LECTURE V INTRODUCTORY TO THE SECOND COURSE IN THE MEDICAL DEPARTMENT OF THE UNIYERSITY OF NASHVILLE, DELIVERED AT THE ODD FELLOW'S HALL, Nov. 1st, 1852, by appointment • •of THE FACULTY OF MEDICINE. BT W. K. BOWLING, M. D., Prof, of the Institutes and Practice of Medicine. NASHVILLE, TENN. JOH* T. ». FALL, BOOK AMD JOB PR— COHJ8I STRtBT, BBH rKANKLIN OFFICE. J852. CORRESPONDENCE. UNIVERSITY OF NASHVILLE, Medical Department, November 3rd, 1852. Prof. W. K. Bowling:—Dear Sir:—At a meeting of the Medical Class, the un- dersigned were appointed a Commitiee to request a copy of your able Introductory Lecture to the regular course for publication, and we hope you will find it consonant with your feelings to comply with the same. Very Respectfully, S. B. T. C. BARR, Tennessee, JAMES B. PITTS, " JAMES L. GRIFFIN, Georgia, • CHARLES R. MAYSON, Arkansas, ISAAC E.NICHOLSON,Alabama, JOHN S. PETTUS, Texas, JAMES M. BELL, North Carolina, LEWIS AMZI MUNSON, Mississipppl, J. K, CURD, Kentucky. University or Nashville, j Nashville, November 3d, 1852.) Messrs. S. B. T. C. Barr, James B. Pitts, James L. Griffin, and others: Gentlemen: I have the pleasure to acknowledge the reception of your kind note to day in which you request a copy of my Introductory Lecture for publication. If, Gentlemen, I was in that production so fortunate as to secure your commendation and that of the class you represent, I am satisfied, and cheerfully place it at your disposal. Be pleased to accept for yourselves and the class assurances of my kindest regard and esteem. W.K. BOWLING. ADDRESS. Gentlemen of the Medical Class:— In other ages and under other auspices, and particularly in other countries, great civil enterprises have been content with small beginnings. But it has been reserved for the genius and ardor of the American people in their accelerated career of progression to imitate the example of the illustrious Roman who "came, saw and conquered." The achievements in other ages planned by philosophers and sages, patiently awaited the passing away of generations for their consum- mation, which, in this generation, and amid the ardor and enthusiasm of the untrammeled thoughts and actions of free- men, burst like Minerva from the head of Jupiter at once in- to maturity, in full panoply, and rich in all the appointments of utility. Less than three short years ago, and a medical college at Nashville was undreamed of in the philosophy of the most speculative of her citizens—I mean an actual institution with working professors and all the paraphernalia of labora- tories, museums, cabinets, amphitheatres and classes, for a medical college has existed upon paper here, time whereof the memory of man scarcely runneth to the contrary. About two years ago, the Trustees of the University of Nashville determined to organize a medical department, and that de- termination was followed by immediate action. On the 11th of Oct. 1850, the Faculty were appointed, and on the 20th day of March following, the college buildings put under contract. On the 20th of January, 1851, Prof. Buchanan was deputed to Europe to make purchases necessary to put the department at once into efficient operation, and in the following October, the college halls vacated but the day be- fore by the builders, were reverberating with acceptable pre- lections to one hundred and twenty-one studenta, while six 4 out of the seven professors had never before addressed a class! In the whole history of simifar institutions was ever march to triumph so rapid! Bonaparte told his soldiers in Italy that "they had descended like a torrent from the heights of the Appenines, that they had overcome and subdued all that dared to oppose their march." Not more rapid and tri- umphant was the career of the Man of Destiny, who precipi- tated his conquering legions into the plains of Italy than that of this department of the University of Nashville from the beginning up to the close of its first session. Since then, eight short months have been added to the calander of the past, during which two of our colleagues have been abroad and become familiar with whatever is new and useful in the sciences of the Old World, and are again in harness and impatient to begin the labors of the session. Since the be- ginning of the world, I dare to assert that more labor has never been performed by any association of men in the same length of time. And let this item in the history of an enter- prize, the dazzling brilliancy of whose career has startled the scientific men of the United States, never be forgotten, that the example may not be lost upon those who are destined to succeed us. Thorough converts to the omnipotence of united effort and fixed determination of purpose in an honorable and praise-worthy enterprise, all that we were, all that we hoped to be, all that we had were offered in free libation up- on its altars—we put our shoulders to the wheel, but Hercu- les in redemption of his ancient promise, aided in its revo- lution. Good men and true trimmed our lamps and replen- ished them with oil, when the wick flickered in the socket, and bade us God speed! We but follow the example of older institutions, while yet a single page sufficed for the record of their histories, when we compare our beginning with theirs, as they compared theirs with those of their predecessors. The Medical Institute of Louisville was called into.exis- tence in 1837 by the city, by the magnificent endowment of one hundred thousand dollars. By the munificence of the city, the college buildings were erected and furnished wi th 5 apparatus and a well selected library. The rival institution at Lexington was crippled by the transfer of three of its dis- tinguished professors to Louisville. With these extraordi- nary advantages, the Medical Institute of Louisville was en- abled the first session to secure a class of eighty students. The following year, the Lexington