y~$t*£p*H lD283v 1871 '^y&§ %?£ &&ffii0ffi Wl# W^«W. ^p^. <&$&&„ »V v^,« ^f&Wggg^ VU# ' Jb^^yS?^ wWr ,v,00^ -W^/^> "... WW * r.V i : - 3J ^* d^i W*i gy*w 8BW VALEDICTORY DELIVERED AT TOLAND MEDICAL COLLEGE C. T. DEANE, M.D. Professor of Diseases of Women and Children and Clinical Obstetrics, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 1871. PUBLISHED BY THU CLASS. SAN FRANCISCO: i:UWARD BOSQUI A CO.. PRINTERS, CLAY STREET, COR. LEIDESDORFK. 1871 VALEDICTORY DELIVERED AT TOLAND MEDICAL COLLEGE C. T. DEANE, M.D Professor of Diseases of Women and Children and Clinical Obstetrics, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 1871. PUBLISHED BY THE CLASS. 01. uen/ :(f*4 *"> SAN FRANCISCO: EDWARD BOSQUI 4 CO., PRINTERS, CLAY STREET, COR. LEIDESDORFF. 1871 '"'•J.gtOtt D283v 1811 FACULTY. H. H. TOLAND, M. D., Professor of Principles and Practice of Surgery. R. BEVERLY COLE, M. D., Professor of Obstetrics and Clinical Diseases of Women. GEO. HEWSTON, M. D., Professor of Principles and Practice of Medicine. W. O. AYRES, M. D., Professor of Physiology. JOHN HEWSTON, M. D., Professor of Chemistry. C. T. DEANE, M. D., Professor of Diseases of Women and Children and Clinical Obstetrics. C. M. BATES, M. D., Professor of Clinical Medicine. E. TRENOR, M. D., Professor of Medical Jurisprudence and Mental Diseases. A. A. O'NEIL, M. D. Professor of Anatomy. W. T. BRADBURY, M. D. Professor of Materia Medica and Pharmacy. W. F. SMITH, M. D. Professor of Ophthalmology and Otology. W. H. JOHNSON, M. D., Adjunct to the Chair of Obstetrics and Clinical Diseases of Women. CHAS. TOLAND, M. D., Prosector to the Chair of Surgery. \VM. H. JOHNSON, M. D. Curator of the Museum. R. BEVERLY COLE, M, D., Dean, Office : No. 16 Geary St., above Kearny. VALEDICTORY. Gentlemen of the Graduating Class : Your term of probation is rapidly passing away. A few short hours alone lie between you and that which for many months has been the goal of your youthful ambition. We are told in history and in glow- ing romance, of the custom of candidates for knighthood to spend the evening before their investment in priestly cloister; there holding solemn midnight vigil, engaged, certainly in contemplation, perhaps in prayer. To defend the weak, to deliver the oppressed, to do battle against the infidel, to never, by word or deed, stain his character as Christian knight, to be truthful, virtuous and brave. These were part of the vows the young knight took upon himself, and to permit him to solemnly think of them and of his duty, this custom was instituted—it was called "watching his armor". Gentlemen: let us trust that you have well watched your armor; that you have reflected at least for the duration of a night over the obligations you are about to take upon yourselves ; that you have made solemn vigil, and do not enter lightly, or with boyish levity, upon a profession which is in itself a lifetime of duty. Do not believe that the career of a knight-errant was more noble than yours—it was not. It was his duty to succor the distressed—so is it yours; with the addition, that it is within your power to perform the duty. He was expected to preserve inviolate all secrets imparted to him—so likewise, are you. He must defend right against might—-you defend life against death; you battle with pain, suffering and anguish. He was taught to maintain his honor as a priceless gem—but not less are you; and more, the physician's honor is only preserved when he has performed his duty faithfully in all the varied relationships he occupies towards his fellow man. The knight-errant bore outside his armor in stars and crosses fi and ribbons—the testimony that finite princes and selfish potentates bore of how well or how faithful he had been to them or their cause. But the knight of our order, who has been true to the obligations of his profession, wears within his breast the nobler decoration which kings cannot give nor emperors take away—the consciousness of duty per- formed. The splendid pride that an honest man feels when he is right, and that he will so remain though the heavens fall. But much as you may have reflected concerning the life upon which you are about to enter, its hardships, as well as its prizes, it will not be amiss for me to recall them in some measure to your minds. Re- member that over the toilsome path from which you are about to em- erge, we, your seniors, only a little while ago plodded our weary way. By patient application you have acquired a knowledge of the science of medicine; you are capable, by prudence and care, of doing for suffer- ing humanity all that human skill can do—more is not given to man. You have acquired a knowledge of natural laws, of anatomy, physio- logy, pathology and thereupeutics. But do not allow yourselves to