INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS 
TO THE 
NINTH ANNUAL COURSE OF LECTURES 
IN THE 
OF CINCINNATI, 
DELIVERED OCTOBER 7, 1868. 
E. B. Stevens, M. D. 
PROFESSOR OF MATERIA MEDICA AND THERAPEUTICS. 
PUBLISHED BY THE CLASS. 
CINCINNATI: 
A. ABRAHAM, JOB AND MERCANTILE PRINTER, 
118 WEST THIRD STREET. 
1 8 6 8. INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS 
TO THE 
NINTH ANNUAL COURSE OF LECTURES 
IN THE 
MIAMI MEDICAL COLLEGE, 
OF CINCINNATI, 
DELIVERED OCTOBER 7, 1868. 
pY p. j3. yVL p. 
PROFESSOR OF MATERIA MEDICA AND THERAPEUTICS. 
PUBLISHED BY THE CLASS. 
CINCINNATI: 
A. ABRAHAM, .JOB AND MERCANTILE PRINTER, 
118 WEST THIRD STREET. 
1 8 6 8. Correspondence. 
Miami Medical College, 1 
Cincinnati, Ohio, October 26,1868. J 
Prof. Edward B. Stevens; 
Dear Sir—At a meeting of the class, A. W. Davis, of 
New Brunswick, presiding, and J. B. Eitchey, of Ohio, act- 
ing as Secretary, it was, on motion, 
Resolved, That a committee composed of one member of the class 
from each State represented, he appointed to solicit for publication a 
copj’’ of your Introductory Address, delivered at the opening exercises 
of the Session of 1868-’69. 
Yery respectfully, yours, 
J. B. Eitchey, Secretary. 
A. W. DAYIS, President. 
Henry Illoway, Ohio, 
T. M. Todd, Pennsylvania, 
W. H. Yan Dusen, Wis., 
S. A. Craig, W. Virginia, 
A. C. Foster, Kentucky, 
Fenton Young, Missouri. 
J. 11. Smith, Maryland, 
Albert H. Wilson, Minn., 
E. ,T. Oayens, Indiana, 
J. J. Cox, N. Carolina, 
J. 0. Steel, Illinois, 
Committee. 
Cincinnati, October 27.1868, 
319 Elm Street, J 
Gentlemen: 
Your complimentary note of yesterday is received. 
The Address was prepared for the class, and is placed at 
their disposal. Please extend to your associates my sincere 
regards, and allow me this opportunity to express my anx- 
iety for their improvement, and my desire to aid them hy 
all possible means. For yourselves accept my best wishes, 
and believe me, 
Yery truly, your friend, 
EDWAED B. STEYENS. 
To Messrs. Illoway, Smith, Todd, and others. A D D R ESS, 
Ladies and Gentlemen— 
Gentlemen oe the Class: 
The long, hot summer days are past. Generous Earth 
has yielded her increase. The golden harvest has ripened, 
and been garnered. The abundant fruits of autumn are 
being gathered in store for winter’s supply. The glorious 
tiller of the soil has reaped a rich reward for the labors of 
the season, and is preparing to rest, for a time, from severe 
toil about the quiet of his hearthstone, and amid domestic 
enjoyments. These changing seasons bring to us somber 
days and smoky skies; all nature assumes the rich, mellow 
tints of autumn; the forest leaves have taken on their red 
and golden hues, as if making their last struggle for life, 
before relentless frost sweeps away their beauty forever. 
The seasons thus in their course, bringing a respite to the 
various severer physical toils of life, usher in the peculiarly 
fit time for the persistent and successful pursuits of the stu- 
dent. Thus, while nature seems to rest from her annual 
work, and the husbandman smokes his pipe and drinks his 
cider, and the delver in mines counts up the trophies of 
the year, the student gathers about him his books, and 
maps, and instruments; his retorts and crucibles, and test- 
tubes; his microscope and scalpel, and enters upon those 
quiet, patient investigations that mark the regular pro- 
gress of general science, as well as the personal accumu- 
lations of truths, in the special fields of human inquiry and 
knowledge. 6 
Introductory Address. 
