Hygienic Influences AN ADDRESS 
DELIVERED BEFORE THE 
MEDICAL SOCIETY OE THE COUNTY OF KINGS 
ON ITS 
FORTY-SEVENTH ANNIVERSARY, 
A.. IX, 1868, 
BY 
J. H. HOBART BURGE, M. D. 
NEW-YORK: 
Francis Hart k Company, Printers and Stationers, No. 63 Cortt.andt Street. 
J871. J. H. Hobart Burge, M. D., 
President of the Medical Society of the County of Kings. 
My Dear Doctor: 
I hope you will not he offended at the liberty I have taken in having the 
manuscript I borrenved so long ago published. I send you the entire edition, and 
await your approval before appropriating a single copy to my own use, or dis- 
tributing any copies among my friends. I particularly desired to sec this address 
in print, because I believed it calculated to do good. It 7uill present to the popular 
mind a clearer view of the relations of the medical profession to the people, than 
can be found perhaps anywhere else so concisely written. If you accept this tribute 
of my affectionate appreciation in the spirit wh ich prompts it, I shall feel proud 
to have associated 7uith your honored name, that of your sincere friend and 
quondam patient, 
Charles C. Yeaton. 
Ne7o-York, May 25th, 1871. ADDRESS. 
In speaking to you on this forty-seventh, almost semi-cen- 
tennial, anniversary of the Medical Society of the County of 
Kings, fo be altogether professional would hardly be courteous 
to those of other tastes who have come up hither at our invita- 
tion ; and yet, to lay aside entirely the themes upon which we 
are wont to reflect, would, perhaps, disappoint all. Attempt- 
ing, then, no learned disquisition, I bespeak your indulgence 
while I talk of Hygienic Influences. 
Of these, some are familiar to you as household words, yet 
even these we shall not pass over in silence ; others are so 
subtle that no chemist has analyzed them,—no re-agent de- 
tected them,—no microscope discerned them ; and yet, “ by 
their fruits,” we “ know them.” To treat elaborately and dis- 
cuss scientifically even the main topics, which present them- 
selves under the head of “ Hygienic Influences,” would not 
only require much talent and research to make it of any practi- 
cal value or interest, but the hour would be all too short for 
such a purpose. 
The very expression suggests to your mind everything physi- 
cal, moral, intellectual, spiritual, which can, directly or indi- 
rectly, have any effect upon vital phenomena. The subject 
being illimitable, it is obvious that I must prescribe to myself 
some special train of thought. Very briefly, then, let me 
suggest some of the influences which are exerted upon our 
health by Generation, Nutrition, Ventilation, Occupation, Recu- 
peration, Religion and Medication. 
There is no legacy which we can inherit or which we can 
ensure to our children, at all comparable to a good constitu- 
tion. Of what avail is it to inherit gold, honor, titles, king- 
doms, together with a gouty diathesis, a syphilitic taint, a 4 
scrofulous habit, an epileptic predisposition, a rickety frame? 
The practical lesson in this connection lies in the fact that 
children are, with, of course, certain limitations and excep- 
tions, just what their parents are. It is by this transmission 
of appetites, dispositions, faculties and frailties, that “ the 
sins of the fathers are visited upon the children to the third 
and fourth generation of them that hate God,” while through 
the same channel “mercy ” is shown “ to thousands of them 
that love Him and keep His commandments.” There are 
whole families who never make a misstep without breaking a 
bone ; who never cut a finger, or have a tooth extracted 
without danger of fatal hemorrhage ; who never expose them- 
selves to any depressing influence without dread of im- 
pending decline ; who never live to middle age without sure 
prospect of cancer, insanity, or some other kindred ill. To 
none of these unfortunates have we any infallible elixir to 
offer. We can only say to them, avoid persistently the exciting 
causes of those ills to which you have a natural proclivity or 
pre-disposition, and submit yourselves to the best hygienic 
influences within your reach. 
I venture a word more than I would upon this branch of 
my theme, because there is no woe so keen in this world as that 
experienced by a fond parent, in the chastening which some- 
times comes through the cradle of his precious child. 
Every physical organism possessed of circulating fluids and 
endowed with the vital principle, is constantly subject to 
molecular waste; and as effete particles are, by various won- 
derfully reciprocating processes removed, their places must 
be steadily supplied, or destruction to the whole system, or to 
some individual organ, must ensue. Wemust eat. So impor- 
tant is this that our beneficent Creator has established laws 
which act as universal life-preservers to the race. Not only 
is the supply of food regulated by the demand—through the 
arts of husbandry—but we are enticed by the delights of the 
palate on the one hand, or lashed by the pains of abstinence 
on the other, so that of all the methods of self-destruction, 
that by starvation is most unfrequent and most difficult to 
accomplish. No aliment can be regarded as suitable for the 
exclusive diet of man, unless in it are represented all the ele- 
ments which enter into the composition of all the anatomical 5 
tissues. Inanition is, therefore, possible even where large 
quantities of food are taken—that food being of unsuitable 
quality. This fact obtains at every period of life ; so that 
infants are starved at the breast and die of marasmus, and 
men of full age die scorbutic in consequence of being fed 
upon a diet wanting some of the elements essential to supply 
the waste which, as already intimated, every muscular mo- 
tion, every arterial 'pulsation, and every intellectual operation is 
sure to cause. Man is omnivorous, as is shown not only by 
his almost universal habit, but by his anatomical peculiarities. 
Yet so rich is the vegetable kingdom in nutrient materials— 
both nitrogenized and non-nitrogenized—that the experiment 
of proscribing animal food altogether has often been declared 
a success. It is said that neither Lamartine nor his mother 
ever tasted animal food. There are hundreds of vegetarians 
in our own country, who claim for their system great advan- 
tages. Though admitting that we cannot see any evils di- 
rectly accruing therefrom to the masses, yet individual lives 
seem to be occasionally sacrificed by too rigid an adherence 
to the Gfrahamite theory. Beside, we cannot be sure that the 
strength of our race would not gradually be impaired, and 
new forms of disease developed, by following a system so de- 
cidedly at variance with some of the simplest indications of 
nature. The cupidity of those who deal in the necessaries of 
life has led to extensive adulterations, so that to get in their 
purity the commonest articles of daily consumption, is some- 
times said to be the exception instead of the rule. The 
effect of this iniquity is two-fold—sometimes simply robbing 
us of the materials which we suppose we are taking, and 
sometimes introducing to our systems the most deleterious 
agents. To overcome this evil, legislation has proved impo- 
tent. Let every man, therefore, be his own inspector, his 
own chemist, and test, as far as practicable, the articles which 
are brought into his kitchen. 