imagine that this constitutes the fullness of the physician's art, or that by it alone, you can shine in our difficult profession. There is some- thing more required, not of science, not of personal skill, not of book lore. You must have deeply fixed in your character, so deeply as to be part of yourselves, the unwavering creed of the true physician, to be found only in the generous, the noble and the pure of heart, that grand, unwritten law of the universal gentleman, evinced in steadfast kindness to all in need, in being tender to those who suffer, gentle to the weak, brave in the hour of peril, unselfish, truthful, and silent; without this, I do not say you cannot succeed, but I do declare from the bottom of my heart, that you ought not; for I am sure that unless you do keep these principles ever in view, that any success you may attain will be at the expense of the best interests of society, and that your career in the practice of medicine will be but the prostitution of a noble science. Among the future dangers against which it is my duty to warn you, not the least is that of quackery and dishonest pretensions. Hold yourselves for what you are worth and no more. Remember that if you are young, you will not always continue so; and prepare yourselves not by brazen self-assertion, but by honest study, for the time when the world will have the right to ask, and to expect of you, the wisdom of age. "No man ever carried the weight of knowledge, that my lord \ \ \ _ 1 looks," was the burning satire of Dean Swift, when speaking of a shal- low pretender of his time. And while you are to avoid claiming wis- dom while you have it not, you are also to shun the contaminating influ- ence of the school of empirics, who push themselves upon the world by assuming to be wise when they are not. The bane of our profession from the beginning, has been dishonest pretense—the custom of ignor- ance answering questions which have no answer, of producing remedies for the irremedial, of curing the incurable. It is not the injury done at the bedside of which I complain, so much as the impediment these pretenders put in the way of true knowledge. The blazing chariot of pretentious ignorance ever gets broad in the way, and stops the modest car of slowly progressing science. Such as these would cramp the science of medicine by precedents as old as Chiron the Centaur—-who taught medicine to Esculapius—borrowing from superstition weapons to extinguish light. They would smother every spark of experimental science, or tread it into the mouldy consistency of old fogy impotence. They would have you learn, as did their forefathers, to run in a groove like a weaver's shuttle. Could such as these have their way, the pro- fession would still be employing the infallible remedies of Doctor Sangrado—warm water and blood-letting—for every disease. Of such material was Parisaneus and his followers-—the yelping pack at the heels of William Harvy—ready to hound that great man to the death for pre- suming to discover the circulation of the blood. So, then, I would advise you to throw off the shackles forged by antique masters ; think for yourselves, and instead of being the mere aqueduct of foreign thought, seize upon the great world of induction, investigate, trace cause to effect, be satisfied with no excuse for stupidity, no platitudes or aphorisms to cover ignorance. It is said that Pascal discovered geometry for himself, ages after it had been known to all the world : do you likewise, and if frowned upon by the gray haired humbugs, whose study ceased with Hippocrates and Galen, console yourselves with Bacon's adage, that "knowledge is power", and that the acquisi- tion of that panacea will eventually silence detraction, coerce deference from the proud, snatch victories from defeat, and galvanize even your failures into successes. The world belongs to the energetic man—it is his birthright—such men believe in themselves, and are almost sure to succeed. They discover expedients, remedies and means, where others see none. They reveal to us the enormous power of will and deter- mination. Such men are cohesive, and success clings to them as iron 8 does to the magnet's power. They are made up of potencies, and their very presence is curative. Failure and despondency are pigmy antagonists that flee their approach. Of such material were Galileo, Watts, Morse and Stevenson; or we had never had the telescope, steam engine, telegraph and locomotive. Of such material were Columbus and Cortez and Pizzaro made ; whose will tracked the then pathless ocean and gave to civilization a new world. So were Caesar, Bona- parte and Washington; leaders of men and masters of nations. Cal- vin and Luther and Knox ; bold, obstinate, and irrepressible. Of such material