Students of to-night, you have come up to this great city 
to enter upon your winter’s campaign of this sort of patient 
professional work. You are getting ready for the toil and 
conquest of life. Here you will find books and instruments 
suited to the task before you. The various appliances which 
serve to facilitate your undertaking will he placed at your 
disposal. Our city is just completing the most magnificent 
hospital in the country, beautiful and imposing in structure, 
complete in its internal appointments; its wards will afford 
shelter and treatment for the sick in all the departments of 
practical medicine and surgery;- these will, in their turn, 
become for you means of instruction in your profession be- 
yond all computation. This College will also offer for you 
its own peculiar attractions. In its spacious lecture halls, 
through its ample museum and demonstrative resources, 
and with these my colleagues in hearty unison and conse- 
crated to the work of teaching, I am sure you will find here 
the complement of the Hospital Clinic, in the full College 
didactic. 
To all of these purposes, then, to these advantages, to this 
Queen City, to this Course of Instruction which we now 
inaugurate, gentlemen of the class, I give you welcome. 
To another gentleman, my honored friend, the Professor 
of Physiology and Pathology, was originally assigned this 
pleasant duty. But, although he has fairly earned a flattering- 
position in this city, he has seen fit to break up his domestic 
habits, break in upon his professional work and go abroad 
for a year, that he may add to the rich stores of personal 
and professional culture he already enjoys. Such earnest- 
ness of purpose should be for us at home, and for you of 
the class, a fresh incentive to strive for the completest pan- 
oply of the true physician. In his behalf, then, as well as in 
behalf of my colleagues here, I again extend to you our 
formal but sincere greetings. 
(In this connection it is, perhaps, right that I should take 
this occasion to say that which most of the class probably 
know, that ample and satisfactory arrangements are made Miami Medical College. 
7 
to supply the course of instruction usually given by Pro- 
fessor Taylor.) 
In accordance with established custom, I desire to occupy 
your attention with some practical considerations which 
seem to me adapted to this occasion, but with limited time 
for preparation, I shall content myself chiefly with some 
brief reflections of rather a catechetical nature. 
First of all, I wish to ask you, and I wish you to ask 
yourselves: First, Why do you devote yourselves to the profes- 
sion of medicine? Then, second, What systematic plans of study 
have you devisedf Third, and finally, What are the profes- 
sional purposes and. aims which you propose for yourselves? 
And, gentlemen, if you have not already, in considerable 
degree, satisfactorily determined for yourselves the solution 
of these questions, or if you are not now prepared to solve 
them by the severest internal examination of yourselves 
and all your individual attributes, I am frank to say to you 
that, in my judgment, you should not be here to-night as 
medical students. 
To die is a serious matter; to live is far more serious. 
And, yet, you have heard that trite old expression, “that 
one must live.” But a bluff old cynic, long ago, put his 
seal of denial to this supposed axiom, and I agree with him, 
that unless a man lives for the accomplishment of worthy 
and useful purposes, there is no special necessity for his 
living; and in this view of the matter, it really seems to me 
that the sooner a great many men could contrive to die the 
better. 
In determining the personal problem of life, however, 
many men associate certain vague notions of ease, prefer- 
ment, wealth and respectability, as pertaining to pursuits 
of a professional character, and such float into Jaw, theology, 
or medicine, partly by a sort of instinct, and partly by acci- 
dent. But whoever expects that his lines will happen to 
him in pleasant places, in any of these respects, as a' nat- 
ural result of entering upon the profession of medicine will 
very probably awake, when life is rapidly passing, to the sad 
reality of his mistake. All successful professional life is a 8 
Introductory Address. 
season of very earnest, exacting toil; this is peculiarly true 
of our profession, because the physician knows no interval 
of rest that he can call his own, or appropriate to relaxation. 
All hours of day or night—the parlor, sleep, devotion—are 
liable at any moment to be invaded by the inexorable de- 
mand of the sick man. I shall speak, by and by, of dis- 
tinctions worthy your highest ambition, but let me frankly 
assure you that medicine is most certainly no royal road to 
distinctions or preferments of a worldly character; and, as 
to the pecuniary rewards, let me tell you that the man who 
digs the sewers of your city is better paid than his Doctor, 
if you fairly estimate all the time, labor, expense and brains 
that is requisite for his education and training, and his years 
of painful, patient waiting. 