rival was still further weakened by the transfer of another accomplished member of her old Faculty to Louisville—thus again was the Institute at Louisville strengthened at the expense of her great rival at Lexington, and commenced her second session with 120 students; "Showing," says the historian, "a rapidity of in- crease altogether unprecedented in the history of American schools of medicine." The next year, 1839, another rival at Cincinnati was broken up by the resignation of the distin- guished Dr. Drake, who accepted immediately after a profes- sorship in the Louisville Medical Institute. With the aid of this gentleman, having a larger acquaintance with medical men, and a greater influence than any physician in the val- ley of the Mississippi, the third session of the Louisville In- stitute opened with a class of 204. So extraordinary was the success of the Institute during the three first years of its ex- istence, that at the close of the third session, Prof. Drake ad- dressed the citizens of Louisville, congratulating them upon the glorious career of an institution planted by their Wisdom and sustained by their munificence;—the extraordinary prosperity of which he attributes in part to the annihilation of the rival at Cincinnati, from which the distinguished spea- ker had been transferred to Louisville. We beg permission to quote the characteristic exordium of the learned professor: —"Citizens of Louisville, our English ancestors indulged themselves in a yearly festival called Harvest-home—you have been invited this evening to a 'harvest-home' of your medi- cal institute—to the third annual return of the husbandmen to whom in 1837 you confided the cultivation of the field, which you then enclosed and planted. The first year it yielded 24 ripened sheaves, the second 27, the third 37__ which are now in shock before you. This increase is encour- aging, but that of the planting has been still greater. The 6 first session your laborers cultivated 80, the second 121, the third and last 204." Such was the beginning of a school which a few years after was far in advance of all rivalry in the great valley or out of it upon this continent, with the single exception of the University of Pennsylvania. Of the husbandmen, in the figurative language of Prof. Drake, to whom was confided the cultivation of the field in 1837, three had been in a long course of training at Lexing- ton, and were favorably known to the entire profession—one had been long before the medical public as a teacher in the Medical College of Ohio, while but two of the entire Faculty were new men, and in the following two years were added from neighboring schools two celebrated professors. Let us turn for a moment to the history of the Medical Department of the University of Nashville. The city whose name it bears, liberal to a proverb in all things else, has not endowed this great interest with a single dollar; an interest destined to add immeasurably more to her prosperity and importance than her capitol, to secure which she poured out treasure like water; and the State, of whose proud capitol it is a dis- tinguishing ornament, in opposition to the example ot eve- ry other State in the Union that boasts a medical school, by a vote of her legislature followed the example of the city. To the liberality of the parent institution and thirty gentle- men of Nashville, and the private funds of the "husband- men to whom was confided the cultivation of the field," alone are we indebted for a field to cultivate, and "sheafs in shock" the past season and the harvest now before us. A peculiar feature in the history of our enterprise is, that no neighboring rival was weakened in preparation for its birth. They stood around us in full panoply of war with the prestige of success, and well might smile at the audacity of a bran-new Faculty, six out of seven of whom had never faced a class, in the attempt to rival them. Under all these disad- vantages, the ball was put in motion, and in the first session, our husbandmen planted more than the Louisville Institute did at the second, and at the first harvest had nearly as many sheaves in stock as that Institute had at its third session, 7 there being 33 in the one field and but 39 in the other. If the husbandmen at Louisville had cause to rejoice over 24 sheaves in shock at the close of their first harvest, when the field had been put in preparation for the seed by the means of others, with all the implements of husbandry furnished to their hand, what cause have we to rejoice, when amid the stumps and roots of a recent clearing and with unpracticed husbandmen, our planting exceeded theirs more than 50 per cent., and our sheaves in shock more than 30 per cent. The eloquent speaker in his address to the citizens of Lou- isville, enquires: "Can Louisville hope to overtake Lexington, the ancient seat of western medical education?" He shows that it is not improbable, and history has long since verified the prophecy—nay, not only overtook Lexington, but literal- ly swallowed her up, blotting out her regular winter session, and leaving but spring and summer lectures to scare away the spectres from the classic grounds of old Transylvania, beautiful still even in their deserted loneliness. This enqui- ry of Prof. Drake was made in the spring of 1840. After such an example, I hope the taste will not be regarded ques- tionable whichsuggests the interrogatory in 1852, "CanNash- ville ever hope to overtake Louisville?" The difference in the classes at Louisville and Lexington in 1837, being the first at Louisville, was 147 in favor of Lexington. The dif- ference in the classes at Louisville and Nashville in 1851, being the first at Nashville, was 140 only in favor of Louis- ville. So that Louisville while she had half of the old Fac- ulty of Lexington to start with, was further in the rear of her rival the first session than was Nashville