “ freshness” to the occasion. Now, as you see, I am here, 
the elements having consented to my safe transport hither; and 
moreover, I see that his acumen as Health Officer gathered from 
so many years’ experience in compiling reports mortuary, has 
given him some expertness in kenning the vital, thereby enabling 
him not only to foresee my safe return, and you will excuse me for 290 
Pacific Medical and Surgical Journal. 
[Dec. 
hinting at it, seemingly to have acquired thereby a yet deeper in- 
sight into the undeveloped future, since he did not presume too 
much in calculating upon a graduating class. 
It is a very common thing on the occasion of a marriage that 
the newly-wedded party make what is called a bridal tour. This 
custom, though I remember once to have seen it sharply criticised 
in a medical journal, is so much in vogue that I propose on this 
occasion, which is to commemorate your marriage to the great 
Profession of Medicine, to accompany you on a short bridal tour 
abroad; though in doing so I must say on starting, that if we see 
much of Europe in so brief a space, we can only do it by running 
and reading at the same time; and that, too, with the volubility 
of a Westminster Abbey guide, whose tongue does its task with 
the speed of a Thibetian prayer—crowding into one’s head, 
in a few minutes, a compend of English history from Alfred the 
Great until William the Third. Yet I hope that in my capacity 
as guide, I may be more successful than he, for after his work is 
done, so rapidly have his ideas traversed your head, that like the 
transit of an electric current, they have not left a vestige behind. 
Let us, then, shutting our eyes to the wealth of art, industry 
and material development which crowd upon the traveler’s vision 
the moment he enters Europe, direct our attention to medical 
matters and things cognate thereto. Thus nairowed, our field 
becomes reduced to mnemonic capacity; and besides, I am sure 
that you must be most interested in learning something of the 
great family of which, in future, you are to be the kinsmen. 
We commence our journey by landing in Ireland; we begin here 
very appropriately, since it is from here that America has received 
many of her noblest sons. From Queenstown, our landing place, 
we hasten up to Dublin, where Porter, Churchill, the venerable 
Stokes, Corrigan, Butcher, Colles and others reside, and will greet 
us with an open, genuine and unstudied warm-heartedness, which 
wre must make the most of; for I regret to have to add, that we 
shall not find its equal again while abroad. I do not mean to say 
that we shall meet no more true friends on our journey; but from 
my experience, hospitality, as a rule, is like some of the springs 
in our mountains, which in mid-winter freeze over and in mid- 1876.] 
Lane—Address to Graduating Class. 
291 
summer dry up, while in an Irish gentleman’s heart it is a peren- 
nial fountain, and like his wit, ever gushing forth, warm, deep 
and unfailing. From the quick and expert Porter we learn the 
happy results which he has obtained in the treatment of aneurism 
by moderate compression indirectly applied, by means of a simple 
and inexpensive apparatus which he himself has invented. The 
aged Stokes salutes us most cordially, and though partially para- 
lyzed, so that our sympathy is awakened as we see his tottering 
step and trembling hand, yet we soon perceive that there is no 
halt in the tread of his intellect, nor in the vibration of his heart, 
which is brimful of love for America. As an evidence of the 
former, and as a compendious formula of a life’s experience, he 
tells us “ the present generation are making a great mistake in 
their endless subdivision of disease, insomuch that the student is 
greatly puzzled to decide to which he must address his remedies;” 
and an equal proof of his affection for our country is his parting 
message to us: “Bear from us kind wrords to your countrymen, 
for they have ever been kind to us, and have always been just to 
us.” 
Churchill and Colleswill receive us with equal cordiality. The 
latter is exclusively a physician, though his name is inseparably 
attached to one of the troublesome fractures of the forearm, from 
the fact that his father was the first to accurately describe the in- 
jury and to suggest an appropriate treatment. From Churchill, 
the noted obstetrician, you will learn a lesson of patience which I 
hope you may not be called upon to endure, when he tells you 
how many years he had to wait before he attained a successful 
practice. 
From the land of the quick, impulsive and ready-witted Celt, 
we will pass over to the home of Brown, who, for a generation, 
by the force of his genius, led the medical world captive with his 
specious theory of irritation—of Cullen, whose comprehensive 
mental power seized in its grasp the entire domain of internal 
medicine and reduced to brief axioms, easy to be remembered, 
the tangled and shapeless mass of facts which his predecessors 
had been storing up in the common magazines—of Simpson, who, 
if he was not the founder of obstetrical surgery, at least made 292 
Pacific Medical and Surgical Journal. 
[Dec., 
some of the most valuable additions to this branch of medicine, 
and whose brilliant success as a practitioner attracted so many 
strangers to treatment, that his death was acknow- 
ledged to be an important financial loss to his native city; for the 
practical Scotchman does not forget to weigh even the fruits of 
genius in the scales of finance, as shown not alone in the instance 
here cited, but in another which I heard of more than once, viz: 
that the value of all real estate in the north of Scotland had risen 
forty per cent, through the influence exercised by the writings of 
Sir Walter Scott. Besides what Simpson did in obstetrical sur- 
gery, he won for himself immortality in the applications of 
chloroform. 
