INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS 
OF THE 
COURSE OF 1883-4, 
AT THE 
Albany Medical College, 
September 11, 1883, 
BY 
JOHN P. OKAY, 
Superintendent of State Lunatic Asylum, at Utum. 
PUBLISHED BY THE CLASS. 
ALBANY: 
WEED, PARSONS AND COMPANY, PRINTERS. 
1883. INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS 
OF THE 
COURSE OF 1883-4, 
AT THE 
Albany Medical College, 
Delivered. September 11, 1SQ3, 
BT 
JOHN P. GRAY, 
Superintendent of State Lunatic Asylum, at Utica. 
PUBLISHED BY THE CLASS. 
ALBANY : 
WEED, PARSONS AND COMPANY, PRINTERS. 
1883. CORRESPONDENCE. 
Albany, N. Y., September 26, 1883. 
Prof. John P. Gray : 
Sir—We, the undersigned committee for the class of ’84 of the 
Albany Medical College, have been directed to request of you the 
manuscript of your address delivered at the Albany Medical College 
opening, September 11, 1883, for the purpose of its publication. 
Respectfully yours, 
James W. King, 
Fred. R. Greene, 
C. G. Hickey, 
IJ. Holliday, 
Edgar Zkh, 
Committee. 
State Lunatic Asylum, Utica, JN\ Y., September 27, 1883. 
Mr. Jas. W. King, Chairman Committee of Class of ’84, Albany 
Medical College: 
Dear Sir— Your favor of the 26th inst. is just received. In com- 
pliance with the request of the class, presented through your com- 
mittee, I place at your disposal the manuscript of the address 
delivered at the opening of the college course, September 11, 1883. 
I am, with great respect, yours very truly, 
Jno. P. Gray. 
To Messrs. Jas. W. King, Fred. R. Greene, O. G. Hickey, H. 
Holliday and Edgar Zeii, Committee, etc. ADDRESS OF SALUTATION 
TO THE CLASS AT TIIE OPENING OF THE COURSE OF 
MEDICAL LECTURES AT ALP,ANY MEDICAL COL- 
LEGE, SEPTEMBER 11, 1883. 
If one, after these four thousand years of the world’s history, 
should ask if there were any thing new or original to be said on any 
medical subject relating to the welfare or conduct of man, the first 
answer would be, “No,” but after a little reflection the answer 
would be “ Yes,” and both of these answers would be correct. All 
fundamental truths remain unchanged and all natural laws, for they 
remain “ the same yesterday, to-day and forever; ” but the esti- 
mates of truths by men in various epochs of the world, their sig- 
nificance, their boundaries, their application to existing affairs 
constantly change. Man’s discoveries in nature and her laws, 
whether they relate to himself or to any other thing in nature, are 
always new to him, and as this knowledge is unfolded he writes it 
down as progress in science; and though he is living in an almost 
undiscovered country, he is, nevertheless, apt to draw the conclusion, 
at any period in which he takes a survey, that he really knows it 
quite well; but when any one seriously asks himself what he has 
personally discovered or done, and what he positively knows, apart 
from what he has learned from others, he immediately finds himself 
moving in a very limited field. Indeed, only few men when asked, 
at the close of life, to state what they have added to the accumulated 
knowledge of the world can say truly that they have added anything. 
They have taken a more or less limited survey of existing knowl- 
edge, have endeavored to select from time to time such parts as they 
may think they require in the department of life in which they have 
decided to enter and work, and all these they have appropriated, 
many claiming possession, possibly, of some of this knowledge, 
under a sort of “ squatter sovereignty.” Very appropriately one 
who has read and acquired much of this general stock is apt to be 
called a man of learning, even though an original thought has never 6 
crossed his horizon. This applies to medicine equally with any 
other department of learning, and men eminent in the literature of 
the profession often have little or no practical knowledge outside of 
these acquirements ; men who only seek to know what is known or 
supposed to be known. 
This acquisition of medical knowledge, is, in a broad sense, what 
we mean by medical education, but this does not really and substan- 
tially educate any man as a physician, for even though he be thus 
learned, such learning is merely the outfit for a start in the profes- 
sion. Perhaps we are all, in one sense, in the beginning, “carpet- 
baggers ; ” some with a bag well filled with this common stock, 
while others start with a mere grip-sack, which is, perhaps, half filled. 
The character and quality of each package are the test of their im- 
portance, and circumstances, unfortunately, rather than ability and 
judgment, too often determine these possessions. 