at her first session behind Louisville when the latter was culminating in her glory. The prospect of Nashville overtaking Louisville is thus shown to be far greater than existed in favor of Louis- ville in regard to Lexington at the time of the enquiry. No result has ever been foreshadowed by indications more sig- nificantly portentous. The difference between Louisville and Lexington at the second session of the former was re- duced to 91, and in the third session to 52. Finally Lexing- ton was passed in the 5th session, and the Louisville Institute 8 became the second school in the United States. Should Nashville pass Louisville, this will become the second school in the Union. Will that triumph satisfy the ambition of Nashville? By no means. With but little aid from the city, or the State,—less than Louisiana gave her medical school for a single object—one fourth of what Louisville gave her institute, one half of what a single individual, unconnected with the medical profession, gave the medical college of Co- lumbus, Ohio, as certain as day succeeds night, so certain could she boast in the short period of five years, the first medical school in America. There are but two great medi- cal centres in the Union, and the struggle for supremacy will be between them—Philadelphia of the North, and Nashville of the South. It will not be impertinent therefore to enter into a short enquiry concerning the ultimate advantages of the two points—I say ultimate, because at present it would be unjust to Nashville to compare or contrast them. In a few years Nashville will be one of the most accessible points in the Union. All who have investigated the matter, agree that in reference to the great plexus of rail roads finished, in progress and in contemplation, it is her "manifest destiny" to become the great crossing of the American continent.— With regard to her latitude, she is as far South as the great foundation of medicine. Anatomy, can ever be satisfactorily studied, and she is as far North as is safe to southern con- stitutions in the winter-months. Position, then, secures to her the patronage of the great South and South-west. This of itself only partially concentrated would place her at once in advance of Philadelphia, and this the mosj short sighted cannot fail to see she is destined to secure. But she will do more. She is no less certain of northern patronage. Being the great crossing of the United States, she will be on the road from every point North, to every point South. There is a strong proclivity amounting almost to an instinct in young men of th$ East and North of large hope and small capital to look towards the sunny South for a home and biding place. And with no class does this exist to a greater extent than with young physicians. The prejudice every day 0 strengthening with the mass of our southern people against medical beginners who received their medical instruction in northern schools, will make it the interest of those northern young men who study medicine with a view to a southern home, to prosecute their studies in a southern school. If they come South for that purpose, what city with a medical school so likely to attract them as Nashville? In the first place, it is precisely in their line of travel South. It is far enough North to afford all the anatomical facilities of New York or Philadelphia, while it is yet a southern city where such practical precepts are taught as will fit them for a suc- cessful practice of the profession in the beginning, in a south- ern latitude. It is not so far South as to endanger the nor- thern constitution, but just far enough to fit and prepare it for the regions beyond where the talented adventurer would de- sire to fix his residence. In the race with Philadelphia, Nashville possesses this great advantage:—While it is the suggestion of every probability from the considerations which we have enumerated, that Nashville will concentrate to a great extent the medical patronage of the South, probability points with equal certainty to the conclusion,that in the North a progressively increasing tendency to diffusion must exist. Philadelphia can pretend no natural advantages over New York and Boston. The natural advantages which Nashville possesses over southern cities, Philadelphia can never boast over northern cities—even her hospitals are not superior to those of New York and Boston, and there is but a single rea- son why she has heretofore kept in advance of her northern rivals. The head of her school for nearly half a century was a southern man, and around him clustered southern students, and the excess of the classes of Philadelphia, as the annual catalogues demonstrate over those of her northern rivals consists exclusively of southern students. A single south- ern State, the Old Dominion, for a great number of years, for this reason, furnished so great a number of her classes that in the city a medical student it was taken for granted, was a Virginian. I remember to have heard thirty years ago a physician, then not long returned to Kentucky,from whence B 10 with several Kentuckians, he had gone to Philadelphia to prosecute his medical studies, say in allusion to this subject, that when, upon one occasion there, just as he and his two tall fellow-students were entering the street from their board- ing house, a bevy of city belles passed, when one of them, eyeing the tall trio, cried out, "Whoop! Virginia doctors turned out here as tall a3 poplars;" and to this day the stu- dents there are called Virginia doctors by the citizens. While I would be second to none in subscribing to the genius and talents of Benj. Rush, I have often smiled when I have heard distinguished medical men ascribe the early eclat and the subsequent glory of the great Philadelphia school of medi- cine to him. Why, that school with no rival and Rush at its head was twenty years at work before it succeeded in