There are, perhaps, no more universally adulterated articles 
than milk and coffee; and I refer to these particularly as af- 
fording good illustrations of the two-fold effect already men- 
tioned. If milk be simply diluted with pure water, the vil- 
lain who does it has only to answer for withholding from the 
innocents who depend on him for their daily supply, one-half 6 
of that nourishment which is essential to life. He does not 
'poison, he starves a few hundreds ; and because he cannot hear 
their piteous wail he imagines himself guiltless. The case is 
quite different when milk is otherwise adulterated, or when 
furnished from an impure source. Then the wretched dealer 
must answer for the direct but slow poisoning of his uncon- 
scious victims. Of the adulterations of coffee, so familiar to 
all, I have only to say, that in the case of an article almost 
essential to the health and comfort of those long accustomed 
to its use, if any inert substance be palmed off* in its stead, a 
serious loss is sustained ; while if it be adulterated with blast- 
ed rye, or any other material having toxic qualities, the evil 
lies in a direct attack upon the powers of life. Some will 
perhaps be surprised at this incidental praise of a beverage 
which often meets with unqualified condemnation. It will 
be instructive to note that coffee, tea, cocoa and mate, so differ- 
ent in external appearance, in taste, and in the sources from 
whence they are derived, contain active principles, called re- 
spectively caffene, theine and theo-bromine, which are chemical- 
ly almost identical, and which are found nowhere else. These 
active principles afford nourishment, gentle stimulation and 
direct support to the nervous system : and it is interesting to 
consider that different nations, at different times, long before 
these chemical relations were known, instinctively chose these 
articles as affording safe and refreshing daily beverages, and 
notwithstanding the occasional violent tirades of learned ig- 
noramuses, they are as popular now as ever.- But, are they 
never injurious? Yes. What is not ? Like all good things, 
they should be used judiciously. So long as there are persons 
in the world of such delicate and impressible nervous organi- 
zation, that some will even “die of a rose in aromatic pain,” 
it is not strange that there are many who cannot take these 
powerful nervines, even in a very dilute state, without dis- 
comfort, neuralgia, headache or dyspepsia. 
It is no doubt as natural for man, endowed as he is with 
reason to guide him to many inventions and discoveries, to 
cook his food, as it is for the panther to take his raw, and yet 
through the oven comes to us the greatest amount of injury to 
health and danger to life. The extent to which the culinary 
art has devoted itself to the pleasures of the palate, has ren- 7 
dered easy, indeed, the first steps in the process of digestion, 
prehension, mastication, insalivation and deglutition,—while 
the more important processes of chyinification, chylification, 
absorption, distribution and assimilation, are left to be wrought 
out with groanings unutterable. 
Feasting is a delight which has been highly appreciated in 
all ages and by all classes of men. It is called generally a 
sensual pleasure, but it is so only in part, and especially when 
carried to excess. An active brain would soon collapse if fed 
only with intellectual pabulum. Never have I seen any class 
of young men do ampler justice to the noonday viands than 
students after four hours’ close application to college themes, 
with almost no bodily exercise. The brain—the impressible 
organ upon which the spirit of man first operates in its every 
effort to communicate with the external world, is just as lia- 
ble to waste and loss of substance, as are the other tissues of 
this wonderfully complex machine, and the materials for its 
repair are drawn from the same alimentary source. Call not, 
then, sensual with any emphasis which shall seem to cast a 
slur upon the pleasures of the table, that attention to the 
wants and cravings of “ the inner man,” without which not 
only the heart would cease to beat, but the very “ heart of 
hearts ” would find no means of communication with its loved 
ones of earth, and without which, not only the “ inner man ” 
of this literal phrase would soon come to grief, but the high- 
est achievements of the veritable inner man—the spirit itself— 
would be lost to earth for want of a suitable medium through 
which to convey impressions. It is natural and healthful to 
eat to satiety, and can hardly serve any good purpose, either 
physical or spiritual, to follow the advice of some ascetics and 
go hungering and thirsting all through life—unless it be 
“ after righteousness.” But just here, let me remind you, 
that to eat to satiety of the Scotchman’s oatmeal-stirabout, 
or of Yankee corn-bread, or of any other simple fare, such as 
honest toil would crave, is a very different thing from the satis- 
fying of that last possible tingle of pleasure, of which the 
gustatory organs can take cognizance when tempted by a 
thousand dishes, in a thousand fascinating forms, with a thou- 
sand delicious sources and the conventional number of courses. 
Let me also remind you that there is generally nutriment 8 
enough in a tithe of our food for all the requirements of the 
system, and that nine-tenths are taken solely for the pleasure 
of it. Again, in this connection, it should be said that al- 
though there is a healthy stimulus to body and mind, in a 
certain amount of even generous living, yet too frequent or 
too continued indulgence tends to sluggishness of thought and 
obscurity of the mental vision; while dieting and fasting are 
often of the greatest hygienic importance, freeing as they do 
the body from peccant humors and the soul from physical 
thraldom. 
There is, perhaps, no subject, the importance of which is 
more universally acknowledged, and none more generally neg- 
lected than ventilation. As air is essential to life, so is pure 
air, and enough of it, to health. Every one knows that at- 
mospheric air is composed of that great supporter of combus- 
tion and respiration—oxygen gas—diluted with about three 
and a-half times its volume of nitrogen, and that it is liable to 
be vitiated and rendered unfit for use in a great variety of 
ways. These sources of impurity are known and read of 
all men who make the slightest pretension to intelligence. 
One hundred years ago, facts which lie very near the founda- 
tion of physical science, arid which are now familiar to all, 
were not known, even to the philosophers—and yet our grand- 
fathers knew as well as we know the fact—that a man cannot 
live without air one-fiftieth part as long as a fish can out of 
water. Take away a man’s native element and he dies quick- 
ly ; take half away, and he dies less quickly ; take away any 
portion of that which is necessary to the full and free expan- 
sion of his lungs, and to the thorough oxydizing and decar- 
bonizing of his blood, and in that proportion he languishes. 
I can, of course, in the few words permitted me, only hur- 
riedly hint at facts as familiar, perhaps, to every one of my 
auditors as to myself; yet, notwithstanding the “ line upon 
line, and precept upon precept,” to which we are constantly 
subjected, we live in ill-ventilated dwellings—and our court- 
houses, prisons, churches, school-houses and hospitals, though 
they be elegant structures, are often stifling in the extreme. 