As we come from Ireland to Scotland, we first enter Glasgow, 
the great northern emporium that is rapidly becoming the rival of 
Liverpool. On our arrival our ears are filled with the clamor of 
a thousand hammers which are moulding into shape the ironclads 
of all nations, destined not only to bear “ those mortal engines, 
whose rude throats immortal Jove’s loud clamor counterfeit”— 
messengers of death between nations in combat—but also those 
intended to carry the civilizing cargoes of peaceful commerce. 
a modest laboratory, within hearing of this din of ham- 
mers, we might have seen a few years ago a modest man quietly 
studying and working out a surgical problem, which, when solved, 
o£ 
was destined to carry blessings farther, wider, and nature far 
more precious, than any cargo which yon iron clads will ever bear 
abroad; blessings not limited like an Ossianic fountain, that 
“brings joys to the withered vales from its own moss-covered 
rock,” nor even as the Nile, whose fertilizing influence is confined 
to a single continent, but blessings that are to be co-extensive with 
humanity. And should humanity be so recreant as to forget its 
origin, yet, like the Nile, though its source be unknown, still the 
noble stream never forgets to dispense health, joy and riches to 
the people through whose midst it flows. The modest man of 
whom I speak was Joseph Lister, and his study was the antiseptic 
problem. The proposal of such a problem was sufficient to ren- 
der any man famous; but Lister not only proposed it, but to a 
great extent he has solved it, so that now the surgeon has it in his 1876] 
Lane—Address to (graduating Class. 
293 
power to perform the majority of surgical operations without any 
of the risks of inflammation, which formerly hung like the sword 
of Damocles over every grave surgical procedure. Much remains 
to he done to perfect the method of Lister, yet, in its present 
state, its excellencies are so great, that it has been introduced into 
the majority of the great hospitals of Europe. Scotland was not 
long forgetful of her distinguished son. She soon gave him a 
chair in her leading University, and for a wife, Scotland’s great- 
est surgeon, Professor Syme, gave him his daughter. 
In the Royal Infirmary of Edinbtirgave must not fail to visit 
Prof. Hernandale, who, though a most unpretending man, is one 
of the most clever operators whom we shall see abroad. This is 
especially so as respects resections of the joints. These operations 
performed in the Lister spray are attended by a minimum of mor- 
tality that is astounding when we compare it with the deaths from 
the old modes of procedure. 
It should be remarked, that though Lister has been the subject 
of applause from all the surgical world, except a small section just 
south of the Tweed, yet in the chaplet which encircles his brow, 
the flower modesty has not been crowded out by the laurel; for 
on our visit to him we shall find him a quiet, retiring man, and 
free to communicate with us, and even to give us the recent im- 
provements which he has made in his antiseptic formulae. 
From Scotland' I will next conduct you to London. This 
great metropolis of English commerce and centre of Anglo- 
Saxon culture, though eminently, I might say, intensely English 
in character, is still in many respects cosmopolitan in popula- 
tion; for though the Briton essays in every way to maintain his 
hitherto isolated situation, yet the commercial ties which he has 
with every civilized nation are making great inroads upon his in- 
sulated state; and, at the same time, the gold laden vaults of 
Threadneedle street, with their glitter, have caught the eyes of, 
and are inviting the visit of the merchants of all nations. Hence 
in traversing the streets, the polyglot sounds which continually 
greet our ears, remind us forcibly of our own metropolis of the 
Pacific. On inquiring in regard to medical institutions, we learn 
that instead of one or two great schools, London has eleven medi- 294 
Pacific Medical and Surgical Journal. 
[De:., 
cal Colleges, the eleventh and youngest being the Female Medi- 
cal College, established two years ago. Besides these metropoli- 
tan institutions, there are a few Provincial medical colleges, viz., 
one at Liverpool, one at Manchester, one at Leeds, and one at 
Birmingham. Yet none of these has the power of granting diplo- 
mas; this power being invested in two boards, resident in London, 
and known respectively as the “ Royal College of Physicians” 
and the “ Royal College of Surgeons.” The former confers the 
title of M. D.; the Royal College of Surgeons confers merely the 
title of Member or Fellow. It is claimed that this isolation of 
the power that confers degrees from that which teaches, is a great 
improvement over the system which now obtains in America. 
This would be so, were the two really isolated : but unfortunately, 
such separation does not exist there; and, I may remark here, 
that it does not exist anywhere in Europe. In London, both of 
the corporate bodies which confer degrees, are composed mainly 
of men who are professors in the medical schools. Such is the 
case in France, and such is the case in Germany; so that in these 
respects, I regret to say we do not differ materially from the 
Old World; for it would be a great improvement if teaching and 
examining were in part, at least, committed to different persons. 
