Coin pl i ments oj 
Henry B. Baker, M. D., 
LANSING, MICH. 
[Reprinted from Detroit Review of Medicine, September and October, 1876.] 
ACHIEVEMENTS IN MEDICINE- INCENTIVES TO ITS 
SCIENTIFIC STUDY. 
Read before the Lansing City Medical Society, July 7, 1876, by George E. Ranney, 
M. D., of Lansing, Mich. 
I am informed that at your last meeting, during my recent 
absence from the city, you appointed me to read an essay at this 
time. That proceeding on your part was somewhat " summery," 
in view of the warm season, and the many hindrances that have 
beset me since that time-circumstances which I urge as a partial 
justification for what I am about to afflict you with. 
Permit me, then, to discourse upon a less laborious topic than 
an abstract, didactic or scientific subject, while in my rambles I 
forage upon the border lands of medicine, and briefly mention 
some of its achievements, and discuss also the common interests 
and duties of the responsible and honorable profession to which 
we have dedicated ourselves, and in the pursuit of which we have 
embarked, for a life voyage, our hopes and aspirations for the 
attainment of whatever earthly reward or honor is to crown our 
struggles on this tempestuous ocean of our being. 
I but recently returned from the meeting of the American Med- 
ical Association, where, with fraternal spirit, we gathered around 
the throne of medicine, from the forests of Maine and New Eng- 
land's snow-clad hills, from the Pacific slopes, " where rolls the 
Oregon," from the golden gates of California, from the silvery 
lakes of the northern frontier, and from the Southern coast, fanned 
by the breezes of eternal summer. We extended the right hand 
of fellowship to members of the profession from foreign lands, 
who knew not our language, except the common one of medicine, 
familiar to the scientific physician throughout the world. We 2 
were brought together by the same motives that bring us together 
to-night-to go deeper into the mysteries of disease, to learn more 
of the means of preventing it, and when unsuccessful in prevent- 
ing, to perfect our skill in the use of the weapons of defense and 
offense with which to cripple its march, or to arrest and humili- 
ate it. 
Organization is the great want of our profession. Though 
unable to take part in your previous meetings, permit me to con- 
gratulate you upon the formation of this society, and to commend 
the act looking to the enlistment in our ranks of the younger dis- 
ciples of JEsculapius in our midst. 
"When bad men combine," says Burke, "the good must asso- 
ciate, else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice, in a 
contemptible struggle." When our country, and especially our 
State, is overrun with ignorant pretenders and charlatans, who are 
anxious to assume the office of " doctor," at the risk of their 
patients' health and lives, for a mere pittance, and while a portion 
of the press employed in their interest is clamoring for their rec- 
ognition by us, it is well for our honor that we associate for the 
protection of that professional code, both written and unwritten, 
adopted by the educated physician and gentleman everywhere-a 
code not founded upon commercial policy, or carried out in view 
of political expedients. 
Certain papers-let us hope through an ignorance of the prin- 
ciples of medicine, which has always prevailed to a large extent 
among the laity-are constantly misrepresenting us in language 
apparently borrowed from the quack himself, who utters it to 
deceive and prejudice the minds of the people against scientific 
medicine. 
The high moral ground our profession has taken scorns the 
cheap notoriety sought and obtained by the quack in his newspa- 
per advertisements-a fact which has not, perhaps, had a tendency 
to bind us to a portion of the press with " bauds of steel." Our 
profession furnishes to the press and public rich repasts, upon 
which they feast and nourish their intellects, and in return, 
because of our attempt and firm purpose, individually and 
through our organizations, to be the custodians of our own 3 
honor, and choose our own professional associates, the press 
have applied to us such choice appellations as " bigots," " asses," 
" fools," " pigheads," " hide-bound," and such other " pet " names 
as their fertile brains could invent. We ate the "bigots" that 
have " harnessed the wisdom of the world," and carried the bril- 
liant torch of science through the dark ages, from the age when 
" ignorance was the mother of devotion," to the age when " knowl- 
edge is power." We are the " fools " that wrested the medical 
mysteries from the priests of the dark ages of necromancy and 
the witches' cauldron, and spoiled the special charms of the 
numerous pretended crowns of thorns of the Saviour and sundry 
original lances that pierced his side, and abolished those religious 
establishments that speculated in the professed bottles of milk of 
the Blessed Virgin, which they sold at enormous sums to those 
afflicted with disease.* We are the "hide-bound" that do not 
believe in magic, amulets, incantations, alchemy, nor in the vis- 
ionary though sublime abstractions of the Neo-Platonic philosophy 
of the middle ages. Having never yielded to phantom authority, 
nor consulted the spirits of gods, demons or oracles, we have stub- 
bornly refused to recognize as our professional equals the natural 
bone setters and self-styled eclectics, old " sands-of-life," the clair- 
voyant or the second-sight types of humanity, and all the " leper- 
ous and abominable heretics that prey upon the prejudices and 
fears of men, and flaunt ' doctor' on the red flag of their festering 
commune." 
