SMITH 
Of TUSKTYEC OHD 
; Qip rrstj'g jr r v" 4 CA Of DISCOURSE 
DELIVERED ON THE 
OCCASION OF THE TWENTY-SECOND ANNIVERSARY 
OF THE 
N. Y. ACADEMY OF MEDICINE, 
NOVEMBER 11th, 1869. 
BY 
GOUVERNEUR M. SMITH, M.D., 
Vv >. 7 7 
FELLOW OF THE NEW YORK ACADEMY OF MEDICINE ; PHYSICIAN TO THE NEW YORK 
HOSPITAL, ETC. 
NEW YORK : 
WILLIAM WOOD & CO., PUBLISHERS, 
61 WALKER STREET. 
LONDON: 
TRUBNER & CO., 
60 Paternoster Row. 
PARIS: 
GUSTAVE B08SANGE, 
25 Qixai Voltaire. 
1870. ANNIVERSARY DISCOURSE. 
Mr. President, Fellows of the New York Academy 
of Medicine, and Gentlemen : 
A pleasant custom, sanctioned by the antiquity of 
its observance and nurtured by affectionate regard, 
is the celebration of birthdays, or of events which 
have proved peculiarly interesting in the family cir- 
cle. Nations appoint holidays upon which to com- 
memorate important epochs in their history. Scien- 
tific bodies set apart occasions upon which to revert 
to the principles of their founders, review their 
achievements, and become animated with new im- 
pulses for the future. 
Philosophers of the Darwinian school may con- 
tend that “ all the organic beings which have ever 
lived on this earth have descended from some one 
primordial form into which life was first breathed; ” 
but when these same philosophers are associated 
with their confreres believing in the plurality of ori- 
gin of species, they waive the theory as relating to 
the diverse origin of learned bodies, and each society 
claims its distinct origin, its distinct course, and 
prides itself on its individual struggles and triumphs 
in unravelling the arcana of nature. 
Different species of societies, though of the same 4 
DISCOURSE. 
generic character, are conducive to the interests of 
science ; they excite to exertion, and stimulate a gen- 
erous rivalry. Unbiassed by envy or prejudice, such 
associations willingly yield the meed of praise to 
successful cotemporaries, and each should prefer to 
borrow light from a distant orb rather than be im- 
perfectly illuminated by a meteor in its own atmos- 
phere. 
Professor Haughton, when visiting Oxford in 1868, 
and addressing the British Medical Association, re- 
marked :—“ Our brothers in Oxford, like the Athe- 
nians at Syracuse, have gone on board the fleet, while 
we watch them from the shore, sympathizing in the 
sea-Aght; as they win, we shout; when they fail, we 
weep.” 
Mr. President and Fellows, we have not assembled 
this evening either to test with parliamentary acu- 
men medical logic with medical logic in regard to 
any obscure dogma, or to unfold any new fact in 
science, or to expose any recent sophistry, or to scru- 
tinize microscopically healthy or diseased tissues;— 
these are occupations in which we are ordinarily en- 
gaged. Nor are we gathered together, as occasion- 
ally it becomes necessary, to mourn the loss of a de- 
ceased Fellow, to eulogize his private character, to 
enumerate his original investigations, to describe his 
numerous successful contests with disease. 
We are summoned this evening by special invita- 
tion to celebrate the twenty-second anniversary of 
this Academy. Once a year, dropping professional 
discussion, we with unanimity commemorate the birth- 
day of an institution which is fondly cherished by 
ourselves, which is held in estimation by this com- DISCOURSE. 
5 
munity, and which is regarded by kindred societies 
at home and abroad as a prominent exponent of 
American medical science. 
Thanking your Council for the honor conferred in 
selecting me to address you on this interesting festi- 
val, I feel it necessary to crave your kind indul- 
gence. Circumstances unforeseen have interrupted 
the preparation of my theme, and I shrink from a 
duty which under the most favorable conditions I 
could but very imperfectly have performed. 
After alluding for a few moments to our Academy, 
I shall endeavor to exhibit the inherent difficulties 
which have always beset medical progress; to 
present the triumphs over many of them which our 
profession has accomplished ; to prove that medical 
science has been developed as rapidly as could have 
been expected, and that it is now keeping step in 
the onward march of its sister sciences. 
As on these anniversary occasions it is not expec- 
ted that the discourse will be of a strictly didactic 
and scientific character, I shall in illustrating my 
subject quote the words both of professional and 
non-professional writers, and shall not hesitate to 
borrow thoughts even if expressed either in rhyth- 
mical spondees and dactyls or in modern verse. 
It is with emotions of pleasure and of pride that 
we revert to the founders of this Academy, and to 
the bright career upon which this society entered 
immediately after its formation. 
Its inception is ascribed to the late Dr. Alexan- 
der H. Stevens, in 1846, who on announcing it to his 
medical associates was soon aided by Watson, Par- 
ker, Mott, Isaac Wood, Stearns, Smith, and others in 6 
DISCO UESE. 
making tlie ideal a reality. Minerva, at whose 
slirine our medical forefathers worshipped, sprang 
into immediate maturity at the time of her birth, 
and was forthwith received a compeer of her father 
Jupiter into the assembly of the gods. This Acade- 
my, fostered by the influences we have mentioned, 
was instantly assigned an honorable position in the 
brotherhood of scientific associations. 
The cordial feeling which it was hoped would be 
enkindled in the medical profession of this city by 
the formation of this body was not long in being 
developed— 
“ Friends to congratulate their friends made haste, 
And long-inveterate foes saluted and embraced.” 
Scarcely a ripple of agitation has occurred to disturb 
fraternal equanimity, and to-day we find associated 
about three hundred of the leading medical men of 
this metropolis, liberal in thought and untrammelled 
by clique, amicably co-operating in the promotion of 
medical science. To the coffer of medical philosophy 
each contributes according to his ability. One may 
bestow but a mite, another give more munificently ; 
but the accumulation is equally divided among us; 
and whether our offering has been small or large, we 
leave these halls almost alike fitted for the important 
duties devolving upon us. 
Xor are we less generous to others than to our- 
selves. Are new facts either in physiology, pathol- 
ogy, therapeutics, or surgery here enunciated, forth- 
with through official publications and medical jour- 
nals they are given to the world. The intelligent DISCOURSE. 
7 
physician whose lot is cast either under the equatorial 
sun, or amid arctic or antarctic frost, or in temperate 
zones, is thus enabled to freely employ the informa- 
tion emanating from this body in relieving the suffer- 
ings of those under his care, whether of Americans, 
Caucasians, Mongolians, Ethiopians, or Malayans. 
How different the conduct of charlatans, who assume 
to themselves individually preternatural gifts, and 
proclaim their secret nostrums as sovereign panaceas 
for the healing of the nations ! 
But the high purpose which actuates this 
Academy is the same as that which animates the 
members of our profession throughout the world, and 
a congeniality of taste binds its widely scattered 
members into as close a confederation as though 
leagued by a sacred oath of covenant. 
Of the thirteen Fellows who have been elected 
from time to time to preside‘over this Society, nine 
have been removed by death. Stearns, Francis, 
Mott, Wood, Stevens, Cock, Joseph M. Smith, 
Batchelder, and Watson, whose terms of office have 
occurred in the order enumerated, no longer are 
heard in our councils, but their examples still live 
and will survive through future generations. Our 
library contains their writings, our archives pre- 
serve their memoirs, while our hearts, warmed by 
the recollection of their personal virtues, bid us repeat 
orally to juniors their eminent qualities, that tradi- 
tion may combine with written testimony in trans- 
mitting to posterity correct histories of their lives. 
It has been said that the study of medicine has a 
tendency to develop in the physician views of mate- 
rialism. This Academy may be cited to disprove 8 
DISCOURSE. 
such assertion ; all those I have mentioned have 
died while rejoicing in a Christian faith, and sus- 
tained by a Christian hope. The majority of them, 
during their entire lives, were known as consistent 
believers in Divine truth, and several had filled con- 
spicuous positions in the religious associations of our 
country. I recall in this connection the words of 
Bacon:—“ A little philosophy inclineth a man’s mind 
to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s 
minds about to religion.” 
Of our annual orators, Francis, Manley, Smith, 
Stewart, Swett, and Watson have passed away. 
Their discourses have recorded the merits of prede- 
cessors and cotemporaries; to-night we pay homage 
to their memories. 
Nor should we forget that since our last anniver- 
sary O’Reilly, Enos, Stevens, and Guilford have been 
removed by death—men who would have adorned 
any calling, and of whose characters and labors our 
profession has had reason to be proud. On the 
graves of our deceased Fellows we this evening will 
set out the amaranth and the ivy, lest Time should 
have frosted those we had before planted. 
There are many in each profession gifted with 
genius, but who, by reason of an innate modesty, 
shrink from taking the lead, preferring to follow in 
the wake of others who, perhaps, are less competent 
than themselves. There are many who have not 
the time, possibly not even the inclination, to ex- 
amine the minute intricacies of science— 
“ With stumbling steps along the dubious maze, 
Tracing with half-seen thread the darksome ways.” DISCOURSE. 
9 
Scattered through this and other lands are to be 
found innumerable physicians who are prevented 
from prosecuting either the higher or collateral 
branches of medicine, but who imbibe the essential 
principles of our profession, are conscientious and 
successful practitioners, and who are as deserving of 
the regard of the public as their more distinguished 
associates. It is probable that many a metropolitan 
expert, perplexed by the expectations of his skill, 
has oft-times quoted the line of Addison :—“ The post 
of honor is a private station.” 
It does not necessarily follow that those occupy- 
ing prominent jmsitions, either in Church, State, or 
Science, are possessed of very unusual ability. Ac- 
cidental circumstances of birth, wealth, and favorit- 
ism may give notoriety, if not true reputation; to 
those possessed of comparatively moderate mental 
powers. No adage of Shakespeare contains better 
truth than the one—■“ Some are born great, some 
achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust 
upon them.” 
While metropolitan experience largely contributes 
towards attaining proficiency in various depart- 
ments of medicine, nevertheless history affords nota- 
ble examples of those who have acquired renown, 
and who have advanced the interests of our profes- 
sion, though they have chiefly resided either in 
country districts or in the smaller towns or in cities 
but who have not enjoyed extended hospital advan- 
tages. As instances I would cite Hippocrates, Ga- 
len, Sydenham, Scarpa, Jenner, and Abercrombie. 
There are many whose sphere of labor and of duty 
is confined to a small precinct, and whose names are 10 
DISCOURSE. 
scarcely mentioned beyond the confines of a county, 
but who are possessed of as cultivated tastes and of 
as superior genius as their more illustrious cotempo- 
raries. Circumstances have not favored their deve- 
lopment into the world of letters, but in the commu- 
nities in which they reside they are regarded as 
priceless jewels, and their names cherished as house- 
hold words. 
It is not to be expected that those who are very 
actively engaged in the practice of their profession 
can have extended leisure to devote to original re- 
search, and the moments devoted to such labor are 
liable to be disturbed by thoughts reverting to usual 
vocations or to other subjects. We are amused at 
the picture of the absent-minded celibate philoso- 
pher, who, in his secluded study, while eagerly pe- 
rusing his book, sits bending over the fire—the bub- 
bling saucepan containing his watch while the egg is 
grasped securely in his hand. 
Busy men in various walks of life have difficulty 
in concentrating their minds on fixed subjects, more 
especially upon abstruse topics. Luther even com- 
plained of the great difficulty he experienced in en- 
gaging for a long season in serious thoughts, and has 
said :—“ Let any one try how long he can rest on one 
idea he has proposed to himself, or take one hour 
and vow that he will tell me all his thoughts. I 
am sure he will be ashamed before himself, and 
afraid to say what ideas have passed through his 
head, lest he should be taken for a mad dog and be 
chained.” He also states that St. Bernard once com- 
plained to a friend that he found it very difficult to 
pray aright, and could not pronounce the Lord’s DISCOUKSE. 
11 
prayer once without a host of strange thoughts. 
His friend was astonished, and gave it as his opinion 
that lie could fix his thoughts on his prayer without 
difficulty. Bernard offered him the wager of a fine 
horse on condition he should commence forthwith. 
The friend commenced, “ Our Father,” etc.; but be- 
fore he had finished the first petition it occurred to 
him, if he should gain the horse, whether he would 
also receive saddle and bridle. In short, he became 
so entangled in his thoughts that he abandoned his 
effort for the prize. If such great and good men 
have difficulty in riveting attention for a few mo- 
ments upon important devotional exercises—and who 
of us, if equally candid, but could plead guilty to the 
same inadvertence—how much more difficult is it to 
abstract the mind from social and domestic pleasures 
and cares, and from professional perplexities, and 
employ our limited leisure in exploring the hidden 
intricacies of science. 
It is a fortunate circumstance for humanity that 
facts in medical philosophy, demonstrated by indi- 
vidual investigators favorably situated for close ap- 
plication, can be utilized by all the members of the 
healing art. Practical medical literature has never- 
theless depended for many of its most important 
contributions upon those actively employed in clini- 
cal observation, and not alone upon those exclusively 
busied in physiological and pathological explorations. 