No room can have proper and uniform ventilation unless there 
be means provided, at intervals proportioned to the room’s 
capacity, for the free egress of both light and heavy gases. The requisite ingress of fresh air to all parts of a building can 
seldom be had, unless provided for by the architect of that 
building in its original construction. I am not alone in the 
opinion that hospitals should have fresh air admitted at the 
head of each bed,—the beds, of course, being at least eighteen 
inches from the wall, and the patients properly protected from 
draught. Some of our common school-houses should have 
been indicted for manslaughter, or rather for infanticide long 
ago : the atmosphere in some of the rooms, particularly those 
assigned to the infant department being absolutely poisonous, 
and the temperature, on some of the colder days during the 
last winter, not rising to fifty degrees F. at any time during 
the daily session. 
Stringent laws should be enacted, prohibiting property own- 
ers from leasing basement-room to be occupied as family resi- 
dences. It is time enough to be put under ground after we 
have stopped breathing altogether. Not long ago, I called to 
see a sick girl who lived in one of these underground tene- 
ments. I said, as I entered, hardly seeing whether there were 
any to reply, “ How can you expect to be well in such a place 
as this ?” “ Why,” said the mother, “ is not this healthy ? 
I’ve lived here eleven years and always thought it a healthy 
place.” I asked her if she had any other children. “ Oh! 
yes,” she said, “ I’ve had seven, but there’s only one left.” 
Upon inquiry, I found they had all died in that room, and that 
they were cut off by just such diseases as were most likely to 
be developed by damp, foul air. There is no period when a 
pure atmosphere is more essential to health than during sleep, 
and yet this is the time when “ tired Nature ” is especially 
robbed of her rights—that which Gfod designed as her “ sweet 
restorer,” being stifled with noxious and stagnant exhalations 
from lungs and skin, to say nothing of the products of com- 
bustion from coal and gas. (I would recommend, as particu- 
larly adapted to dormitories, the occasional swinging of the 
doors back and forth upon their hinges ; try it and you will 
not think it so insignificant a point as it might otherwise 
seem.) What would our grandsires have thought of the at- 
tempt by weatherstrips or otherwise, to exclude the last 
breath of vital air as it struggles to reach some unconscious 
mortal in his heavy, unrefreshing slumber '? As there is a time 10 
and a place for everything under the sun, no doubt there is 
for weatherstrips; but as a rule, I would rather break out 
every fifth pane in your sleeping apartment, and by just so 
much would I lessen the pains in your physical organism. 
When our grandmothers lay upon their nurse’s laps (nurses, 
did I say ? Our grai£-grandmothers were their nurses), they 
could look out ol the noble chimney-top and see the heavens, 
or feel at times the rain-drop or snow-flake; there was venti- 
lation worthy the name ! We would not go back to these 
primitive times of curfue-bells, cranes, pot-hooks, bake- 
kettles, foot-stoves, warming-pans, andirons, backlogs, fore- 
sticks, bellows, steel and flint—but let us not, in this age of 
comfort and luxury, forget the essentials of a hardy manhood, 
viz.: pure air, plain food, honest labor and full rest. 
“ As the sea contains a little of everything that is soluble 
in water, so the atmosphere may contain a little of everything 
which is capable of assuming the gaseous form. There are 
also floating in it innumerable particles of dust, some simple 
and inocuous ; others irritant and poisonous.” In this circum- 
stance is found the key to the remarkable healthful ness which 
prevailed during the early part of last summer. So frequent 
were the showers that the atmosphere was washed and con- 
stantly presented to us in its greatest possible purity. This 
branch of our theme naturally includes the effects of vegeta- 
tion, together with all miasmatic, barometric, thermal, and 
electric changes in the atmosphere, and involves a considera- 
tion of the styles and materials of dress suited to different 
ages, seasons and climates. The methods of heating our 
dwellings also constitute a subject inseparable from that of 
ventilation. So diverse are these various branches of study 
that we can only allude to them, and slightly indicate their 
importance by a few desultory reflections. The lower the 
temperature of the air, the less of it can we comfortably ad- 
mit to our dwellings, and the more fuel do we consume. 
Now, oxygen is alike the essential supporter of combustion 
and of respiration, and carbonic acid is alike the main product 
of both. Imagine, then, these two processes, combustion 
and respiration, carried on simultaneously in an apartment 
where the ingress of air is insufficient to supply this great 
demand, and you will behold a contest between the burners and the breathers as to which can hold out the longest. Each 
is consuming the oxygen so essential to the other, and each is 
producing the carbonic acid gas, so stifling to the one and so 
extinguishing to the other. It would appear from these con- 
siderations that a fire should always receive the atmosphere 
necessary to its support, from some other source than the 
apartment intended to be warmed by it. Catcris paribus, 1 
have no doubt of the truth of this proposition ; yet an open 
fire in a grate or on a hearth, where there is a free draught, 
may secure a more healthful condition of the air in the room 
than is generally the result of our cellar furnaces ; for, in the 
one case the draught carries off freely the injurious products 
of combustion, and occasions an inward current of pure air 
from every crevice in every part of the room ; while in the 
other case, the dried and rarified atmosphere is constantly 
pressed up from the chamber about the furnace, and may even 
have largely yielded of its vitalizing qualities to the incandes- 
cent mass below. The necessity of furnishing moisture to 
the air of every heated room is too familiar a fact to mention, 
and yet it is generally forgotten. I suppose the method of 
heating by steam comes nearer perfection than any other. It 
is automatic. It furnishes no blast of heated air from un- 
known and questionable sources. It gives its caloric directly 
to the atmosphere of the room designed to be warmed, with- 
out abstracting the oxygen so much needed for other purposes ; 
and you have only to admit a sufficient amount of fresh air 
from without, and give suitable egress to that which is vitia- 
ted by respiration and insensible perspiration, to secure the 
greatest purity possible to a heated room, occupied by living 
beings, each one of whom demands about forty cubic inches 
of air for every minute of time. Sitting-rooms, lecture-rooms, 
school-rooms, churches, prisons, sleeping apartments, or any 
other places occupied for considerable periods uninterrupted- 
ly, should allow eight hundred to one thousand cubic feet of 
air to each occupant. 
Among the many abuses which that noble animal, the horse, 
suffers at the hands of the ingrate whom he so faithfully serves, 
is that of being locked up every night in a tight box—not one 
stable in ten having'sufficient ventilation. Owing to this and 
other depressing influences, horses are considered old at six- 12 
teen, winch ought to be vigorous at thirty years. A gentle- 
man invited me the other day to look at a stable which he 
had just built for six high-priced and highly-prized horses ; 
and though he considered it a paragon, I assure you there was 
not sufficient ingress of fresh air to inflate the capacious lungs 
of one such animal healthfully. This whole subject needs 
ventilating, but other topics beckon me away for the present. 