was Cardinal Wolsey, who, upon being taunted by a scion of aristocracy upon his plebian birth, replied : " It is true, my lord, that I was born a butcher, and am now Cardinal of Rome, and Premier of England; but had your lordship been born a butcher, you had been a butcher still." Contrast with these the selfish egotism of such intellectual despond- ents as Schopenhauer, the German sceptic, who taught that sleep is better than waking, and death better than sleep ; compare them with Zimmerman, the Swiss physician and hypochondriac, who commended solitude, and practiced unbroken silence ! Remember that knowledge is the magic key that unlocks the iron gates of social distinction, and lifts the intelligent physician from the mediocracy of his fellow men into the chair of autocracy. Remember that when there, he becomes the confidant and oracle of a hundred homes, the adviser of family circles, the valued friend of his patients, and the dreaded censor of every physical and moral indiscretion. To the family physician, knowledge, varied, wide, and accurate, is indis- pensable. His daily tasks invariably go beyond the mere ailments o body. He counsels like a lawyer ; preaches sermons more brief, though little inferior, to pulpit efforts. His views are sought and his opinions deferred to in almost every crisis. In these evidences of esteem and respect he finds a substitute for the absence of wealth ; well knowing that this is often much easier earned by ignorant pretenders, with quack nostrums, than by the conscientious practitioner, who is prohibited, by the rules of his profession, from patenting remedies or even reserving to his exclusive advantage the use of discoveries. For the physician, like the monks of La Trappe, must conquer that love of acquisition which is one of the strongest instincts of human nature, and made part of man when he left the great laboratory of creation. To other trades and professions it is the incentive to industry. From the starting point i) of mere physical labor, wherein man scarce excels the brute, to the high- est offices of intellectual grandeur, where soul-thrilling eloquence burns from pulpit and bar, or the silent but subtle brain of philosophy weighs distant planets, and measures their bulk, the scriptural lesson that "the laborer is worthy of his hire," is steadily remembered, and unremit- tingly enforced. But the doctor's pay is a mere addenda—little thought of, often forgotten, and never remembered ; until butcher and baker, servant and grocer, landlord and parson, luxury and vice, home chari- ties, gambling debts, and foreign missions—-the world, the flesh, and the devil—have all been provided for. Even then the doctor's bill is grudgingly paid, as if he caused rather than cured diseases. Without recounting his own suffering from ailments, that must be forgotten — the creeping chill and insidious lassitude, that must be thrown off, or the aches and pains, that must go unnoticed — the doc- tor's frame is expected to be impregnable to weariness or disease. It should rise above even the irritability of Lord Byron, who said that he " was as good a Christian as his stomach would let him" ; or the prac- tical prayer of the dyspeptic, who for the future state desired "a new liver rather than a new heart." The merchant may decline a trade, the lawyer a case, or the laborer a j0b—they may stipulate a price, and demand a bond—but the sur- geon, whether hungry, cold or sick, must trust in Providence, and go where he is sent for. He must forget self and its necessities. He is left no choice as to rank or station, character or condition. To the forsaken of God and abandoned of men, the surgeon's tread should herald the approach of sympathy. Though the fugitive criminal be hunted by the furies of crime, or pursued by the vengeance of the law, he is entitled to the surgeon's care. And though around a victim's head all the waves of popular fury should rage, the physician's sacred office must lift him above vulgar clamor and its prejudices. He must be blind to moral turpitude or physical degradation—in the diagnosis of symptoms, and the analysis of disease and its causes—and he must forget the extrinsic surroundings of his patients. Be he tenant of hovel or mansion, a prison cell or palace, nature's laws are immutable; and, like the action of his opiates and cathartics, the physician should be too' inflexibly democratic to respect professionally either person or sta- tion. But in escaping the Scylla of complaisance, our habits of prompt- ness, language of dictation, and exactions of obedience, must not be permitted to drift us into the Charybdis of impatience and brusque- 10 ness. Abernethy's kindness of heart was seldom displayed outside of the pauper's home—where real suffering left