A considerable amount of systematic scientific re- 
search can be accomplished if the desire for it is 
pressing. Each day is a complete cycle—life a rep- 
etition of such cycles. The habits of a day form the 
habits of a life. However urgent may be the occu- 12 
DISCOURSE. 
pations, each day presents opportunities for reflec- 
tion and reading. As memory fails to retain many 
facts of observation, and many thoughts derived from 
others, it seems almost essential to acquire a habit 
of daily noting the more significant for future refer- 
ence. Unoccupied moments may be employed in 
analyzing such accumulation, and analyses may in- 
spire unexpected and valuable syntheses. 
The importance of each day’s labor can scarcely 
be over-estimated. We are reminded in this connec- 
tion that even during the patriarchal period old 
Jacob numbered his life by days, and that Moses 
desired to be taught this point of holy arithmetic, 
to number not his years, but his days. 
The elder Scipio, whose military achievements 
gave him a foremost rank among the Roman gener- 
als, and have perpetuated his name to thw present 
day, devoted the time disengaged from military 
business to the study of literature, and was accus- 
tomed to say, “ that he was never less at leisure than 
when he was at leisure.” 
Excessive devotion to science and belles-lettres, 
however, by favoring sedentary and secluded ha- 
bits, not only may jeopardize the health, but also 
may lead to other insalutary or undesirable con- 
ditions. It favors either on the one hand celibacy, 
or on the other an abstinence from many of the du- 
ties and pleasures associated with conjugal and so- 
cial life. From the days of Socrates to the present 
time how many literati might be cited as victims of 
connubial wretchedness! Should we decipher the 
causes of such domestic infelicities it would doubt- 
less be found that they are not generally of an im- DISCOUESE. 
13 
moral nature. Intense enthusiasm in tlie pursuit of 
a favorite study has induced neglect at the family 
fireside, perhaps a disruption of the marital relation- 
ship. As a Gcelebs it may be but becoming in me to 
admit that the experience of the great mass of man- 
kind is in favor of married life, and the numerous 
happy Benedicts around me indicate that they have 
so judiciously systematized their hours for study, for 
business, and for relaxation, that they have been 
aided in their explorations rather than retarded by 
the wise copartnerships they have formed. 
It might be expected that the members of that 
profession whose aim is the prevention and cure of 
disease, might enjoy an exemption from morbific in- 
fluences and attain unusual longevity. The deaths 
in this Academy forcibly illustrate the fact that we 
bear no charmed lives, and that we in common with 
others must incur the disasters which have been en- 
tailed upon our race from eating 
“ Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste 
Brought death into the world.” 
Science outlives generations—we inherit doctrines 
from our fathers; these, we may hold, reject, or 
modify; but we are shortly called to bequeath both 
the inheritance and the fruits of our own labors to 
a posterity perhaps restless for the bequest. 
“ Art is long, and time is fleeting, 
And our hearts, though stout and brave, 
Still like muffled drums are beating 
Funeral marches to the grave.” 
It is a noteworthy fact that the average age of 
our departed Presidents, at the time of their de- 14 
DISCOURSE. 
cease, was seventy-five years; excluding Watson, 
wlio died prematurely of malignant disease in bis 
fifty-ninth year, the average age was seventy-eight 
years. Our presiding officers have been as pre-emi- 
nent for their longevity as for their moral worth 
and professional attainments. 
Though Ave have been called upon to part with so 
many of our brilliant and conspicuous members, there 
is, as yet, no evidence of dwarfed mental power or of 
hebetude in this Academy. It is not philosophical to 
believe that the human race is, at present, very mate- 
rially degenerating. Such belief, hoAvever, has been 
entertained from time immemorial, even when there 
was no necessity for such opinion. Solomon endea- 
vored to refute such a prevalent idea in his day, by 
these words :—“ Say not thou, What is the cause that 
the former days were better than these ? for thou dost 
not inquire wisely concerning this.” In turning to 
profane history Ave find it recorded of ACgis, the 
Lacedaemonian, that on hearing an old man regret 
that the former laws and customs Avere abolished 
and supplied by worse, insomuch that the State and 
habit of Sparta were totally subverted and turned 
topsy-turvy, he gravely ansAvered :—“ Then things 
proceed in their regular and proper order: for I 
remember, Avhen I Avas a boy, to have heard my 
father say, that there Avas, at that time, a total sub- 
version of things: noAV, if they are inverted again, 
they are restored to their pristine state.” 
A learned and eloquent divine of this city has 
remarked:—“ It amuses us when the old gouty count 
in Gil Bias persists in saying that the peaches were 
not so good as they Avere in his boyhood. DISCOURSE. 
15 
Bad as the times may be, they are better and not 
worse than those behind us, and the poorest use to 
which we can put our time and faculties is to be 
querulous over those affairs to which we are person- 
ally related, and to stand in what is called the ‘ bar- 
renness of these degenerate days,’ Janus-faced—one 
countenance, that which is turned to the future, 
elongated, scowling, and sombre; while that which 
looks to the past has an expression of wishfulness, 
smiles, and satisfaction.” 
We are not justified in regarding our own genera- 
tion as a degeneration ’ and I am sure that on viewing 
the yearly progress made in medical science, any one 
at all conversant with the subject will concede that 
we belong to a progressive profession. We frankly 
admit our inability to explain many physiological 
phenomena, and our shortcomings in reference to 
therapeutics ; but we have not as yet reached the 
acme of professional wisdom, nor has any depart- 
ment of human knowledge culminated into comple- 
tion. 
An eminent English physician recently remarked, 
that he “ entertained a profound respect and rever- 
ence for all honest laborers in search of truth, 
whether they have preceded us by twenty years or by 
two thousand years; and an unwavering confidence 
and faith in the future that lies before the science of 
medicine. We traverse a sea mapped with imper- 
fect charts, but assured of a safe guide in our com- 
pass and stars, but we cannot afford to neglect a 
single rock or shoal, buoyed for us by the skill and 
care of those that have preceded. Let us follow 
their example and mark with conscientious care, for 16 
DISCOUESE. 
our successors, tlie clangers we ourselves discover and 
escape.” 
But in buoying a shoal, clearing a channel, or 
erecting a light-house, many a valuable life may be 
lost. How many have there been in our profession 
who have sacrificed their lives while elucidating the 
mysteries of physiology, pathology, and therapeu- 
tics, to say nothing of the hecatombs of those who 
have fallen while fearlessly wrestling with pestilen- 
tial disorders. 
We have seen that a number of our academicians 
have enjoyed longevity, but there are many who are 
not fitted, physically, to endure unusual mental 
labor. Such we have had among us, and death has 
snatched them while eagerly prying into the secrets 
of life and the mysteries of the charnel-house. 
There are others in whom you can observe the pal- 
lid cheek, the dimmed eye, the fluttering pulse, the 
sensitive nerve, occasioned by their devotion to 
science. 
While mere curiosity may prompt a few, and a 
desire for reputation and wealth incite others to 
relinquish many social enjoyments in the pursuit of 
knowledge, many are animated to intense applica- 
tion in order that there may be conceived in the 
“womb of thejria mater” some thought or plan of 
action which will serve to ameliorate the condition 
of suffering humanity. Industry and constant devo- 
tion must characterize the philosophical explorer, and 
the earlier in life attention is riveted upon original 
research, the greater will be the scientific achieve- 
ments. “ With youth at the prow and pleasure at 
the helm,” our neophytes would permit medical DISCOURSE. 
17 
philosophy to languish and dissolve into a chaos of 
chimerical hypotheses. While we mourn our dis- 
tinguished dead, we have reason for congratulation 
in the possession of Seniors who are ripe in years, 
learning, and honors, and of Juniors who, with emu- 
lative zeal, are pressing forward in their footsteps. 
The Seniors we recognize as having donated a full 
measure of ten talents to the Academy, a part re- 
ceived by inheritance and a part the result of their 
own labors; while the Juniors accept the trust de- 
termining not to repose on the patrimony and gift, 
but to augment it tenfold, and when in turn they 
retire from the field of action to transmit the accu- 
mulation to their successors. 
From the time of Hippocrates to the present day, 
our profession has regarded the prevention of disease 
as its noblest object. The great mass of the world, 
however, do not look to us so much for the means of 
prophylaxis as they do for the relief of their mala- 
dies. 
A fear of death is naturally implanted in man’s 
bosom, though to die is as natural as to be born. 
Even the pure and holy may shrink from entering 
an unknown world. Some there are, who, tired of 
life, desire dissolution as a relief from trouble. 
Others have a morbid fear of death. The majority 
of physicians might say with Scott, 
“ By many a death-bed have I been, 
And many a sinner’s parting seen,” 
and could bear testimony to the fact that during the 
last stages of disease, when there is consciousness, 
there is either calm resignation, a joyful hope, or 18 
DISCOURSE. 
again, in the desire to escape suffering, fear of disso- 
lution is removed. We seldom encounter scenes of 
mental horror occasioned by the approach of the 
king of terrors. It is chiefly while in health or in 
the early period of disease that fear of death is at 
its acme. The uncertainty regarding the time and 
method of death enhances the dread of dissolution. 
The Scriptures say, “ All that a man hath will he 
give for his life.” The English dramatist has drawn 
the picture in this wise :— 
“ The weariest and most loathed worldly life 
That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment 
Can lay on nature, is a paradise 
To what we fear of death.” 
Death, which is thus so dreaded, we observe at 
every period of existence, commencing with the 
foetus, in utero, at a time so beautifully described by 
Cowley in his tribute to Dr. Harvey, when 
“ The untaught heart begins to beat 
The tuneful march to vital heat,” 
and we encounter through the various ages of life 
until that stage delineated by Shakespeare as 
11 second childishness and mere oblivion, 
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.” 
It is said in the Scriptures, “ Man that is born of 
a woman is of few days and full of trouble.” Again : 
“ The days of our years are threescore years and 
ten, and if by reason of strength they be fourscore, 
yet is their strength labor and sorrow.” 
We boast of the advances made in medical science, 
and can scarcely repress a smile when we think of DISCOURSE. 
19 
the sages of antiquity consulting the physicians of 
their time. But nature, 
“ Which hath an operation more divine 
Than breath or pen can give expression to,” 
was scarcely less beneficent in the mythological age 
than she is in the nineteenth century, and conse- 
quently we read of instances of longevity among 
the ancient philosophers. 
Cicero, in his treatise “ concerning old age,” in- 
forms us that Plato died while writing, in his 81st 
year; that Isocrates wrote his book the Panathe- 
naican in his 94th year, and lived five years after, 
whose master, Gorgias, the Leontine, completed 107 
years without ceasing from his labors. Of Sophocles 
he records, that he “ wrote tragedies up to the period 
of extreme old age; and when, on account of that 
pursuit, he seems to be neglecting the family prop- 
erty, he was summoned by his sons into a court 
of justice, that as, according to our practice, fathers 
mismanaging their property are wont to be inter- 
dicted their possessions, so, in his case, the judges 
might remove him from the management of the 
estate as being imbecile. Then the old man is re- 
lated to have read aloud to the judges that play 
which he held in his hands, and had most recently 
written, the (Edipus Coloneus, and to have asked 
whether that appeared the poem of a dotard; on the 
recital of which he was acquitted by the sentences of 
the judges.” 
There is no reason to suppose that these venerable 
men passed through life without encountering various 
disorders; on the contrary, it is probable that— 20 
DISCOUKSE. 
“ over them triumphant, Death his dart 
Shook, but delayed to strike, though oft invok’d.” 
Were the instances we have given of common oc- 
currence in ancient times, onr profession might hesi- 
tate to compare practical experiences with their 
medical brethren of the olden days; but on consult- 
ing the tables of Ulpianus, founded on observations 
of 1,000 years, we learn that the mean term of 
Roman life was only 30 years. This was the aver- 
age length of life at the commencement of the 
Christian era, and its brevity has been attributed to 
the licentiousness prevalent in Rome during the 
period referred to. 
On examining the tables of Madden, Dunglison, 
and others, we learn that in modern times there have 
likewise been examples of unusually long lives in 
various callings. Old Parr lived to the age of 152 
years; Jenkins, of Yorkshire, to 169 years; and 
Walpole tells us of the Countess of Desmond, 
who— 
“ died at the age of one hundred and forty, 
From over-indulgence in ways that are naughty.” 
The latter personage, remarkable for her activity 
until almost the close of life, was outstripped in 
length of days by Lady Vaughan, who, according to 
a tomb-stone in Conway churchyard, died in 1766, 
at the age of 192 years. Such examples of longevity, 
however, are as rare at the present time as they have 
been either in recent or in remote periods. I exclude 
from present consideration the patriarchal epoch. 
The occupations of life inseparably connected 
with advanced civilization seem inimical to health. DISCOURSE. 
21 
Mental tension seems almost a necessary concomitant 
of civic associations. This has doubtless ever been 
the case. In all ages it has been remarked that the 
long-continued and extraordinary exertion of the 
mental faculties has generally, directly or indirectly, 
induced disease. Ovid says of the student, “pallor 
in ore sedet, macies in eorpore totoP Frederick the 
Great expressed the ojnnion that “ man seems more 
adapted by nature for a postilion than a philoso- 
pher.” Dr. Dickson, of England, in writing in the 
early part of this century, remarked: “ Unfortunately 
the physical is too often in the inverse ratio of the 
intellectual appetite, and with the Bulimia Doc- 
torum there is too frequently associated a stomach 
as weak as blotting paper, to use Vogel’s just but 
rather ludicrous comparison.” 
