\^_                  AN                       '





             ADDRESS
     GRADUATING CLASS


                 OF THE




MEDICAL  COLLEGE  OF GEOEGIA.



       DELIVERED ON THE 6TH OF MARCH, 1844,


                     I
          BY GEORGE F. PIERCE.
  PUBLISHED BY REQUEST OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES,







           AUGUSTA, GA.:

PRINTED AT THE CHRONICLE AND SENTINEL OFFICE 
   AXtixcal   OloIUg*   ot  <£tox%\a.



  The Lectures in this Institution commence on the Second Monday
of each November, and continue to about the 10th of March following.

                 THE FACULTY CONSIST OF

    G. M. Newton, M. D., Professor of Anatomy.
    L. A. Dugas, M. D., Professor of Physiology and Pathological
          Anatomy.
    Alex.  Means, A. M., Professor of Chemistry and Pharmacy.
    J. P. Garvin, M. D., Professor  of Therapeutics and  Materia
          Medica.
    Jos. A. Eve, M. D., Professor of Obstetrics and Diseases of
          Women and Infants.
    L. D. Ford, M.  D., Professor of the Institutes and Practice of
          Medicine.
    Paul F. Eve, M. D., Professor of the Principles and Practice
          of Surgery.

                 Henry F. Campbell, M. D., Demonstrator.
  Augusta, May, 1844. 
   The Degree of M. D. was conferred on the following candidates at
the recent Commencement of the Medical College:
E. R. Carswell,
E. V. Culver,
J. M. Cody,
J. G. Polhill,
John O'Farral,
G. H. Wooten,
D. M. Williams
J. W. Strawn,
W. G. Dunn,
U. G. Mitchell,
W. S. Leak,
W. H. Felton,
James Camak, Jr.    "          "
A. M. R. Sessions, Monticello, Flor.
W. E. Claybrooks, Edgefield S. C.
Burke County, Ga.
Sparta,         "
Warrenton,     *(
Louisville,      "
Maynooth Col., Ire.
Mallorysville, Ga.
Jonesboro',     "
Mallorysville,  "
Crawfordville,  "
Lumpkin,     "
Cassville,      "
Athens,        "
E. F. Starr,
H. G. Collier,
J. T. Barton,
John Lark,
J. E. Walthall,
Clarksville,  Ga.
Decatur,     "
Richmond Co. "
Newbury,  S: C.
Butts County, Ga.
R. W. Lovett,
J. L. Baker,
J. B. Carlton,
Pearse O'Leary,
S. B. Johnston,
C. C. Hammond,
W. N. Head,
L. C Belt,
R. S. Key,
T. J. Brooks,
J. L. Lewis,
J. L. Houston,
T. J. Hart,
J. G. W. Whale,
B.C. H.Evans,
B. H. Pearson,
Jackson Maddox,
J. A. Re id,
John Knox,
Scriven Co.   Ga.
Double Wells,  "
Athens,       "
Raytown,      "
Tuscaloosa, Ala.
Anderson, S. C
Dahlonega, Ga.
Burke Co.   "
Edgefield, S. C.
Hamilton, Ga.
Clayton, Ala.
 Augusta, Ga.
 Social Circle, Ga.
 New York.N.Y.
 Macon, Ga.
 New Hampshire.
 Columbia, Ga.
 Augusta,  "
 Chester, S. C 
 