We are not quarreling with the system that thus sets a man out 
on his professional career, or proposing any thing in its stead, but 
merely stating facts with which you are especially concerned. How- 
ever known to you these things may be, it is now of the highest 
importance that you should carefully and wisely consider them. 
You appear at the door of this institution variously supplied with 
knowledge, elementary in some perhaps, and in some profound, and 
count yourselves equipped for the study of a learned profession. You 
have been taken at your word and the college has here formally 
opened to you the opportunity and means for such study and ac- 
quirement of knowledge. Then, conceding your preparation, your 
ability, your character and fitness as candidates, you enter fairly on 
your own merits. The drawbacks and defects, if any, are yours. 
Thus you stand face to face with a period in your history which is a 
turning point to you of success or failure. The college welcomes 
you with its best wishes and hopes for your highest success. For 
this it will put all its resources of instruction and guidance at your 
service. The energy, spirit, zeal, determination and industrious 
purpose with which you here enter and pursue your course will mark 
the measure of your success, not only with reference to your acqui- 
sitions and a degree, but largely through your lives. You are 
henceforth no longer boys. On entering here for the attainment of 
a place in the world in a high and honorable calling you are men. 
We welcome you as such, and the more you show yourselves entitled 
to this distinction, the more you will honor the college and the more 
the college will honor you. 7 
The body of medical literature is very great, especially if one in- 
clude that which is defunct, as well as that which is still vital. I do 
not refer here to old and new as defunct and vital. Some of the 
oldest is as fresh and potent to day as first uttered, while of 
the more and even most recent,too much may be found both “stale 
and unprofitable,” and even lighter than the vanity of the authors. 
But you need not be overwhelmed at this. You have before you at 
present your text-books and your instructors and you need not now 
look further. 
Among the duties of teaching will be that of winnowing the 
chaff from the wheat, or at least of giving you the true idea of the 
science of medicine, as your instructors understand it; that which is 
generally accepted by those most competent to judge as within the 
present state of knowledge, and of pointingout to you that which 
is known to be fallacious, or useless, and showing to you at the same 
time, and as clearly as they may, what is doubtful or what is not suf- 
ficiently substantiated to be accepted with full credence. You will 
also have pointed out to you the direction in which investigation and 
inquiry are being pursued, in order to confirm or disprove questioned 
matters by the development of any new facts. 
In entering upon the study of a profession it is certainly wise to 
fix in the mind, as far as possible, all the exact and uncontradicted, 
as well as the reasonably assured facts in any department of such pro- 
fession, afterward acquiring all that time and opportunity will afford 
of the historical and progressive records. In doing this the true and 
the erroneous may often be best brought in contrast in order to show 
the true more clearly, and at the same time point out more conspic- 
uously the nature of the erroneous. 
But whatever the method followed by the various instructors you 
can well rely on this: if you will give the same earnestness and zeal 
in acquiring knowledge as they will in imparting it you will succeed. 
To do this you need not lay aside or forget every thing else but your 
medical studies. You will, if you are really studious, need recrea- 
tion ; but take this always after study and after a day of faithful at- 
tendance at lectures, when it will be most beneficial, for it will not 
then be marred by the accusing ghosts of neglected duties. Mingle 
duty and recreation like rational and sensible men and steal no time 
from either. If the young only went astray in these respects the 
temptations of life to idleness could be better mastered, but unfortu- 
nately “ delay ” and “ to-morrow” are, alike, the bane of all periods 
of man's life. These are the fatal words with which men first lull 8 
themselves to accept pleasure, self-indulgence and idleness at the ex- 
pense of duty. They say “ after a little while,” or “ we shall do it 
to-morrow.” Soon to-morrow becomes the habit of life, and we all 
know how little certainty ihere is of any to-morrow to any of us. 
Do every day faithfully its work and you will never need the refuge 
of delay, and the habit of prevarication it too often engenders in 
dealing with yourself or others. 