As an instance of the selection and recommenda- 
tion of an unwholesome dish as an article of diet, I 
recall the fact that the Rev. Sydney Smith has given 
a recipe, in verse, for dressing salad, which, if fol- 
lowed and taken, is almost capable of inducing a 
new disease for our nosology, and yet the receipt 
ends in this wise— 
“ 0 great and glorious! 0 herbaceous treat! 
’Twould tempt the dying anchorite to eat; 
Back to the world he’d turn his weary soul 
And plunge his fingers in the salad bowl.” 
The infirmities of genius are too often attributable 
to derangements of the digestive organs, partially 
induced by improper food and drinks. 
If our dyspeptic literary friends cannot mend their 
sedentary and other insalutary habits, would it not 
be wise for them to adopt a modification of the diet 22 
DISCOUESE. 
ascribed by Fletcher, in the Spanish Curate, to the 
miser, who— 
“ grew fat by the brewis of an egg-shell, 
Would smell a cook-shop and go home and surfeit, 
And be a month in fasting out that fever?” 
We do not admit as a physiological fact that 
mental culture must be associated with asthenia, 
though we unfortunately often find them concur- 
rent. 
Shakspeare, who so thoroughly understood human 
nature, has, in various passages, expressed the fact 
that extreme physical vigor and a high grade of 
mental energy were generally not observed in the 
same individual. For example, he represents Caesar 
as speaking of Cassius in these words:— 
“ Would he were fatter, 
For if my name were liable to fear, 
I do not know the man I should avoid 
So soon as that spare Cassius. He reads much, 
He is a great observer, and he looks 
Quite through the deeds of men.” 
And again he has elsewhere remarked, as a warn- 
ing to those whose habits favor obesity, that 
“ Fat paunches have lean pates, and dainty bits 
Make rich the sides, but banker out the wits.” 
The same author has further shown what we have 
also sometimes recognized, that Fortune 
“ either gives a stomach, and no food,— 
Such are the poor, in health ; or else a feast, 
And takes away the stomach,—such are the rich; 
They have abundance, and enjoy it not.” DISCOURSE. 
23 
It must be confessed that a nation in a state of 
advanced civilization generally suffers more or less 
physical degeneration. Many of the occupations of 
life connected with such condition are detrimental 
to health; many pursuits which in themselves are 
not injurious, may become so by over-attention to 
them, as becomes almost necessary amid the compe- 
titions and rivalries incident to civic congregation. 
The extremes of poverty and riches are encountered. 
Poverty breeds disease among its victims, and steeps 
them in the grossest sensualities. Riches often ener- 
vate by encouraging refined luxury and debasing 
debaucheries. 
In relation to our own country it has been said by 
the late Dr. Joseph M. Smith :—“ That the national 
character of the United Americans is still iii its 
formative stage; and that so it must remain for yet 
an indefinite period; and especially so long as large 
foreign additions are made to the native population. 
What results may be looked for, when elements so 
numerous and so diverse meet and react on one ano- 
ther ? Is it probable that the varieties of the five 
races of Blumenbach, will, after being long associ- 
ated on our soil, lose their distinctive peculiarities, 
and acquire characters which shall mark them as a 
new variety of mankind? It is a principle recog- 
nized by physiologists, that, to use the words of 
Carpenter, ‘ the union of varieties has a ten- 
dency to produce a race superior in energy and fer- 
tility to its parents,’ or, as he otherwise remarks, 
‘the mixed race is generally superior in physical 
development to either of the parent stocks.’ Now, is 
such to be the result of the intermixture, on this con- 24 
DISCOURSE. 
tinent, of tlie European and other varieties of our 
species ? And if so, is the territory of the American 
confederacy the field in which such a result is to be 
consummated ? And is the ‘ American nation,’ as 
contemplated by Prof. Guyot, ‘ a synthetic type 
preparing a new era ? ’ ” 
Our continent, doubtless, presents the most extra- 
ordinary example ever offered of a combination of 
circumstances suited to produce preternatural phy- 
sical and mental vigor in its inhabitants. But 
four centuries ago the ocean veiled it from the na- 
tions of the old world. Since that time, upon its 
soil liberty has found an asylum, and slavery a 
sepulchre. Upon its territory the sciences and arts 
have attained to a luxuriant growth. During peace, 
the developments of the agricultural and mineral 
resources of the land have astonished the world ; 
while during wars, large temporary navies and gi- 
gantic volunteer armies have sprung into existence, 
and proved that an intelligent people were conspi- 
cuous for patriotism and bravery. Thus far the 
anticipations of our forefathers, in regard to the 
national grandeur of the American confederacy, have 
been fully realized. We are led to hope that the 
mental and physical culture of the inhabitants of 
this cosmopolitan continent will be so wisely di- 
rected that strength of mind and body will be cha- 
racteristic of our race, and that our Republic will 
remain an enduring monument to the simplest and 
noblest form of human government—a perpetual 
leaven to elevate other nations of the globe towards 
the attainment of the highest degree of human per- 
fection. DISCOURSE. 
25 
Macmillan, in alluding to England, already sug- 
gests the humbling thought, “ that a time will come 
when even the Anglo-Saxon civilization, whose star 
is at present in the ascendant, whose power is at 
present a conquering power, and gives no indications 
of decay, shall be numbered among the things that 
were, and a grander and nobler development take 
its place in new regions and under more favorable 
heavens—perhaps in lands now sunk in the depths 
of heathenism and barbarism. It is not beyond the 
bounds of probability that the ‘ Briton of the south ’ 
may yet supplant the Briton of the north, and that 
Macaulay’s New Zealander will actually stand and 
moralize, amid the ruins of London, on the vanity of 
human greatness. The far East was the land of 
science and philosophy when Europe was inhabited 
by savages; and under the influence of a Christian 
faith she may regain her ancient supremacy, and 
‘ the fires of genius burn again with purer splendor 
on the very spot where first they were kindled.’ ” 
Thus far in the history of the world, excepting in 
the period before alluded to, opportunity has not 
been afforded of citing sufficiently numerous in- 
stances of extreme age to illustrate a general preva- 
lence of healthfulness and longevity in the human 
race—in other words, man does not usually live out 
the full Scriptural measure of his days, and further, 
the deterioration of nations takes place par i passu 
with the depreciation of the standard of morality. To 
present individual cases of longevity is to take the 
exception for the general rule,—it has been likened 
by Dr. James Johnson to pointing to the pyramids 
for proof that Time had broken his scythe, while 26 
DISCOURSE. 
shutting our eyes to the mouldering ruins of Egypt, 
Greece, and Italy. The octogenarians and nonage- 
narians whom we meet with are only the human pyra- 
mids who have withstood somewhat longer than 
usual the wear and tear of their vocations. While 
the majority may desire to attain old age, how true 
is it, that when life is extended to its utmost con- 
fine, its strength is “ labor and sorrow.” How ap- 
propriate are the lines of Bryant on the old man’s 
funeral:— 
“ And I am glad that he has lived thus long, 
And glad that he has gone to his reward ; 
Nor can I deem that nature did him wrong 
Softly to disengage the vital cord, 
For when his hand grew palsied, and his eye 
Dark with the mists of age, it was his time to die.” 
Occasionally it may sadly occur that friends and 
relations seem burdened with their lingering aged 
charge, and we can almost imagine them chanting 
the song of Meg Merrilies for the parting spirit— 
“ Wasted, weary, wherefore stay, 
Wrestling thus with earth and clay? 
From the body pass away— 
Hark! the mass is singing. 
Haste thee, haste thee to be gone, 
Earth flits fast and time draws on,— 
Gasp thy gasp and groan thy groan,— 
Day is near the breaking.” 
Inspired with an innate fear of death, and con- 
scious of the fact that disease and final dissolution 
await all, mankind to a greater or less extent are in- 
credulous concerning our ability to cope with their 
maladies. Is it then a matter of wonder that the DISCOUESE. 
27 
brush of the limner, the rhyme of the poet, the satire 
of the dramatist, and sarcasm of the philosopher 
have been employed against the genius of our pro- 
fession % Have we not, one and all of us, distrusted 
our own capacities ? 
But the wind is tempered to the shorn lamb, and 
the Creator is no less beneficent to suffering human- 
ity. Our profession has ever believed that its resources 
were not as yet exhausted, and we are still explor- 
ing with zeal the kingdoms of nature for remedial 
agents. Nor are we disheartened at the intricacies 
which beset the search. Already we have been suc- 
cessful in finding numerous therapeutical weapons, 
and we are cheered and animated to persevere by 
the Divine promise :—“ That plants shall grow of 
which the fruit thereof shall be for meat and the 
leaf thereof for medicine.” 
In thus far exhibiting the embarrassments which 
have beset medical progress, I have endeavored to 
show that a busy practical life almost precludes an 
earnest devotion to original scientific investigation; 
and further, that as disease and death are so inhe- 
rent to human nature, it is an almost fruitless task 
either to conquer the one or to temporarily avert the 
other. In more extendedly treating the subject I 
shall attempt to demonstrate that commendable in- 
dustry has always been exercised by our profession 
in the discharge of its sacred trust; to prove that 
such industry has overcome obstacles greater than 
those encountered in deciphering the arcana of other 
branches of knowledge, and to offer a comparison of 
the labors of our predecessors and cotemporaries 
with those of savans who either have been or who 28 
DISCOURSE. 
are at present exploring tlie other departments of 
science. 
The practice of medicine is a calling demanded 
by the necessities of mankind, and as a pursuit has 
been followed from the earliest ages. The Scrip- 
tures afford us little information concerning our 
profession; but the New Testament records the skill 
of “Luke, the beloved physician,” while the Old 
Testament informs us that there were ancient pre- 
tenders, for Job, in upbraiding his friends, salutes 
them with the expression: “Ye are forgers of lies; 
ye are all physicians of no value.” Profane history 
informs us that at an early period, public homage 
was shown to those pre-eminent in the healing art, 
and that at about nine centuries before the Christian 
era, Esculapius, the Greek physician, was deified, 
and temples were erected to his memory, “ where he 
was worshipped as a divinity.” In modern times 
there is less appreciation of medical merit. How 
few and paltry have been the public recognitions of 
medical skill—while granite obelisks and brazen 
statues commemorate the heroes of a hundred battle- 
fields ! 
Hippocrates, the cotemporary of Socrates and 
Plato, we still hold in veneration; his lineaments 
are impressed on the title-pages of this Academy’s 
publications, while in his native island of Cos the 
inhabitants now cherish his memory and point to a 
building which they pretend he inhabited. 
Since the time of Hippocrates, excepting during 
the dark ages, the history of medicine is quite com- 
plete. In recalling the philosophers in the various 
departments of knowledge which the world has pro- DISCOURSE. 
29 
duced during tliese twenty-two hundred years, we 
find that each century has been marked by its men 
of prominence. Foremost among these have been 
those who have been devoted to the study of medi- 
cine; and many of these, not confining their re- 
searches to their profession, have shone conspicu- 
ously in the kindred sciences, and have become 
distinguished in literature, art, and statesmanship. 
Guided by our present views of pathology, we are 
enabled to detect inaccuracies of loAc in some of 
O 
the writings of the fathers of our profession; but 
their compositions, as specimens of rhetoric, are re- 
markable for precision of style and elegance of 
diction. As a classical medical author, Celsus long 
since was compared with Tacitus, Livy, and Caesar, 
as exemplars of historical and literary composers; 
and we can readily imagine that the prelections of 
our early masters were delivered with the same 
oratorical power as were those which fell from the 
lips of the Roman senators. 
Possibly modern science would attract more nu- 
merous and ardent devotees if the didactic treatises 
relating to its various branches were more fully en- 
livened by the amenities of polite literature. The 
writings of Drs. Good, James Johnson, Watson, 
Winslow, and others, of England; of Rush, Dungli- 
son, Holmes, and others, of this country, have shown 
that abstruse philosophical reasoning may be so in- 
tertwined with anecdote and with classical prose 
and verse as to render attractive themes ordinarily 
regarded as metaphysical and uninviting. Science 
is not degraded, but ennobled, by its affiliation with 
literature. 30 
DISCOURSE. 
Haller, the noted anatomist of the eighteenth 
century, has given us a catalogue of thirty thousand 
medical and surgical writers, with the titles of their 
productions. To what an extent could this list be 
increased by the names of authors since his day ! 
Are we disappointed at the results of such labors ? 
How comparatively few are there who have left 
behind them imperishable monuments of their origi- 
nality ! 
Bacon, in his Maxims of the Law, has said : “ I 
hold every man a debtor to his profession ; from the 
which as men of course do seek to receive counte- 
nance and profit, so ought they of duty to endeavor 
themselves by way of amends to be a help and orna- 
ment thereto.” Again he has elsewhere remarked : 
“ Some books are to be tasted, and some few to be 
chewed and digested.” 
As our science is to a certain extent an inductive 
one, we are not to be surprised that such a mass of 
material has been collected in reference to it. It is 
by the collation of theories and of facts that we can 
expect to derive valuable practical information. Nor 
need we upbraid ourselves that a small harvest has 
been gathered as the result of such prolonged la- 
bors. The same has occurred in other branches of 
knowledge. Many, both in ancient and modern 
times, have been known for their writings, but 
whose labors have not proved of any permanent 
benefit to the world. 