If I be permitted to continue this digression a moment longer, 
I will remark that there is one respect in which we are much be- 
hind the European institutions, and that is, in not requiring a 
thorough preliminary examination of every student before he 
commences the study of medicine. The objection offered by the 
partisan of the present plan is, that thus many a genius whose 
early advantages have been few, would be debarred from enter- 
ing the medical ranks; to which I would reply, that the facilities 
for acquiring a moderate knowledge of the lingual and physical 
sciences, are so numerous and easy of access in our country, that 
there is no excuse for him who does not avail himself of them. 
And furthermore, as to the loss from genius being debarred at the 
threshold, it is a matter which in most cases need not be much 
mourned over. Plodding, or better named hard work, is more 
demanded in medicine than the waywardness and brilliant sallies 
of so-called genius. Moliere could conceive a Tartuffe, Goethe ,876.] 
Lane—Address to Graduating Class. 
295 
a Faust, Dante a Divine Comedy, and Shakspeare a Hamlet, the 
greatest of tragedies, yet none of them possessed the patience to 
master the infinity of details, which would have enabled them as 
physicians to successfully treat a typhoid fever, or as surgeons, to 
heal an indolent ulcer. During my visit, I have seen and heard 
the leading medical men in Europe, and with all due deference to 
them, I must say, that if all the geniuses were withdrawn from 
their ranks, it would fall far short of decimating their number. A 
tiresome journey on foot carried the Listers Liebreichs to the 
eminence which they have reached; eagles’ wings never bore 
them there. 
In ending this brief allusion to medical education, I will ex- 
press the hope that the American Medical Association will soon 
take some steps which will lead to our schools adopting a uni- 
form system of preliminary study and examination, for all who 
engage in the study of Medicine. 
But let us return to the English Medical Schools, which we 
strayed away from a few moments ago. Of the eleven metropoli- 
tan medical schools, but two have large classes, the University 
Medical College and King’s College. Guy’s Hospital School 
and St. Bartholomew’s have tolerably large classes. The remain- 
ing schools have small classes, some, in fact, not having as large 
an attendance as we have in our San Francisco schools. 
University College may be considered rather the offspring of 
King’s College; and as might be expected the two are sharp 
rivals, and*differ in many respects. Old King’s School in which 
is found the great surgeon Fergusson, also Wood, Smith, Beale, 
and others, is eminently conservative. She prefers three per 
cent, consols, and to “sleep well o’ nights,” rather than to dis- 
turb the world with innovation. Her ruling head, Canon Barry, 
thinks Buckle’s History of Civilization an unsafe book for young 
men. The University School, on the contrary, is more Cassius- 
like, “ lean and hungry,” in which the radical, reformatory and 
innovating element finds a congenial home. She opens her arms 
to students of every nationality, color and faith. 
The general demeanor of the English medical classes, whether 
in the presence or absence of their professors, I will not hold up 296 
Pacific Medical and Surgical Journal. 
[Dec., 
to you as a model. Though one sees a number of hard-working 
students, yet besides these, there are many wild, extravagant, 
noisy and reckless blades, whose chief ambition is in fun and 
frolic. And this, too, in the pupils of staid old King’s, 
where, despite all the drilling in the thirty nine articles, two 
years ago, at tho opening of the course, Fergusson’s address was 
interrupted with such remarks as this : “ Dry up, old fellow;” 
“ Sir William, you had better stop now, and go out and take a 
drink;” and to such a pitch of riotous turbulence did they 
reach, that finally the lecturer closed his manuscript, and told 
them that if he could not have better order, he would close the 
meeting. This succeeded in partially quieting them, so that he 
concluded his address. It should, however, be remarked that Sir 
William Fergusson is far more at home in the use of his hands, 
than in the use of his tongue. Since, while as an operator, he has, 
for one of his age, no superior in the surgical world, he has, per- 
haps, no inferior as a speaker. As you are carried away with 
his tall form, commanding presence, intelligent face beaming 
with good nature, and the grace with which he uses the scalpel, 
your admiration is mingled with real sympathy as you witness 
his ineffectual efforts to explain what he is doing. But, notwith- 
standing this, as soon as you see the man you will love him, and 
you will love him still more when I tell you that in a long life of 
surgical practice, he has not been guilty of one unprofessional act. 
Search his career of half a century, and one fails to find it sullied 
by one spot of malignity towards, or jealousy of, a’professional 
brother. I am sure that the remembrance of a life so spent 
brings more joy to his heart, than the recollection of the splendid 
trophies which his surgical genius has won; and beautiful as a 
wreath of heather from his own Scottish hills, will it long encircle 
his memory when the work of his life shall close. Though proba- 
bly none of you will ever reach the summit of professional emi- 
nence which has been attained by Sir William Fergusson, yet in 
the untarnished integrity which has distinguished his life, you 
are able to become his rivals. Will some future biographer make 
the same record of your finished career as you have just heard of 
him? 1876.] 
Lane—Address to Graduating Class. 
297 
In each of the London schools we find one or more distin- 
guished men. In making our visit, besides those mentioned, the 
following deserve especial mention. In St. Mary’s, Walton 
and Lane; in St. George’s, Holmes, Hewitt, Lee and Carter; in 
St. Thomas’, Jones, Murchison and Liebreich; in Charing Cross, 
Barwell and Hancock; in Middlesex, Watson and Greenhow; 
in the University, Erichsen, Heath, Reynolds and Sir Wm. 