It is sometimes said there are too many doctors. This may be 
true. We cannot stop to discuss the question here ; besides we 
should not hesitate in educating members of the profession until the 
ranks are full of the best. It is as true of medicine as Webster said 
of the law, u There is always room at the top.” We want more 
top men. Any one who looks over the daily papers or druggist’s 
advertisements will be sure there are not too many physicians while 
so many nostrums are consumed by the people ; mixtures of unknown 
character and composition, and denominated in a general way 
“patent medicines,” purporting to be products of medical experi- 
ence, most of them with certificates of character and wonderful cures 
effected. Blood purifiers, pain-killers, worm eradicators, soothing 
syrups, tonic bitters, liniments and pills for men and women and 
children, and for all real or imaginary ills of mankind. This state 
of things, however, is nothing new. At all times in the history of 
the world secret and mysterious remedies have been used. Louis 
the XIYth of France in 1679 called in an English doctor named 
Talbot, who claimed a secret remedy for intermittent fever, to pre- 
scribe for his son, then suffering from a stubborn attack of this dis- 
ease. The Dauphin rapidly recovered his health, and the King 
bought Talbot’s secret for 48,000 livres and granted the physician 
a life annuity. The remedy, which turned out to be merely a tinct- 
ure or wine of cinchona, was made public by the monarch’s direc- 
tion. The “ secret remedy ” was nothing new. The bark had been 
so used for more than forty years, and was introduced in 1640 into 
Europe, and its great value demonstrated by Dr. Boland Sturm of 
Antwerp. It had already been discovered in the forests of the Cor- 
dilleras, and as a febrifuge had been put to service for a long time 
by the natives of those countries, but before that time it was admin- 
istered by the Corregidor of Loxa in 1638, to the Countess del Cin- 
chon, the Spanish Yice-Queen in Peru. This lady was attacked by 
a very obstinate tertian ague, which the medicine very easily con- 
quered. 9 
After tliis, large quantities were distributed among the inhabit- 
ants, and the mixture was called the “ Countess Powder,” and was 
used by physicians and by the Spanish Jesuits; it was afterward 
called cinchona, “in memory of the Countess del Cinehon.” 
Ipecacuanha was also brought out as a secret remedy in the time 
of Louis, by Adrian Helvetia?, who resolved to build his fortune on 
this drug. lie posted placards in the streets of Paris, announcing 
an unfailing specific for the dysentery. The King authorized one 
of his physicians to make arrangements with the owner of the spe- 
cific and to have the drug tested in the wards of the Hotel Dieu. 
Its efficacy beitig established, Helvetius was paid 1,000 louis d’or, 
with added medical honors, and the remedy was immediately made 
public. (Papillon.) This great King, like a trupare7is patriot, 
was unwilling to keep secret any thing that might be of value to 
the world where human life was concerned, and at the same time he 
determined the value of such remedies by competent physicians, 
that human life might not be sacrificed nor men imposed upon by 
mere pretension. 
The law requires that brewers shall keep an account of sales and 
the record of materials used to manufacture beer, etc., and keep 
their books open constantly for inspection as to the materials. I 
read recently in the newspapers that it is proposed to go further 
than this and make a new form under the law, requiring a statement, 
under oath, of the ingredients, other than malt and hops, used, as 
glucose, maltose, etc., or any other adulteration, and the amount of 
each article used. The penalty for making false entries is, under 
existing laws, the forfeiture of all liquors made and all apparatus 
used in the manufacture, and a fine of not less than from $500 to 
$1,000 and imprisonment for so doing. While it is undoubtedly a 
good thing to insure people good beer and liquors, it would be 
equally honest to do the same in regard to the use of medicine 
for the sick. Whenever the government shall require that every 
mixture claimed as medical, and put into the hands of the public, 
to use as each individual may desire, shall have its true ingredients 
set forth on the cover, it can give all the protection it chooses to 
trade-marks and formulas, as then each nostrum will stand on its own 
recognized merits. 
However, all this shows that people will have medicines whether 
they need them or not. Further, it shows their willingness to trust 
to their own diagnosis of their own case. It may seem humiliating, 
and it is one of the apparently discouraging things to the student 10 
commencing his studies, that the public, and among this public a 
large number of educated men and women, are not only self- 
diagnosers but self-prescribers. In the various oscillations of health 
in themselves or their families the advertisement of a secret remedy, 
in the newspaper, under an unknown or fictitious name, is to them 
all the knowledge they want to make their own diagnosis and 
swallow the unknown compound. In regard to questions of medical 
science and the health and lives of themselves and their families, 
they really act with less discretion and judgment than in the treat- 
ment of their dogs and horses. They will prescribe the unknown 
nostrums to their sick children and carry their pet dogs and horses 
to the regular veterinary surgeon. 