According to Laertius, Epicurus wrote no less 
than three hundred volumes, and in these, it has 
been stated, he did not insert a single cpiotation. 
Varro, known as “the most learned of the Romans,” DISCOURSE. 
31 
and the intimate friend of Cicero, states that he com- 
posed four hundred and ninety books; but two of 
his productions have reached us. Seneca informs 
us that Didymus, the grammarian, surnamed brazen 
entrails, from the number of his writings, composed 
nearly four thousand volumes—none of these have 
come down to us. Origen, a celebrated father of 
the Church, who, from his indefatigable application 
to study, was surnamed “ man of adamant,” it is 
said, prepared six thousand treatises, but few of 
which are still extant. 
Thus it is seen that in the kindred pursuits of phi- 
losophy, science, and religion, there have been prolific 
writers who have not materially added to the stock 
of permanent practical information. No one, how- 
ever, can fail to read with interest and profit the 
early literature of medicine, and subsequently to 
trace the changing trains of thought through ages 
and centuries, until the present views of physiology 
and pathology have been reached. 
There have doubtless been those in our calling, as 
in others, worthy of posthumous fame, but who 
have been overshadowed by cotemporaries tainted 
with jealousy, that 
“ monster, 
Begot upon itself, born on itself.” 
Again, there have probably been many possessed 
of unusual talents who have shrunk from encounter- 
ing the harsh criticism too apt to be heaped upon 
original investigators, or who, after their first essays, 
have been discouraged to persevere in their work 
by reason of those who, to use the words of Pope, 32 
DISCOURSE. 
“ Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, 
And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer.” 
Genius, unfortunately, does not eradicate the 
grosser passions of the soul. Samuel Johnson, Eng- 
land’s immortal author, was slow to acknowledge 
superior mental gifts in others, and by his harsh 
language and writings withered the feelings of his 
cotemporaries, both male and female. He found, 
however, in Hr. Mayo a champion worthy of his 
steel—a man, it is said, of calm temper, and who, 
because he never flinched under the strokes of his 
satire, received the epithet of the “ Literary Anvil.” 
While our profession is proverbially liberal in its 
recognition of merit, it is not, in this regard, abso- 
lutely immaculate. We are wedded to views and to 
theories in which we were early indoctrinated, and 
are slow either to modify or to reject them. 
Hr. Mayo’s composure, when submitting to harsh 
denunciation, is worthy of emulation; but illiberal 
criticism often excites the retort discourteous, and 
the contrariety encountered by philosophical ex- 
plorers may partially account for the asperities of 
character which they sometimes exhibit. 
The world, however, has seen but few extraordi- 
nary men, or at least but few remarkable original 
thinkers. And the labors of these, in the course of 
ages, are often almost forgotten unless they are of 
great practical value. Lavengro, in reviewing his own 
works and writings, exclaimed, “ Are not all things 
born to be forgotten ? Have I done enough to secure 
a reputation of a thousand years? Well, but what 
is a thousand years after all, or twice a thousand 
years? Woe is me ! I may just as well sit still.” DISCOURSE. 
33 
A scientific treatise may be regarded as a congre- 
gation of facts and of opinions wliicli have been 
established and held by many minds; seldom is it 
that one can be regarded as an offspring of a single 
master spirit. There have been as few possessed of 
gigantic intellects, as there have been of those pecu- 
liar for extraordinary physique. The man or woman 
who exceeds but a trifling degree the average stature 
is looked upon as a curiosity. Those possessing un- 
usual mental calibre, though not made objects of 
public exhibition, nevertheless attract the attention 
of the multitude. 
It would be unreasonable to expect any single 
calling to absorb all those possessed of brilliant 
genius. Our profession has had its full share, but it 
seems to have been ordained by Providence that'the 
mysteries of science should be very gradually de- 
veloped. In our investigations we have been, like 
the suitors of Penelope, often disappointed. At the 
very point of winning a prize, fair nature, apparently 
yielding, has broken a link and eluded our grasp, 
as the Grecian princess who by day embroidered 
but by night unravelled again the tapestry, the 
completion of which was the promise of her hand. 
Occasionally it has happened that a thought or 
doctrine supposed to be original to our own century 
is found to have its prototype in an early antece- 
dent period. And thus has it been in other depart- 
ments of knowledge. James Hamilton has truth- 
fully said :—“ Many a maxim has got a fresh circula- 
tion, and has made a little fortune of renown for its 
author, which is, after all, a medal fresh minted from 
Bible money: the gold of Moses or Solomon used up 34 
DISCOURSE. 
again with the image and superscription of Bacon, 
or Pascal, or Benjamin Franklin.” 
Let ns for a moment consider a few of the obsta- 
cles which have retarded the development of medical 
science. In order to treat disease with any degree 
of certainty and success, it is necessary to be ac- 
quainted with the anatomy and physiology of the 
human frame, as well as to be acquainted with mor- 
bid processes. The human cadaver in all ages has 
been held in almost sacred regard. Moses declared 
that “ he that toucheth the dead body of any man 
shall be unclean seven days.” Sacred and profane 
history inform us that several nations of antiquity 
embalmed their dead as a mark of respect, while 
others observed other customs esteemed equally re- 
spectful to mortal remains. 
Hippocrates drew his inferences concerning health 
and diseases without having dissected the human 
body—his anatomical knowledge having been ac- 
quired by the after-death examination of brute ani- 
mals, more particularly of apes and monkeys, as 
having more resemblance to man. Plato had defined 
man as “ a two-legged animal without feathers.” 
Diogenes, on hearing the definition, plucked a cock, 
and bringing him into the school said, “ Here is 
Plato’s man.” From which there was added to the 
definition, “with broad, flat nails.” Diodes about 
this time prepared a treatise giving directions in 
reference to the dissection of the inferior animals. 
It is not at all probable that the proud old Greeks, 
Bomans, Athenians, and Egyptians admired the 
comparisons of themselves either with apes or with 
cocks. DISCOURSE. 
35 
Imagine for a moment the coufiicting feelings 
which beset the first explorers of the body. Ani- 
mated by a laudable desire for knowledge, they 
were forced not only to overcome their own super- 
stitious regard for the dead, but also to incur the 
odium of sacrilege and the disgrace and pain of 
punishment. 
About three centuries before the Christian era, 
Herophilus, a native of Chalcedon, and Erasistratus, 
of Inulis, a grandson of Aristotle, laid the founda- 
tion-stones of the science of human anatomy, and 
the superstructure erected since their day has 
scarcely reached completion. Fleeing to Egypt to 
prosecute their labors, it required the authority of 
its monarch to protect them from the rage of the 
people. Herophilus, it has been said, resorted to 
human vivisections, more particularly of criminals, 
and in this regard was worthy of condemnation. 
He was the originator of pathological anatomy, and 
was the first to propose post-mortem examination to 
learn the cause of death. Fallopius, centuries after, 
denominated him “ the evangelist of anatomists.” 
The opposition which these early explorers encoun- 
tered in examining the dead has been experienced 
through the course of ages, extending, though to 
a more limited degree, even to our own day, and it 
has only been within about fifteen years that dissec- 
tion in our medical schools has been legalized in 
the State of New York. During this long period, 
however, anatomy has been thoroughly pursued, and 
as a branch of medical science is now almost per- 
fected. 
Is it said that our profession has been slow in 36 
DISCOURSE. 
bringing it to its present state ? Equal tardiness 
can be observed in tlie development of other branches 
of knowledge. Was it not reserved for Bacon, to- 
wards the last of the sixteenth century, to inaugu- 
rate the science of natural philosophy? The sun, 
moon and stars shone with the same brilliancy and 
were governed by the same laws from the antedilu- 
vian period to the present day ; but it was not until 
the seventeenth century, when the contributions of 
mechanics and optics were combined in the construc- 
tion of the telescope, that astronomers began to grasp 
the mysteries of the firmament and comprehend the 
laws of the celestial bodies. 
Thus has it been with the science of Botany. The 
earth had been clad with verdure since it had been 
inhabited by man. Zoroaster, Aristotle, Theophras- 
tus, Plato, and innumerable others since their day 
had written extensive treatises on vegetation; but 
it was reserved for Linnaeus, the protege of Boer- 
haave, in the eighteenth century, to arrange plants 
in a scientific classification, and separate them into 
sexes. It was ordained that the poetical Goethe, at a 
later day, should demonstrate the fact foreshadowed 
by Wolff, that the leaf was typical of all parts of 
the plant, from seed to blossom, and in petal, sepal, 
stamen, and pistil—a fact at first derided by the 
cotemporaries of Goethe as an idle fancy of the im- 
agination, but which finally became established as 
a botanical tenet. 
Thus also has it been with Geology. Had not the 
mountains been piled up, Ossa upon Pelion, from 
time immemorial ? Had they not exposed to man’s 
gaze the naked faces of their uplifted strata? Was DISCOURSE. 
37 
it not reserved for Buffon to decipher these natural 
hieroglyphics ? On viewing fossil remains of bones 
and shells different from the forms of those found 
on earth in its present condition, he conceived 
the idea of a vast pre-Adamite period in which our 
planet had been inhabited by organized beings. 
“ Filled with awe,” it is said, “ the old man, then 
over eighty years of age, published his discovery. 
In a kind of sacred frenzy he spoke of the magnifi- 
cence of the prospect, and prophesied of the future 
glories of the new science, which he was, alas ! too 
old to pursue.” 
It has been delayed to the present century, when 
the microscope has reached a high degree of perfec- 
tion, for our profession to complete its knowledge of 
anatomy by the examination of the minute organism 
of man. 
The study of anatomy has simply explained the 
mechanism of the human structure; it has not un- 
folded the workings of the body endowed with life. 
How many obstacles have beset the elucidation of 
Physiology! Human vivisections have never been 
tolerated, and vivisections of the inferior animals 
have received j3opular opprobrium. Is it a matter 
of surprise that the accumulation of facts has been 
slow ? Many inferences have necessarily had to be 
drawn from comparative physiology; but the lessons 
thus learned have proved of inestimable benefit to 
suffering humanity. Vivisections, however, should 
be performed solely in the spirit of scientific re- 
search, and when a fact is established by them, our 
profession should place its solemn veto on their 
unnecessary repetition. 38 
DISCOURSE. 
The accident to Alexis St. Martin, in 1822, afforded 
an extraordinary opportunity of observing the pro- 
cess of digestion; but how few instances have there 
been in which observations of other vital phenomena 
have been made in the human subject! There have 
been other difficulties besetting the investigations of 
animal life. Until towards the dawn of the present 
century chemistry was wedded to theories allied to 
the vagaries of the ancient alchemists. The experi- 
ments of Cavendish, Lavoisier, Priestley, Scheele, 
Dalton, Wollaston, Berzelius, Gay-Lussac, and others, 
have since that time placed it among the exact 
sciences. Physiology, thus aided by chemistry, has, 
within the last one hundred years, assumed an ex- 
alted position, and already all the more important 
functions of the body have been described. 
The engineer can inform us whether his engine is 
of one horse or twenty horse power. The physiolo- 
gists now assure us that every grain of carbonic acid 
and of urea excreted represents a certain amount of 
expenditure of vital force, and by algebraic calcula- 
tions can compute their equivalents in miles walked, 
or the number of pounds lifted through space. 
Could Euclid, the great cotemporary of Hippocrates, 
have imagined that the followers of the Father of 
Medicine could, attain such mathematical precision 
in regard to vital action, he would doubtless have 
acknowledged that dissections and vivisections would 
prove of more value to mankind than his favorite 
conic sections. 
Nor can we as yet describe the limits of finite 
understanding. An English writer in his enthu- 
siasm has said:—“ Our successors may even dare to DISCOURSE. 
39 
speculate on the changes that converted a crust of 
bread, or a bottle of wine, in the brain of Swift, 
Moliere, or Shakespeare into the conception of the 
gentle Glumdalclitcli, the rascally Sganarelle, or the 
immortal Falstaff.” 
The department of therapeutics could not be ex- 
pected to reach any degree of scientific importance 
while anatomy and physiology were imperfectly 
understood. All honor to our medical forefathers, 
who, with a limited knowledge of these branches, 
were almost instinctively led to cope successfully 
with many diseases. Nature is not adequate to 
every emergency. At one moment she appears gra- 
cious and at another ungracious in her action in dis- 
ease, and this doubtless led the Egyptians to believe 
that the divinity might be either comely or un- 
comely in her appearance. They have bequeathed 
to us this uncertain portraiture of the goddess :— 
“For with a veil that wimpled everywhere 
Her head and face were hid, that mote to none appear; 
That some do say, was so by skille devised, 
To hide the terror of her uncouth hue 
From mortal eyes that should he sore agrised; 
For that her face did like a lion show, 
That eye of wight could not endure the view ; 
But others tell that it so beauteous was, 
And round about such beams of splendor threw, 
That it the sun a thousand times did pass, 
Nor could he seen, but like an image in a glass.” 
Nature being inadequate to relieve many dis- 
orders, relief for tliem lias been sought from artificial 
means. But the agents employed to neutralize 
morbid conditions may prove in themselves noxious. 