Thompson; in St. Bartholomew’s, Paget and Holden; in Guy’s, 
Bryant, Cooper, Foster and Birkett; in London Hospital, Hut- 
chinson; in Westminster, Holt. Besides these, others might well 
be mentioned, as the list given is far from exhausting the famous 
names of the medical profession in London. For example, Spen- 
cer Wells, who, by his successful results in eight hundred cases of 
ovariotomy, has restored this operation to surgery, from which it 
had hitherto been excluded. And particularly should we not fail 
to visit the Royal Orthopedic Hospital, and St. Peter’s Hospital 
for Stone, since we shall be kindly received at each place, and es- 
pecially so at St. Peter’s, where Mr. Teevan and Mr. Coulson, 
the operating surgeons, extend such hospitalities to American visi- 
tors as might almost lead them to think they were in Dublin 
again. Besides these courtesies, the visitor is sure to carry away 
with him a uumber of interesting ideas, from the varied practice 
which he there witnesses. Yet the list given must suffice, as soon 
as two other great names are mentioned. 
In the southwest quarter of London, not far from Hyde Park, 
we find grounds on an extensive scale, covered with large and in 
some cases elegant buildings, which are dedicated to the recep- 
tion and conservation of a number of the rarest and most valuable 
treasures of English science and art. This is known as the South 
Kensington Museum, which we must visit, as we find there many 
things of the greatest interest to the scholar and the lover of art 
and industry. To the latter nothing can be more curious and at- 
tractive than the first rude models of the early essays of Watt in 
the construction of the steam engine, and of George Stevenson in 
that of the railroad. These quaint and awkward contrivances are 
kept as sacred treasures, and rightly too, since they are the step- 
ping-stones on which England has marched to the front of na- 298 
Facific Medical and Surgical Journal. 
[Dec., 
tions through culture, commerce and industrial progress. Along- 
side of this building of old models is one which interests us greatly 
also. This is the Gallery ol National Portraits, where we find al- 
most every distinguished personage who has furnished material for 
the imposing fabric of English literature, or who, by his actions, 
has shed lustre on English annals. But in the pile of buildings 
which cover the grounds of Kensington, there is one which, to the 
student of natural science and of medicine, is more cherished than 
any which I have enumerated. This is a tall building, with Pom- 
peiian and Etruscan adornment, and built firmly, as if to endure 
forever. In the upper story of this, we find a rare museum of 
natural history, and the unpretending lecture room and physio- 
logical laboratory of him who is England’s greatest scholar in 
natural history, viz: Thomas H. Huxley. To reach him, we 
must climb eleven flights of granite stairways, which, fortunately 
for those of feeble limb and short breath, are neither steep nor 
long, yet, as he says, are enough so all from visiting 
him who have no business there. find him a plain, sim- 
ple and unostentatious man; in every word, movement and act 
presenting that modesty and want of display which always indi- 
cate and reveal the scholar. If we stop and hear one of his lec- 
tures, the qualities mentioned shine forth even more manifestly. 
Once having heard him, no one asks for further evidence of the 
universality of his knowledge in his department. From having 
attended his six months’ course of lectures, I was happy to find, 
for once, a man who is not over estimated. He knows more of 
organic, animated nature than any one living; he has but to open 
the “ book and volume of his brain” to find a true picture of any 
living animal; and its homologies or analogies with any other 
species or genus, he is as familiar with as a linguist is with the 
conjugation of verbs. If at the close of a lecture he be asked a 
question concerning some animal, as is often the case, even though 
the point be far removed from that which he has been considering, 
his answer is as clear and ready as if he had just studied the mat- 
ter—and not verbally alone, but with his chalk in his hand, he 
follows it through the winding maAs and varying phases of its 
evolution, with an ease, rapidity and artistic truthfulness, until 1876.] 
Lane—Address to Gtaduating Class. 
299 
one almost forgets the extemporized creation before him, in his 
admiration of this great interpreter of the laws of nature. And 
this admiration is kept continually aglow, as one follows him in 
his search for the hidden links of the chain of being which lie 
buried in the geological and pre-historic ages. 
I must not take you away from London without introducing you 
to one other noted personage in our profession; since in reading 
his works I am sure that you have already learned to admire, if 
not to love, the man. This is Sir Thomas Watson, Baronet. 
Nature conferred knighthood upon Sir Thomas a long time before 
Queen Victoria did. Years have much bowed down his person, 
yet he still looks the great and kind-hearted gentleman. At the 
evening meetings of the Royal Institution, at which were deliv- 
ered lectures by Tyndall, Huxley, Gladstone, and other celebrated 
British scholars, Dr. Watson was a regular attendant. On his 
earnest, straightforward and honest face one could catch traces of 
that practical and pointed good sense which lends such a charm 
to the pages of that capital work which every student of medicine 
should read, en'itled: “ Lectures on the Practice of Physic.” A 
long life of noble and upright purposes has left its impress on his 
brow. In unmistakable lines patience, energy, and the love of 
the right are written there. Such a face in an old man presents 
more genuine loveliness, even though the fingers of time have 
blotted out its primitive lineaments of beauty, than the most 
matchless picture which has ever been conceived and executed by 
the fancy and pencil of a Tiziano or Murillo. 