Many physicians make a respectable living, a few accu- 
mulate property and become wealthy, while statistics tell 
us that in the entire great State of Ohio, the average cash 
income of its physicians is less than $l,OOO per annum; of 
the more than two hundred physicians in Cincinnati, not 
one-half live by their professional income, and the same is 
largely true of every city and village you will visit. 
The natural inference would seem to be that medicine, as 
with all the professions, is overcrowded; this is certainly 
true if you regard the question numerically. But for your 
encouragement, I do not hesitate to say that of true, culti- 
vated, thoroughly educated physicians, the supply is very 
limited. I think it is well that you, young gentlemen, just 
entering upon the study of medicine, should know these 
facts, that you may profit by the various suggestions that 
spring from them. 
The truth is, God never intended men should live lives of 
ease. This is emphatically a working world; men in it are 
not distinguished by the pursuit they adopt; the profession 
does not bring honor to a man, but the man becomes him- 
self wmrthy or worthless as he performs the duties of life, 
thus bringing honor to his calling. 
Carlyle was very near correct, when he said, long ago, 
that a man’s religion is the chief fact with regard to him. Miami Medical College. 
9 
And by religion he did not, then, have reference so much to 
the church creed a man possesses, the articles of faith which 
he will sign, but the thing a man does practically believe, 
the thing a man does practically lay to heart, and know for 
certain concerning his vital relations to this mysterious 
universe, and his duty and destiny there; that is in all cases 
the primary thing for him, and creatively determines all the 
rest. That is his religion. The manner in which he feels 
himself to bo spiritually related to the unseen world, and if 
you tell me what that is, you tell me, to a very great extent, 
what the man is, what kind of thing she"will do. 
]STow, when a man makes choice of medicine, as the pur- 
suit of his life, he should have reference in a very consider- 
able degree to this sort of personal religion, he should have 
very special reference to this idea of his spiritual relation 
to this universe, of which he is a part. In a word, this 
whole thing of life is too earnest a business to be trifled and 
frittered away. 
I trust, then, that you will disabuse yourselves of those 
fancied material attractions, which are supposed to cluster 
about medicine as a profession ; tossing these overboard, 
you are the better prepared to ajipreeiate its real attributes 
and examine yourselves with reference to your true fitness 
for a calling so honorable and exalted, that to our Blessed 
Saviour even we do not hesitate to appropriate the title of 
the Great Physician. 
There are abundant reasons why a man should receive 
hire for his labor, and upon all proper occasions he should 
insist upon a fair and prompt condensation for service, bo 
that medical or otherwise. But there are other and higher 
motives in life than the pecuniary consideration, and he has 
a sad and impoverished ambition whose chief aim is th 
accumulation of worldly pelf. 
If a man has a taste to study the laws of life—the mys- 
terious mechanism of himself—all those influences and 
agencies which repair wasting life, and restore its failing 
powers. If with a big heart he can take in humanity and 
enjoy the sweet pleasure of working for its good, for its 10 
Introductory Address. 
culture, for its elevation. If lie have the will to toil in such 
a grand field of usefulness as this, answering the calls of 
the afflicted, seeking out the distressed, visiting the haunts 
of disease, amid vice and wretchedness, and pollution, as 
promptly as in the homes of elegance and wealth, then the 
profession of medicine holds out an inviting hand, and 
points to fields of worthy toil and objects of the noblest 
ambition. And he wdio diligently and patiently labors 
herein, though he may not, and very probably will not, 
amass wealth or reach civic honors, yet will he almost cer- 
tainly command the esteem of his fellow-men, the gratitude 
of many a creature whose suffering has been relieved by 
his art and skill, and enough of the metallic consideration 
t!to keep the wolf from the door” and send the boys to 
college. 
Now, gentlemen, if you have selected medicine as your 
calling in life, influenced by considerations, and attracted by 
motives such as I have just presented to you; and if you 
are willing to devote yourselves with earnestness to your 
preparation, and with patient faith to your work, then I 
repeat to you my welcome, and assure you that we shall 
make every effort to aid you in your studies, and guide you 
in the path that promises success. 