Among the hygienic influences, of which I promised to say 
a word, is occupation. I have chosen this term purposely,— 
not exercise, but occupation. We may assume that to be the 
highest state of health in which there is the greatest normal 
development of all the powers and faculties of soul and body. 
Hence no amount of mere physical exercise can make a strong 
man—it may make a strong animal, with enough of the hu- 
man to sustain him in respectable society. On the other 
hand, no amount of mere intellectual effort can make a strong 
man—it may make an enthusiast, a fanatic or a sickly philoso- 
pher, with enough of the animal to require food and drink. 
When it is said that to be healthy we must have exercise, let 
it be understood, then, that no mere muscular motion is meant 
by this, but the fullest and freest normal activity of all the 
powers and faculties which God has given us. 
That blessed curse, “ By the sweat of thy brow slialt thou 
eat bread,'" and that generally overlooked commandment, “Six 
days shalt thou labor” sufficiently indicate both the necessity 
and the duty of occupation. As “ bread ” is generic, stand- 
ing for all food, so is “ labor ” for all active duty. It seems 
essential to the best health, that every one should have some 
definite object in life—some special avocation—and not be 
left to the caprice of the moment to determine what the mind 
shall contemplate or the hand fashion. Doubtless here is 
room for the greatest possible variety of choice and adapta- 
tion. Do not suppose because you occupy a high station in 
society that your son must be a professional man. He may 
be happier, more highly respected, and, what has more to do 
with our present purpose, he may be healthier in body and 
mind, in any other capacity. Never try to make a whistle or 
a silk purse till you have examined the materials with which 
you have to deal. It is a happy circumstance that the legiti- 
mate, honest and honorable occupations of man in every civil- 13 
ized community, are so varied that every taste can be gratified, 
every one’s ambition stimulated, every reasonable hope satis- 
fied. Beside these, however, are many avocations which turn 
night into day,—many which necessitate the constant inhala- 
tion of noxious vapors, of metallic or other irritating parti- 
cles, or the introduction to the system of dangerous elements ; 
some which subject their followers to a temperature far above 
or far below the healthy standard ; some which require a de- 
gree of toil too nearly incessant to be compatible with health, 
and some which demand a life so sedentary that vigor were an 
impossibility. Examples will readily suggest themselves to 
every mind. 
We have used the word occupation to stand for exercise of 
every kind and degree, and we regard it as one of the most 
important of hygienic influences, that every one should have 
something pleasant to do, and you will not appreciate the full 
meaning of this remark unless you apply it to persons of every 
age, from the cradle to the grave, and to every condition of 
life. To supply material for healthful action of head, and 
heart, and hand, is a problem of no mean importance to the 
convalescent after severe illness, and in our public hospitals 
would save from many a relapse, and hasten the hour of per- 
fect recovery. If this be true, what shall we say of the in- 
curables ?—those patient prisoners for life, who, with no hope 
of recovery, drag out the weary months, or even years, with 
no occupation. It may be they cannot read nor write—give 
them oakum to pick, a pine stick to whittle—give them domi- 
nos, jackstraws ; anything but stagnation. There is, perhaps, 
no class who suffer so severely the depressing influence of 
nothing to do as little children. Their active brains will, un- 
der favorable circumstances, seize upon something congenial, 
and their little fingers are generally active in attempting to 
unravel the surrounding mysteries; but how important when 
disease or bereavement has awakened a morbid train of 
thought, and circumstances have conspired to shut from them 
that joy which is their proper occupation, that we should as 
quickly as possible supply the loss. Medicine will not do it; 
nutrients and stimulants will not do it; trinkets, and dolls, 
and pictures, and peep-a-boo, and a good hearty laugh, together 
with the very business of the baby-house, are alone adequate 14 
to the tusk. Now, when cradledom is passed, let all the 
branches of education go hand-in-hand,—intellectual, moral, 
physical,—that each may aid the others, as it will, if none be 
unduly stimulated nor depressed. And let me beg you to re- 
member that both girls and boys, even to early manhood and 
womanhood, should not only be catechized, and trained, and 
disciplined in all that is needful to develop an earnest Chris- 
tian and literary character, but should have ample opportunity 
to run, and romp, and scream with fun. It is not conven- 
tional, but it is natural and sensible ; and tan and freckles are 
vastly prettier than scrofula and effeminacy. 
Next in hygienic importance to labor, occupation, activity, 
exercise—call it by whatever name you will—comes Rest, or, 
as we prefer to say, Recuperation. Not that these are synony- 
mous terms; but rest being the means and recuperation the 
end, we prefer to keep the end in view. Not only the body, 
as a whole, requires frequent and regular periods of quiet and 
sleep, but each separate organ or system of organs needs op- 
portunity to recover the power which is sure to be impaired 
by long continued effort. The eye may be used out of propor- 
tion to the other organs, and become amaurotic. In such a 
case, ordinary rest will not suffice. Let the eye itself stop all 
work, and roam pleasantly over the fields of nature. The 
brain may be unduly taxed while the amount of sleep is quite 
sufficient for the animal frame ; stop all study—all close ap- 
plication to intellectual labor ; let your thoughts be free and 
easy,—your conversation jovial,—your reading light, and the 
jaded organ will soon regain its wonted vigor. When the 
poor, abused stomach is made a receptaculum omni rerun, and 
called upon to digest food taken every hour in the day, is it 
any wonder that it rebels against such misrule, and refuses all 
overtures of peace? Even the heart itself, accustomed as it 
is to ceaseless though involuntary action, may be over-worked, 
and since it can never rest in the full sense of the word, till its 
destiny is fulfilled, it must be brought under sedative influ- 
ences, and the other organs which suffer with it must minister 
to its comfort, and enable it to recuperate in the only way 
possible to such an organ. The muscular system, too often 
and too continuously taxed, grows sore, and stiff, and weak. 
The world is all alive to the importance of exercise ; but lit- 15 
tie is said or thought of the hundreds who die for want oi 
rest—rest for the body—rest for the mind—rest for the soul. 