But, gentlemen, you need not be discouraged at this, unless you 
propose yourselves to take a low scale and beg in the same way for 
practice. Prepare yourselves thoroughly for your profession as 
though these things were not. Though the first love may be for 
these secret remedies they all finally come to the physician. How- 
ever they may prescribe for themselves for general discomfort and 
disturbances in health, which they would often find were unimport- 
ant in themselves if they consulted a physician, yet when a dis- 
ease such as a fever, a gout, a pneumonia, a dysentery, a paralysis, 
etc., attacks them, the soothers and pain-killers and ready-reliefs are 
no longer the gods or the demi-gods and they fly to the real physi- 
cian. We, therefore, make no war on all this traffic, while at the 
same time, as honest men in a humane and learned profession, we 
can give no countenance to ignorance, or imposition, or any science, 
falsely so-called. To him who prepares himself well for his pro- 
fession there is no need of secrecy. Medical science, indeed, gen- 
tlemen, can have no secrets. All its ends and aims are for mankind, 
and science is here triumphant. We must remember that in recent 
times a greater sum than was paid for both of the secret remedies 
alluded to was given, as an honorarium, to Dr. William Gull, for a 
visit to the Prince of Wales, whom he rescued by scientific knowl- 
edge, to say nothing of returning to London as Sir William Gull. 
The life of M. Pasteur illustrates further that science, working 
steadily, must, in the end, be recognized. For years he has pressed 
nature to reveal her greatest secrets hidden from the eyes and other 
senses of man, giving himself to the causes of disease in man, ani- 
mals and vegetation. He has not only discovered destroying 
microscopic parasites which have attacked life in man and in the ani- 
mal and vegetable kingdoms, but has also discovered the avenging 11 
parasites and the means of introducing them as the remedial power to 
restore and protect life. Recently, on the date of the national fete 
of France, his native town of Dole, with solemn ceremony, placed 
a commemorative tablet on the house in which he was born, and 
the French Republic, recognizing his beneficent work, has crowned 
him with honors and made him a pensioner of State in the munifi- 
cent sum of 25,000 francs a year, with continuation to his family. 
At this hour, by his own request, that great nation sends him out 
at her own expense to Egypt, to investigate that most dreaded of 
diseases, Asiatic cholera. I have recently seen the statement (in 
the Manchester Guardian, England), that Prof. Huxley has repre- 
sented the scientific labors of Pasteur as equal in money value to 
the whole indemnity paid by France to Germany after the last war 
(5,000,000,000 francs). Such, gentlemen, is the grand and benevo- 
lent mission of medical science and such are the achievements of her 
votaries, and sometimes such is their recognition by the powers of 
the world. 
The science of medicine, gentlemen, is what this school proposes 
to teach yon. Such knowledge of anatomy, physiology, materia 
medica, chemistry, pathology, therapeutics, clinical and practical 
medicine and surgery as will enable you afterward to practice the 
art of medicine. Here you are to lay such sure foundations in the 
knowledge of the human system and the laws of its economy and 
the remedies for its ills as to allow you to set yourselves up as 
judges of its healthful normal state and the departures from that 
state which we call disease. This requisite knowledge, instructors 
in the various branches will bring before you. In doing this they 
may also give practical hints in the way of applying such knowl- 
edge to the discovery of diseases which they will describe to you 
and bring before you in the clinics, as well as the kind of remedies 
to be used in various morbid conditions. The art of medicine 
comes afterward and must be your own work. This the college 
cannot teach you except in this general and indirect way. It will be 
able to give you the degree of Doctor of Medicine if you will give 
yourselves to the acquisition of the knowledge which is presented 
to you, day by day, in the lecture-room, the hospital and the labora- 
tory. Put this is all. You must make yourselves physicians. 
Every doctor in medicine is not a physician. This must be accom- 
plished as the result of medical knowledge and the exercise of judg- 
ment— to discriminate and utilize this knowledge in all its effects 12 
and parts as a practical science in its application to particular causes 
of disease. 
The phenomena or symptoms which mark departures from health 
in any individual may be plain enough to those instructed, but are 
not so tangible that a wayfaring man, foolish or wise, can be ex- 
pected to see or understand them unaided. Still, they are suffi- 
ciently tangible to be detected by intelligent men who give the 
necessary study and preparation and observation in practice. The 
classification and grouping of these phenomena constitute largely 
the skill in diagnosis. This skill in recognizing symptoms, their 
grouping and classification must depend, however, as I have sug- 
gested, on acquiring a knowledge of the phenomena themselves and 
on personal judgment, both in recognizing their existence and 
grouping them in any given case. Disease, in a general way, is 
disturbed or perverted physiological action, and to know or recog- 
nize disturbed physiological action how well you must know physi- 
ology itself. When we know that the rise in temperature of the 
body of a few degrees shows such disturbance that it often tells the 
story of mild or fatal disease, we see upon what apparently light 
factors knowledge moves. Medical science is only acquired by read- 
ing and study, and without study here you will not be prepared to 
make yourselves, what you desire to be, physicians. 