My notice of the medical celebrities of London has been almost 
an uninterrupted eulogy. The note must change when we touch 
upon the hospital buildings. Though erected with the purpose 
of lasting forever, yet in their construction and internal arrange- 
ment they are far behind similar institutions in America. Sprung 
from a period that antedated modern hygiene, one often finds 
them lamentably deficient in the facilities for ventilation. Air, 
now regarded as a thing almost divine, in fact, the major and mi- 
nor premises and of modern medical reasoning, seems 
to have been deemed by the former generation as something dia- 
bolical, an evil spirit which must be hedged and barred out in 300 
Pacific Medical and Surgical Journal. 
\T)ec., 
every possible manner. In all the old cities of Europe, this doc- 
trine has left monuments of its former hold on the medical mind, 
in the miserably lighted and still worse ventilated wards of all the 
old hospitals. And in reference to the selection of a site for their 
erection, the policy would often seem to have obtained that land 
that was too low, or too much of a marsh for any other purpose, 
was quite good enough for a hospital. As examples of this may 
be cited the London Hospital for Cancer, and the Consumption 
Hospital at Brompton, London. So, also, King’s College Hos- 
pital is situated in a part of the city most illy fitted for the pur- 
pose. With such hospitals around him, it was no wonder that 
Professor Erichsen found so much to praise in reference to Ameri- 
can hospitals. Besides their guidance by the enlightened ideas of 
modern sanitary science, the Americans have, by nature, a large 
share of talent in adapting whatever they make or construct to its 
ulterior purpose. 
After this hasty visit we must bid England farewell, and next 
turn our steps towards France. 
The wildest storm in its work of devastation usually does some- 
thing which man, in his philosophic pride, reckons a blessing. 
This finds its popular expression in the oft-repeated proverb, it is 
an ill wind that blows no one any good; and this maybe applied 
to the French Revolution of 1793. For while the Angel of Death 
was writing this chapter of French history in characters of blood, 
the humane genius of science was laying the foundation of one of 
the most thorough systems of University education which the 
world has ever seen. While the guillotine was baptizing the 
Place de la Concorde with the blood of Lavoisier, Roland, and 
the noble Girondists, in the National Assembly near by was being 
organized the great Medical School which has rendered Paris, 
ever since, famous as a centre of medical education. It was in 
this dark and eventful period, when France overturned her altars, 
lengthened her week into ten days, altered the names of her 
months, and adopted a new era dating from the so-called birth of 
French liberty, that the present school was born, and in a few 
years became so eminent that it has, ever since, attracted students 
from every quarter of the globe. For one sees there young men 1876.] 
Lane—Address to Graduating C/ass. 
301 
from Russia, Greece, Egypt, Spain, Brazil and Chile; in fact, from 
every cultivated nation. 
To this school, which has produced a Bichat, a Louis, a Laennec, 
a Cruveilhier, and a Velpeau, I beg leave to now introduce you; 
and since we have spent so much time with our kindred north 
of the Channel, we shall be able to make but a brief stay among 
the gay, sprightly and polite Frenchmen. Let us first go to a 
lecture at the School of Medicine. We find the large room 
crowded with attentive listeners; for though there are other medi- 
cal schools in France, the Parisian institution remains ever the 
great luminary to which nearly all French students are attracted. 
We have scarcely listened a minute when the thought arises in our 
minds, what a difference there is between an English and a French 
professor. Our speaker here surprises us with his matchless elo- 
cution, his ready command of language, his power of illustration, 
his grace of manner; in fact, we find that we are in the presence 
of an accomplished orator, a personage whom we failed to find in 
Scotland or England. Whether the Frenchman got his mercurial 
or movable character from Mercury, or his jovial disposition from 
Jupiter, or whether his insular neighbor got his opposite and some- 
what saturnine character from the planet with rings, we have not 
time to investigate. Yet the fact strikes us most forcibly that 
never were neighbors more the antitheses of each other; and in 
this circumstance we find an explanation of their mutual hates and 
wars during the last thousand years. 
Over the speaker is placed a splendid painting on which the 
famous Ambrose Pare is represented in probably the most im- 
portant act in which any surgeon ever figured, viz., the applica- 
tion of a ligature to the bleeding vessels of an amputated limb. 
You will recall that up to Pare’s time bleeding was staunched 
by plunging the stump into hot pitch, or applying a red-hot iron 
to the cut vessels. In this painting, on a battle-field, a soldier 
has had his leg cut off, and the attending surgeon is in the act of 
applying the burning iron, when Pare, who is standing by, 
reaches out a few silk threads to be used as a ligature. The care- 
worn and haggard face of the wretched soldier as he cautiously 
scans what is being dene, and the noble serenity of countenance 302 
Pacific Meatcal and Surgical Journal. 