Second. Having carefully estimated the character of the 
medical calling, its attractions for you, and your adaptation 
to it, I next ask you, What plans you have matured to jit you 
for the exercise of your vocation ? 
Our country is fast filling up with a vast, teeming, culti- 
vated population; the demand is for earnest, energetic men 
in all the relations of life, and the time is rapidly passing 
when physicians of limited acquirements will be accepted. 
First of all, then, you must determine to he thorough, and 
you will succeed in this very much as you conduct your 
course of study; you must have a system about that and 
rigidly carry it out. Nobody need expect to stumble into a 
knowledge of the science and art of medicine with all its 
train of research 1 You must be complete and thorough, 
then, if you desire success, and this is not a matter accom- Miami Medical College. 
11 
plished at once; step by step we accumulate knowledge, 
but let every step be made on firm ground, so that it need 
not be taken again. 
Sir T. F. Buxton said bis maxims were, “Never to begin 
a book without finishing it, never to consider it finished 
without knowing it, and to study with the whole mind.” 
I commend these maxims to you as most useful and excel- 
lent rules for the study of medicine. 
It is presumed for the most part that each medical student 
places himself under the care of a private preceptor; most 
of you have already done, so, and there are some manifest 
advantages in this feature of a medical education, found in 
the daily association with an experienced and skillful phy- 
sician for the usual period of pupilage; not only his society, 
influence and conversation may be made valuable, but the 
routine of office—the examination of patients-—if in the 
country, the familiarity'with drugs and the preparation of 
prescriptions. But of necessity the laborious life of a coun- 
try physician breaks in upon all regular habits of study, 
and it is rare that the student receives any systematic guid- 
ance or drill; I, therefore, give it as my judgment, that the 
best course for the student to pursue, in this respect, is to 
select his medical school, and make it from the beginning 
and throughout his preceptor. I am aware of the serious 
inconvenience this would cause to many, but the advantage 
of regular, systematic drilling, daily observation of hospital 
practice the year round, more frequent and thorough devo- 
tion to practical anatomy, together with the usual didactic 
instruction of winter and summer, can not well bo estimated. 
To lounge about the office of some worthy Doctor, visit 
the city during some part of two winters, coming late, and 
finding a pretext to depart early in the session; this is the 
other way, but can scarce be styled study. 
In regard to the time that should be devoted to the study 
of your profession, I have but a few words to give you; the 
requirements of American Colleges exact three years of 
study, lecture terms being included, the student, strangely 
enough, is prone to fancy this a severe extension of time, Introductory Address. 
and exhibits great anxiety to abridge it, while the matured 
physician knows that very few men are even safe to enter 
upon the practice at an earlier period, so that the proposi- 
tion of American teachers now is to lengthen the pupilage 
to four years. The truth is, very few persons who really 
enter upon the study of medicine with a hearty apprecia- 
tion of its vastness and varied elements, will need to be 
hampered with any requirements of time. Except for the 
work to be done, it passes all too swiftly away. To master 
an accurate familiarity with the elements of our profession, 
and a respectable familiarity with, the practical features of 
disease and its treatment, in a time less than three years is 
simply impossible. That you may understand how this 
matter is regarded abroad, let me, without, however, ex- 
pressing a desire for the introduction of the system here, 
give, in brief, the curriculum of Stockholm University, 
Sweden: 
“After two years of genei’al education in the University, 
the candidate for medical studies must submit to a prelim- 
inary examination in Latin, Mathematics, Chemistry, Botany 
and Geology. He’then performs dissections for two years, 
and works at practical chemistry for six or twelve months, 
at the same time attending hospital practice at Stockholm 
for six months, voluntary attendance at the Military Hos- 
pital, followed by four months’ practice at the Hospital of 
Upsala. At the end of the four years thus occupied comes 
the first medical examination in Anatomy, Chemistry (in- 
cluding analysis of bile and other secretions), Pathological 
Anatomy, Diagnosis of Disease, Surgery and Midwifery. 