We admit that we have not found the philosopher's stone, the 
veritable elixir of life, or the El Dorado of perpetual youth; but 
we have controlled the plague and the leprosy through quarantine 
and hygienic measures, instead of resorting to the futile effort to 
drive them away by putting up prayers in the churches or trust- 
ing to the prayers of the priests for deliverance. I will mention 
briefly a few of the important things which have recently been 
done by our profession for the good of mankind. As we view our 
medical temple, and walk through its galleries, and behold the 
work of its master builders, what an array of illustrious names 
greet our memory. 
* Draper. 4 
" In this fair niche, by countless billows laved, 
Trace the deep lines that Sydenham engraved; 
On yon broad front, that breasts the changing swell, 
Mark where the ponderous sledge of Hunter fell; 
By that square buttress look where Velpeau stands, 
The stone yet warm from his uplifted hands." 
We behold the statue of Jenner, who only seventy-eight years 
ago announced his discovery of vaccination, which has nearly ban- 
ished a disease from the land which in England alone claimed 
45,000 victims annually and disfigured as many more. Small-pox 
attacked young and old alike, and nearly all were expected sooner 
or later to have it. Those not disfigured were exceptions to the 
rule.* 
We have passed the statues of Hippocrates, Galen, Ambrose 
Pare and others, and now linger for a moment near the bust of 
Laennec, with the stethoscope in hand. The chest had its lan- 
guage that no human ear could understand until Laennec, apply- 
ing the principles of acoustics, took a cedar tube, and, putting it 
to his ear, asked the chest a thousand questions, which were cor- 
rectly answered through the vibrations of the air in the lungs, 
and the heart murmured in his ear its long-hidden secrets. His 
discovery has rendered it possible to diagnose with wonderful 
accuracy the diseases of the heart and lungs, and enables us to 
determine upon their rational treatment. 
Passing along, we see the bust of Sanctoria, and are reminded 
of the thermometer, and the wonderful story that it tells us at the 
bedside of our patients. Among those who have placed the world 
under obligation to them, and whose portraits we might expect to 
find, are the Hunters, Bells, Cooper, Abernethy, Bright, Forbes, 
Simpson, Sime, Pereira, Ferguson, Erichsen, Paget, Wells, Bow- 
man, of Great Britain ; Lobstein, Bouillaud, Broussais, Richer- 
and, Cloquet, Cruveilhier, Desmarres, Sichel, Dupuytren, Bichat, 
of France; Hebra, Gruber, Rocitansky, Virchow, Laugenbeck, of 
Germany, and those of many Americans who occupy conspicuous 
places. ' 
Anaesthetics have uncrowned " old King Pain," and the patient 
afflicted with tumor, necrosed bone, or lacerated limb, by it is 
* Quackenbos. 5 
wrapped in unconsciousness, while the surgeon, with knife, scalpel, 
and saw, does the work which is to make him well. When the 
patient emerges from the vale of Lethe he can hardly realize that 
the operation has been performed, as he had experienced no 
anguish or pain ; and if Esmarch's bandage and the ligature have 
been used, he may look in vain for evidences which blood might 
reveal, for during his sleep an important though painless and 
bloodless operation has been performed with a deliberation and 
confidence unknown to the surgeons of the eighteenth century. 
Through the delicate needle of the hypodermic syringe we con- 
vey to the very seat of pain, the torture of disease, an appropriate 
antidote. The ophthalmoscope reveals to us the internal cham- 
bers of the eye, the mote, enlarged blood vessel, fiber, or opacity 
that obstructs the vision. The laryngoscope enables us to see and 
touch and put in tune the vocal chords. With the aspirator we 
enter the pleural cavity, the abdomen, the bladder, the liver, and 
even the heart, with safety, and empty them of morbid effusions or 
retained secretions. 
