AN
TO THE
KA SOCIETY  OF HIPPOCRATES;
DELIVERED
       January 6th, 1823.






BY JOHN T. J. WILSQN,>. V. P.
*#***#*■*****
W
i?
    LEXINGTON, KY.




PRINTED BY THOMAS T. SKILLMAN-




          1823. 
 
AN ADDRESS.
Gentlemen,

           It is with peculiar pleasure, that I re-
fer you to the  appropriate and systematic oration
of my friend and predecessor, (Dr. Miller) for more
minute  and particular details than I am prepared
to give you.
   In  relation to the  biography of the  founder of
this society, the noble, the enlightened, and patriot-
ic Hippocrates, I  consider it unnecessary for me to
repeat what has been so often recited to the inter-
est and admiration of mankind,  and by  men too,
who,  whilst  they  described, imitated his  virtues,
and shared with him the plaudits and acclamations
of the world.
   But with whatever  enthusiasm and vehemence I
may present to you  the Fathejr  of Medicine, as a
model of perfection in man, I nevertheless renounce
the rage that every tyro manifests, in recurring to
antiquity for all that dignifies  and adorns  his pro-
fession; while, unmindful of circumstances, he  pas-
ses unnoticed the  virtues, labours, and researches
of his own times and his own country. 
[4]
  Man is the same in ^every age,  the  child of cir-
cumstances, the idol  of creation; and  if he is im-
mortal he must certainly progress in the proeess of
development,  towards other  and  higher perfec-
tions.
  The objects of our  Society,  so laudable and
honourable to humanity, are  known  by you all to
embrace honour,  science, friendship  and virtue;
honour is its shield, science is its guide, friendship
is its  surety, and virtue its  reward.  We have mu-
tually pledged, and  the obligation is  irrevocable,
that we will live in peace and amity with each oth-
er,  and that neither envy,  jealousy, nor low  ambi-
tion, shall mark our intercourse or tarnish our lives.
We declare that even indigence  shall be a blessing
to the poor, ana that the orphan  shall  not cry, nor
the widow mourn, where  we  can comfort.  We
unite  to promote the welfare and happiness of man,
through purity of motives,  and without show  or os-
tentation.
  No subject presents itself with  more lively  inter-
est on this occasion than that of the  relations  of
man;  and therefore, I  proceed to the history of some
of those original and primitive principles of his na-
ture out of which they arise.
  From the susceptibilities  of the human heart are
derived the principles of morality and the laws of
society.  Connected by his feelings with whatever
he can love  and pity,  admire or adore,  man is salu-
ted by  the  variously modulated voice of nature;
the sun-beam separated into its primitive elements, 
gives beauty and sublimity to the objects of vision,
and  each sense draws from its own source the riches
of perception, the luxury of  thought.
       He is designed in all things well,
       Hope is his  Heaven,and fear's his hell;
       His senses through perception tell,
                              Nature's beauty.
       His globe's a point, his life's a span,
       A flame which kindling breezes fan;
       Like furnace coals, alternate wan,
                         Then vivid glows.
  But however transient this  passing scene, it still
presents him with all  that can  charm  his  senses,
heighten virtue and morality, minister to his neces-
sities, or gratify his cupidity;  the arched rock, the
vaulted cave, the limped  streamlet, and the pearly
dew-drop on the spear of grass, awaken love, sym-