Physicians have consequently been deterred from a 40 
DISCOURSE. 
fearless trial of drugs, lest disaster rather than cure 
follow their administration. The care which has 
ever been exercised in this regard is worthy of 
emulation. 
To say nothing of the chemical labors now be- 
stowed on many of the medicines now employed, 
how many tedious experiments have been made with 
numerous of the articles of the materia medica be- 
fore they were used as remedial agents. Their 
exhibition to the inferior animals to learn approxi- 
mately their effects, as well as the doses in which it 
is proper to employ them. How frequently has 
it been found that their behavior is different when 
given to man ! Again, in dispensing them to healthy 
adults to decide their physiological effects, physi- 
cians have not hesitated to test new remedies in their 
own persons, and many have sacrificed their lives on 
the altar of their profession while engaged in such 
original inquiries. And finally, having learned to a 
certain extent the effect and dose of a drug on the 
healthy subject, it has still to be adjudged at the 
bedside, and decided whether its subtile action will 
antagonize the equally subtile action of disease. 
In the treatment of mental derangements how 
great have been the improvements, but how necessa- 
rily slow have been their development. With an im- 
perfect knowledge of the nervous system it was im- 
possible for medical men to understand mental dis- 
orders, and this fact, coupled with a general supersti- 
tious belief in demoniacal possession and witchcraft, 
made the insane objects of special avoidance and 
terror, and subjected them to inhuman incarceration. 
Are we surprised, therefore, to read of former mad- 
houses, where DISCOURSE. 
41 
“No light, but rather darkness visible, 
Served only to discover sights of woe ; 
Regions of sorrow, doleful shades where peace 
And rest can never dwell; hope never comes 
That comes to all 
The key of this infernal pit we keep.” 
But tlie key which is now turned on these unfor- 
tunate patients may but temporarily isolate them 
from the world. It encloses them in buildings of 
superb architecture; in chambers and drawing-rooms 
of comfort and elegance, while around them are 
thrown the benign influences of social intercourse, 
of music, of refined amusements, of religion, and of 
hygienic and therapeutical resources. Thus are we 
often enabled to 
“ Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow ; 
Raze out the written troubles of the brain ; 
And with a sweet oblivious antidote 
Cleanse the foul bosom of that perilous stuff 
Which weighs upon the heart.” 
Time has only permitted me to allude to a few of 
the barriers which have obstructed the pathway of 
medical science. Had the members of our profes- 
sion preferred to consult their own pleasure rather 
than employ their leisure in studying the cadaver 
in microscopical research, and in chemically analyz- 
ing tissues, secretions, and foul excretions, the world 
would still have been guided by empiricism, and the 
mean of life not extended beyond that which pre- 
vailed at the commencement of the Christian era. 
The passing jest and the satirical pen can be em- 
ployed in vain against us; they 42 
DISCOUESE. 
“ Fall like an inverted cone, 
For want of proper base to stand upon.” 
Therapeutics, as far as it has been practicable, has 
kept pace with the advances made in pathology. 
We acknowledge our ignorance respecting various 
points relating to medical science, but cannot admit 
that we have been listless in searching for informa- 
tion. We can congratulate ourselves on what has 
been acquired, and can afford to be amused at the 
jokes cracked at our expense. In respect to blood- 
letting, which is not at present a favorite therapeu- 
tical resource, we cannot affirm that it was formerly 
uncalled for, as the diatheses of disease may in the 
past have partaken of a sthenic character. Doubt- 
less, in unskillful hands, the lancet has been too freely 
employed, but it is now securely sheathed, and held 
in reserve for special emergencies. We are not 
blind defenders of ancestry, and can laugh at the 
humor of Thomas Hood, who, in satirizing the phle- 
botomists of his. day, remarks in Death’s Ramble :— 
“ Death saw a patient that pulled out his purse, 
And a doctor that took the sum ; 
But he let them be—for he knew that the i fee ’ 
Was a prelude to lfaw ’ and i fum.’ ” 
Hood has not been the only writer to lampoon the 
venesectors. Le Sage, in his Gil Bias, represents 
Dr. Sangrado as practising blood-letting as a remedy 
for all sorts of ailments, including the toothache; 
while Smollett bestowed upon his medical attendant 
the following affectionate squib :—“ I was obliged to 
send for a physician, who seemed to have been a dis- 
ciple of Sangrado; for he scarcely left a drop of 
blood in my body.” DISCOUKSE. 
43 
In a recent work which has attracted much atten- 
tion, the author does not allow the opportunity to 
escape without giving us a thrust. Poor Heine, bed- 
ridden, is represented as reading all the books treating 
of his disease, and as remarking:—“ But what good 
this reading is to do me I don’t know, except that it 
will qualify me to give lectures in Heaven on the 
ignorance of doctors on earth about diseases of the 
spinal marrow.” 
We occasionally meet with instances in which pa- 
tients, when ill unto death, are appreciative of their 
physician, and are in a pleasant religious frame of 
mind, but who, on recovering, lose both these men- 
tal emotions. Rabelais was not an inspired writer, 
but was inspired with truth when he wrote— 
“ When the devil was sick, the devil a monk would be; 
When the devil was well, the devil a monk was he.” 
A few words in regard to the present and future 
status of practical medicine and surgery. In the 
early period of the world, surgery, doubtless, at- 
tained greater perfection than practical medicine. 
In many injuries the means of relief are quite appa- 
rent. Homer relates the surgical skill of the great 
Machaon, but is silent in reference to his ability to 
control the epidemics of his day. The physicians 
studied nature closely ; and if it was observed in the 
course of a disease that a diaphoresis, diuresis, or 
catharsis occurred spontaneously, and afforded relief, 
they endeavored, when treating similar cases, to 
hasten convalescence by artificially inducing such 
conditions. Indeed, Hippocrates was so inclined to 
rely on nature in many disorders, that in Rome, 44 
DISCOURSE. 
several centuries after, his practice was described as 
a “ meditation on death.” 
If the latter part of this century is to be marked 
by improvements in therapeutics and surgery at all 
commensurate with the advancements made in ana- 
tomy and physiology in the earlier part, our profes- 
sion will be crowned with a success which could 
scarcely have been anticipated in former years. No 
elixir of life, however, must be expected by the com- 
munity which will restore those who have persist- 
ently violated the laws of health. In a large num- 
ber of diseases there are structural changes. It is 
unreasonable to suppose that we can reclaim altered 
growths, though even in some such cases it is already 
found possible to stay further ravages, and nature, 
aided by art, vicariously performs the work of the 
deteriorated tissue. For the many disorders depend- 
ent upon functional derangements of the nerves and 
viscera, our improved acquaintance with anatomy 
and vital chemistry has led to more successful me- 
thods of treatment, while the future has in store still 
grander achievements. For the various septicaemic 
affections, as scarlet fever, measles, typhus and ty- 
phoid fevers, we are as assuredly to find prophylac- 
tics as has already been found in the case of small- 
pox. These diseases we cannot expect to banish 
from our nosology, but we or our successors are to 
find antidotes for their poisons, and their treatment 
is to be placed on the same precise principles as we 
manage those injured by inimical vegetable and 
mineral substances. The chemist can artificially 
change the most venomous material either into its 
ultimate inorganic elements, or into simple harmless DISCOURSE. 
45 
bodies. It is more difficult in the human laboratory 
to induce similar transition, but of its possibility we 
should scarcely have a doubt'. In acute diseases our 
science is not barren in resources ; already we can 
shorten the attacks of various disorders, and affiord 
palliation to those which are self-limited. 
Nor are we to suppose that we have been exhaus- 
tive in our search for therapeutical means. Are we 
not warranted in hoping to find other remedies than 
those we now possess, of the nature of specifics ? 
The organic and inorganic worlds hold out fertile 
and still unexplored fields in which to search for 
remedial agents. 
The illustrious and lamented Rush was keenly sen- 
sitive to the vast resources of our own country, and 
was sanguine that his profession would be foremost 
in its exploits compared to the other pursuits of life. 
u Who knows,” he remarked, “ but it may be reserved 
for America to furnish the world from her produc- 
tions with cures for some of those diseases which 
now elude the power of medicine ? Who knows but 
that at the foot of the Alleghany mountain there 
blooms a flower that is an infallible cure for the 
epilepsy ? Perhaps on the Monongaliela or the Poto- 
mac there may grow a root that shall supply by its 
tonic powers the invigorating effects of savage or 
military life in the cure of consumptions.” 
Dr. Samuel Henry Dickson has said:—“ The genius 
of our country lies in exaggeration. We must ‘ go 
ahead ’ extra jiammantia moenia mundi. There is 
no resting-place for our unquiet people. No principle 
is worth asserting with any modification, no enterprise 
worth the undertaking if it have a limit.” I would 46 
DISCOUKSE. 
ask if we have been sufficiently diligent in seeking 
for defensive and offensive weapons? Have tlie fields 
been scoured; have tlie active principles been ex- 
tracted ; liave all the antidotes to death been found ? 
In the department of surgery, the improvements 
which have been made in modern times are so numer- 
ous that time scarcely admits an allusion to them. In 
original conceptions and operations our Academicians 
have been foremost. I have merely to mention a few 
topics, as the ligation of arteries, lithotomy, operations 
upon the throat, for vesico-vaginal fistuhe, tenotomy, 
treatment of fractures, etc., to remind you of those 
who have shed lustre upon themselves, upon this Acad- 
emy, and upon our land. Can we not speak with 
almost the same enthusiasm of several of our deceas- 
ed and living surgeons as Dr. Post remarked in his 
eulogy of Dr. Mott ? “On the banks of the Thames 
and the Seine, the Danube and the Rhine, the Neva 
and the Spree, the Tiber and the Arno, the La Plata 
and the Amazon, as well as the Connecticut and Hud- 
son, the Delaware and the Mississippi, the name of 
the great American surgeon is known and honored, 
and the records of his brilliant achievements in sur- 
gery are treasured as an important part of the crown 
jewels of our profession.” 
As the true merits of associates are not always ap- 
preciated, it has been contended by Stanley that “ a 
foreign nation is a kind of cotemporaneous poster- 
ity.” If this be true, the transatlantic fame of many 
of our Academicians assures them of the regard with 
which our successors will cherish their memories. 
In scarcely a department of medicine has there 
been greater apparent advancement than in that of DISCOURSE. 
47 
Hygiene. Tile ancients worshipped Ilygeia, the god- 
dess of health, but were unacquainted with the ful- 
ness of her generous bounties. Of the importance 
of regimen as a means of preserving health they 
were fully aware; but they were impotent to arrest 
the ravages of pestilential diseases, which were re- 
garded as visitations indicative of divine wrath and 
as ungovernable by human agency. To say nothing 
of vaccination and of the other means now adopted to 
arrest the spread of contagious maladies, how great- 
ly has our ability increased within a few years to 
lessen the ravages of epidemic disorders. 
Does the poisonous miasm of cholera or of yellow 
fever, wafted by the cohorts of Death, threaten the 
land, we have merely to invoke the aid of Hygeia, 
more liberal in her benefactions in these latter days 
than formerly, and the goddess sprinkles over her 
supplicating subjects the dusky carbon, the invigo- 
rating oxygen, the restorative iodine, bromine, and 
chlorine, and the miasm, as it touches with deadly 
venom, is changed to inertness, and the vanquished 
cohorts drive on their reduced vapor to other realms 
where the divinity is less revered, and there death 
holds high carnival. 
Though science enables us to neutralize many of 
the atmospherical conditions giving rise to epidemic 
and endemic diseases, it is somewhat singular that 
the precise nature of such aerial contaminations has 
not been discovered. Their poisonous influences are 
readily recognized by their effects upon mankind; 
indeed, in some instances by their effect also upon 
the inferior animals. Homer, in his Iliad, in allud- 
ing to this fact, relates that— 48 
DISCOUESE. 
“On mules and dogs tlie infection first began, 
And last the vengeful arrows fix’d in man.” 
In our own day epizooties liave been observed 
as occurring antecedently to and concurrently with 
epidemics. 
It is fortunate that we are enabled to arrest the 
ravages of pestilential disorders, and are even com- 
petent to prevent an epidemic by early extinguish- 
ing the germs of disease, while at the same time we 
are unaware of the exact character of the subtile 
agents we are destroying. The miasm of cholera 
and the malaria of yellow fever, except in a very few 
localities, offer only occasional opportunities of ex- 
amining their essential qualities; but paludal exha- 
lations from time immemorial have afforded ample 
occasion for study over a large extent of territory 
and during a part of every year. 
The Pontine marshes spread infection in the terri- 
tory of the Volschi, as they contaminate the same 
tract of country for its modern inhabitants. The 
troops engaged in the wars of the classical era doubt- 
less suffered from malarial influences precisely similar 
to those which have desolated our own forces on the 
shores of the Chickahominy and Pamunkey. But the 
Italian morass, thirty miles in length and eight in 
breadth, has at times been partially converted into 
inoffensive and fertile plains by the thorough system 
of drainage enforced during the reigns of Augustus, 
Nerva, and Trajan, and during the pontificate of 
Pius the Sixth. At other periods engineering re- 
sources were neglected ; rich fields degenerated into 
impassable and noisome bogs, while the inhabitants DISCOURSE. 
49 
of the environs lost their ruddiness and acquired an 
anaemic pallor. 