By transplanting skin to parts extensively denuded of integu- 
ments, we have rendered it possible to make them sound, and 
avoid the contraction and deformity that would come from an 
otherwise extensive cicatrix. Ingenious instruments and the won- 
derful skill of the surgeon have made man a toy in his hands. 
We have not been able to arrest "old Time" and make him 
retrace his steps, but we have dulled his scythe and impeded his 
destructive march, and added new spaces to the dial of man's 
chronometer of life. During fifty years ending in 1844 we 
decreased his harvest of death twenty-two per cent in certain parts 
of England, and wherever statistics have been kept, equally grat- 
ifying results have followed in other places during and since that 
time. There was fifty per cent less mortality in London during 
the same years of the nineteenth century than during similar 
years of the seventeenth century-the difference being as great as 
the difference between an ordinary year and a year of the cholera. 
Typhoid fever is now considered a preventable disease and under 
the control of sanitary laws. Scurvy has been nearly driven from 
the ocean, and the wilds of India have been reclaimed. The eti- 6 
ology of cutaneous diseases has been studied and classified, and in 
the treatment of most of them we have achieved a triumphant 
success. We cannot always, as desired by Macbeth, "minister to 
a mind diseased, and pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow," 
but we can often attack those diseases once deemed incurable and 
bid the leper be clean. 
Among the manifold sufferings with which man is threatened, 
in consequence of the tenderness of his nature, irritation of the 
mind is one of the saddest; but thanks to the efforts of our profes- 
sion and the munificent cooperation of State and municipal gov- 
ernments, asylums have been established for these unfortunates, 
where, under scientific management and treatment, from seventy 
to eighty per cent are restored to health. In the United States 
alone 26,433 insane persons are receiving treatment in State asy- 
lums, and 2,008 receive accommodations in private institutions. 
Aware of the molecular change that trains of thought and moral 
influence may produce in the brain, and regarding the pathology 
as taking place in the brain itself, the treatment has rationally 
resolved itself into psychical and medical. The various forms of 
insanity are without doubt as old as the human race. Our knowl- 
edge of them reaches back into the dusty past where its history is 
blended with mythology; to a time when insanity was looked 
upon as coming from an evil or divine spirit, and insane patients 
were accordingly treated cruelly or leniently, but always with a 
pious fear. 
From the pressure of practical necessity which resulted in the 
development of medical science, the profession not only regarded 
and treated the insane as beings spiritually astray, but as beings 
afflicted with actual disease of the body; and now the same care 
is bestowed upon patients mentally deranged as is upon patients 
suffering from any other bodily ill. We look upon the external 
manifestations of insanity as we do upon symptoms of other bodily 
diseases, as found in typhoid fever, pneumonia, etc. Hence the 
insane person is not held morally responsible for wrong acts, as he 
is controlled by irresistible impulses. He is as likely to destroy 
his best friend, or himself, as an enemy, for 7 
" He hears a voice we cannot hear, 
Which says he must not stay; 
He sees a hand we cannot see, 
Which beckons him away." 
In view of the achievements of the profession of medicine, 
which have so greatly inured to the benefit of the human race, it 
is with pleasure we contemplate the object of our profession, which 
is, as we have seen, to prevent, mitigate and remove the pains and 
sufferings caused to our fellow men by violence and disease ; to 
restore them to health and enjoyment so far as is permitted to 
human agency to accomplish-an object, when we consider how the 
want of health renders all we possess besides of an earthly nature 
almost utterly worthless, and makes life itself a burden ; that from 
sickness, disease and death no member of the human family can, 
by any possibility, obtain exemption; which places its importance, 
its value, its benevolence, its all-embracing charity, in a point of 
view so transcending as to awaken the highest admiration and 
elicit all the faculties which God has given us for its accomplish- 
ment. 
This profession, to which we have dedicated ourselves, has for 
its the physical constitution of man, in whose mechanical 
structure his Creator has made an exhibition of wisdom not 
exceeded, perhaps, in any of the works of His almighty hand ; a 
complete knowledge of which requires, if it does not exceed, the 
exertion of the highest faculties He has given us, is indispensably 
necessary to our professional success, rewarding the faithful and 
persevering student with exalted mental pleasure, and lifting his 
heart in adoring admiration to the Divine Architect who formed 
us from the dust and breathed into us the breath of life. 