pathy,  retirement,  and  ease,  whilst  the beautiful
rivulet, the majestic river and sublime ocean, excite
adoration and reverence, waft the products of his soil
to distant  realms,  and  return their luxuries and
arts.
  The individual whose life is exemplary, and whose
every act is promoted by philanthropy, virtue, hon-
nor, and morality, like the primitive  clement of a
pure, transparent chrystal, unites  by its  affinities,
with the virtuous and honourable, to form the perfect
square.
  The   tall  monarch  of the  forest,  defoliated
and  stript of his  stout arms  and  delicate tendrils. 
[«]
 ©nee the covering of earth's  rich vest,  may for a
 while the  storm and tempest brook; but must ere
 long yield to dissolution, and become the subject of
 new affinities;  but the virtuous  man, even  on the
 verge of temporary  annihilation,  casts a lingering
 look and parting smile  upon  the  past,  then fondly
 anticipates a future existence, an immortal bliss.
   Contemplate the declining  sun, and see the rich-
 est emblem of the Christian's  death.
       "On the horizon he lingering stands,
         To gaze upon the world awhile;
       And ere he sinks beneath the flood,
         To bless it with a parting smile."
   To our  emotions  we are  indebted for  all that
 charms and delights us; without  these combining
 and blending with the perceptions and conceptions
 that excite them, the inanimate  universe would  be
 destitute  of that  attractive   beauty, which  gives
 birth to the richest images of poetry; the tranquility
 of the ocean, when the  storm  is hushed to  silence
 and rests on its smooth bosom, would not be the
 semblance of peace and  repose, but death; the gen-
 tle murmuring of the  trickling streamlet could not
 give music, but harshness  to our ears, and even the
 pending tendrils of the drooping willow would seem
 a mere contiguity  of particles, destitute of loveli-
 ness, devoid of  interest.  It is not alone in the ob-
jects of perception that we find  pleasure  and de-
 light;  but even  the  severest  forms  of intellection
 oiler  dainties that do  not pall upon the sense, and 
 give  fruition  without  satiety.   Can  we  imagine
 more extatic feeling than that which fired the soul
 of Milton, when passing as it  were beyond the ana-
 logies prescribed to the beings of his  order, he ar-
 rived almost at the circumference  of  human intel-
 lect, and  caught the glimmerings of truths too sub-
 lime  to  be  conceived, too dazzling   to  be  felt?
 What eloquence can paint the  devotion  of those
 prominent geniuses—
  "Whose altars are the mountains and  the ocean,
    Earth, air, stars, all that springs from the great
        whole,
    Who hath produced and will receive the soul?"
  Our whole life is a chequered alternation  of im-
 mediate, retrospective and prospective emotions. At
 one time,cheerfulness,like the friendly vision of a mid-
 night dream, recalling pleasures t^at are past, gives
to inanimate objects its own bright image, and diffu-
ses  over nature  a pure serenity.   At  another, me-
lancholy,  the  tenant  of  the  soul, whose  gloom
clouds and obscures the brighest prospects, and cov-
 ers  with a morbid hue  the new-born beauties  of the
 spring, saddens every  scene, whispers in  every
breeze, murmurs in every rill, and—
                 "around her throws
     A death-like silence and a dread repose."
  That man is social, is indisputable  and  self-evi-
dent. View him as we may, he presents the most inti-
mate and indissoluble  relations; to  his  God  he 
                      [8]