Had the efforts towards reclamation been persist- 
ently made from the time of their inception by the 
Consul Cethegus, a baneful spot could have been 
permanently obliterated; stagnant waters could 
have been collected into running streams; quag- 
mire converted into loam, and the low vegetation of 
a vast fen metamorphosed into genial fruitfulness. 
The earth itself would have become as magnificent 
a monument of the philosophy and grandeur of an- 
cient Roman civilization as have been the classical 
literature and massive architecture of the historical 
period alluded to. 
In modern times there have been imitations of the 
ancient methods of draining in numerous localities, 
but nowhere perhaps has any much more extended 
and more promising scheme been attempted than in 
the one to which I have especial]y referred. The 
benefits to be derived from the construction of arti- 
ficial water-courses, so arranged as to draw off exces- 
sive surface moisture, can scarcely be over-estimated; 
such benefits redound to the physical welfare of 
mankind and to the agricultural interests of a State. 
It is painful, however, to acknowledge inability to 
detect, either chemically or microscopically, the 
subtile agent engendered in marshy and littoral 
situations, and to confess ignorance respecting the 
modus operandi of the poison upon the human 
economy. We peruse the most elaborate mono- 
graphs relating to these subjects without deriving 
from them any precise scientific knowledge, and in 
despair almost feel inclined to turn for information 50 
DISCOUESE. 
to the paper by Samuel Pickwick, Esq., read before 
the Pickwick Club, and entitled “ Speculations' on 
the Source of the Hampstead Ponds, with Some Ob- 
servations on the Theory of Tittlebats.” A field of 
inquiry is still open in the direction to which I have 
made reference. Let us not be satisfied in conquer- 
ing a foe of whose character we are ignorant. We 
know its numerous lairs—let us search its haunts 
among the ignesfatui till we entrap the poison, and 
announce its properties as found, either in animal- 
cules or vegetable fungi, or in inorganic solid, liquid, 
gas, or vapor. 
In no respect, perhaps, is the astuteness of the 
ancients more remarkably exhibited than in their 
views concerning solar and lunar influence upon 
mankind. Some of the phenomena they ascribed to 
such agency we recognize as due to the same cause, 
but explain their occurrence in a different manner; 
while others, asserted to have been observed in earlier 
days, we scarcely admit to have noted. 
The Psalmist, in predicting the blessings of a 
future condition, has said :—“ The sun shall not smite 
thee by day, nor the moon by night.” The Scrip- 
tures record two cases of sunstroke—one the son of 
the Shunammite, who, being “ in the field with the 
reapers, said unto his father, My head, my head! And 
when he had taken him to his mother, he sat on her 
knees till noon and then died.” The second: “ And 
Manasses was her husband, of her tribe and kindred, 
who died in the barley harvest; for as he stood in 
the field, overseeing them, and bound sheaves, the 
sun came upon his head, and he died in his bed in 
the city of Betliulia.” I do not recall any instances 
in holy writ of injury induced by the moon. DISCOURSE. 
51 
Sunstrokes have been observed in all periods of 
the world and are encountered in our own day. The 
early philosophers were no less keen, however, in re- 
marking the salutary as well as the insalutary in- 
fluences of the solar ray. The importance of fresh 
air and of exposure to the sun in genial weather was 
fully understood, and solar air-baths, in some in- 
stances, were constructed on the house-tops, to which 
the inmates might resort for recreation and health. 
The ancients were of course ignorant of the precise 
nature of the atmosphere and of the sun’s ray, but 
had observed their beneficial action upon animals. 
It has been reserved for modern times to give the 
explanation. We have thought until quite recently 
that we understood the composition of the air and 
the nature of light, but within comparatively a few 
years the experiments of Fraunhofer, Bunsen, and 
Kirclihof * by means of the spectroscope, have exhibi- 
ted the fact that the incandescent sun emits into its 
atmosphere iron, nickel, sodium, calcium, magnesium, 
chromium, etc., and we have consequently learned that 
the solar ray is more complex than was hitherto 
imagined. Is it not reasonable to suppose that in 
addition to any salutary chemical action of the sun- 
light upon mankind, that the vapor of iron, etc., may 
be absorbed through the lungs and skin, and be made 
to play an important part in the vital economy ? 
Thus it is that certain phenomena of nature, cor- 
rectly observed by the ancient philosophers, are sci- 
entifically explained by the sages of the nineteenth 
century. 
By the same manner of spectrum analysis, Miller, 
Huggins, Father Secclii, Alexander Herschel, and 52 
DISCOUKSE. 
others, have informed ns of the composition of the 
fixed stars, nebulae, comets, meteors, etc., while the 
chemists employ a similar method to decipher the 
nature of various terrene substances, and have thereby 
detected several ultimate inorganic elements which 
had previously escaped recognition. 
Lunar influence, from a remote antiquity, has been 
regarded as being unfavorable upon mankind. The 
term lunacy, still employed in our nosology, is indi- 
cative of this olden regard. The periods of new and 
full moon were believed to be inimical to health, and 
during; the course of diseases induced unfavorable 
crises. These views, becoming associated with the 
vagaries of the astrologists, were, for the most part, 
discarded, but there have been a few in modern 
times who have clung to the dogma. In India a 
disease occurs known as coup de lune / and it is very 
popularly believed here and elsewhere that repose 
in the moonlight is injurious. Milton, in alluding to 
this belief, speaks of 
“ Demoniac frenzy, moping melancholy, 
And moon-struck madness.” 
Poe, in illustrating the desire to escape exposure to 
the moonlight during sleep, has prettily said, 
“’Neath blue-bell or streamer, 
Or tufted wild spray, 
That keeps from the dreamer 
The moonbeam away.” 
How much either of truth or of fancy there is in 
such views is as yet undecided. Dr. Winslow, of 
England, has recently directed special attention to 
the subject of lunar influence as a cause of disease, DISCOURSE. 
53 
and as modifying tlie course of ordinary maladies, 
more particularly when the moon is in conjunction 
and opposition ; while Dr. Hewson, of this country, 
has written on the value of the barometer as a 
guide in the choice of the time for, and the prognosis 
in, surgical operations. Further facts and observa- 
tions are needed to elucidate various points relating 
to the matter. Whether the polarized light of the 
lunar ray can unfavorably affect the sleeper exposed 
to it, or whether the moon when in its syzygies, and 
drawing our atmosphere into feeble tides similar to 
the tides of the ocean, can affect the human economy, 
or in any other ways, are subjects worthy of investi- 
gation. Possibly future researches will throw new 
light upon the text of Scripture which we have be- 
fore quoted, and illustrate the fact that the observa- 
tions of the ancient physicians were as lucid con- 
cerning lunar as concerning solar influence. 
While the earlier writers of our profession have 
very accurately described many of the disorders 
which we now encounter, it is somewhat singular 
that no mention is found of one malady which is 
at present frequently observed, the etiology and 
nature of which it is not difficult to decipher— 
I allude to delirium tremens. The cause of this 
disease we recognize in the abuse of alcoholic stimu- 
lants. Wines are known to have been in use from 
a remote antiquity. The Scriptures speak of their 
employment, and give the Divine anathema which was 
pronounced upon the drunkard. Profane history re- 
cords many a bacchanalian orgy, and represents the 
gods as revelling in nectar. Postprandial intoxica- 
tion is not a modern species of debauchery. Homer 54 
DISCOUKSE. 
describes the feast at which were gathered the Tro- 
jan heroes, and thus reports the speech of the royal 
Ulysses:— 
“ Hear me, my friends ! who this good banquet grace, 
’Tis sweet to play the fool in time and place; 
And wine can of their wits the wise beguile, 
Make the sage frolic, and the serious smile ; 
The grave in merry measures frisk about, 
And many a long-repented word come out! 
Since to be talkative I now commence, 
Let wit cast off the sullen yoke of sense.” 
While drunkenness was common in ancient times, 
no allusion is made to mania a potu. The first tract 
relating to the subject emanated, I believe, from the 
pen of Dr. Samuel Burton Pearson, in 1801; but 
the malady had been recognized during the latter 
part of the last century. Are we to attribute the 
silence of the old authors to a presumed fact that 
the disease had not made its appearance in their 
day ? Has the nervous system become so sensitive 
in modern times that it is peculiarly impressed by 
stimulating liquors? It seems probable that the 
disease was overlooked by our early predecessors, 
or was confounded with some other malady. 
The present successful management of the disor- 
der exhibits the confidence which our profession can 
at times repose in the power of nature. The opium 
treatment, so long strenuously advocated, is now 
abandoned as unnecessary, and as liable, occasionally, 
to induce mischief. The recent experiments of Lalle- 
mand, Duroy, Perrine, and Anstie, have shown that 
alcohol is partly decomposed in the body and partly 
eliminated through the lungs, skin, and kidneys. DISCOURSE. 
55 
Viewing acute alcoholism as a case of poisoning, 
we are instructed to aid nature in eliminating tlie 
offending agent, and in doing so we are not called 
upon to employ very potent drugs. 
Improvements in natural philosophy and its col- 
lateral branches have aided the medical man in more 
thoroughly understanding the human organism, and 
also have enlarged his power to prevent and cure 
disease. Galileo, towards the commencement of the 
seventeenth century, was led to the construction of 
the microscope from that of the telescope. It was 
ordained that the telescope should reach perfection 
before the microscope. If Galileo, Kepler, Newton, 
Halley, and Herschel were appalled at the won- 
ders of infinite space, what would have been their 
astonishment could they have beheld the infinitesi- 
mal microcosms revealed during the present century. 
The science of optics has proved an handmaid of 
Hygeia and an ally of Therapeia. 
It has been said : 
“ Diseased nature oftentimes breaks forth 
In strange eruptions ; ” 
but modern lenses reveal the fact that numerous cu- 
taneous affections are of local origin, dependent upon 
the presence of cryptogamia, epizoa, etc., and are 
amenable to local treatment. 
To say nothing of various other vegetable and 
animal parasites which infest the human body, we 
have comparatively recently detected, by aid of the 
microscope, the loathsome trichinae. We are not only 
enabled by the means indicated to form a diagnosis, 
but also are made competent to find the sources of 
these worms in articles of food. Aliment containing 56 
DISCOURSE. 
such insects can be destroyed. Disease and death 
can thus be averted by the scientific application of 
that instrument which in a simple form was conceiv- 
ed by the illustrious Galileo. 
Possibly our search in regard to the precise compo- 
sition of alimentary substances had better be avoid- 
ed, unless such articles are known to be provocative 
of disease. We should probably find them so loaded 
with life as rather to prefer to die from inanition 
than to live on hemi-demi-semi-quavering vibriones. 
The vegetable kingdom is not exempt from its pe- 
culiar parasites. The Scriptures say, “ I smote you 
with blasting and with mildew.” This scourge of 
crops has induced famines among the ancient Jews 
and Romans, during the middle ages and in modern 
times. The farmers, in their homely nosology, employ 
the terms smut, bunt, rust, and mildew to the more 
common diseases of vegetation. Modern science has 
not confined its attention to animal pathology, but 
has paid regard to the disorders of the sister king- 
dom of nature, and it is found that “ blasting and mil- 
dew ” are conditions induced by innumerable vege- 
table parasites,—not a ]3lant cultivated by man is free 
from such fungi. The Ustilcigo segetum, the Ustilago 
maydis, the Puccinia graminis, the Trichobasis 
rubigo vera, etc., the more common enemies of the 
cereals, are as readily recognized as are the cysticer- 
cus and trichina. 
I have not the time to allude to the numerous 
elucidations of pathology and therapeutics which 
have been made by the microscope. Ever inqui- 
sitive, our profession has not been tardy in its in- 
vestigations with the means at its command. From DISCOURSE. 
57 
necessity it lias liacl to wait patiently until tlie nine- 
teenth century, when it has been presented with im- 
proved optical appliances with which to make the 
more minute observations. 
The science of Meteorology, which has so materi- 
ally aided the elucidation of Etiology, more especi- 
ally that of the epidemic disorders, has only within 
the present century assumed any degree of import- 
ance. Theophrastus, Aristotle, Virgil, Pliny, Lucre- 
tius, and others had written on the subject; but the 
ancient philosophers very imperfectly understood 
meteorology, for they were unaided by apparatus 
which accurately exhibited atmospherical vicissi- 
tudes. 
It was not until the seventeenth century that the 
air-thennometer was invented by Sanctorius and 
Drebbel, and the spirit-thermometer described by the 
Florentine Accademia del Cimento; while the mer- 
curial thermometer was not in use until the early 
part of the eighteenth century, when it was first 
constructed by Reaumur and Fahrenheit. 
Torricelli invented the mercurial barometer; he 
died shortly after, in 1647, in his thirty-ninth year, 
and unfortunately before the world had appreciated 
the importance of his discovery that the atmosphere 
possessed weight. Pascal, at Rouen, repeated the ex- 
periments of the Italian philosopher, and employed, 
in addition, water and wine barometers, and in 1646 
laid his conclusions before the public. His views 
were at the time received with derision, but the pre- 
judices of an alchemistic age could not prevail 
against the truths of science, and now for more than 
two centuries the barometer has been regarded as an 58 
DISCOURSE. 
important meteorological instrument. It was not 
until a later period, namely, in 1676, tliat tlie varia- 
tions in aerial moisture could be satisfactorily ascer- 
tained. In that year Corners produced an hygro- 
meter—an appliance doubtless much inferior to those 
used in more recent times for the same purpose. 