That such a piece of refined mechanism as the human body, of 
such numerous parts and members, holding to each such minute, 
definite, important and necessary relations, attached and connected 
by filaments of the most delicate structure and composition, and 
all material to the healthy and efficient operation of the machine 
itself, that it should be fearfully liable to disarrangement and 
decay might be most confidently assumed prior to any teaching of 
experience and observation. To the fact that it is thus liable- 
that it so frequently needs to be readjusted and repaired-our 8 
profession owes its existence, and to do this is the mighty work to 
which that profession calls us. In contemplation of this work, 
who will not exclaim, with the prince of Latin poets, when 
describing the reiiscending from hell to earth, " hie labor, hoc opus 
est" (this is labor, this is work). 
The external framework of the body of man, in which the deli- 
cately formed and very complicated machinery is placed which 
sustains and constitutes the working powers of human activity, 
presents to the anatomist a subject of study of the richest intellec- 
tual interest, the mastery of which is absolutely indispensable to 
the successful reparation of the many injuries to which that frame- 
work is exposed from the violence incident to the operation of 
peaceful industry, as well as in the conflict of arms, in the field of 
agriculture, in the workshop, and in the manufactory, as well as 
in the " eminent deadly breach." To an exact, thorough knowl- 
edge of anatomy the surgeon owes, of course, his ability and skill 
to repair successfully all these injuries, and without this knowl- 
edge his operations, " while death surrounds the knife on every 
side," are scarcely less painful and destructive than Minie ball, 
the bayonet, rifled cannon or the bomb shell. 
But if so much intelligence and skill are necessary for the sur- 
geon in repairing the external framework of the body, how much 
more are demanded for the relief and cure of the diseases, " whose 
name is legion," that afflict and torment the internal machinery 
of that body! For here wTe have to contend with a formidable 
host of unseen enemies, whose numbers, position, strength 
and reserved forces are sometimes masked from our reconnoi- 
sance so effectually as to defy observation and render it impos- 
sible to discover the best point of attack. Here, then, a field 
opens to our labors of almost boundless extent, and to explore it 
thoroughly requires the expenditure of the most exhaustive study 
and research-all the aids which the treasured experience of the 
master minds which in all past time have gone before us can fur- 
nish, joined to the application by ourselves of the most inquisito- 
rial, scrutinizing observation, and sober, fearless, manly, indepen- 
dent judgment. 
But when we have discovered his position and strength, a 9 
task almost as difficult, and one which requires the best knowledge 
and experience that unwearied study and judicious practice can 
bring to our assistance, remains to be accomplished : that is, the 
choice of the weapons by which the enemy can be most effectually 
routed and overcome. Without the ability to make this choice 
wisely all our previous attainments in medical science cease to be 
of value, and we are as powerless for the encounter as is the puni* 
est infant to combat with a giant. Of course, then, a knowledge 
of the appropriate remedies is indispensable. And here opens 
another field of labor, the extent of which can be measured only 
by the all but innumerable ills which mortal man is heir to. But 
this field must be explored with diligence and care, or our profes- 
sional labors will result only in defeat and sore mortification. 
And yet our most extended and indefatigable researches in this 
field, however honorable to our industry, must fall, alas ! far short 
of complete success. For richly as the labors of the profession in 
this direction have been rewarded, ignorance only will assert that 
a certain and efficient remedy has been found for every distinct 
disease. And how constantly is the best medical skill baffled and 
thwarted by the ever-varying forms which diseases are constantly 
assuming, and by their vexatious complications with each other. 
Yet a limited measure of success in this conflict cannot fail to 
cheer our hearts with the hope of an ultimate triumph, and stimu- 
late us to renewed and unyielding exertions to overcome the ene- 
mies of our humanity. 
In these several departments of our professional study and labor 
how grateful should we be for the generous aid and encourage- 
ment which medical science proffers us from her abundant stores, 
made up of the accumulated contributions and offerings with 
which her distinguished sons, in the revolution of centuries,'have 
delighted to honor her temple, and thereby to signalize the devo- 
tion with which they knelt at her altars. How greatly should we 
rejoice for whatever opportunities she has afforded us to enrich 
ourselves with these treasures in order that we may be her almo- 
ners to distribute their benefits for the amelioration of the pains 
and sufferings of our fellow men under the visitation of sickness 
and disease. The fountains which she has opened to us, though 10 
forever overflowing, are never exhausted. The deeper we drink 
at them, with the greater sobriety shall we climb the mountain 
bights where stands her temple. These springs, while they refresh 
and exhilarate us, do not enervate, but only endue us with renewed 
vigor. They only gratify our thirst to increase it, till our minds 
have imbibed the fullness of knowledge. The oftener we repair 
to these fountains, and the longer we there quaff* their pure waters, 
the greater will be the joy and energy with which we shall press 
forward to the goal of our calling, and the more certain shall we 
be of securing its high prize. 