little room for the whims and fancies of those imaginary ailments so trying to a doctor's patience, and under the irritations of which it is said this savan of medicine once told the Duchess of Sutherland to eat whatever she pleased, "even the tongs and pokers, if she could get them down." Baron Larry, Napole- on's surgeon in chief-—and of whom that monarch left the flattering record in his will : "He is the most virtuous man I have ever known,"—so keenly sympathized with the wounded soldiers, that he often wept in the hospitals; and yet he brutally informed a foreign minister, who complained of dyspepsia, to " watch how it was done, and learn to eat like a gentleman." Sir Astley Cooper was habitually rude to George IV. and his titled patients ; yet the poor of London will long remember the impartial promptitude that winged his calls whenever the wail of diseased poverty reached his ear. But these are not isolated cases, and though I have selected some of the brightest planets of our pro- fessional constellation as illustrations of my subject, the characteristics are too general to be individualized, or this graphic sketch by Crabbe would be of the ideal rather than the real physician. " Of temperate judgment and devoted will, They suppress their feelings, but keenly feel The painful symptoms they delight to heal 5 Patient in all their trials, they sustain The starts of passion, the reproach of pain. With hearts affected, but with looks serene, Intent they wait, through all the solemn scene, Glad if a hope should rise in nature's strife, To aid their skill, and save the lingering life; But this must virtue's generous effort be, And spring from nobler motives than a fee." The very edifice in which we stand—so furnished, decorated and perfected as to be excelled by no medical college in America, and dedicated, untrammeled by fee or charge, to your advancement in that art and science of which the donor is so deservedly an ornament—is another practical illustration of the munificent philanthropy so charac- teristic of a profession, whose future reputation for benevolence it will be one of your privileges to perpetuate. It may be suspected that where such lavish charities appear, or where the fees of professional labor are treated with indifference, that the vir- tue of benevolence is simulated to cover more ambitious purposes, 11 But as physicians make bad politicians, and are seldom office holders —as they rarely recognize the bondage of party rule, and generally keep aloof from the turbid stream of political life—they are necessarily excluded, in the division of loaves and fishes, from any participation in either the emoluments of place or dignities of office. And as to repu- tation, let me say here, that of all bondages in the world, I know of none more dwarfing to the mind than bondage to professional reputa- tion. It is the birthright of "fogyism"; and to maintain which, you must pledge yourselves to obsoleteism, and against progress—cast aside reflection and conscience—cling to superseded opinions, theories, and practices ; regard as mature that which is immature, and believe in the perfection of a science that is of all others the most imperfect. Repu- tation will take care of itself; and he may safely be regarded as a harm- less and useless man to whom its preservation is his primary object. It is true, that being conservative, he is popular. Like the odorless imitation of exotic flowers, he is taken on the credit of appearance, and admired for being what he seems. He becomes a pattern institu- tion, before which old women and children worship ; he is pointed out to strangers like an ancient bridge, city hall, or old church, as the immaculate and infallible ; and we are as sure of his position at all points, as we are of a well established town line. We meet every- where these men, who feel that they have filled the measure of their reputation, and devote their lives in merely balancing the full vessel, lest the jog of independence or the jar of originality may spill a drop. They look, walk, talk, prescribe and operate with the consciousness of their burthen, and an appreciation of its value—when, in fact, the meanest and most illegitimate of all human purposes, is the direct pur- suit of a reputation ; and a physician whose action is governed by its preconceived effect upon his reputation, hugs a selfish and unworthy motive. Reputation is in no man's keeping. Conscience and self- respect should be its custodians ; and though we cannot dictate what other men shall think of us, and say about us, we can determine what they ought to think and say of us. But these discomforts and privations are not the most serious evils that may attend your future career. The approach of plague or pesti- lence, with