From the dates I have given to the present day, 
numerous thermometrical, barometrical, and hygro- 
metrical observations, etc., have been made in vari- 
ous parts of the world, and as a result meteorology 
has been elevated to a science. By its aid our pro- 
fession has been enabled-to decipher the climatology 
of disease, and has thus drawn numerous and im- 
portant prophylactic and therapeutical inferences. 
In addition thereto, it has been qualified to detect 
atmospherical conditions favoring the origin and 
spread of epidemic and contagious disorders. The re- 
sources of Hygiene and Chemistry have in many in- 
stances proved efficient in destroying terrene causes 
of disease, and thus prevented their co-operation with 
inimical conditions of the general atmosphere which 
are less under human control. The poison liable to 
be engendered by such combined influences is pestilen- 
tial, and almost ungovernable except by natural 
agencies. 
There is one meteorological principle which it ap- 
pears to me has not been sufficiently observed in 
reference to its causation of disease. I refer to 
electricity, both atmospherical and terrestrial. The 
intensity of atmospherical electricity is found to 
vary with the hour of the day, and to vary with the 
season of the year. Professor Loomis informs us 
that there are two daily maxima of intensity, and DISCOURSE. 
59 
two daily minima, and that there is one annual max- 
imum of intensity and one minimum. Can the hu- 
man body be subjected to such variations in its sur- 
rounding atmosphere without jeopardy? Can elec- 
tricity, when acting jointly with other aerial condi- 
tions, induce an insalutary atmosphere ? Can this 
subtile power, operating either alone or in combina- 
tion upon inanimate terrene bodies, thus induce an 
influence capable of exciting disease in man? Is 
terrestrial electricity nugatory in its effect upon 
the human economy? We have yet much to learn on 
these subjects, and they are worthy of more extended 
examination than they have hitherto received. 
It would be an oversight were I not to allude in 
passing to electricity in .other of its bearings as of 
interest to our profession. The agent referred to 
was recognized by the early philosophers, deriving 
its name from the Greek rfexrpov, signifying amber, 
so called because excited by friction upon that fossil. 
Thales of Miletus, Theophrastus, Pliny, and others 
referred to a few of its properties, but it was re- 
served for one of our calling, Dr. Gilbert of Colches- 
ter, about the year 1600, to inaugurate the science 
of electricity. In its development our countrymen 
have played an important part. Franklin exhibited 
many of the qualities of the imponderable agent, 
and established its identity with lightning, and 
practically utilized his discovery by the construction 
of rods adapted to protect buildings and vessels dur- 
ing thunder-storms. Morse has employed the same 
principle as a means for the transmission of intelli- 
gence ; while Field, with commercial enterprise, has 
united in telegraphic communication continents di- 60 
DISCOURSE. 
vided by seas. Galvanism, a branch of natural phi- 
losophy kindred to that of electricity, owes its origin 
chiefly to Galvani, physician and professor of ana- 
tomy at Bologna, in 1791. An accident directed his 
attention to the subject. Some frogs, prepared for 
cooking, and designed for his invalid wife, were lying 
in his laboratory near an electrical apparatus which 
was in action. The limbs of the animals, happening 
to be touched with a scalpel, were instantly con- 
vulsed. His notice was directed to this phenomenon, 
and he was led to investigate its cause. On publish- 
ing his experiments, he announced as a discovery 
that the animal body possessed an inherent electri- 
city of a specific kind. Shortly after came Yalii and 
Fowler, while Volta inaugurated a new system of 
experiments with the galvanic or voltaic pile. Since 
their day other observers, with improved instru- 
ments, have developed an electro-galvanic current 
potent in the decomposition of various compounds, 
and a valuable adjunct to chemistry in many of its 
applications. 
While electro-galvanism has proved of incalcula- 
ble advantage to mankind in an indirect manner, as 
I have indicated, it has also become a direct source 
of value. Our profession has not been satisfied that 
a powerful agent, first philosophically described by 
the illustrious physician of Queen Elizabeth, and 
subsequently, in a modified form, by the Italian an- 
atomist, should be appropriated solely by the more 
mechanical departments of science. Vital electricity 
has been made a subject of special study, and at the 
present day we possess elaborate treatises, based on 
exact knowledge, relating to electrical currents as DISCOURSE. 
61 
speeding through vegetable fibres and through ani- 
mal tissues. 
From electro-physiology has been deduced a prac- 
tical branch of medicine : I refer to electro-therapeu- 
tics. The electric current, artificially induced, is 
now skillfully applied to the animal economy as a 
remedial agent, and may be so tempered as to suit 
diverse morbid conditions. We observe it inducing 
motion where there is palsy; sensation in anaesthesia; 
anaesthesia in liyperaesthesia; imparting tone where 
there is atony, and, according to the degree of its in- 
tensity, causing either the gradual or sudden de- 
struction of abnormal growths. In alluding to these 
branches of medicine we should not fail to recall the 
brilliant labors of our young countryman, Dr. Charles 
E. Morgan, whose premature decease the profession 
of this city has so recently been called upon to de- 
plore. 
It has been contended that the practice of medi- 
cine in our own day has been too freely divided into 
specialties. This division of labor, however, will 
doubtless conduce to the promotion of science and 
to the amelioration of disease. Nor is it a novel 
precedent. Herodotus states, as given by Black, 
that when “ he made the tour of Egypt, every phy- 
sician applied himself to the cure of a single disease 
only, by which means physicians abounded every- 
where—some professing the cure of the eyes, some 
of the head and teeth, some of external, and others 
of internal disorders.” 
We are not warranted in approving or in emulat- 
ing such extreme dilution of labor; its adoption 
would weaken, not strengthen our skill. It seems 62 
DISCOURSE. 
necessary, nevertheless, for a few individuals in 
every large community to concentrate tlieir energies 
on special departments of medical science, and the 
plan as at present adopted seems the one best cal- 
culated to achieve the purpose designed by such con- 
centration, and is an evident improvement upon the 
example of those forefathers who preceded us twenty- 
three centuries. The specialists cannot expect to 
escape the shafts of satire. Hood has employed his 
genius against the aurists when, in his Tale of a 
Trumpet, he relates the cure performed by the itine- 
rant pedler:— 
“ There was Mrs. F., 
So very deaf, 
That she might have worn a percussion cap, 
And be knock’d on the head without hearing it snap; 
Well, I sold her a horn, and the very next day 
She heard from her husband at Botany Bay ! ” 
Though hygiene and therapeutics have made many 
advancements, there is a limit to their progress. To 
say nothing respecting the prevention and cure of 
the graver acute diseases, how many chronic dis- 
orders are there, especially of the nervous system, for 
which prophylaxis and relief are almost sought for 
in vain. Can drug be found to smooth the wrinkled 
face of grief ? Can herb revive the heart subdued 
with care? Can mineral, floating fleetly through 
the veins, chase out perplexities which corrode the 
brain? Can spirit, permeating every mortal cell, 
give tone to the crushed frame of proud ambition ? 
Can gas or vapor enliven cast-down melancholy ? 
Can elixir give bloom to the tidy housewife dis- 
tracted by domestic anxieties ? Can there on earth DISCOURSE, 
63 
be found a panacea for such mental bruises ? And 
when the shades of night have closed about, and the 
aching head seeks repose, insomnolency too often 
aggravates the anguish. And when “ the breezy 
call of incense-breathing morn ” invites all living 
creatures to exertion, the sleepless being rises to en- 
counter new troubles, while enervated by his rest- 
less midnight tossings:— 
“ The careful Betty the pillow beats, 
And airs the blankets, and smooths the sheets, 
And gives the mattress a shaking; 
But vainly Betty performs her part, 
If a ruffled head and a rumpled heart, 
As well as the couch, want making.” 
The Scriptures say,—“The sleep of a laboring 
man is sweet, whether he eat little or much; but the 
abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep.” 
With what truth could King Henry the IVth ex- 
claim— 
“ IIow many thousands of my poorest subjects 
Are at this hour asleep ! Sleep, gentle sleep ! 
Nature’s soft nurse, how have I frighted thee, 
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down, 
And steep my senses in forgetfulness ! 
Why rather, sleep, best thou in smoky cribs, 
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee, 
And hushed with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber, 
Than in the perfumed chambers of the great, 
Under the canopies of costly state, 
And lulled with sounds of sweetest melody ? 
Then happy, lowly clown ! 
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.” 
Reference has been made to a few of the difficul- 
ties which have retarded the progress of medical 64 
DISCOURSE. 
science; tliere are discouragements encountered by 
physicians to which I have not alluded. How many 
in the community are to be found, of education and 
refinement, who intrust their lives, as well as those 
of their families, to confirmed empirics or to ephe- 
meral charlatans, who, like 
“ Morning insects that in muck begun, 
Shine, buzz, and fly-blow in the setting sun.” 
The success of these numerous unprincipled de- 
ceivers scarcely fails to dampen the ardor of the 
members of the legitimate profession. If ignorance 
is rewarded by the patronage of intelligent persons, 
little encouragement is offered to prosecute studies 
which, to a certain extent, are insalutary upon those 
engaged in them. Those entering the profession are 
sorely tempted to spend their leisure moments in 
slippered idleness rather than engage in original ex- 
plorations unproductive of pecuniary remuneration. 
It would be charitable on our part to ascribe to 
the modern patrons of quacks the same causes for 
their conduct as Cleomenes the Lacedaemonian as- 
cribed for his. A friend wondering that this philo- 
sopher, afflicted with a chronic disease, should consult 
a wizard, asked him the reason for such a change. 
“ It is,” he replied, “ because I am not the same man 
now that I was some time before, and consequently, 
as I am not the same man, I do not approve of the 
same things.” 
Our profession is worthy of the highest confi- 
dence in that it is liberal, progressive, and honora- 
ble. It is liberal in purpose, in its recognition of 
true merit, and in its benefactions. We read that DISCOUESE. 
65 
Antonius Musa, though bom in slavery, became a dis- 
tinguished physician, and for his cure of the Emperor 
Augustus was honored by a brazen statue, erected 
by order of the Roman Senate, which was placed 
near that of Aesculapius; while his brother Euphor- 
bus was scarcely less noted, and became the physi- 
cian of King Juba. In our own day how many 
have attained the highest positions which their 
brethren could bestow upon them, though they have 
been unaided by ancestry or by patrimonial estate. 
For the benevolence of our profession I have 
merely to point to the abodes of poverty, to the 
almshouses, dispensaries, and hospitals, in which is 
willingly and gratuitously bestowed the best medi- 
cal talent of city and of country. But in this regard 
we are but following the example of our predecessors. 
Boerhaave declared that u the poor were his best pa- 
tients, for God was their paymaster.” Fotliergill 
gave “ half of all his goods to the poor,” while Dr. 
Heberden, on being reproved for his far-famed gene- 
rosity, replied :—“ After all my charities I am afraid 
that I shall die shamefully rich.” 
Early and deeply imbued with a reverential re- 
gard for the peculiar responsibilities of his profes- 
sion, the medical man has scarcely ever been known 
to desert the path of honor while in the discharge 
of his duties. History affords many instances of 
high-toned physicians. Artaxerxes, aware of the 
skill of Hippocrates, besought him to arrest the 
malady which was desolating his forces, but Hip- 
pocrates spurned the proposal and the splendid gifts 
offered by the enemy of his native island. Alex- 
ander the Great, dangerously ill, was informed by 66 
DISCOURSE. 
letter from Parmenio that Philip, his physician, had 
conspired against his life and was about to admin- 
ister to him a poison. As Philip approached him 
he drank the proffered draught while handing the 
venomous epistle of his lieutenant to his faithful 
physician. His confidence was rewarded by his 
early recovery. 
VI recall but one prominent instance in which a 
physician has proved faithless to his trust. Fabritius, 
when Consul, received letters from the King’s medi- 
cal attendant, proposing, if desired, to destroy the 
monarch and thus end the war. Fabritius sent the 
communication to Pyrrhus, desiring him “ to take 
care of himself, since he had, in all appearances, 
made as bad a choice of his friends as he did of his 
enemies.” Pyrrhus forthwith hung his physician, 
and as a reward to his enemy for the discovery of 
the design returned to Fabritius all the Homan pri- 
soners. Fabritius refused accepting them unless as 
an exchange for an equal number of the Epirotse, 
declaring that he disclosed the plot not “ from any 
regard to Pyrrhus, but to clear the Homans from all 
imputation of desiring to conquer an enemy by fraud 
whom they could not conquer by valor and virtue.” 
Fortunately, history has not transmitted to us the 
name of the ignoble physician. 
We live in an enlightened age; it is not the aim 
of the medical profession to pander to the supersti- 
tious regard of the community. Until quite a recent 
time, however, the physician was held in almost pre- 
ternatural respect, and such reverence was courted 
by assuming a peculiarity of mien and attire. In 
the sixteenth and part of the seventeenth century DISCOURSE. 