ADDRESS.
(JENTLEMEN GRADUATES:
  The hour has arrived that marks the  first grand  epoch in the his-
tory of your  medical career.   The  labors of your collegiate course
have terminated,—the decision of the Faculty has been pronounced,—
the President of the Board of Trust  has conferred  the degree, and the
conclusion of these ceremonies will introduce you  to  the  world as
Doctors of Medicine.
  You have, doubtless, looked to this period with  an interest  com-
mensurate with its importance, and now, that the perturbation of anxiety
has been succeeded  by the comparative quietude of hope realized, you
feel the complacency of generous  minds in  the verdict of your instruc-
tors.   The sympathies of the good and refined are always enlisted in
favor of the young, the  studious and  the honorable, as they launch the
sea of life,—the bosom beats responsively to  the bounding hopes, the
hii?h ambition of their early efforts, and an almost  instinctive kindness
invokes the blessing of  heaven  on their enterprise.   The' youthful are
stirred to  emulation as they gaze upon the inspiring scene,—the mature
will greet you with a fostering smile, and  the aged  grow warm with
admiration as memory  revives  the past, and, leaving their example to
guide  and cheer, resign to you the toils  of the profession and the re-
wards of employment.
   The gratification of feeling connected  with  this occasion is greatly
augmented by the fact,  that your  previous character gives  assurance of
worthy citizenship  in time to come.  I rejoice, that  my own observa-
tion corresponds with the universal testimony in assigning to you the
honor due to great  sobriety of deportment, and of that high moral ele-
vation of principle and  habit, without which  knowledge is only a ca-
pacity for mischief, and a diploma a  certificate of worthlessness.
^ I speak not the language of adulation  when I say  that your College
is a monument of glory to the mind  that  conceived its establishment,—
an honor to the State from whose authority she derived her charter,—a
praise to the Faculty of Instruction; but no wisdom  of design,—no le- 
6
 gitimacy of  authority,—no excellence  of knowledge, will perpetuate
 its hold on public confidence and public affection, if unsupported by the
 gentlemanly bearing, and, to say the  least, the general morality of its
 students.   A Board of Instruction, far less distinguished for the variety
 and adaptation of its talents, with an annual array of young men, hon-
 orable alike  in life's public walks and private ways, might elevate the
 institution to  fortune and to fame: for its graduates would be epistles of
 commendation.
   The Medical College of Georgia has been fortunate in both respects.
 Let no man marvel at the rapidity  of her march to equality of position
 with the kindred  institutions of the country!   The cause is  obvious.
 The effect is  legitimate.  Let no man doubt her continued prosperity—
 her onward, upward motion!   For virtue is her  tutelary angel, and
 usefulness the goal  of her enterprise.  I but embody the general sen-
 timent when  I breathe the prayer—May she run a long, bright race of
 glory, and when  she dies, if die she must, depart full of years and full
 of honors.
   Let me warn  you, young gentlemen, against an error into which
 there is almost every thing to betray you,—example—false views  of
 necessity, and the ruling passion of the country, the love of money,—
 I mean the error of supposing that your education  is finished, your
 furniture for business complete.   The hasty spirit of the people, evinced
 in every department of  life,—the ambition to do a great business upon
 small capital and large credit,—the feverish  desire of accomplishing
 much with the least possible outlay of time and labor, inducing the
 substitution of reckless adventure for patient industry,—choosing bold
 and hazardous experiment  rather than to rely upon the sure but some-
 times dilatory rewards of intellectual and moral worth, all conspire to
 cheat you into the notion that the time for study is past, and  that em-
 ployment is  your unquestionable right.   The whole tendency of the
 age in which we  live is to a superficial order of  things.   The force of
 example, with a  multitude on its side, is  inconceivable.   To resist is
 hard.  It is the highest effort of moral courage  to stand fast  by right
 and truth in  such circumstances.   There must be resolution,  patience,
 a far-seeing wisdom, arranging means and ends by an exact adjustment
staying the heart  delayed in its hopes, upon the broad conviction that