The Sabbatical law is founded in the necessities of our three- 
fold nature, and its spirit extends to other days than the seventh 
and the first. Even those men whose Sundays are so actively 
spent in religious work, that the holy hours are more fully 
occupied than those of any other day, often find in the differ- 
ent set of faculties brought into exercise, just the relief then- 
systems require. This necessity for bringing different powers 
successively into action in order that each, in turn, may rest 
and recuperate, is illustrated by the familiar fact that one, tired 
by walking on level ground, finds partial rest by ascending a 
gentle acclivity; and in the mental and moral world an illus- 
tration may be'found in the alleged fact that the custom of 
appointing permanent curates to the great cemeteries of Eng- 
land was abandoned, because such continued sameness of 
intellectual effort was found to produce demency. There is 
no rule which can be laid down as to the amount of sleep 
which it is best for man to take. That ascribed to Franklin : 
“ Five hours for a man, six for a woman, and eight for a fool,” 
might have applied to himself, his wife, and to some simple- 
ton whom he knew. It could hardly have had a wider range, 
since most men require the fool’s allowance. Neither is the 
amount of sleep required any criterion of talent. Examples 
are familiar to all of those who require and take a liberal al- 
lowance of the “ sweet restorer,” and who, nevertheless, when 
awake are wide-awake, and ready to make their presence and 
power felt in their day and generation. On the other hand, 
I knew a mechanic of very ordinary ability, who seldom slept 
an hour at any time. He was full of vigor, and worked nearly 
as much by night as by day. Such instances as those of Na- 
poleon and Charles the quite as rare in regard to 
their vigilance, as to their other distinguishing characteristics. 
Tossed and torn, wearied and worn, as is the whole degener- 
ate race of man—sickness, and sorrow, and death—being so oft 
the legitimate sequence of sin, a rest and a recuperation are 
needed, such as no earthly pillow and no exemption from toil 
can afford. “ Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy 
laden,” saitli the Great Physician, “ and I will give you 
rest.” The hygienic influences of Religion are many and great. It 
has been said that “ any religion is better than nonebut it 
may reasonably be questioned whether some systems of reli- 
gion are not equivalent to none. The word, you know, is 
from re and ligo—to bind anew, and implies either a binding 
by oath or obligation to God, or a binding or holding oneself 
back from the indulgence of any inclination which is not ap- 
proved by the individual’s conscience. Thus, you perceive, 
it involves on the one hand all the wild notions of the barba- 
rian who sacrifices his offspring and tattoos his own body to 
appease the wrath of his imaginary God ; and on the other, 
all the temperance, soberness and chastity—all the meekness, 
humility, faith, hope and charity of the true Christian. It 
must, therefore, in these its extremes, and in'its thousand in- 
termediate phases, exert a powerful hygienic influence upon 
every community. The rites, restrictions, ablutions, fasts, 
feasts and Sabbaths of the Jewish Theocracy were doubtless, 
in great measure, designed for sanitary effect; and if we con- 
sider the systems of the present day, we shall find some fur- 
nishing patients to our insane asylums, while others exert so 
salutary an effect upon the mind and heart, that they promote 
the health and increase the longevity of the race. While of 
true Wisdom it may be said: “ All her ways are pleasantness 
and all her paths are peace “ The way of the transgressor 
is hard,” and “ The ungodly do not live out half their days.” 
Mormonism thrives on lust, degrading both soul and body ; 
and many less flagrant systems, having in them the seeds of 
infidelity and self-indulgence, tend to lessen, materially, the 
standard of public health and morals. It is a trite remark 
that “ he who is prepared to die, is best prepared to live ;” 
but I tell you, my friends, when danger is imminent, such a one 
is more likely to live than he who has not the consolations of 
divine grace. I am much mistaken if I have not known anx- 
iety as to one’s spiritual condition to militate against convales- 
cence. But the greatest value of religion in its hygienic re- 
lations is as a prophylactic. It prevents disease by restrain- 
ing from those excesses and those indulgences which are sure 
to produce it; it casts its burden of cares upon one divinely 
strengthened to bear them ; it moderates the intensity of a 
grief which might otherwise terminate in despair, insanity or 17 
death ; it imparts of that “ perfect love which casteth out 
fear;” it restrains wrath, and enjoins upon him who would 
go through life “with his hand against every man and every 
man’s hand against him,” inasmuch as lietli in him to live 
peaceably with all men ; it forbids avarice; it commands for- 
giveness ; it inculcates cheerfulness; it inspires confidence in 
God, which is a good definition of faith; it fills the soul with 
hope in the hour of greatest adversity; and as already suffi- 
ciently implied, it confers “ that most excellent gift of charity, 
without which, whosoever livetli iscounted dead before God.” 
Who that at all appreciates the intimate relations of soul and 
body, of mind and matter, can for one moment doubt that 
the possession of this all-pervading, all-embracing principle of 
divine love, is fraught with incalculable sanitary blessings; 
while its absence leaves one a prey to temptations involving 
innumerable morbific agencies. 
Of all the hygienic influences, none demand of us more ex- 
tended notice than those of Medication. A facetious Yankee 
doctor, well-known to the readers of light literature, once 
said : “ If all the medicine in the world were thrown into the 
sea, it would be all the better for mankind and all the worse 
for the fishes.” Many regarded this as a slur upon the medi- 
cal profession, and as an attempt on the part of the author to 
gain favor by yielding to popular prejudice, and by sacrificing 
fact to fun. A more careful consideration of the subject will, 
however, not only justify the remark, but will make men 
aware of the terrible danger which constantly overhangs 
them, and which, with shocking certainty, abbreviates the 
life of at least one in every hundred of our race. When we 
remember that medicine is administered not by educated and 
conscientious physicians only, but by charlatans innumerable, 
who know little of the effects of the agents they use, and still 
less of the maladies they profess to cure, nor yet by these 
alone, but by the rank and file of every community, so that 
the grand mission of every intelligent physician is to exhort 
people in the name of God and the Sixth Commandment not 
to dose, continually, themselves and their children. 
when we reflect that every apothecary shop is packed, almost 
from Zenith to Nadir, with compounds equally villainous for 
inertness on the one hand, or for power of random good or 18 
ill on the other, can you wonder that any careful observer 
should say : “ These follies, these excesses, these ignorances, 
these cupidities, more than counterbalance all the good that 
highminded and conscientious practitioners are able to effect 
in relieving the ills of the flesh.” “ Throw, then, physic to 
the dogs,” I say, and I say it deliberately, heartily., conscientious- 
ly, “ Throw physic to the dogs,” if you want the dogs to die 
and men to live, unless you can find in the circle of your 
search some good man and true, who devotes his life to the 
careful study of remedial agents in reference to their thera- 
peutical value, and to the study of disease in its amenability to 
treatment. Then, and then only, may you, with any safety, 
medicate yourselves and your little ones. Fond mothers can 
never know, till they meet them on the other side the river, 
how many of their children they have sent home before the 
time, by the administration of what seemed to them some 
simple, domestic remedy,—mark the word, there was nothing 
simple about it, except the act of giving it, for it awoke a 
train of morbid sympathies in intricate and delicate organs 
which ceased not till the spirit was driven out in search of a 
more peaceful tenement, where it would be no more liable to 
disease nor death, nor to attacks of uneducated self-constituted 
doctors. A noble and honorable calling is that of the apothe- 
cary ; but a mere medicine-maker and vender is culpably ig- 
norant or basely unprincipled. The rumseller is saintly by 
comparison, for he never denies that what he sells will kill, 
while the other professes to make alive, but kills as surely. 