The field of medical inquiry is endless, but those branches usu- 
ally called collateral, such as mineralogy, chemistry and botany, 
in particular, should demand our attention, For they proffer to 
our aid means and instrumentalities the most necessary and effi- 
cient for prosecuting our labors with success. The boundless 
domains of nature spread themselves out before us, and invite our 
wide-searching exploration. They welcome us to enter her dark 
and most secret chambers, the " abdita ima penetralia " of her 
temple, where her profoundest mysteries are waiting to unveil her 
charms to the inspection of her ardent worshiper. The earth, like 
a fond mother, opens her bosom to our embrace, and solicits us to 
draw from it the restoring aliment of life and health. She adorns 
her face and crowns her head with herb and plant and flower of 
every hue, fragrant with odors, and waiting the process of distilla- 
tion that may furnish us with means of assuaging the pains and 
renovating the health of her children. Hence the student may 
say, not in the arrogance of conceited pride and pedantic igno- 
rance, but in the modesty of true science, 
"For me kind nature wakes her genial power, 
Suckles each herb and spreads out every flower; 
Annual for me the grape, the rose renew 
The juice nectareous and the balmy dew; 
For me the mine a thousand treasures brings; 
For me health gushes from a thousand springs." 
But to descend from the poet's enticing descriptions of the beau- 
ties of nature to our humble prose, we may remark, that to read 
her many volumes aright, and to possess ourselves of their pro- 
found teaching, we have a far more difficult task to accomplish 11 
than the practitioner whose encyclopedia of knowledge is con- 
tained in his list of " specifics " or book of recipes-a mere duo- 
decimo dispensatory, which any disciple of St. Crispin, tired of 
cobbling and ambitious of the title of doctor, with the ability to 
read English " without spelling more than half the words," may 
commit to memory in less time than it would take to manufacture 
a pair of boots. For the secrets of nature utterly refuse to dis- 
close themselves to the ignorance of the empiric and quack, and 
cannot be unlocked but by the keys of science. Hence it is that 
in our most strenuous efforts for the attainment of true professional 
excellence we must forever fail to reach it, unless these efforts are 
guided and regulated by the sound principles of philosophical 
investigation. The vain hope of arriving at scientific truth by a 
priori theories and speculations originated by the imagination, 
" that most forward delusive faculty, the mother of all error," 
must be utterly abandoned, unless we are content to wander eter- 
nally in the mazes of false science and forever conjecture, " which 
leads only to bewilder," and dazzles to blind us by its tinsel glare. 
All true art is built upon true science, which sternly forbids our 
remotest approaches, unless they are made through the avenues 
which sound philosophy has opened for her children to walk in. 
These avenues are " a careful observation drawn from these by the 
most cautious induction." 
" The province of human knowledge," says Abercrombie, " is 
merely to observe the facts and to trace what these relations and 
sequences are." Hence, if we ascertain all the laws and the results 
which attach and follow from a particular thing in itself, and in 
any variety and combination, and in every position and under 
every influence it can be placed, we know for practical results all 
that is necessary for us to know. If, however, we do not know 
the laws and qualities of the simples which make up a compound, 
we are always in the dark, and might add another which would 
destroy the compound. 
The object of all science is to ascertain the established relations 
of things or the tendency of certain events; in other words, the 
aptitude of certain bodies to be followed by certain changes in 
other bodies in particular circumstances. The object of all art is 12 
to avail ourselves of the knowledge thus acquired by bringing 
bodies into such circumstances as are calculated to lead to these 
actions upon each other, of which we have ascertained them to be 
capable. Art, therefore, or the production of certain results by 
the action of bodies upon each other, must be founded upon science, 
or a knowledge of their fixed and uniform relations and tenden- 
cies. This principle applies to all sciences and to the arts or prac- 
tical rules which are founded upon them, and the various sciences 
differ only in the practical substances or events which are their 
more immediate objects. 
But after all, there will be mysteries unfathomable by man, for 
all science can do, at best, is to separate compound matters into 
the simple elements, and ascertain the qualities of the simple and 
the effect it produces in combination and relation to other things, 
either in a simple or compound state. But why such qualities 
should or do exist, or why such results should follow, must for- 
ever remain secret to man. 