[Dec. , 
of the old surgeon as he performs the act which in all future is to 
relieve amputation of half its horror, makes a picture which com- 
mands the admiration of every one who visits this lecture room. 
And just above the speaker’s head is a bust of Ambrose Pare, and 
which, I may be excused for saying, has some resemblance to the 
senior member of our Faculty; but whether the latter would have 
written the pious sentence that is escaping from old Pare’s lips, 
viz., “ I dressed the wound, but God healed it,” I do not know, 
though I think it probable that he would, when I remember how 
ready he is to apply the lash to young men, and anon to old ones, 
who leap out of the traces of temperance, or let down the bars 
and stray out of the field of good morals. 
After this lecture closes, let us stroll fora few minutes about the 
famous fabric which for so many years has been consecrated to 
the study of Medicine. As we look at its front, a few bas-reliefs 
strike our attention, but soon our eyes rest on a remarkable 
bronze statue which stands in the open air of the court. It is re- 
markable on account of the intellectual expression of the face, as 
well as for an awkwardly formed body, which supports the noble 
head. When we enter the building and ascend the stairs to the 
library and anatomical museum, there we meet the same figure 
again, in plaster, and beside it the figure of a child, the body of 
which he is gently touching, while he appears absorbed in intense 
thought as he looks at the child. At his feet one sees a book 
half-opened, in which we catch a view of the words, “ La Vie et 
la Mort,”—that is, Life and Death. The statue is of Bichat, of 
whom France is as proud as we are of Franklin, or England of 
Newton; and to show its appreciation of his talent and what he 
had done for science, the French Government ordered that his 
statue should have a prominent place among the group which 
adorns the front face of the Pantheon. This group represents the 
goddess of honor distributing awards to the most famous men 
France. Bichat died at the early age of thirty-one, an age at 
which few men have really commenced their work; yet in his 
brief life he accomplished that which has made a new epoch in 
Medicine. As the historian of civilization has put the matter, it 
was Cuvier who introduced accurate study of the organs of the 1876.] 
Lane—Address to Graduating Class. 
303 
animal body; but #it was the wonderful merit of Bichat 
that he carried science one stage farther, viz., he was 
the first to accurately study the tissues which compose the organs, 
and to study them in their normal and abnormal conditions. 
There remained but one more stage to be passed, in order that 
medical research should reach its final goal. To the pioneer of 
the latter stage, we will make a visit presently, after we have said 
a word or two more in regard to French Medical Institutfons. 
To the great disadvantage and loss of time to the student, the 
hospitals of Paris, like those of London, are scattered over a 
large area; so that to go from the most northern to the most 
southern one, we must traverse a route of some three miles, 
and a like distance to pass from the most eastern to the 
most western. They are all worthy of a visit, as each has a 
medical or surgical attendant who has reached his place through 
a gauntlet of concours, in which he has outstripped some score or 
more of talented rivals. In this contest for place the candidate 
is examined as to his qualifications as a scholar, as a teacher and 
as an elocutionist. Hence we find among French medical 
teachers more fine speakers than elsewhere in the world. 
In our circuit among the hospitals, I shall direct your attention 
to the excellent judgment that has been used, as a rule, in their con- 
struction. They are so arranged as to afford free inlet and outlet of 
air, and the whole building is quadrangular, or so disposed in rect- 
angular sections, that a free space of open ground is left within, 
which is laid off in small lawns, and intersected with rows of lin- 
dens and maples, and adorned with borders of bright flowering 
plants. In warm weather these well shaded grounds are thronged 
with groups of convalescent patients; some of the feebler ones 
being carried there on their beds. Such a transition from the 
never-varying monotony of the walls of his ward to the enlivening 
beauties of nature, excites a most happy influence upon the pa- 
tient laboring under a chronic ailment. Such an intimate contact 
with the inspiring views of nature enables the waning physical 
forces to rally as did the contact of the wrestler of old with the 
strength-giving earth. 
The most interesting of all the Parisian hospitals for our visit 304 
Pacific Medical and Surgical Journal. 
[Dec , 
is that of Hotel Dieu; old enough to have witnessed that most 
curious of dramas which centuries ago was enacted in the Garden 
of Cluny near by, when Julian the Apostate was forced by the 
Roman legions to either accept the imperial purple or death at 
their hands; and not unlike the most of men, he chose the for- 
mer. Grand old fabric, worthy of its name, God’s sojourning 
place! parent of French hospitals, and the birth-place of the 
French medical schools, since it was here that students were first 
gathered together in Northern Europe, and where, surrounded by 
a cordon of police, they first listened to anatomical lectures. 
Here Guy de Chauliac, whom history records to have divided his 
time about equally between medical research and professional 
wrangles, delivered the first systematic lectures upon surgery; and 
the auditory which we now visit has resounded with the voices 
of Bichat, Desault, Dupuytren and Trousseau. But venerable 
Hotel-Dieu which has been the scene of so much that is remarka- 
ble, is now playing its final act. Time and sanitary science have 
decided that it shall exist no longer. But phcenix-like, it is ris- 
ing anew in one of the most magnificent buildings which has ever 
been consecrated to hospital purposes; a structure in which con- 
venience, hygiene and beauty, such as can only be born of French 
taste, are all united. 