their infectious breaths—sweeping through a city like the destructive simoon—strikes terror to the stoutest hearts ; and soldiers who have bravely faced the battle-field, bared their breasts to the hail- storm of death, laughed at the cannon's roar and defied the gleaming 12 bayonet and shrieking shell, have fled before the silent tread of this loathsome monster. Sailors, bold, daring and desperate, who have subdued the elements, who have toyed with storms and spent a life- time coquetting with the angry elements, rocked in the lap of peril, with a single plank between themselves and death in a thousand forms, lack courage to withstand the shadowless approach of this messenger of eternity. Male and female, wealth and poverty, virtue and vice, all are terror-stricken. Everywhere courage pales into ghastly fear; and where either practicable or possible, all fly its presence—parents desert their children, brothers forget their fraternal ties, and lovers their oaths of constancy. Its polluting breath dissolves every earthly bond, except that which binds the physician to the couch of suffering humanity. He never deserts his post of duty. Nausea and disgust may await him everywhere; loathsome disease and repulsive putridity may greet his eye in every house; infection may float in every breath he draws, and death threaten him at every hour. But if true to himself and the no- bler duties of his profession, no apprehension of danger will deter him from the faithful discharge of his sacred office. Carrying no charm against infection, and with no guaranty for life beyond a brave heart, the apostle of medicine quietly goes, from house to house, everywhere the welcome harbinger of hope, the expected messenger of relief; and with true heart but unblazoned heroism, he struggles with this fiend of horror; and that, too, often in the very castles of contagion, where the monster revels in its vigor, amid repulsive squalor and filth that clings to all within its vapory grasp. And all this for what ? No fame heralds his combats. No reward awaits his conquests, and seldom the hope of even a Christian's future spurs his energy ; but it is the fulfillment of another clause in this great unwritten law of professional duty. In approaching more practical suggestions, I have somewhat tarried, not designedly, to enact the iconoclast, but that together we might examine the landscape of those distant fields, which, when reached, you purpose to make the arena of your future labors; and if I have drawn your attention more particularly to the shadows, than the sun- shine, that checker that distant view, it has not been from a desire to discourage the continuance of a journey, the goal of which is, of all others, the most replete with inducements for study and effort, and yields the richest harvest of good as the reward of human labor ; but I have deemed it my duty, as your present guide and future competitor, 13 to fairly point out to you the rugged way, precipices and sharp angles, that you must encounter when thrown upon your own resources, and left to delve for a livelihood in its uncertain soil; so that the ignisfaiuus of imagination, may not lead you from the richer fields of Golconda and Eldorado, into the quagmires of Golgotha; and in this, I am but transmitting to you lessons of caution that have been given to me; and in like manner, at some future day, as professors of this or some other faculty, you will hand down to younger aspirants the same words of encouragement and instruction, to aid them on their way to the outer door of the temple of humanity, where stand the guards experience and wisdom to examine candidates, and pass them on to the inner sentinels of conscience and self-respect, who should accompany them as counsel- lors in the impending strife. Before, however, encountering this life- long conflict, you must array yourselves in the panoply of TRUTH, MODESTY AND SILENCE, without the invincibility of which armor your struggle must be weak, your defeat certain. These words are not the mere countersigns of recognition, nor are they pregnant with the hidden enigmas of a mysterious shiboleth—they are open and plain, they mean to us and the world what they express—but they appeal with a special significance to the highest and noblest traits of our professional character: and were I asked to prepare a rule of action as your constitutional guide, I should simply write, truth, modesty and silence. I do not mean that character of truth which is a mere conformity to facts—nor can it be necessary to admonish gentlemen of your age and intelligence of the imperative necessity of such truth as the Christian and social codes demand. But you are now about to take upon yourselves the responsibilities of a profession that demands the