You will understand from reading and from the lectures that 
there are uncertainties in medicine as there are in all departments 
of human knowledge and affairs. I do not wish to say to you, 
however, at the same time, or admit that medicine is especially an 
uncertain science. No more, perhaps, than law, and among phy- 
sicians I doubt whether there are any more blunders or blunderers 
tlian among lawyers. I know there is a sort of proverb that 
doctors disagree. This, gentlemen, was undoubtedly written and 
promulgated.by a lawyer and on the diversion principle of “stop 
thief.” We do not pretend to encourage you in the idea that you 
must always be in accord, but in agreement and harmony. You 
will be in harmony when you are honestly seeking the truth in any 
case. To see from different standpoints of knowledge or judgment 
is not disagreement. Here is where a lawyer does not apprehend 
or understand the physician. He does not discriminate, in a given 
case, between medicine as a science, and the different opinions of 
physicians in their recognition and interpretation of the symptoms 
of the case under question. Any lawyer might recall the difference 
among his brethren in the application of principles of law to par- 13 
ticular cases and the conflicting opinions as to how the facts in 
evidence should be read or construed in the light of legal science. 
We might cite the differing opinions on the same matters of judges 
of courts, men equally eminent, to prove that of all professions the 
law is not only the one in which the accuracy of human judgment 
is the most uncertain, but conspicuously it is the profession in which 
there is to be found the widest disagreement in the interpretation 
of facts and their classification and application under rules of evi- 
dence. They have courts of error to adjust these matters, and I 
anticipate their reply that the final medical court of error, unhap- 
pily, lies beyond the jurisdiction of men. This, gentlemen, if true, 
should only urge you to more thorough study and the greater dili- 
gence in discovering truth. 
Now you will understand, gentlemen, where the apparent disa- 
greement of doctors comes in. It is not so much a disagreement as 
to what medical science is as in its application to some given case : 
the art or practice of medicine which is the work and judgment 
of the individual physician. The fixing of the symptoms in the 
light of science, and the discrimination as to the remedies to be 
used, suggested by science and experience, are the points upon 
which differences are likely to occur, and here is where consultations 
may be resorted to as the medical court of error. I touch upon 
this point to say to you that you need have no hesitation in profes- 
sional life in differing, but hesitate long in disagreeing. The pro- 
fession is one which cannot allow of disagreements. Here in your 
studies pledge yourselves not only to honest work but to the high- 
est professional honor. Begin with this, in these seats, while 
acquiring knowledge side by side, and when you reach the threshold 
of your profession, to begin its practical work, you will find your- 
selves strong in generous rivalry and in cordial sympathy with men 
with whom you are to do the work of life. This may seem an un- 
necessary piece of advice. Something you should all be likely to 
do anyhow. Perhaps so. I hope so. The contrary of this, how- 
ever, happens often enough to justify these few words upon the 
subject from one who has observed something of life and of men, 
and who has seen the disastrous influence on the profession and on 
individuals of useless disagreements, and indeed they are always 
useless, and often pernicious. I have known men who have made 
their lives miserable by imagining themselves in disagreement and 
conflict with others. Perhaps to escape all envy, jealousy and bick- 
erings would be the exception in any calling with human nature as 14 
we find it. But let your rule of life be silence toward the envious 
and the traducers. Let such men wrestle with their own bad ele- 
ments. When once you have been placed in a position where you 
scarcely see how you can avoid a collision, and have risen above it 
in silence, you have reached the position of master of yourselves, and 
therein and thereafter you will realize there is something in the 
truth of the declaration that “ He who ruleth his own spirit is 
greater than he who taketli a city.” However, there are combats 
and conflicts which are honorable in the profession — the discussion 
of professional questions where the attrition of intellectual activi- 
ties brings sparks and even lights fires. But these are fires around 
which the combatants themselves can sit in council. 
I said to you, gentlemen, that yon are here to lay the foundation 
of your profession at the beginning of your course. I am well aware 
as I have said to you, that the scope of medical knowledge required 
is very wide and varied and far beyond what it used to be, but I 
would also say to you that the facilities for instruction are increas- 
ingly better year by year. This is especially true in regard to the 
study of chemistry, physiology and pathology, which may now be 
so illustrated as to make the laboratory recitation more potent as a 
means of instruction than the lectures or books alone can possibly 
be. But, remember, that all these means are so adjusted as to re- 
quire, as well as complement, each other. Thus, while much is de- 
manded of you, and perhaps more than in former years, the facili- 
ties for acquiring are correspondingly increased. 