num- bering as many students as we now this day have in Nash- ville, at the commencement of our second session! And never until she introduced a southern element of force to be- come the nucleus of southern students, did she surpass our present class. With all the advantage which results to her from the students of her numerous alumni, when the magic of her southern head has disappeared from her horizon, she cannot hope to surpass Boston or New York. The heads of her three great chairs of the practice of medicine, surgery, and anatomy were from Maryland and Virginia—and true to her interest, she has recently filled the chair of chemistry, vacated by death, by the appointment of a distinguished gen- tleman of the University of Virginia. Her great rival, the Jefferson Medical College, which sprang up beneath her sha- dow, after years of struggle for existence, in imitation of the example of the University finally looked to the South for help —she drew from the South the heads of the three great chairs of the practice of medicine, surgery, and obstetrics, besides the professor of the institutes from the University of Virginia. Her struggle was soon at an end—she immediate- ly gained upon and absolutely passed the great University of Pennsylvania, the first medical school in America. Each of these great schools have four professors from the South, and the three States of Virginia, Maryland and Georgia have fur- 11 nished the whole number. These facts solve to the entire satisfaction of the dullest comprehension, the problem of the triumph of Philadelphia over all northern competition. Her catalogues show that her students, like her professors, are from the South. The first inroads upon the prosperity of Philadelphia, in a medical point of view, will result from the multiplication of medical colleges in the South-west. These will absorb her southern patronage, reduce her classes to those of New York and Boston, and obliterate her prestige of supremacy. This will so change the direction of her policy, as in course of time, to absolutely reverse it, when she will fill her chairs with nor- thern professors in the competition for northern patronage. The future historian of scientific progress in this country, will dwell upon the feature I am pointing out as a curious anomaly—and it is one of my objects in this discussion to give him a clue while I Lesson his labors:—That the great south- ern people refused to patronize their scientific men, unless upon the condition of ostracism; for while they remained in the South, they were without honor or patronage, but when they went North, the South sent their chivalrous sons to clus- ter around them. And such of her sons as were pursuing other studies at home, she provided with northern teachers! Noble, generous South! who will gainsay thy magnanimity? Thou hast given thy philosophers to thy northern sister, and in twenty years hast sent five millions of dollars to her in payment for philosophy! In view of these considerations, which I have only time to suggest, not enforce,will any one undertake to say it is folly to predict, that in less than ten years Philadelphia as a centre of medical education, will be second to Nashville? I put it upon record and risk the odium which attaches to a false prophet, as I did when I prophesied, when struggling with a few medical friends to organize a medical school here, amid the jeers of many, and misgivings of nearly all, that we would number at our first session the largest first class that ever assembled in America or probably in the world. What was then prophecy is now history, and what is this day pro- 12 phecy will be history in ten years or less, upon the Bingle condition that the city or the State stand by us as it should.— "I am not mad but speak the words of truth and sober- ness"—I speak of the Nashville school—I speak not of those who now minister at its altars. It will go on increasing in greatness, no matter what be their destiny. Its very great- ness may overwhelm and crush them, for a single spirit may raise a whirlwind that a legion can neither direct nor quiet, but fate itself cannot expunge their efforts from its history. Let this be their reward. We have spoken of the geographical relations of the capi- tol of Tennessee to other cities, in connection with the sub- ject of medical education, but we desire succinctly to allude to the city itself in this connection. Through her University, Nashv ille was established as an educational point. The nucleus of the University was in- corporated in 1785 by the Legislature of North Carolina, be- fore Tennessee had an existence as a State, and as far back as 1809 it was in successful operation as a full appointed col- lege, under its distinguished President, Dr. Priestly. Thus was Nashville even in the beginning of her history identified with education. The city is built on college ground, and her very streets are classic. Her University soon became cele- brated, and among her alumni were found the most distin- guished men of the nation. Grammar and high schools sprang up under the shadow of the Uuiversity, and Female Academies and Colleges followed in their train with classes so large as to challenge the belief and excite the admiration of the enquirer. And though the literary department of the University is temporarily suspended, during the erection of buildings of greater capacity and superior architectural ele- gance, yet at this hour it is more than probable that there are more individuals under scholastic training in this city than in any other in the world of less than double its population. It issues every day and every week, a larger number of news- papers than any city of quadruple its population in the world, while its religious, literary and scientific journals are proportionately numerous. All of these various and exten- 13 sive publications, varying in their subscriptions from one to