In the physical sciences we investigate the relations to one 
another of different bodies, and their actions upon each other 
either of mechanical or chemical nature. On the relations thus 
ascertained are founded the mechanical and chemical arts, in 
which we produce certain results by bringing bodies into such 
circumstances as are calculated to give rise to their peculiar 
actions. 
In medical science the objects of our researches are chiefly the 
relations between external things and the living powers of animal 
bodies, and the relation of these powers to each other; more par- 
ticularly in regard to the tendencies of external things to produce 
certain changes upon living bodies, either as causes of disease or 
as remedies. 
The practical art founded upon this science leads to the consid- 
eration of the means by which we may avail ourselves of this 
knowledge, by producing in the one case actions upon the body 
which we wish to produce, and in the other by counteracting or 
avoiding actions we wish to prevent. 
These are the teachings of philosophy, and by them we are 
brought inevitably to the very important conclusion that " he who 13 
follows certain arts or practical rules, without a knowledge of the 
science on which they are founded, is the mere artisan or empiric; 
he cannot advance beyond the precise rules which are given him, 
or provide for new occurrences and unforeseen difficulties." 
And how constantly has the physician to encounter these "new 
circumstances and unforeseen difficultiesI" But if he is indeed a 
scientific physician, when his practical rules fail him he can fall 
back upon the science itself upon which his art is founded, and 
from that deduce new rules better suited to meet the peculiar 
necessities of the case before him. As these new occurrences and 
unforeseen difficulties present themselves, he can vary his remedies 
as a scientific judgment may direct. This is his only resort, and 
in case he fails of success he may rightfully enjoy the consolation 
that his endeavors have been directed by intelligence, instead of 
the blind conjectures of the quack, who owes his little success to 
luck and chance. He may weep that he could not save his patient, 
but he feels no self-condemnation when he has employed the best 
means for his relief that medical science and art could suggest. 
He may then rest upon his established reputation and wait with 
confidence for the approbation which in the end will seldom fail 
to be awarded by the intelligent and just to wise and judicious 
endeavors. 
Happily, in the pursuit of our very arduous and responsible 
profession we are not compelled to rely altogether upon our indi- 
vidual and solitary efforts. The generous sympathies and friendly 
counsels of professional brethren, kindly extended, inspire us with 
strength and confidence in the discharge of our duties ; we cease 
to feel like single combatants, but rather as members of a well 
compacted phalanx, whose unity gives it a power to resist every 
onset of the enemy, setting defeat at defiance, and assures us of 
victory. The young physician, like the young soldier, standing 
shoulder to shoulder with the veterans who have seen service in 
the hardest fought fields, joyfully participates in their self-posses- 
sion, coolness and courage, discards his fears, and advances with 
firmer step to the encounter of arms. Such a phalanx do our 
societies present, and we welcome their assembling as the sons of 
Mars do the trumpet's sound for order of battle. For they assure 14 
us of union of purpose and of effort. In these reunions-this mar- 
shaling of forces-we see our strength. It reminds us of victories 
achieved and points to victories yet to be won. It tells us of our 
progress and triumphs gained, and of greater progress and tri- 
umphs yet to be reached, and animates, therefore, with a courage 
and invincibility never to submit or yield. Nor can we forget for 
how much aid and pleasure we are indebted to our medical peri- 
odicals, which every returning month spread the tables of our 
studies with a rich repast of medical literature and science pro- 
vided by their able editors and the learned brethren who contrib- 
ute their generous assistance. Does not the service thus rendered 
demand for them who render it not only our gratitude, but our 
liberal patronage and support ? 
And lastly, but not least, of other agencies which give support 
to our cause, how much do we owe to our State University for the 
instruction from its various departments it has imparted to our 
profession, through the faithful and assiduous labors of her learned 
and able faculties! In the success of these labors rest the highest 
hopes of Michigan for intellectual, moral and social advancement. 
And with grateful confidence and assurance may we predict that 
these hopes will be proudly realized; and when this prediction is 
fulfilled may we not indulge the grateful anticipation that some 
rays of light may then penetrate even the dark halls of our Leg- 
islature, and that it will be inspired with nobler purposes than 
that of degrading a profession in whose advancement the lives and 
happiness of the people of Michigan are so deeply interested to a 
level with quackery and imposture ? 
But be that as it may, let us not falter in our duty to our fellow 
men, to ourselves, and to our honorable vocation. Animated with 
an ever-enduring zeal and energy in its pursuit, let us labor and 
strive to merit the rewards due to well-doing.