This college has made constant progress to keep abreast of the 
general advance. Since the close of the last term great improve- 
ments have been made in the buildings, all tending to increase and 
facilitate the means of instruction. The central building has been 
carried up another story, making room for a large, well-arranged 
and well-fitted dissecting-room, with special rooms for the use of 
the professors of anatomy and physiology. Arrangements have 
also been made for enlarging the museum and affording greater op- 
portunity there for anatomical and pathological study. All these 
changes not only give larger facilities for work and more thorough 
instruction, but they also provide for the best hygienic condition of 
students while at work. 
To the faculty you can look with confident assurance for justice 
and liberality. They are only anxious for your highest success. 
The long list of graduates stretching back through the history of 
the college, numbering now over sixteen hundred, and with an 15 
alumni association, at present, of more than a thousand members, 
can well attest this. I might name one among us as a living wit- 
ness, whom I see here, who entered the faculty at the beginning, 
and who has ever since given to this school the benefit of his large 
and ripe learning and his wise counsel, and who, through all these 
years, has stood, as he now stands,— a fit representative of the 
highest type of man, Christian, friend, physician, teacher,— our 
own beloved Nestor, Thomas IIun. 
And I might refer yon, gentlemen, to many names on the roster 
of the college of men who have made themselves prominent, if it 
was necessary, to encourage you. I might point you to distinguished 
founders and teachers in this school, names familiar in medicine, 
surgery and jurisprudence: T. Romeyn Beck, Alden March, James 
II. Armsby, Henry Green, David McLachlan, Gunning S. Bedford, 
James McNaughton, Ebenezer Emmons, David M. Reese, Lewis C. 
Beck, Howard Townsend, John V. P. Quackenbush, Amos Dean, 
John D. Lansing, James E. Pomfret, Edmund R. Peasley, Ira 
Harris, Henry R. Haskins, Edward R. Hun, and now Jacob S. 
Mosher added to this honored list. With most of these the speaker 
has had the honor and pleasure of personal acquaintance. These 
were men whose character and lives imparted vigor and strength to 
other men in their day, and the communities in which they lived 
felt safe by their presence. Men who added lustre and dignity to 
the words, surgeon, physician and scholar. 
That six of the present faculty of the college are her own gradu- 
ates abundantly shows that the Albany Medical College appreciates 
and honors her own alumni. Gentlemen, the fact that you have 
selected an institution which exacts a three years’ course of graded 
study we take as an earnest of your intent to work and to win suc- 
cess. I congratulate you, gentlemen, on this step, and feel assured 
that in the coming years you will look back with just and reasonable 
pride to the fact that you were atnqng those who first entered a col- 
lege in the face of this prolonged and higher course. It speaks 
well for your future. 
In this course of study, for your degree of Doctor in Medicine, 
we neither expect you to go out finished medical scholars, nor that 
you will cease reading and study after you have received a degree 
and are no longer in fear of examinations. But, gentlemen, while 
you will not be examined by us after your course is finished here, 
you may be well assured that the public will examine you over and 16 
over again, and that you will be examined and re-examined by your 
fellows as to yonr qualifications as well as to your character. This you 
must meet, and yon will only be able to do it by continuous study 
with practice. This thing called the Public may not always or gen- 
erally be just or discriminating in its estimate, but it is worth while 
to keep this fact in consideration, that it is a perpetual examiner. 
But this I am justified in assuring you, that if you so prepare your- 
selves that you are really what you ought to be, you need have no 
fear; you will not then be afraid to be found out or tested by any 
tribunal. Commencing the foundation here, the superstructure you 
are to build is something that can only be the work of your entire 
life. But see to it that by patient attention and industry here, dur- 
ing these precious months, you get such a start that you can go 
forward easily and safely and complete your education as medical 
men in the practice of your profession. I impress this point that 
you may not only appreciate the importance of reading and study, 
but that you may really acquire a love for it, as a necessary and 
reasonable ambition in yonr profession hereafter. I think I am 
justified in saying if you do not do so now you will not be likely 
to commence afterward, nor be likely to reach the higher planes in 
the profession. Too many physicians read too little ; many scarcely 
enough to suggest food for thought or reflection in their freshly-de- 
veloping professional work. The consequence is their practice is 
not enriched, as it ought to be and might be, by the current knowl- 
edge of what is being done in the way of constant advancement. 