knowledge is power and industry profit, and thus guarding against the
despondency that would  paralyze energy, and the seductions that would
beguile with idle  dreams and vagrant  longings.  To one who has de-
voted himself to it as a profession, and who would not be antiquated in 
7
 his practice, the study of medicine must, in  the very nature of it, and
 'roni a thousand incidental  causes*, be protracted from year to year.
 The  modifications of disease by climate, diet,  local causes, and, per-
 haps, constitutional  changes  in the generations of mankind, with the
 discoveries of new remedies in the progress of natural science, and the
 facts  developed by different  systems of practice, all  require that you
 should be reading, studious men.   Without it, your profession will  be
 mere drudgery, and your prescriptions a series of guesses.
   Your profession, gentlemen, involves  responsibilities too sacred, too
 awful, to allow the indulgence of constitutional  sloth, or to permit the
 waste of time in the frivolities of dissipation and the inglorious luxury
 of ease.  Your duties are arduous and multiplied.  The secrets of your
 art are locked up in full many a volume that must be conned with care
 and analysis,—they lie scattered over the vegetable and mineral king-
 doms, and  must  be sought at the expense of many a weary hour and
 painful step,—they are to be  evolved in the labors  of the laboratory,—
 nature must be persuaded to  speak, in her solitary places, in the ear of
 science, and sometimes her answers must be wrung out by the fires of
 the crucible or extorted by the arts of alchemy.  You go to make war
 upon the thousand ills to which flesh is heir, to drive them back in the
 fury of their  onset, or to dislodge them from their strongholds in the
 human form.   Disease—insidious foe of human  life—often lurks  in
 ambush, and in darkness and silence works out his destructive schemes;
 but  you must detect  his hiding  places and  circumvent his wiles.—
 Whether he sends out his  predatory  bands, the  flying  artillery of the
 skeleton king, or  muster in serried ranks his regular forces, you must
 be bold to  stand, prompt to resist, and wise to deliver.  Whether he
 come in the burning sunlight, with fever in every  glance, or  ride upon
 the wind, with pestilence in every breath,—whether  he make the vital
 air the  storehouse of his fearful  missiles, or  evoke  from the infected
 earth his poisonous agents, you are to  meet  him  in the courage of a
 wisdom that cannot  be dismayed, and in the plenitude of a preparation
 that  cannot, unless God decree, be overdrawn.
   The guardians of health and life, your very pretensions invest you
 with character, and, if supported  by the acquirements that justify your
 title, will give you the currency of gentlemen and the confidence of friend-
 ship/  The practitioners of the most benign art of civilization, the public
 have the right to  expect and exact the utmost amenity of manners, the
most constant benevolence of spirit, the kindness  of word and deed, that
shall assuage the bitterness of sorrow, and gild the gloom of despondency 
 with the radiance of hope.   The light of your countenance should be
 to the heart of the sick as the face of an angel, and  the sound of your
 footsteps the signal of sympathising  tenderness.   If  life be spared  and
 business prosper, you will sec the human body in its most humiliating
 aspects—weak, shrunk, loathsome—"from the crown of the head to
 the sole of the foot, nought but wounds, bruises and putrifying sores;"
 the mind raging in the  frenzy of delirium, or drivelling in the imbe-
 cility of idiocy,—suffering in all its forms,  hunger, sickness, thirst,
 poverty and  disease, in the  same ragged and comfortless habitation,
 parents  and children involved in one general wo; pangs and tears  and
 anguish, unseen by the common eye, unheard by the public ear, will
 all be familiar to you.   You will see the blossoms of hope crushed in
 the icy grasp of death, and  hear  the wail of anguish as  it goes up at
 midnight hour from a stricken household, wailing the departure of the
 loved and lost.  Youth, stricken in  the  pride  of beauty, pale, cold,
 breathless, ready for the tomb, "the  only son  of his mother and  she a
 widow," will  die before your eyes and  leave no light or hope behind,
 and age, desolate and alone, will  sink  to the fellowship of the buried
 and the forgotten.   With these scenes passing daily before you, you