’Tis a sad fact that thousands who would never go there for 
anything else, are willing to climb up to Heaven at the risk of 
their necks to find some new aethereal compound or subli- 
mate,—or go as far in the other direction for pyrogenous or 
sulphurous mixtures, if they only knew that they would sell. 
I know not how to illustrate adequately the folly of submit- 
ting oneself to ignorant and non-professional medication. If 
you had a watch of curious and costly workmanship—valua- 
ble to you not alone for its intrinsic worth, nor yet for its 
simple relation to every day use and convenience ; but one 
associated with all that was dear to you on earth, and with 
those who had gone before you to Heaven, and to your dismay 
you should discover that something was disturbing the beau- 19 
tiful harmony of its movements,—what would you do ? 
Would you, with delicate tweezers, and fine points, and soft 
brushes, try to remedy the evil yourself? Or, would you go 
to a doctor of medicine, or a lawyer, or to some one else 
equally ignorant of the work to be performed, and equally 
destitute of the requisite means to be employed ? Would you 
not rather seek an artisan who had well learned the trade of 
a watchsmith, and had judgment and honesty to practice it 
faithfully ? Not inferior, in danger and criminality, to this 
self-dosing is the practice, unhappily too common among 
otherwise intelligent people, of entrusting the health and life of 
their families to some one who, through the various styles of 
advertising and the thousand meretricious arts which the regu- 
lar profession scorns and condemns, has risen to notoriety and 
false fame. There is not one of this class who does not merit 
the halter. Each one knows himself to be a quack, yet owing 
to your encouragement and support, my non-professional 
Christian brother, he goes scot free. There is a class of 
quacks who are too ignorant to know it, and yet they are 
often learned and conscientious men. What a bull! The 
only explanation I shall offer of this apparent paradox is, that 
men may be very learned in some things which very few know 
anything about, and yet very ignorant of what everybody 
ought to know all about. Again, some are so visionary and 
credulous by nature, that no academic, collegiate or practical 
advantages or opportunities can possibly save them from all 
manner of clairvoyant, mesmeric, Swedenborgian and spirit- 
ualistic complications : against such, there is no protection 
for the non-professional masses, except such as is afforded by 
sterling sense and intuition. There is, however, a still more 
dangerous quack—a perfect rara avis. He is educated, and 
may be refined,—he has experience, knows how to treat dis- 
ease, and he cures his patients. In what, then, you may ask, 
does his quackery consist ? Simply in that he is dishonest, 
and uses his professional opportunities for base and selfish 
ends. Some will say : “ If there are such men in the profes- 
sion, how shall we protect ourselves against imposition?” I 
answer—just as you would protect yourself against a hypo- 
critical clergyman, a tricky lawyer, a knavish tradesman, or 
a thievish clerk. If you will admit to the privacies and sanc- tities of your family circle the profane, the vulgar, the intem- 
perate and the licentious, you must not hold the profession, 
but the individual and your own folly responsible for the con- 
sequences, whatever they may be. There are, no doubt, as 
bad men in any profession as there out of it; this fact must 
be charged to the race and not to the professions. No doubt, 
my friends, there be some who, for many years, have suffered 
many things of many physicians, and were nothing bettered, 
but rather grew worse; but ?twere well to reflect how many 
facts contribute to this result,—the certainly incurable nature 
of some maladies, the still greater intractability of some pa- 
tients—and, lastly, the consummate ignorance of some doc- 
tors. 
So many forms of unscrupulous criticism have been used 
against the medical profession by so many interested and 
prejudiced persons, that many are led to suppose, and are 
really honest in the conviction, that nothing is more vague, 
and uncertain, and contradictory, than medical practice. So 
far, however, is this from being true, that there is more of 
certainty and positiveness in the teachings of medical schools, 
and the application of medical principles, than is to be found 
in the theory and practice ol either law or divinity. I have 
too deep a sense of the truth of divine revelation and the sa- 
credness of the sacerdotal office, to push the comparison far 
in that direction ; yet, who does not know that two teachers 
in Israel, equally learned and apparently equally honest,— 
reading the same word and studying the same history,—differ 
so widely, not only in externals, but in the vital points of 
faith and theology, that large congregations of earnest wor- 
shipers look upon each other as committing idolatry on the 
one hand, or “ denying the Lord that bought them,” on the 
other. (The true explanation, however, of these differences 
is to be found in the short-sightedness of men, and more or 
less of uncertainty is inherent in all human affairs.) 
High and holy as is the office of a judge ; honorable as are 
the duties of a counsellor; sacred as is the law of the land— 
are there no doubts and uncertainties in the higher or lower 
courts? no decisions reversed ? no innocents condemned? no 
traitors unpunished? no common criminals left unwhipped of 
justice? no princely fortunes frittered in endless quibbles on 21 
technical points ? ’Tis only a rare experience to leave the 
halls of justice thoroughly impressed with the positiveness 
and even-handedness of legal decisions, as were the two men 
who found the oyster. A dispute arising as to which saw it 
first, and consequently as to who should have it, they repair- 
ed to the office of a distinguished jurist, who assured them 
that in his judgment it was the simplest case imaginable,— 
unquestionably the oyster ought to be equally divided, to 
which the finders readily assented as eminently just and 
proper. The lawyer immediately proceeded to make the 
equal division by eating the oyster himself and giving to each 
client a shell. 
As in Theology, there are sacred lights which occasional 
stupidity and hypocrisy can never befog ; and, as in Law, 
there are precedents, and axioms, and golden rules, which no 
pettifogger’s pitiable plea can obliterate. So in medicine, 
there are facts innumerable and inestimable which can never 
be obscured by the dust of passing theories, nor overthrown 
by the false logic of the charlatan ; but, like the fixed stars, 
they shine brightly above all the clouds of error, and above 
every ignis fatuus, and all the flickering torches of quackery, 
which but serve to make the darkness visible in the stratum 
wherein they move. 
Can any one doubt the fact that a perfect flood of light was 
poured into the brain and first stimulated the heart of our 
profession by Harvey’s brilliant discovery ? 