As our visit everywhere must be brief, partaking of the charac- 
ter of panoramic transition, I shall next conduct you to Berlin, 
the great centre of Teutonic power, and the seat, to my mind, of 
the greatest of German medical schools. As it is my purpose 
only to point out some of the leading features and prominent ex- 
cellences of the great medical centres which we are visiting, I will 
after noticing the hospitals, intioduce you in Berlin to but one or 
two distinguished personages. 
The hospitals associated with, and used for the purposes of 
teaching, by the medical school of Berlin are two: the Charite 
and the Klinicum. The Charite' contains medical and surgical 
wards; the Klinicum is devoted wholly to surgical treatment, and 
when compared with other famous European hospitals, it may 
safely be assigned the first place as a model where one finds a 
total disregard of all that falls under the head of sanitary and hy- 1876.] 
Lane—Address to Graduating Class. 
305 
gienic. Had the Imperial ruler of Germany, or rather his Chan- 
cellor, devoted a fraction of the French indemnity to the erection 
of a new surgical hospital, he would have left a monument that 
would survive the military fortification on which most of that ran- 
som has been spent; and besides, in so doing, he would have pleased 
and done honor to his much loved surgeon Langenbeck, who is 
heartily ashamed of the present structure. But Berlin, though 
possessing the most learned body of men in the world, has failed 
to make use of the most common and universally known princi- 
ples of sanitary science. Sewers which elsewhere are bridged 
over, are there open canals or ditches, whence foul effluvia con- 
tinually mingle with the air. 
Langenbeck, the surgeon at the Klinicum, though advanced in 
life, is one of the most expert operators now living; and you will 
not be surprised at this when you learn that for many years he has 
repeated on the cadaver, at least twice annually, all the principal 
operations in surgery. Besides, when we hear a few of his clinical 
lectures, we shall be convinced that he has more unwritten sur- 
gery in his memory, the mature fruit of years of diligent work and 
observation, than any surgeon whom we shall see in our travels. 
I once was present at a national fete, when, in the old Castle of 
Frederic the Great, there were assembled the leading titled and 
order-bearing personages of the German Empire. The Emperor 
and his family, those high in command in the Army and Navy, 
the Order of Superior Merit, Eagle-bearing Knights, black and red, 
were gathered there. In casting my eye over the moving sea of 
gold and colors, I observed the slender, nervous and graceful form 
of Langenbeck. He was literally covered with orders, the gifts 
of his sovereign, with whom he is a great favorite, his last order 
having been conferred for a difficult operation on the Emperor’s 
daughter. And though, seemingly, one of the most cheerful of 
that titled company, I could not but suspect that anon a shadow 
of sadness stole upon his heart, as that military display awakened 
the memory of a brave son, who, as an officer in the late Franco- 
Prussian war, fell pierced with a dozen bullets on the battle field. 
Alongside of Langenbeck was place for another great man of 
Prussia. But the place was unoccupied by him, though his sove- 306 
Pacific Medical and Surgical Journal. 
[Dec., 
reign had conferred an order upon him which entitled him to be 
present. It would not have been consistent with the life and 
character of Rudolf Virchow to be there, since he is too intimately 
associated with the party opposed to the Government. Besides, 
his time is so precious that he cannot give a moment of it to any 
work which will not advance science or the rights of humanity. 
In order to see Virchow, we must go to the Charite, the hospi- 
tal above named. Casting our eyes about this great pile of build- 
ings, we find less to complain of in a sanitary point of view, than 
we met with at the Klinicum. Its well-shaded grounds remind 
us of what we saw at Paris, or what we might see at Vienna, had 
we time to visit that city. Among the many buildings comprised 
in the Charite, I wish to direct your eyes to one of imposing ap- 
pearance and ample proportions, bearing the unique name on its 
front, Pathologisches' Institut. This is the great workshop of 
Virchow. Here is his collection of crania which have furnished 
him some keys for the solution of the anthropological problem 
Here is his immense collection of pathological growths and gene- 
ral morbid anatomy which has guided him in the classification 
of tumors, and especially in the preparation of that remarkable 
work which has made a new epoch in medicine, viz: Cellular 
Pathology. Bichat, as we have seen, traced disease to the tissues; 
it has been reserved for Virchow to trace it a step farther, viz: to 
the cell. This work, which he has performed in part and pointed 
out the way in which it is to be done, has carried the science of 
medicine a long way towards that completeness of knowledge 
which is its ultimate aim. 
Of all the men now living I can cite no one who exhibits so 
many phases of mental character united in one person as he. For 
example, he possesses most wonderful powers of analysis, as shown 
in his unfolding the complexities of disease, until he has found the 
minute cellular aberrations which have caused it. Witness the 
amyloid change which he was the first to detect, or at least, to 
correctly interpret. Witness his discriminating sagacity in dis- 
covering the multifarious offices subserved by the connective-tissue 
cell, which, till Virchow’s day, was regarded as somewhat like 
Paley’s explanation of the spleen—something introduced into the 1876.] 