closest observance of truth of conduct. I mean that character of truth which underlies integrity of purpose, and honesty of action ; that renders the perpetration of meanness improbable, and the accomplishment of a crime impossible. I mean that truth of soul which elevates the man above the petty passions of professional envy and jealousy; that should enlarge the heart to a breadth and highth, that will afford board and lodging there for a few frank and manly tenants; such as appreciation of another's skill, candour to admit it and unselfish charity of another's error. If the tenement be large enough, encourage sympathy and love to domicile there; so that instead of spleen, bickerings, slander and 14 malice between doctors—which have done as much to destroy the harmony of professional relations and lower the dignity of our science, we shall have a united fraternity, emulating each other in learning and skill, and acknowledging the rivalship only of generous motives, noble sentiments, and unselfish charities. I mean, too, that truth in your daily intercourse with men, whereby they learn to esteem you for your intrinsic traits of character, reliability of word and dignity of deportment. I mean the absence of egotism and flippancy, or intrusiveness of conduct. I mean the cultivation of a well-balanced self-respect, in language and action, that exacts courtesy from your fellow-men, and without being quarrelsome or pugnacious, prompt to resent every premeditated infringement of your rights. The cultivation of these characteristics, besides being essential to your own welfare, you owe to the profession of medicine as its standard bearers. We have gradually narrowed the circle of comment; and now, together, we will analyze the second of these triumvirate virtues, and ascertain the true meaning of modesty as applied to the physician's life. Its practice admits of no postponement, the present is the best opportunity for sowing a crop of permanent resolutions, that, like the acorn, with time and culture, will develop into principles as fixed and sturdy as an oak forest. You are about to commence, practically, the contemplation and study of your own species, under phases of nudity and exposure, that can be justified only by the expediency of science. You are about to institute inquiries into the condition of the several organs, in health, and disease ; to unravel the mystery of their functions and purposes, and learn the cause and effect of their sensibilities. You have reviewed the mode and manner of reproduction, from its inception, through the stages of gestation, to the consummation of a new life, and on those occasions, devoted to clinical obstetrics, you have severally accompanied us to the bedside of patients, and there practically learned the mysteries of parturition. But, as you hope for future success, and desire to see your names handed down to posterity, enrolled and chronicled with the good ; as you would emulate the reputation of Velpeau, Nealaton, Mott and Sims, and as you desire to possess hearts worthy of your profession and souls unstained by the If) canker of lust and its attendant degredations; I entreat you to pause here, and marshal every thought to the inquiry of your own firmness, call in the outlying pickets of past inclinations and fancies, summon from their concealment your troop of slumbering passions, and array against these treacherous allies your most impregnable bulwarks of resolution, integrity and truth. To sit beside a patient's couch, to enter into the minutae of symptoms, to be minute without grossness, to investigate without immodesty, and to be frank without familiarity, to so treat a lady patient, that she may forget what you never should— the difference of sex—ever remembering on your part, that " For modest words, we need no defence, The want of decency, shows the want of sense." The physical requisites of a physician have been described as, the eye of a hawk, heart of a lion, and hand of a lady. But if I had originated the similie of attributes, I should have preferred, the eye of a dove, full of gentleness and sympathy ; a hand of steel, firm, true and inflexible, and the heart of a sculptor, engrossed with the works of nature in its purest form ; for no one who has seen the Venus de Medici, with its chastity of beauty, could reasonably conceive that the heart of Cleomenes the Athenian was filled with any sentiment less noble than the holiest reverence for woman's purity, as his chisel wrought into being this ideal of wondrous perfection; or that the eye of Powers ever rested upon limb or form of his breathing model with desires less pure than the artist's hand left record of, on face and figure of his Greek Slave. Besides what is due to your own character, and the