Can there a man be found so unintelligent as to believe 
that the world gained nothing by a knowledge of the vital 
current’s ebb and flow ? Did Laennec, for all practical ends, 
listen in vain to Nature’s “ still small voice,” as she speaketh 
the truth from the heart ? And as Avenbrugger knocked at 
the door of Science, was there not a response elicited which, 
for all time, shall guide to surer diagnoses, and therefore to 
sounder therapeutics ? 
Is there anything in life more fixed and absolute than the 
teachings of chemistry,—which science has been developed 
and almost perfected by our profession ? By it, poisonous sub- 
stances, accidentally or criminally introduced to the system, 
are neutralized and rendered harmless,—by it the slightest 
aberrations from the healthy standard are detected in the ani- 22 
mat fluids,—by it suicides are rescued from tbe effect of their 
madness; murderers brought to justice; dangerous adultera- 
tions exposed ; valuable analyses effected ; new combinations 
originated ; new elementary substances discovered ; and, what 
is more to our present purpose, a host of new remedies brought 
to light—definite in composition, certain in physiological ac- 
tion, and invaluable in their therapeutic relations. 
Is anything in heaven or earth more certain than that the 
discovery of the immortal Jcnncr has saved millions from an 
untimely and loathsome death ; tens of millions from disfig- 
urement, and hundreds of millions from fear? 
Did ever Bell ring out a clearer sound than that which Sir 
Charles caused to vibrate and undulate from brain to brain, 
from nerve to nerve, from ganglion to ganglion, through mo- 
tor, and sensitive, and sympathetic ? 
Who has not heard of Marshall Hall’s Reflex Motor action, 
—simplifying many obscure affections ; and does not his very 
name bring to your mind’s eye a drenched multitude rescued 
from a watery grave; even after the last sense of suffering had 
been experienced, and thousands of otherwise asphyxiated 
mortals brought back to the embrace of earthly friends? 
Would bleeding humanity readily relinquish the gift of the 
renowned Ambrose rare, and go back to the days of stypstics 
and escharotics—exchanging the simple ligature for hot tar? 
Do you need to be reminded that myriads of lives have al- 
ready been saved by the haemostatic properties of the subsul- 
phate of iron, so lately discovered by Monsel ? 
Can any one doubt the excellence and accuracy of Schleiden 
and Schwann’s microscopical observations in JH37, in their 
bearing upon physiology and pathology; and the subsequent 
demonstration by Virchow and others, of the cellular origin 
and growth of all living tissues, normal and morbid ? 
Who does not know that the practical suggestion of our 
own T. Gail lard Thomas has enabled us to slip the cord that 
would otherwise have bound many an innocent juvenile to in- 
evitable death ? 
Are you not all familiar with the opium treatment of peri- 
tonitis, introduced by the elegant and erudite Alonzo Clark, 
of New-York—a discovery by which he has saved the lives of 
a thousand wives, though he never had a wife of his own ? Who thinks now of questioning the feasibility of ovariotomy, 
an American operation, introduced by Ephraim McDowell, 
and clearly proved to be less fatal than amputation of the 
thigh after severe injuries? Again, what American is not 
proud of the triumphs of Marion Simms, in a field not pre- 
viously unexplored, but one which required just his indomita- 
ble energy and perseverance to overcome its sterility ? 
If you should chance to meet with that horrible accident, 
dislocation of the hip joint, would you be patient under the 
direction of one who should carry you back to the days of 
the lancet, the hot bath, tartar emetic, tobacco and the pul- 
lies, instead of the gentle, painless, American method revived 
and established by Reid, of Rochester ? 
Can any one, relieved in the twinkling of an eye by hypo- 
dermic medication, of an excruciating neuralgia, ever doubt 
his obligation to the profession in general, and to Charles 
Hunter, of London, in particular ? Is it of no consequence 
that aneurism succumbs to digital pressure and to forced flexion, 
and that ligation—distal or proximal—is now the exception 
rather than the rule ? Need I enumerate the thousand arti- 
cles of the Materia Medica to remind you that the accumula- 
ted observations and records of ages concerning them, are now 
the property of the profession ? Need I exhibit to you innu- 
merable models of ingenious mechanism for the relief of de- 
formities, fractures, dislocations, etc., in order to convince you 
that brains, and hearts, and hands have been actively engaged 
in this labor of love ? 
When to save life a limb must be severed, a strangulated 
hernia liberated, or any other serious operation performed, and 
you shudder to think of the sensitive fibres beneath the scal- 
pel’s edge, do you doubt the excellence of that mysterious 
agent by which you are rocked to pleasant dreams, and from 
the effects of which you awake to thank Grod that such power 
has been given unto men ? If you happen to be a little too 
light-headed to judge of the relative merits of Wells, Morton 
and Simpson, do not be surprised, for the rest of the scientific 
world is, to a great extent, in the same predicament. The 
value of the thermometer as a means of diagnosis and prog- 
nosis, although taught by Von Hagen a hundred years ago, 
reserved its greatest triumphs for the latter half of the nine- 24 
teenth century. Who does not now rejeice in the accnracy 
of its revelations, and the increased power it gives us over 
all febrile diseases ? The haemadynamometer and the sphyg- 
mograph, though instruments of less practical value, show the 
eternal vigilance of those who stand on the watch-towers of 
the medical Zion. 
Every day new and useful applications of the cerosmic slce- 
dater or atomizer are discovered, giving efficiency to our efforts 
iu many cases where formerly the impotence of our art was 
proverbial. 
Among the latest advances in our science, may be mention- 
ed the antiseptic or non-suppurative plan for the treatment of 
compound fractures and other terrible lacerations—so marvel- 
ous are the results as compared with all former experience, 
that it seems but slight exaggeration to say that if one gets 
blown up you have only to pick up the pieces, wrap them in 
carbolic acid, linseed oil and carbonate of lime, and in two or 
three weeks he will be about his business. 
Can any one doubt that new scope has of late been given to 
our science, when he reads but the names of the instruments 
now employed ? The microscope is, indeed, an old instrument, 
though new in its wonderful revelations, with its monocular 
and binocular arrangements, and in its association with the 
spectroscope of Sorby, it will detect the one hundred thou- 
sandth part of a grain of mercury or of arsenic, or demonstrate 
the presence of a single blood-disc. 