 owes the sacrifice of the heart; to his fellow-man,
 all that he himself can exact; and  to inferior ani-
 mals, humanity  and  protection.
   The science of physics is but a knowledge of the ap-
 titudes of things, as capable or susceptible, affecting
 or affected; but that of man comprehends the relations
 of every species and of every order. To study human
 nature, therefore,  we must not retire to the seques-
 tered grotto, and consider men's passions like torna-
 does, only in their ravages; no,  we  should  rather
 view them with philanthropic pride, in their purity
 and dignity, as  conducive  to social  existence.   I
 would ask, what it is, but the relation they  bear to
 our susceptibilities, that gives  a  charm to the ob-
jects of this visible world, and impresses us with the
 sublimity of their  origin, the fitness  of their order,
 and the perfections of their harmony?  What is  it,
 but the assurance  that there are within me the ele-
 ments  of those  feelings which  gladden or disturb,
 that prompts you to address your hopes and fears to
 my responsive soul? It  is identity of nature, it  is
 congeniality  of  mind.  When I  contemplate  the
 philosophy of nature, and  discover, as far as I am
 capable, the  adaptation of  parts—the   greatest
 contrasts  forming  the most perfect harmonies,  and
 the striking analogies that give rise to imagery and
 invention, something peculiar to my social  being
 prompts  me  to  impart  to  the companions  of my
 youth these lively  affections, these vivid feelings.
   The suggestions of youth are the  most pleasing, 
[9]
the most  permanent.  How fondly does the sage,
whose head is silvered  o'er with age, and the  con-
servative power of whose  physical system scarce-
ly repels the attacks of the assailing elements, look
back as it were through  life's short  vista, dark in-
deed  at  its entrance,  but  gradually  brightening
until  it expands  into the brilliancy  of youthful re-
collection: How  happily does he cherish the mem-
ory of the past as the surest pledge of the future!
Since  such  is our  condition,  we  should improve
those  tendencies  that are already  strong, and culti-
vate those affections which as yet are neither weak
nor perverted.  In this respectable  Society, where
principles are characterized by love and friendship,
we are to form such associations, and exercise such
sympathies, as will distinguish us from the low, igno-
ble vulgar, whose calumnies, like the ravings of the
maniac, but show their own infirmities, whilst  they
enhance our merit and promote our rank.
   It becomes  my  duty to say something in relation
to the Medical profession, and I need barely remark,
that notwithstanding the base impositions of empy-
ricks, every age  has been  enlightened by  the dis-
coveries of physicians, and every  art  and every
science  enriched  by  their  labours.  Metaphysics
and Ethicks, those systems which teach the nature
and duties of  man, are reduced by their indefatiga-
ble researches from the scholastic jargon of  ab-
stract phraseology to the indisputable principles of
material and  mental physiology.  By them the se-
cret laws of nature are almost made subservient to 
                     t »o  J
order and arrangement; and while politicians enact,
and  moralists theorise, our profession  is  first  to
minister comfort and solace to the sick and the afflict-
ed, and, unbiassed by lucre or sordid avarice, to visit
the obscurest cottage, the  meanest hovel.   Like a
garden  of cultivated flowers, imparting their min.
gled fragrance to the desert air, the medical  facul-
ty extend those charities to  the  widow and the or-
phan which ennoble man, and render him worthy of
immortality.
   Brothers, be it ours to know, that while we live in
the feelings and affections of each other, the storm
of persecution  may  blow, and  the tempest of ad-
versity beat, but we will stand united and unshaken
on the broad basis of the principles we  profess.  Sur-
rounded as we are  with the blessings of  life,  the
fruitions of sense, with  mental enjoyments and mo-
ral elevation, and  beholding  in creation  the ele-
ments  of poetry and the principles of philosophy,
which require but the power of  inventive genius to
exhibit the beauty of the first and the utility of the
second, how multiplied  are our incentives to indus-
try and exertion!
   In imagination I  paint  the innumerable  links of
tSi.it chain  which binds our souls  responsive, and
connects them  with the  Spirit of  the  Universe!
Tne conjecture however fanciful is not improbable,
that here may germinate the elements of  virtue and
of usefulness, and that even within these walls may
glimmer, unperceived, the matiu twilight of vigorous
intellection. 
[ n]
  Father, to you is  due the honour  of having  re-
vived that which the revered Hippocrates commen-
ced; his bright example,  like  the  fabled river of
Greece, whose unmixed waters emanate from  the
briny deep, though  lost  to the  succeeding  ages of
ignorance and barbarism, again glimmers as a far dis-
tant beacon, and iuvites to intellectual and moral  im-
provement.  To  you each successive  generation
shall ascribe the dignity and elevation of the medi-
cal  character, and  on each revolving anniversary,
when thy departed spirit  rests in peace, they will
offer to  thy memory, as the last tribute of respect,
the warmest expressions of  affection.
  Immortal Hippocrates! around thy head in rich
effulgence shines the bright halo of.fame, and whilst
thy example fires the souls of youth, the oath which
thou didst prescribe  to the pupils of thy care shall
be to thee monumentum perenius aere.
  My theme is  enrapturing at every stage of  my
progress;  bright scenes and prospects rise and  re-
ceive additional splendour from the  apparent indis-
tinctness of the past.   Every page  of Medical  Bi-
ography teems  with characters  who have rescued
the human family from  diseases whose ravages al-
most  threatened  its extinction.  Science mourns
their departure, and their memory is embrued with
the  tears of  humanity.
  Associates, may you imitate  their examples, and
ever remember "non  doctior sed meliori  imbutus
doctrina." 
 
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