And how often men of real ability make to themselves, as well as 
to others, the excuse that they are too much occupied in work to 
read. This is, indeed, generally, a lame excuse, and I have no doubt 
that in the great majority of such cases this neglect of study is a 
bar to advancing themselves in the profession. Their failure to read 
is from failure to cultivate early the habit of reading, and from this 
same cause men drift into the habit of wasting hours in idle talk 
or games, or in other ways, that might be used to their infinite ad- 
vantage in keeping themselves posted in professional affairs. 
Careful reading is essential to give that mental stimulus which 
will not only make a man a more close observer but which will also 
keep his eyes open to the facts and phenomena that cross his path, 
and enable him to systematize better the results of his own observa- 
tions. Without this lie is not likely to contribute to the general 
stock of knowledge in his profession. Lord Bacon says, “ Reading 
makes a full man.” 17 
You will apprehend that the essential condition of success here, 
and in professional life, is work; patient, careful work. Men can 
only win substantial success by daily toil and such toil, honestly per- 
formed, fortunately becomes pleasure. Genius and ability and favor- 
ing circumstances will do much for men, but they cannot compete 
successfully with good, sound, steady work. Though genius and 
favoring circumstances, with light work, may get a man through the 
ordeal of the college to a doctor’s degree, and may open a practice, 
rarely will they land him in the higher positions in his profession. 
To accomplish this he must add labor. Among the men of recog- 
nized ability and genius, who, starting in professional life under 
most favoring circumstances, have made a real mark in the profes- 
sion you will find no idlers, no men who trusted to genius to carry 
them upward and forward, but you will find they were all workers 
and hard workers. I have not to go out of this city to cite such in 
stances. The high positions such men attain are not due to the 
fact that they are fortunate in circumstances, but that they are fortu- 
nate in having a disposition for work. Realizing early that labor is 
the price of success they laid their hearts as well as their minds to 
it. Here, too, bear in mind, that you are not to be envious, or in- 
clined to offer excuses because you have not all the fortunate circum- 
stances that others have and thus slacken or cripple your work. 
Remember, gentlemen, the true heroic man, all the more lays him- 
self to the work and seizes his opportunity. He 
“ Grasps the skirts of happy chance, 
And breasts the blows of circumstance, 
And grapples with his evil star, 
And makes by force his merits known,” 
and thus raises himself to be the center of fortunate surroundings. 
Remember, also, that those of you who are fortunate in your sur- 
roundings have a double responsibility. Having these possessionsi 
if you fail, it will be so conspicuous as to draw upon you pity and 
even contempt, while he who is the less fortunate, if he wins by his 
own efforts, has forever the pleasurable feeling of satisfaction and in- 
dependence, that he owes no debt and has won his own possession. 
This, gentlemen, could be conspicuously said of Professor Mosher, 
the distinguished member of the faculty whose recent and sudden 
death we all mourn, who starting in life without favorable surround- 
ings rose into the high position he occupied in the broad field of 
science, public utility and State affairs, by vigilant work, though at 
his untimely death he had not reached the zenith of man’s life. He 18 
stands as an example of what diligent purpose and loyalty to duty 
may accomplish. May I not add here, members of the faculty, that 
it is difficult to realize that this “ human hearted ” man and loyal 
friend has gone. On .the seventh of August, only live days before 
his death, he wrote me in regard to a patient of his, and forwarded 
to me copies of the college catalogues to give me information touch- 
ing matters of this address and closed his letter with these words : 
“ I am glad you are to deliver our opening.” His letter was cheerful 
and did not even hint of sickness, much less of death. The sound 
of his voice still lingers in our ears and we still feel the warm grasp 
of his hand. To him a sorrowful adieu ! 
To accomplish the best results then, gentlemen, you have only to 
be loyal to yourselves from the start. You are to allow yourselves 
no excuses and to hold yourselves strongly and firmly to the most 
honorable use of your opportunities. Make your first mark here in 
the college, in the class, and the after marks will more surely come. 
A distinguished professor of one of the colleges of the highest standing 
wrote me of one of its graduates in commending him to me : “ He is 
well-bred ; he has tact, courtesy and discretion ; he is able and edu- 
cated, thoroughly fitted for the practice of his profession in all its 
branches, and finally,he is energetic and faithful in the discharge of 
duty.” These, gentlemen, are the characteristics I would commend 
to you. You will see that in a course not longer than the one on 
which you are entering, a young man, starting with perhaps more 
than a few of you have iu the way of advantages and equipment and 
with less than many others have, by exercising only the honest 
qualities of a man determined on duty impresses himself on his 
teacher as he will undoubtedly on his profession. 