thirteen thousand each. Each day six daily parpers flood the city and surrounding villages. Each week there are sent from her prolific press thirty-five thousand weeklies, while every month, seventeen thousand monthlies follow in their wake. Her wonderful press throws off in a single month, 241,000 publications. So that while Nashville has but a population of 20,00 souls, she is second to but few cities in the United States in the extent of her schools and colleges, and her political, religious, scientific and literary journalism. She is therefore, while a small city, a great centre of insturc- tion. Whatever new branch of any department of educa- tion springs up here is sustained and strengthened by pre-ex- isting kindred and collateral branches. Unlike more modern cities, which grow with such rapidity that the bustling popu- lation seem in danger of losing the whereabouts of their own domicils, and are mad in the pursuit of commerce and manufacture, she reposes upon the accumulated wealth of several generations, with leisure for the pursuit of science and literature, a taste which is fed by her teeming press and excited into healthful activity by the throng which worship at her schools and colleges. Medical instruction is consequently in the most perfect harmony with her taste and usage, as will hereafter be that of law and divinity. Destiny has as- sociated her with all that is great in learning, and to insure that end has placed her beneath an Italian sky, where the northern breeze meets and tempers the hot breath of the sunny South, while each is chastened and purified by the com- mingling. She has given her for a throne the everlasting hills, whose marble bases are but symbolical of perpetuity, while the ever-green which decorates their summits is but another emblem of immortality. She has surrounded her with fertile hills and teeming valleys, that luxuries unbidden might flow in spontaneously upon her and crown her happy. Is it to be wondered at that stern philosophy, exact and ex- acting science, the fitful but inspiring muses and the kaleido- scope of letters should seek such a paradise for a perpetual jubilee! We need scarcely allude in this connection to the 14' courtly elegance of her social circles and her warm and gen- erous hospitality, for these are indigenious to such a soil. Young gentlemen, always profoundly grateful for every blessing of Providence, I am peculiarly so that I have been permitted^in even the early winter of my age to witness that respect and consideration manifested by a noble population for students of my beloved profession, to which their gentle- manly bearing so eminently entitles them—for at less favored places, it has not been always so. When in after years, you compare recollections of medical pupilage with others who strayed far from friends and home—went over the hills and far away, in quest of that knowledge which could be correct- ly acquired at home, you will be amazed at the balance in your favor—not a balance in knowledge, perhaps, for that the wanderer may long before have acquired in the school of experience, open everywhere and to all, but in the outside respect and consideration awarded to each by the respective communities in which you prosecuted your collegiate medi- cal studies—a difference happily illustrated by the prodigal wanderer who ate the husks with the swine he fed, while the calf fattened for his sumptuous entertainment at home. But He who related this instructive parable bore also testimony to the fact that a prophet was without honor in his own country—so that erring man in search after philosophy has in all ages wandered abroad for the teacher and submitted to the contempt of the swine-heard and impoverishment, in ex- change for his teaching. Here, then, is the place where education in all of its de- partments must ever continue to flourish. It enjoys here all the cheering influences emenating from kindred associations —here all things are in harmony, in union, and in sympathy with it, and must be so for centuries. One word more of this goodly city, touching her duty towards her giant and vigorous offspring, and, as I like precedents, I may refer again to the address of the Philosopher to the citizens of Louisville. Among the causes of the prosperity of the col- lege, he mentions specifically the hospital as its right arm— and medical men know everywhere that the prosperity of no 15 medical institution can be permanent which is unassociated with a hospital. The State of Tennessee which felt itself in a condition incompatible with pecuniary aid, generously offered the medical college every advantage, which could ac- crue to it through a good hospital. She owned a magnificent suite of buildings, which for the benefit of the college, she gave for a term of years to the city for a hospital—securing in the donation the interests of the institution it was her in- tention in the Act to promote. The city with equal generos- ity responded to state munificence, and fitted up at her own expense the capacious buildings for the objects contemplated. This was a wise expenditure—bread cast upon the waters with the assurance of a profitable return, for the hospital in- sured students, and these contribute to the prosperity of the city. The union of hospitals and medical colleges have al- ways promoted the best interests of each. There is not a good hospital upon the globe that is not connected with med- ical professors and medical teachings. There is not in Pa- ris, London, Philadelphia,NewYork, Boston, Charleston, New Orleans, St. Louis, Louisville, or Cincinnati, a single hospital unconnected with medical teachers, and it was great wisdom in the Legislature to connect the State Hospital at Nashville with the medical department of her University. It is the duty of the city to guard sedulously the harmony of this con- nection. The State Hospital is to be sustained by a tax