maintenance of your self-respect, to the confidence of. you patients, and the vileness of its abuse, remember that your profession needs every faculty of your mind ; and whether you steep your brain in the fumes of alcoholic poison, or disorganize its balance with impure thoughts, the loss of vital power is equally destructive, and its indulgence will counteract your most streneous efforts to attain distinction. If truth and modesty were not cardinal essentials to professional rectitude, I would say that silence is the most important of the trinity. That science which holds sacred from misrepresentation or abuse the character of acquaintances, or the conduct of our friends—that si- lence begot by truth, and generous manliness, that scorns by innuendo to assail the reputation of our contemporaries, or malign the motive of our rivals—that silence that leaves our own acts to be heralded by the 16 fame of their deserved merit, instead of being trumpeted by egotism and vanity—that claims for our own excellencies less admiration than the world concedes, or their intrinsic value deserves—that silence that abstains from garrulousness, and in the sick-room is measured by the Persian rule, that " if speech is silver, silence is gold;" and, above all, that silence that holds sacred the ailments of our patients, their confes- sions of error, or our own discovery of their moral weaknesses. The confidences of a sick-room are sacred deposits, that you must guard with greater diligence than your lives ; for the loss of life does not neces- sarily involve the loss of honor, but the betrayal of a professional se- cret carries infamy under all circumstances : and the physician, who, from habits of intemperance, or the accidents of indiscretion, divulges his patient's privacies, is more thoroughly demoralized than the hooded priest who reveals the secrets of the confessional ; for the purifications of penance and absolution may cleanse his sacerdotal conscience of the sin—but I know of no Lethe stream that will wash out the igno- miny of a physician's treachery or rid his memory of the offensive stain. The laws of all civilized countries throw a mantle of protection around the confidences of ailing humanity, and the recognized advis- ers of their financial, moral and physical welfare—and though the ties of fraternity, the bonds of kindred, and the oaths of friendship are alike ignored by the inflexible rules of law—though the cold dicta of an inexorable code tears down every barrier for concealment, and ig- nores every bond of secrecy, it mercifully leaves untouched the veil of confession that hallows the statements of client, penitent or patient; the unhindered plea of all for .life, justice and salvation, are allowed to reach the throne of Omnipotence, through its earthly agents, and unless stricken mortals may unbosom themselves openly, candidly and unreservedly of the sins and indiscretions of a past life-time, the burthen of existence would be intolerable, and the increase of years but add increased sorrow to its lengthened days—and, therefore, even the law, in its sleuth-hound pursuit of crime, pauses here in its work of expiation, and prefers the felon's acquittal to the darker crime of a professional betrayal; and you, too, should take this rule as your saf- est course, permitting no casuistry to induce, or compromise to obtain a divulgence that may gratify curiosity, but must forever rob you of integrity and self-respect, never forgetting that you are the mere reposi- tory of property that belongs to others, in which you have no owner- n ship beyond its custody, and in which you may claim no rights of either use or disposal. And now, gentlemen, with an apology for having detained you so lono- I shall simply repeat, in extenuation, an Alpine excuse for the perpetual staff and line which there every tourist carries—that " it is better to have them than to need them " — and I shall here leave the moral ethics of that profession, which you are now entering with young hearts full of hope, and I trust with souls, already pledged to the in- violable adherence of its principles ; the true observance of which, with studv and industrv, will render you happier in this world, and the next (if good works will give admission there), for physicians practice what Christians teach, and their lives daily afford such illustrations of benevolent theories, and demonstrate such lessons of unselfish virtue, that it is difficult to realize that the harvest of good fruit will not be weighed to our account when we graduate into eternity, and ask admis- sion to the alumni of preferred spirits. >/WO AAA.^>^ W™$ m&ft£.P' !?8P5!-S5flag2^ "S***^ OT s;**ra t'fl£kA?i ■**$£ ^gg&M^a Tar .vvw* '^^ff^^/ Vtfywtf^si; "M^ ^5W V-'^flffl' « «^K; :.v>'...^ cw *