67 
“the physician was disguised under a grave and 
solemn countenance, was caparisoned in an enormous 
wig, a full-trimmed coat buttoned to the bottom, and 
other extravagant paraphernalia.” It may be irrev- 
erent on our part to smile at ancestral idiosyncra- 
sies, but we can scarcely fail to recall in this connec- 
tion the lines of Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes in the 
Last Leaf:— 
“ I know it is a sin 
For me to stand and grin 
At him here; 
But the old three-cornered hat, 
And the breeches and all that, 
Are so queer ! ” 
Our legal brethren have been slower than our- 
selves in divesting themselves of distinctive attire. 
Memory need not fatigue itself in recalling their 
courtly trappings of wigs, silken vestments, and er- 
mine-lined robes—nor are we surprised that the 
lawyers have been loath to part with these artificial 
means of exciting the awe of the populace. Have 
they not needed such resources ? 
“ Through tatter’d clothes small vices do appear— 
Robes and furr’d gowns hide all.” 
Unfortunate has ever been the physician who has 
suffered examination from these barristers. If 
human testimony is worthy of consideration, with 
what small regard have the legal profession been 
held as compared with our own. Was Justinian or 
were his predecessors or successors ever deified? Were 
temples or statues erected to commemorate the lives 68 
DISCOUKSE. 
and examples of living or deceased jurists ? Have 
they possessed tutelary gods . or goddesses ? Anti- 
quity yields them no such tribute. Was it in sarcasm 
that Arbuthnot said, “ Law is a bottomless pit; it is 
a cormorant, a harpy that devours everything ” ? 
Was it in satire that Otway declared, “Law is a 
torment of all torments ” ? Crabbe has said— 
“ Law was designed to keep a state in peace, 
To punish robbery, that wrong might cease ; 
To be impregnable; a constant fort, 
To which the weak and injured might resort; 
But these perverted minds its force employ, 
Not to protect mankind, but to annoy ; 
And long as ammunition can be found, 
Its lightning flashes and its thunders sound.” 
Samuel Butler represents the lawyer, 
“ With books and money plac’d for show, 
Like nest-eggs to make clients lay, 
And for his false opinion pay.” 
Shakespeare describes the judge— 
“ And then the 
J ustice 
In fair round belly, with good capon lin’d, 
With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut, 
Full of wise saws and modern instances, 
And so he plays his part.” 
While Pope, to exhibit the injustice of the law, has 
said:— 
“The hungry judges soon the sentence sign, 
And wretches hang, that jurymen may dine.” 
Recall the numerous cold dinners we have taken. 
How many choice dishes have been consigned to the 
garbage-box, but which we had indulged the hope 
of enjoying ourselves, detained perhaps from the DISCOURSE. 
69 
meal while in attendance at hamlet or hospital upon 
some abject pauper invalid, or while assisting at the 
birth of some unfortunate being whose prospective 
heirloom is a discordant hand-organ and phthisical 
monkey! Have any of the legal profession been 
drawn hither on this public anniversary occasion,— 
to such, a word. The opportunity is constantly afford- 
ed you, when examining medical experts as witnesses, 
to ridicule medical science, to entangle opinions, to 
overcome testimony with jest, and perchance thus to 
exonerate a worthless client. When occasion is pre- 
sented to us of trying the merits of our steel, you 
are prostrate before us, and it is ignoble to smite even 
a fallen foe. I have availed myself of quotations 
from laymen to playfully give an Academical tit for 
a courtly tat. Remember that in our apothecary’s 
hall you no longer find 
“ a tortoise hung, 
An alligator stuff’d, and other skins 
Of ill-shaped fishes ; ” 
but in their places you observe, in Gothic alcoves, 
the busts of Hippocrates, of Galen, of Harvey, of 
Laennec, of Mott, of Francis, and of Stevens; the 
pill-boxes remain, but they are filled with dragees; 
in place of musty seeds, and old cakes of roses, you 
find tinctures more potent and savory than the spar- 
kling ruby wine; extracts containing the concentrated 
virtues of forests, and chemicals more subtile than 
disease. 
We recognize in members of the legal profession wise 
counsellors, incorruptible judges, learned statesmen, 
—it is the charlatans, like the medical empirics, who 
are the chief objects of our derision. The regular 70 
DISCOURSE. 
medical profession offers its heart and hand to the 
legitimate legal profession; nay, let us form a triple 
alliance, and include in the bond our clerical breth- 
ren, for whether we travel north, south, east, or 
west, wherever suffering humanity is to be found, 
there we should observe the clergy, physicians, and 
lawyers conscientiously united in aiding the interests 
of soul, body, and estate. 
Mr. President and Fellows, I will no longer tres- 
pass on your patience, and will hasten to conclude 
my remarks. Though I have been compelled to 
omit many points relevant to my subject, and have 
but loosely thrown together scattered thoughts, I 
have endeavored to explain some of the causes 
which have retarded the development of medical 
philosophy, and to exhibit its present claims to the 
highest regard. For these many centuries our 
science has been moving in the stream of time with 
wind and tide against it. It has never, for a 
moment, been carried backward, nor has it ever 
dropped anchor, but by constant and short tackings 
has made steady though slow progress. Our craft 
has been sharpened by attrition with the current, and 
is now so skillfully managed that the tacks are longer 
and the speed greater. We are eVen anticipating 
the coming of some great genius who can aid it by 
an impetus to steam along against the elements of 
obstruction which will always necessarily oppose it. 
But how few, comparatively, can be the triumphs 
of therapeutics while man is wedded to his present 
habits. Man for the most part fails to accomplish 
the natural term of life by reason of his folly. 
What mortification and feelings of incompetency do DISCOURSE. 
71 
we experience on losing a patient by death—though 
we may feel persuaded that the subject of disease 
was a victim of an hereditary taint, and perchance, 
in addition thereto, of his own enervating practices. 
The Lacedaemonians in the selection of their wives 
were as fastidious in regard to the physique of the 
ladies as in respect to character and social position. 
A heavy fine was imposed upon their king, Archi- 
damus, for marrying a diminutive woman. u For,” 
said they, “ she will bring us a race of kinglets in- 
stead of kings.” 
It becomes the duty of this Academy, in u the pro- 
motion of the public health,” to instruct the com- 
munity in reference to sanitary science, and thus aid 
in the establishment of a race of robust beings, ill 
disposed to disease,, and fitted to cast it off if seized 
by it. 
Dr. Holmes has correctly said— 
“ To guard is better than to heal; 
The shield is nobler than the spear.” 
There are many terse hygienic precepts recorded 
in the writings of others than those of physicians. 
Shakespeare has said— 
“ And many strokes, though with a little axe, 
Hew down and fell the liardest-timber’d oak ; ” 
and elsewhere has remarked— 
“ Purge and leave sack, and live cleanly.” 
Dryden, in reprobating sedentary habits, has play- 
fully written— 
“ Better to hunt in fields for health unbought 
Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught: 
The wise for health on exercise depend; 
God never made his work for man to mend.” 72 
DISCOURSE. 
Should mankind resolve from this hour to be 
guided by hygienic principles, this Academy could 
scatter its forces, and its Fellows seek new fields of 
labor. After appointing a committee to preserve its 
archives, we could on this, its twenty-second anni- 
versary, disband, and in parting adopt the words of 
the Moor of Venice— 
“ Farewell! Othello’s occupation’s gone ! ” 
And what a change would soon be observed in 
the appearance of our race. Fagnani need not 
search the land for types of the Muses, but could 
sketch his neighboring maidens. The sculptor, in 
typifying the Apollo Belvidere, need not mould 
together the foot of one, leg of another, thigh of 
another, trunk of another, arm of another, and head 
of neither one of the others, but could model from 
his first virile visitor. Moping melancholy would 
be buried with the forsaken mortars and pestles, and 
for its gloomy face we could observe the reality of 
Milton’s conception— 
u Jest and youthful jollity, 
Quips and cranks and wanton wiles, 
Nods and becks and wreathed smiles, 
Such as hang on Hebe’s cheek, 
And love to live in dimple sleek ; 
Sport that wrinkled care derides, 
And laughter holding both its sides.” 
Then would the period of human existence be 
prolonged to its utmost physiological limit, and 
venerated age enjoy a euthanasia as described by 
Crashaw:— DISCOURSE. 
73 
“ And when life’s sweet fable ends, 
Soul and body part like friends ; 
No quarrels, murmurs, no delay— 
A kiss, a sigh, and so—away.” 
But the world is not prepared to inaugurate a 
doctorless era, and our ears as well as those of our 
successors are to be burdened with the groans of 
anguish, and our eyes with sights of woe. While 
we cannot prevent the occurrence of all diseases, 
there are many disorders which we can relieve, and 
there is not one in our nosology, however incurable, 
whose pangs we cannot at least mitigate. We have 
at least arrived at such perfection that we are gen- 
erally acquainted with the nature of the disease 
even in every irremediable case. It is a painful 
duty, but a pleasurable success, to define the cluster 
of tubercles, to discover the granular kidney, to mark 
the course of the internal aneurism. It is a sad 
task, but a scientific triumph, to compare the sym- 
phony of healthy respiration with the daily vary- 
ing intonations in the hectic’s bosom, and foretell 
the approach of the harsh death-rattle which will 
soon be audible, and its import appreciable to an 
untaught bystander. The task is a pleasurable one, 
however, when the same acoustic skill enables 
us to proclaim the recession of disease. Mournful 
though it be, is there not music in the rhythm of the 
diseased heart as it murmurs its own knell \ 
If it be interesting to study tissues and viscera in 
health, it is scarcely less so to examine them when 
altered by disease,—in ghastly masquerade, so mor- 
bidly disguised that they bear little resemblance to 
their normal condition. 74 
DISCOURSE. 
Though we exercise our best genius, our great 
enemy death will finally gain the mastery. Sir 
Walter Raleigh has thus apostrophized it:—“ O, 
eloquent, just, and mighty Death ! whom none could 
advise, thou hast persuaded ; what none hath dared, 
thou hast done; and whom all the world hath flattered, 
thou hast cast out of the world and despised; thou 
hast drawn together all the far-stretched greatness, 
all the pride, cruelty, and ambition of men, and 
covered it all over with these two narrow words, 
Hie jacety 
Medical science has not as yet reached the acme 
of its triumphs; but however great may be its future 
achievements, there will always be physiological 
phenomena beyond the comprehension of finite wis- 
dom, and pathological lesions beyond human means 
of restoration. The lamented Webster, in speaking 
of the “ Progress of the Mechanical Arts,” has said:— 
“ God seems to have proposed the material universe 
as a standing perpetual study to his intelligent 
creatures, where, ever learning, they can never learn 
all; and if that material universe shall last till 
man shall have discovered all that is unknown, but 
which, by the progressive improvement of his 
faculties, he is capable of knowing, it will remain 
through a duration beyond human measurement 
and beyond human comprehension.” 
With our comparatively limited knowdedge we are 
encouraged to delve further into the mysteries in 
which our profession involves us. Nor are we to seek 
wisdom in the hope of escaping final dissolution :— 
“ Death but entombs the body, life the soul.” DISCOURSE. 
75 
Indeed we can say— 
“ There is no death ! What seems so is transition ; 
This life of mortal breath 
Is but a suburb of the life elysian 
Whose portal we call Death.” 
We are to continue to labor, not in the expecta- 
tion of making man immortal, but with a desire to 
prevent many of his diseases, to soothe many of his 
pains, and to enable him to live out the Scriptural 
measure of his days. We have received the Divine 
sanction upon our work in the gift of reasoning 
faculties and in the assurance of remedial agents. 
Amid the difficulties which beset our path we need 
not be discouraged— 
O 
i 
“ For o’er the blackness of the storm 
A bow of promise bends on high, 
And gleams of sunshine soft and warm 
Break through our clouded sky.” 
Can we not already begin to discern the signs of 
the times ? By the success of our professional labors 
the average term of human life has been augmented 
and is now greater than it has been for many cen- 
turies. Again : through the efforts of our country- 
men an electric girdle unites in intelligent communi- 
cation many of the nations of the earth, and will 
soon enclose all in its embrace. Is not this one of 
the important initial steps toward the advent of a 
far distant period when, in a brotherhood of nations, 
the Babel of Tongues shall cease, and a common ver- 
nacular shall again be employed by mankind in the 
expression of its ideas ; when, by the gradual spread 
of a Christian civilization through orient and occi- 76 
DISCOURSE. 
dent, from pole to pole, man shall rise from a fallen 
estate to enjoy a renovation physical as well as spi- 
ritual ; when patriarchal longevity shall be restored, 
and the prophecy of Isaiah fulfilled:—“There shall 
be no more thence an infant of days, nor an old 
man that hath not filled his days; for the child shall 
die an hundred years old. . . And they shall build 
houses and inhabit them; and they shall plant vine- 
yards, and eat the fruit of them. They shall not 
build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, 
and another eat: for as the days of a tree are the 
days of my people ” ? (lxv. 20, 21, 22). 
Fellow-Associates, upon you in common with your 
brethren in other parts of the world is imposed the 
sacred duty of advancing the progress of medical 
science. Act well your part; humanity will re- 
ward your zealous and successful labors with its 
regard and honors, while at the same time you will 
contribute to the glory and dignity of the Institution 
which you so fondly cherish—the New York Acade- 
my of Medicine. DR. GOUVERNEUR M. SMITH’S 
ANNIVERSARY DISCOURSE 
1869.