upon the property of the city, which the citizens can well afford to pay while the hospital is made instrumental in advancing the prosperity of the city. The advice given by Dr. Drake to the city of Louisville in 1840, concerning her medical institute, applies equally to Nashville in 1852, with regard to her medical college. This was, that the "city should regard the college as her daughter, and watch over it with the love and vigilance which you ex- tend to children when they commence life around you. You did not bring it into existence to create offices for favorites, but to benefit the city, the profession and society at large. Identify yourselves, then, with its dearest interest and resolve that it shall rise into distinction. The influence of an en- 16 lightened public opinion alone can be relied on to keep it in health and vigor." What was true then in regard to the duty of Louisville, is true now in respect to Nashville. Gentlemen of the medical class, what shall we promise you for the cherished distinction which your preference, indi- < cated by your presence, confers upon us? Shall we tell you that you have consulted wisdom in this selection? That we can teach you more than the professors of other schools? That more honor in your future professional career will at-1 tach to you because you came here instead of having gone elsewhere? We cannot do this, for it would be untrue. An honest acknowledgment is said to be good for the soul and we avail ourselves of the prescription for the soul's sake. No, my young and ardent friends, we cannot promise you that. We have invented no short-cuts to knowledge, nor possess any patents for "learning made easy." We tell you honestly that you can learn more at any good school in the United States than you will learn here or there. But you can learn as much here as you can any where else upon the globe in the same length of time. That we promise you; and we promise you furthermore for ourselves and for the people of this good city, that your sojourn here will be happy and comfortable. And moreover, that however much you may have loved the profession of your choice before you came, your attachment will be more ardent when you leave. Our school has a modicum of enthusiasm in it, and it may be our misfortune or our fault, but whether for good or for evil, it will be yours when you leave, and when you return to us again, such of you as may return, or whether you return or not—and it will cleave to you whether you will or no, and you cannot get shut of it if you would. It will keep you awake while others sleep, for it engenders a thirst for knowl- edge that naught but knowledge can appease, and it dieth not neither can it die, and if there be greatness in you, like murder, it must out. If you desire the life of a sluggard, touch us not. If you love ignorance and ease, I beseech you go elsewhere. But if "excelsior'' be your motto, strike hands with us, and become our brothers. 17 Gentlemen, the days of short pants and long stockings, sil- ver kneebuckles, low shoes, and powdered and ruffled digni- ty, which once so peculiarly and characteristically distin- guished the professor of medicine, have passed away. These outward insignia of a store-house of knowledge within, too great to be accessible to ordinary mortality, constituted an . impassable gulf between the student and teacher. Here, though in obedience to conventionality, the distinction of pro- fessor and student exists theoretically; yet in fact we claim to be students ourselves, no more—and it is as elder brothers we desire to meet you, and labor with you for our mutual good. You will learn much, I hope, from us; but yet we are not without hope of learning occasionally from you. I have had a great number of private students in my time, and they have all taught me something, and I am every day learning something from, the boys in the profession, that higher heads might over-shoot,, and thereby lose the benefit of. The class which, preceded you has left a noble example, worthy of the imitation of all succeeding classes—collected together from many commonwealths, strangers to each other, to our citizens and to the Faculty, they immediately harmo- nized as brothers, aided each other in surmounting the diffi- culties which beset the path of science, won the love and ad- miration of the entire Faculty, and the esteem and good will of our citizens. In an age conspicuously progressive in all that ennobles human nature, it is but reasonable that we predict that each successive class will struggle to excel that which preceded it, and therefore that we shall be enabled to say to the third class, that our second was an improvement upon the first. It is usual upon such occasions to offer a good deal of gratuitous advice, which is well enough in its. place; but, according to my observation, not unfrequently out of place. A few years ago, when the two Kentucky schools were strug- gling for supremacy, a medical friend of mine sent four stu- dents to one of them, from a conviction that it was the better of the two. On the day after their arrival, the introductory was delivered by a learned professor who took up most of his c 18 time in advising the young gentlemen how to behave them- selves, what they ought to do and what they ought to leave undone. The same evening the four young gentlemen de- parted for the rival school where they matriculated, stating in a joint letter to their preceptor, that their course had been dictated by a desire to repel an indignity offered to him, as in their opinion the homily of the Professor presupposed that they were outside barbarians, and had enjoyed no op- portunities at home or with him to acquire a knowledge of the distinguishing characteristics of gentlemen. I am not so certain but that the young gentlemen were right—certain I am that their preceptor was pleased with the course they chose to take. A spirited