Lane—Address to Graduating Class. 
307 
animal organism as a kind of expletive, to fill up vacancies which 
had been left in the formation of the body. Virchow claims that 
instead of being mere packing material, the connective-tissue cells 
are important instruments to which are due the healing of wounds, 
and many other physiological and pathological processes. Many 
other examples might be adduced as illustrative of his powers of 
analysis, but the instances cited are sufficient. His powers of syn- 
thesis, or of regrouping together the sundered facts of disease, 
are shown in his wonderful work upon tumors, which, before his 
time, may be denominated a territory unreclaimed from chaos, 
but which, by his generalizing powers, has been reduced to a do- 
main of such order and simplicity, that the cardinal principles of 
it may be mastered by the student in a few hours’ study. As 
another instance of his synthetic faculty may be cited the match- 
less formula of Heterochronia, Heterotopia and Heteronomia, 
which is really an epitome of all books written upon general patho- 
logy, a kind of logarythmic key that enables the pathologist to 
take a short route to the solution of his pathological problem. Or, 
if I am allowed another mathematical illustration, this formula is 
like the binomial theorem of Newton, as it enables the pathologist 
to combine the multifarious phenomena of the morbid tissues into 
easily legible forms. 
Besides this work, which, as we know, can only be done by the 
quiet, retired and thoughtful scholar, we find him daily acting 
another part, requiring character and habits of mind quite the op- 
posite, viz: as an active debater and leader of the Democratic 
party in the National Assembly of Prussia. Here, as the cham- 
pion of human rights and the firm opponent of the Bismarckian 
policy of military aggrandizement, I have often known his voice to 
be heard a half hour after he had delivered a two hours’ lecture 
in the Pathologisches Institut. 
I think it is much to be regretted that Virchow devotes so much 
time to political matters. Though it may serve as a recreation to 
his many-sided mind, yet it has probably deprived our profession 
of many additional discoveries which he might have made, had 
his undivided attention been devoted to original research in medi- 
cine. The vast store of facts which experience and observation 
have laid up in his memory, give him a range of vision over the 
field of our science farther than that enjoyed by any living person. 
Standing upon such an Alpine summit, he would be able to plan 
out and lay open routes of exploration into the domain of the 
unknown, which, without such a master, must long remain undis- 
covered. I do not wish here to imply that medical men should 308 
Pacific Medical and Surgical Journal. 
[Dec. , 
take no part in tnatters of legislation. On the contrary, I think 
it highly necessary that medical men who have talents suited 
therefor should take part in the councils of Government. There is 
no subject which more closely concerns the welfare of society than 
public hygiene, and all legislation which has this for its object is 
in danger of taking very absurd routes, unless shaped and guided 
by those who have been educated in medicine. The three great 
nations which we have visited are beginning to open their eyes to 
sanitary matters, and especially so England, in whose legislative 
halls subjects pertaining to State medicine are among frequent 
matters of discussion. The need of intelligent representatives of 
medicine was fully illustrated there recently, in the unwise laws 
that were attempted to be enacted with the view of restricting, I 
might almost say of suppressing vivisection. As an example of 
the lamentable ignorance of one of the leading commoners, he 
urged as a reason for suppressing vivisection, that there is nothing 
more to be learned by it, since medicine has already reached its 
ultimate term of development. How little did that Honorable 
Member know that, during the time which our race has existed, 
empiricism, in groping blindly across the long and dark lapse of 
ages, has stumbled on but a minimum fraction of the truths which 
must ultimately be encompassed in the domain of medicine, and 
that the untraversed ocean of the unknown is only to be explored 
in the bark of vivisection, in which some future Columbus is to 
cross and discover the new world of ample light and knowledge. 
To combat such error as that before mentioned, there is a need 
of medical men in our legislative councils; and, if I would not 
have a Virchow there, it is because he can illy be spared as a la- 
borer in that field which he has already enriched with so many 
discoveries. 
When, however, we see Virchow, we almost fear that the best 
work of his life is done, since it is only too plainly visible that 
over-work has consumed the most of his energies. Years and the 
self-imposed tasks of a relentless will have impaired the working 
powers of the great master. Ashes are beginning to form on the 
once vivid coals of his enthusiasm, and one almost fears that the 
;aB his mind have become insensible to the'T*"spur%t of 
ambition. 
In Virchow’s personal appearance one discovers many striking 
and characteristic features, but the one which stands prominent 
beyond all the others may be expressed in one single sentence, 
viz: Stand up boys, and don't an inch. 
* * * * * * * 
If I be permitted to conclude my address with a brief deductive 
summation drawn from the characters of some of the personages 
whom we have seen in our tour, allow me to point out as emi- 
nently worthy of imitation, the plain and practical good sense of 
Sir Thomas Watson, the unblemished professional career of Sir 
William Fergusson, and the never-resting industry of Virchow.