The stethoscope—a title as unscientific and ridiculous as 
that by which I often designate Cammann’s double instru- 
ment, viz. : “ My ear spectacles,”—nevertheless it does reveal 
to our mental vision not only what is transpiring in the breast 
of a fellow mortal, but by means of vesicular murmurs, rales, 
bruits, funic souffles, aneurismal thrills, &c., faithfully con- 
ducted to the tympanum, it tells its tale of joy or sorrow, 
dispelling ill-grounded fear; or, fortifying against the evil day 
which it enables us to prognosticate. The ophthalmoscope— 
comparatively new—tells with accuracy not only the physio- 
logical and pathological processes which are going on in the 
very recesses of the eye, but by its use disease of distant or- 
gans has been detected before it had been suspected to exist; 
and even this slight reference will recall to every medical mind another accurate means of diagnosis discovered by a 
Bright light of the present century. The Laryngoscope holds 
such intimate converse with the very organ of voice as to 
make it declare facts which otherwise would never have been 
known or spoken. The Rhinoscope often puts us on the right 
scent; and the Gastroscope, the Stomatoscope, the Otoroscope, 
and all the other scopes, give but a slight indication of the 
constant periscope which every medical man must observe, if 
he would not be considered as belonging to a bye-gone age. 
Yet, notwithstanding the endless series of classified, de- 
monstrable and practicable verities existing in every depart- 
ment of medicine and surgery; to say that there were no 
doubts, no difficulties, no uncertainties, would be to rob the 
profession of half its glory; out of these springs the impossi- 
bility of any fellowship with the uneducated ; out of these 
grows the immense responsibility which attends his every 
movement; he must decide between life and limb when the 
question is so evenly balanced that a hair would turn the 
scale. ’Tis his solemn duty, “ in as much as in him lieth,” 
to resolve these doubts, to clear up these uncertainties, by the 
indefatigable and self-sacrificing use of all the organs of spe- 
cial sense, aided by all the knowledge that faithful study can 
afford, and assisted by all the means which Nature (whose re- 
sources are deloped by science and art) has so liberally placed 
at his disposal. If, after all these, doubt and danger and death 
succeed each other, as sometimes they will, ’twere arrant folly 
to suppose that ignorance and empiricism could have done 
better. But, there comes up from respectable sources the 
serious charge that the members of the medical profession are 
narrow-minded, sectarian, illiberal ; so wedded to old theo- 
ries and old habits as to refuse assent to important truths when 
fairly discovered and fully proved. If this charge can be sub- 
stantiated, then surely our stewardship as guardians of the 
public health ought to be taken from us. Oh! let the evil 
day never come when the profession shall be frightened out of 
its conservatism. It is well, that occupying so high a trust, 
it should ever obey the apostolic injunction to 11 prove all 
things, and hold fast” only “ that which is good.” In the ex- 
ercise of this blessed conservatism, the acceptance of some 
half-demonstrated fact may have been slightly delayed, but it can easily be shown that in all its history the regular profes- 
sion has been an earnest defender of, and eager seeker after, 
truth. Having no exclusive system of practice to maintain 
(for remember, that word allopathy is a misnomer, which, when- 
ever used in reference to scientific medicine, implies on the 
part of the speaker carelessness, ignorance or impertinence), 
having, I repeat, no exclusive dogma to defend, it has ever 
been ready to accept truth from any and every source. Thus 
from a negro it received the knowledge of the tonic virtues of 
quassia, and generously acknowledged the debt by transfer- 
ring the negro’s name to the article. It learned the use and 
the dangers of antimony from the combined experience of the 
monks and the swine, and again the name is significant of the 
fact. It learned the feasibility of the Ccesariau section of a 
distracted and despairing cobbler, who used a shoe-knife for 
the operation, and pack-thread for sutures. It learned the 
anterior operation for cataract from the accidental wounding 
of an opaque lens by an awl thrust through the cornea and 
the pupil. From a Jesuit it received its knowledge of cin- 
chona. A dairy-maid taught it how to prevent small-pox. 
It learned the anthelmintic properties of koussou of the Chi- 
nese, and the use of lobelia of the American savage. In all 
ages, in all climates—from black and white, rich and poor, 
old and young, male and female—from ignorant and learned— 
from dead and living—from accident and design, it gathered 
one by one its facts both great and small, despising none, 
prizing all ; arranging, comparing, classifying and preserving 
for the cure and prevention of the “ ills that flesh is heir to”— 
and this is our stock in trade. Now, can any man believe 
that if a simple law were discovered running through all na- 
ture,—a law, by the observance of which we could make 
medicine a pastime and cure our patients with ease,—can any 
one belive that we are so stupidly blind to our own interests 
as to refuse all the benefits of so brilliant discovery, when 
we might have them for the asking? You know better. You 
know that one has only to announce to you, with apparent 
sincerity, that a drop of vinegar would produce general anaes- 
thesia if allowed to fall from a height upon the second toe of 
the right foot, and ridiculous as the proposition seems, and 
really is, yet so important are the interests involved, that be- fore to-morrow night numerous experiments would be tried 
to demonstrate the truth or falsity of the proposition. Every 
physician in the land would be prepared to say, and positive- 
ly, too, it's false ; but the rest of mankind would be divided. 
D. D.s and LL. D.s (I say it respectfully) would give cer- 
tificates that they had seen the thing done ; and so the cause of 
true science must ever suffer till those who, of all the citi- 
zens, are best qualified to judge correctly, shall be more de- 
liberate and careful in their observations, and more logical in 
their conclusions. 
It will be observed that a large proportion of the more 
brilliant discoveries in medicine have been made within the 
memory of men now living. Is not this true in every depart- 
ment of science and art ? Was it not reserved to this age, so 
to utilize the most explosive of detonating compounds, that a 
child can take* them in his tiny hand and safely strike a light ? 
Have we not pontooned the Atlantic with steamships, and 
tunnelled it for lightening steeds which bring the news of 
each day fresh from the Old World, like hot rolls for the break- 
fast table ? Is it not a worn-out and feeble metaphor to say 
that we send messages everywhere “ on the wings of the 
wind ?” And are not these and a thousand other wonders the 
product of our ingenuity—the result of our wisdom ? Is not 
tliis the greatest of all the ages, and are not we the cleverest 
of all the people of this clever age ? My friends, this is the 
boastful spirit of the times—this the temper by which the 
wisdom of all the past is ignored. But, my medical breth- 
ren, let it not be so with us; let us at least remember the 
debt of gratitude due to. all who have labored diligently in 
the earlier days, when lights were few and dim. Let us re- 
member that what they bequeathed to us was just as essential 
to our progress as is the alphabet to all literature. The 
labors, the mistakes, the failures, as well as the successes of our 
forefathers have Tadually and certainly led us to every scien- 
tific achievement of which we are so justly proud. I say 
this, not only as an act of simple justice to our predecessors, 
but to remind you how certainly we should grope without the 
light of their experience, and how ridiculously false any 
theory must be which madly denies the value of all they did— 
of all they suffered, and of all they observed.