young man, conscious of his own virture, dislikes to have vice thrown in his face at every turn, though benevolently intended to disgust him with the mon- ster, as if one could not pursue virtue for its own sake. The very desire to be connected with an honorable profession, is an earnest of a high morality which ought not to be doubted until the contrary appear. But, gentlemen, I may be per- mitted to offer a very little professional advice,which it would be well for you to recollect. There is nothing so difficult as for the really studious to maintain for any great length of time that perfect state of physical health which is necssary for the rapid acquisition of knowledge. The physical sinks under the development of the intellectual man. There is so constant a tendency to this as to make it familiar to the ob- servation of all. It would seem to the short-sighted from the constant observation of this fact, that nature reverses the judgment of man, and makes his intellectual being seconda- ry to his physical, or why should the latter recede as the for- mer advances? It is not true that this is necessarily so, how- ever general the existence of the fact. It exists upon the same basis of all man's evils—disobedience to law. This was his curse in the beginning, it has continued his judge and executioner through successive generations since, and will continue while he exists upon the face of the earth.— Though philosophers have argued and will continue to argue, that the physical deterioration of man under severe mental 19 application is intended to fix limits to the achievements of mind, to say to it in a language too emphatic to be miscon- strued, thus far and no farther shalt thou go; yet we hold that the philosophy is unsound, and that the body and the mind may go on developing pari passu from childhood to adult age, and travel on through manhood and old age, in the ut- most harmony in the absence of the irritation of crimination and recrimination, of the injurious action and reaction of the one upon the other, provided, while intransitu, the just and equitable laws of nature are left inviolate. The body de- mands but little, but its demands are imperative. There are but two, aliments and exercise. The withholding of either is distraction. If the first, the result is acute destruction, if the last, chronic destruction. And it is a curious physiologi- cal fact, that if the exercise is taken for the purpose alone of promoting health, it will fail to accomplish it. Theodore Wild was not far wrong when he said, in his report on man- ual labor institutions, "If we would make a well man sick,or kill a sick man by piecemeal, we need only require him to practice regularly some formal muscular movement, and to keep up his spirits by such a sing song as this::'— 'I'm doing this for my health, I'm doing this for my health, For my health, for my health, I'm doing this for my health.' n The secret of the failure of exercise taken upon prescrip- tion is, that for that very reason it is irksome and fatiguing, and therefore depressing; but when put in requisition for the attainment of some object outside of the body, the mind be- ing intent upon the pursuit, makes the body oblivious to any feeling of fatigue this side of absolute exhaustion. The body then must have exercise, but to be available it must be undertaken to carry out a well defined purpose of the mind outside of the body. It is upon this principle that we ac- count for many great men in this country whose opportuni- ties for scholastic training were absolutely contemptible, and the Old World is not without similar examples. Such men labored for the accomplishment of some useful object, and thus maintained the integrity of the body; and the mind in 20 such a body when called upon, was enabled to perform pro- digies of labor. It is recorded of the immortal Shakspeare, that while composing those plays which have since shed an undying lustre upon his country, he was employed as day- laborer to carry brick and mortar to build the Theatre in which they were afterwards enacted with so much eclat as to throw irretrievably into the shade all dramatic competitors. John Wesley was the greatest walker and rider in England, and this not for his health, but for an object dearer than health and life, the salvation of his fellow-men. But it gave him such constitution of body that no mental labor —and whose was greater than his?—could overcome or injure it. Walter Scott was an indefatigable fox chaser. Burns produced his immortal poems at the tail of a plough in motion. Henry Clay was raised on a farm to hard work. Daniel Webster was born in a log cabin in the hills of New Hampshire, and his body graduated in felling their trees and cultivating their sides; and it has been asserted by a distinguished Phrenologist, that no man ever became great who had not at some time of his life labored with his hands for the accomplishment of some useful object. While St. Paul was receiving instruc- tion at the feet of Gamaliel, he was learning the trade of tent-making. A learned professional acquaintance of mine in Kentucky, who had grown too old to practice his profes- sion, found his constitution giving way under the ease of re- tirement, and though very wealthy, learned in his old age the trade of bucket-making, and would entertain visitors by the hour in his work-shop, equally with the opinions of Greek and Latin authors upon medicine, his anecdotes of Monroe and Cullen and Brown of Edinburg, where he graduated, or with the observations he had made with regard to the best timber for buckets. Under this discipline, his vigor of con- stitution returned, and he lived to a great age. The first organ of the body which complains that the machinery is rusting for the want of motion, is that upon which all the rest are primordially most dependent—the stomach. It is true you will read learned authors, in medicine