It must be admitted that with professional men the medical man 
pre-eminently stands on his own acquirements and honorable conduct 
in life, and to him character is something that cannot be over-esti- 
mated. The unworthy minister may be arraigned and refused the 
charge of a congregation, the lawyer who acts dishonorably may be 
thrown over the bar and be denied recognition and standing in the 
courts, but the medical profession has no such protection against 
offenders. The only court to which the medical profession can 
appeal is that which is in perpetual session, the public, and in that 
court there is no bar to recognition on account of character, conduct 
or acquirements. There each man stands for himself. He may 
robe himself in the honorable name of the profession and do honor 
to it by his life, or he may dishonor it without being arraigned or 19 
cast out. Codes may be to him what lie interprets them. Tie may 
obey or disregard them, for in the view of that great court before 
which he practices, once a doctor always a doctor. Says Professor 
Rolleston : “ Dignity rests upon responsibility—a man is worthy 
or unworthy, accordingly as he can or cannot make a good answer 
when called upon by a voice, either from within or without, to 
account for his conduct or for his character.” 
But, gentlemen, admitting all this, the medical profession is still 
the noblest in its purposes, its work, its courage, its sacrifices and its 
humanity. The physician takes his place quietly in the world be- 
tween man and death, whether in peace or in war. “ In the pesti- 
lence that walketh in darkness ” when other men quail, he stands 
fearless and unmoved, the friend and defender of mankind. The 
physician sees in death neither an enemy nor a friend but a great 
fact in the history of humanity. He is to understand his approaches 
and ward him off until his appointed time. 
I have not sought to deliver a professional address to you, gentle- 
men ; I have had neither time nor material. When asked by the 
faculty to do this I merely promised what I have here tried to do; 
to say something to you in starting by way of encouragement, and 
to direct you to such paths as might give you the best possible train- 
ing of yourselves as well as training by others, for the highest plane 
of professional work, when you enter professional life, for, as I have 
sought to impress upon you, we desire that you become not only 
doctors in medicine, with honorable remembrance by your alma 
mater, but that you may make good physicians afterward, advising 
you always to emulate the best man. And may I not finally add 
that the true physician should not only cultivate himself, as I have 
suggested, and have all the qualifications connected with the name ; 
that he should not only be a gentleman, but that he should be gen- 
tle, because his life is with the sick. He should be as gentle and 
considerate as he is wise. The sacredness of professional communi- 
cations, the trust necessarily reposed in the physician, the delicacy 
of his duties, all demand this. 
Therefore I urge you to cultivate your hearts so that your warm 
sympathies will be spontaneous and generous, and these qualities 
will then be seen and felt in the quiet assurance of your words in 
the sick chamber, as well as in the wisdom of your acts. When every 
woman you are called to treat is your mother and your sister, and 
every man your father and your brother, you will have reached the 
mastery of yourselves and the majesty of your calling. There are 20 
men here connected with this college, and there are others who have 
been, whom I could point out to you, of whom all this could well 
be said. Professional men now before you on whose heads are fall- 
ing the benedictions of the generations that surround them as fall 
the dews ou Mount Hermon. The unspoken consciousness of the 
rectitude of their professional life makes their age beautiful and 
peaceful. 
But these men, to whom I have referred, were not men of milk 
and water who sought to purchase peace by avoiding honest and 
legitimate combat. On the contrary, men who were as jealous of 
the honor of the profession as the lover of the honor of his be- 
trothed ; true knights in guarding and defending their profession, 
standing by it and for it at all times and at all hazards. But they 
were also men of peace and good will and of tenderness of life. 
Many of them are gone : 
“ Their bones are dust, 
Their swords are rust, 
*Their souls are with the saints, we trust.” 
While we cannot take inheritance from them, for their lives were 
their own, we may well draw instruction and faith from their lives 
and character, while we do our own work and endeavor to write 
ourselves on our own time as honorably and as usefully as they did 
upon theirs ; for our lives are our own to make them what we will, 
and to answer for them at the judgment to come. Man is not a 
material thing to perish with the using, but an immortal spirit des- 
tined to an eternal life of which this life is but the commencing 
day: 
“ The deeds we do, the words we say, 
Into still air they seem to fleet; 
We count them ever past; 
But they shall last ; 
In the dread j udgment they 
And we shall meet.” 
* “ The knight’s bones are dust, 
And his good sword rust, 
His soul is with the saints, I trust.” 
Coleridge: (The Knight's Tomb.)