 are in danger, from habit  and hardening, of coming  to look upon  life
 without interest, except as it verges upon death, and to regard the  in-
 firmities of men simply as a source of revenue to the medical profession.
 If familiarity with suffering be combined with the love of filthy lucre,
the almost inevitable result will be an induration of the heart—a seal-
ing up of the fountains of feeling, that may leave you the artificial mild-
 ness of a worldly polish, the bespangled covering of the basest natures,
the worthless, disgusting substitute of genuine  politeness, but the charm,
the glory of the heart will have fled forever.   "Keep your hearts with
all diligence."  Beware lest interest beguile you of your simplicity and
habit entomb your sympathies.
   Unskilled, as I am, in Anatomy and  Physiology, it is perhaps pre-
sumption in me to  say, (yet I will venture the remark,) that there is a
fatal error in your profession, in the mode of your dealing with the sick
 and the dying.  I  know the shock of painful intelligence sometimes
unnerves, and that  excitement exhausts and so  enfeebles the functions of
 life, but where an immortal  spirit, unanointed and unforgiven, is soon^.
very soon, to pass from earth to the presence of its Maker, if the intima-
tion of the approaching crisis be withheld, and the suffering patient be
allowed  to hope for life, and refrain his lips from  prayer till death
 comes, and  he has cone to his last account unwarned, I think  the 
9
physician has assumed an awful responsibility.   It is a compliment to
the decisions of  science, perhaps at the expense of a  soul's salvation.
It is adherence  to a fallible judgment, rather than to that  principle of
morality which  binds us, in a doubtful case, to take the safe side.  In
these circumstances the safe side ought to be determined by the magni-
tude  and duration of the  interests involved, and  the life everlasting
ought never to be jeopardized for the life that can, at best, be protected
but a few days.   If it savor of criminal weakness  and of wicked devo-
tion  to medical  opinion to withhold the truth, even where there is an
honest, Avell-grounded  fear that the announcement would result in the
aggravation of  the  malady and  the hastening of death, how shall  I
designate the savage meanness,—the heartless  cruelty,—the awful im-
piety of inspiring false  hopes, by light declarations of the nature of the
disease, giving positive  assurances of speedy restoration, when  death is
at the door, and all lest the contrary should seem to imply the acknow-
ledgment (a confession  never to be made, it seems, but in the last ex-
tremity) that the Doctor had met more than his  match.   This is trifling
with a vengeance.  Who? What is man, that a soul must die lest his
 vanity be wounded and his skill discredited?  Who?   What is man,
that the defence of his system of practice should justify him in the ut-
terance of a lie  to a dying creature?   I beseech you, gentlemen,  never
trifle, never deceive, though the temptation spring from the impulse of
intended  kindness, and is recommended  to your  adoption  under the
auspices of printed philosophy.   Prudence  is necessary, but  is seldom
or never inconsistent with truth.   Yield to  no  unmanly fears—no ner-
vous morbid excitement,  "frightening yourself from your own pro-
priety."   Be calm and undismayed whatever the trial, nor lose, in the
confusion of alarm, the clue to the  salvation of your patient.   Express
your hopes of recovery, if you have them, but never compromise the
integrity of your profession.   Rely not upon the  sanative influence of
deceit, nor consent to share with  the Father of Lies  the glory of suc-
cess.  Rest assured that honesty is  the better policy, whether you re-
gard the upbuilding of your reputation, the testimony of your con-
science, or the accountability of the future.
    The exclusion  of the Minister of the Gospel and the interdict of reli-
gious exercises, is sometimes carried to an unwarrantable length in the
 exercise of an authority questionable in its  origin, and certainly injudi-
cious in its exercise.   If it be the will of the sick one to seek the religious
                   2 
10
consolation appropriate to his circumstances. I doubt whether the refusal
is not an invasion of the rights of conscience, and that too at the very
time when the exercise of them is the last chance for salvation.   I do not
suppose that the interdict involves corruption of heart and hostility to God,
in the sense of criminal intention in the premises, but the deprivation is not