and out of it, who very ingeniously ascribe &is failure of the stomach to men- 21 tal application. But this is only a contingent cause, or more properly, perhaps, a predisposing cause; for the same result to the body would have occurred, whether mental ap- plication or any other cause had robbed it of its accustomed exercise. Our great Latin Father, Celsus, attributed the stomach affections of literary men to their intense mental application —"imbeciles stomachos oranes pene cupidi literatum sunt." And it has been asserted by others that genius and mental capacity always exist in association with a debilitated sto- mach. But I assert that it is by no means a necessary asso- ciation, however common, and can be always prevented by violent exercise in which the mind can be interested. Elihu Burret mastered fifty languages while he wrought every day at the anvil, and yet his stomach never gave way. In an introductory lecture delivered by Prof. Drake before the class of the Medical College of Ohio, among the principal causes of the sickness of the students he mentions a suspension of bodily exercise, and a continuance of stimulating food. By avoiding the latter, we may in some measure compensate for the loss of the former. My experience among medical stu- dents convinces me of the correctness of Dr. Drake's con- clusions. As you will have but little time for as much exer- cise as the body requires, you will prevent inflammatory dis- eases by avoiding a stimulating diet; while I recommend that you seek every opportunity for exercise. And thus far, and no farther advisory. Young Gentlemen:—There are immense labors before us —no less than four months of unceasing toil, night and day. We must in that length of time cultivate the entire field of medicine. Every nerve, bloodvessel, bone and muscle in the human body, must be separated from its fellows, and exhib- ited to your view, by name, and its use in the great organ- ism distinctly and definitely set forth. I have the happiness to inform you that we have the gentlemen with us that can do it, as accurately and as beautifully as any on this or any other continent. Then, again, with these elements of man's structure in situ, constituting tissues and organs, and their 22 appropriate functions, with the mariner and philosophy of performing them in the pride and joy of full health, you must be made familiar. And when ought goes wrong in this complicated self-moving-machine, for which there is no rest day nor night from the moment it is put in motion to the last quiver of its hydraulic forces, we must know whence the im- pediment and the philosophy of its existence, covering the whole ground of pathology and physiology. And I take the liberty to assert that he who can do all this, we have also among us. Then we turn to another and wondrous division of this great field of enquiry—the materia medica—a collec- tion of all the means of relief in disease, indicated by the observation of Hippocrates three thousand years ago, and his successors in every age and generation to the present hour. God in his mercy to man has provided that none of these become extinct. Though the vandalism of progression has overturned and obliterated almost all to which age had imparted veneration, the balm of Gilead still grows where Gilead was, and the spices of Arabia are in Arabia still.— The history of all these, with their mode or .manner of im- pressing the vital machine, are to be unfolded. The morbid condition of that machine, which indicates or points out this or that particular remedy, is to be elucidated. I assure you here too we have been fortunate in securing the very man that can do it to your entire satisfaction. Again: the beau- tiful science of chemistry is to unfold its mysteries and as- tonish you with its revelations. He who was born in her Temple and is familiar with its inner courts, is among us. Then we have the three great practical branches which must greatly interest you. In two of them, I assure you, you will find men of full statue; and of the third, "judge ye as ye would also be judged." Of the profession of medicine, it may be said, that none so tries the patience of man—none opens up to the imagination a future of so many sleeples.;, hapless nights, and days of toil—none so taxes both his physical and intellectual mech- anism—none for the benefits of which mankind are more thankless. Its uncertainty is a choice theme for senseless 23 wits. It receives no thanks for the blessings it has conferred upon our race upon the one hand, and is abused on the other for ills it has not yet been able to master. That it has rid the world of the destroyer, small-pox, and disarmed the de- mon miasm of its bolts, is forgotten, and it is taunted with be- ing over-matched by consumption! And when she boasts that she has provided a Heavenly elixer whose magic exhalations can wreathe the face with sunny smiles, and fill the soul with dreams of elysium, while yet the surgeons knife threads its bloody way, she is told that cancer kills as it did three thou- sand years ago despite her skill! And if, perchance, these great human ills at last should succumb to her power, still, would not men grow old and die, and women grow ugly, which is worse than death! Whenever medicine shall pre- vent this latter evil, and give men free license to eat and sleep and drink, without gout and dyspepsia, will charges cease to be made against it, and not before. But all this and more can never damp the ardor of the conscientious philanthropist. He will pursue the even tenor of his way, doing good to all, cheered and stimulated by the approbation of his own conscience, and the inward assu- rance that exceeding great is the reward that awaits him. For I proclaim here a great truth, and challenge and defy contradiction, that no other man can do so much good as a Physician! Others may have the will, but they have not the power.