less an act  of illegitimate authority because'it  sprung from honesty of
judgment and kindness of motive.  There may be no taint of wicked-
ness in the  transaction  as to the agent, and yet the effect upon the sub-
ject may be wofully disastrous.   To extenuate the impropriety of an
interference in a case of this kind, the reasons should be strong as de-
monstration, and not  mere probabilities derived from  general  theory
or vague analogies.   The Physician's carelessness in reference to
salvation, and it may be his skepticism as to the whole Christian scheme,
may, and sometimes does  (as I have seen,) so warp judgment and so
infect his heart with the poison of infidelity, as to make him seize with
avidity upon an occasion that afforded him an opportunity of expressing
his contempt of all religion—and  sounder cover of the opinion that the
patient needs repose, that whatever would  agitate and  excite  must be
kept away, he arbitrarily excludes preachers, Bibles and prayers.  In
such case he has wickedly usurped another's right of judgment, and,
in my opinion, committed an offence of highest  enormity against God
and man.
   I admit  there may be peculiar  cases where  the exercise  of such au-
thority grows properly out of the Physician's  responsibility.   They,
however, are rare.  I  mean, by the above remarks, only to inculcate
the utmost caution and the greatest tenderness of conscience, lest you con-
demn yourselves by that which you refuse to allow.   My experience
in visiting the sick, in a great  diversity of circumstances, has led me to
the conclusion  that the soothing effect of religious exercises often ope-
rates happily upon the  body, and that prayer never injures the souls or
bodies of men.   The agitations of fear,—the  pangs of remorse,—the
fearful  locking-for of judgment and fiery indignation, must  be,  as to
their physical effects, quite as unfavorable to recovery as any that can
ensue from the counsels of a judicious teacher.  The minister or  lay-
man who would assail  the dying or the sick with rude denunciation, or
even loud and vehement exhortation, must be as dead to  the tender sym-
pathies of his kind as he is destitute of the spirit of his Master.   The
citation of the promises of the Bible, the repetition of the Saviours
name, the voice of prayer to a benignant Father can never, never harm
the patient  or commit the Doctor. 
11
  In this connection, permit me to remind you that while personally
you occupy the common ground of your race and must needs give an
account of yourselves to God, and therefore have no time to spare and
no reason for delay, a variety of motives derived from your professional
relations are superadded, demanding  the  consecration of your heart to
God.   You will  be called to visit human beings in the hour of their
weakness and their pain, when the past with its guilt rushes upon the
memory, and the future with its untold terrors frights away the approach-
ing spirit;  at such times it should be part of your vocation to minister
to the  troubled conscience by recommending the balm of Gilead and
the  Physician there.  If in some forlorn and  isolated condition  (as I
have known to happen,) a despairing sinner, seized of death, beseech
you to  pray for him, when you have not learned to pray for yourselves,
the time—the place—the subject—the petition, will bring before you in
awful light the horrors  of your own delinquency and  scathe you with
a remorse  for which earth has no solace and  time no cure.   Prepare
yourselves for every emergency.   Learn to seek direction of God in
all you do, and when occasion requires let  the voice  of prayer  from
your lips tell of sympathy with the suffering and of communion with
 heaven.
  The history of life is a tale of varied and ever varying distress,—a roll
 of mourning, lamentation and wo, and the angel that  unfolds it seems
 commissioned to waste and destroy.   Go, seek to stay his ravages, and,
 in the  two-fold character of Physician and comforter, mingle the alle-
 viations of hope in the cup of earth's bitterness.  Go, be eyes to the
 blind,  feet  to the lame, and  let the  blessing of him that is ready to
 perish come upon you.  Emulate the masters of your art in your as-
 pirations after knowledge.   Abhor idleness.  Resolve to be indepen-
 dent.   Let religion sanctify your spirit.  Consecrate your life to honor.
 to usefulness and to God.   Then, whether life for you be robed  in
 sunlight or  darkened  by trouble and  tempest, glory's temple will be
 the tomb, and death itself be immortality.