“Then follows hospital practice at Upsala or Lena, and at 
Stockholm, the student being occupied from eight A. M. till 
three P. M. in case taking, making post-mortem examinations 
and writing descriptions of post-mortem appearances. Twice 
a week, for two hours at a time, the student works in the 
laboratory at the chemistry of morbid secretions. Then 
attendance at the Hospital for Sick Children for four months, 
four times a week. At the same time the student attends 
midwifery for four months in a hospital of forty beds. Then Miami Medical College. 
13 
follows the study of Syphilitic Diseases for two months; 
Insanity two months; Legal Medicine and Legal Protocols 
two months, and Practical Pharmacy. 
“All the preceding courses are necessary for the license 
to practice. But to become an M. D. a candidate must ho 
house surgeon one year, and study abroad one year.” 
I may add that in England, France and Germany, while 
the course of study does not precisely correspond to the 
curriculum I have just read, the requirements are not essen- 
tially different. 
Many students seem to regard particular departments of 
the profession as of but little importance to their peculiar 
purposes. One eschews surgery, for example, and therefore 
slights his anatomy; others fancy chemistry will not be of 
importance in their practical routine; various other special 
branches he fancies will scarce ever come within his quiet and 
modest domain, or if so that he will send them to some city 
practitioner of note. But let me tell you, no man is fit to 
practice at all who has so contracted an ambition, and with 
such expectations he rarely practices to any extent, and is 
of those who are ready to abandon their profession for some 
more lucrative or agreeable calling, forever wondering at 
their failures, and stupidly overlooking the fact that men to 
succeed must be prepared for success. But it is wonderful, 
indeed, how completely interwoven is every department of 
our science, and how one illumines the other. A surgeon 
of this College was recently called to a distant point to 
operate on a peculiar diseased bone. Upon his relating the 
features of the case, I remarked, “that certain special con- 
ditions of the system must surely underlie this trouble.” 
“Oh! yes,” he replied, “that was not suspected, but I so 
inferred, and ingenius interrogatories unraveled the whole 
mystery.” And thus it is that the physician of narrow 
ideas and limited resources is continually baffled in his 
cases, while his cultivated neighbor sees in these very ob- 
scurities certain familiar expressions that afford him the 
key to their exact pathology. 
At this point, gentlemen of the class, it might, perhaps, Introductory Address. 
be quite as fit for me to close with a God speed you, and an 
exhortation to fidelity in your labor, leaving to some friend, 
at the close of your study, the task of gazing into the fu- 
ture, and seeking the elements of that success in life toward 
which we strive, and for which we have so many hopes and 
heartaches. Yet it seems to me that I shall not fill up the 
measure of my duty—certainly not ray plan—unless I put 
to you that third query announced in my opening remarks. 
Third. What purposes have you determined—what are the 
aims of your professional life? 
I know that we can not absolutely fix our future. Un- 
foreseen events will suddenly arise to fix our destiny and 
change the dearest plans of a lifetime. But it is equally 
true that we can not blunder into fortune, or stumble into 
success. 1 know it is said of some that whatever they touch 
turns, Midas-like, to gold. And, now and then, it would 
seem that “the fickle goddess, Forune,” favors particular 
individuals to a wonderful degree. Still, I should be glad 
if 1 could impress upon every young gentleman starting in 
professional life, the stern maxim, that there is no such thing 
as luck in the affairs of this world. There is no more luck 
in the success of the physician than there is in the results 
of the farmer’s tillage; no more, no less. It is a matter of 
calculation, time and proper attention to the duties of each 
day, in its order. 
I will presume that you have planned maturely to fit 
yourself for your calling, after some of the suggestions you 
have already received, and having selected a place for work, 
let me say to you, indentify yourself with your community, 
become a part of it, in its plans and its necessities. The 
saddest thing in the story of any man is, that he lived, car- 
ing for none of the prominent objects of society, loving 
none of its public enterprises, or its people, dying, of course, 
regretted by none, speedily forgotten by all. 
The impress of Dr. Drake is made upon all the most im- 
portant enterprises of this city. To be sure, many of his 
undertakings looked to self-aggrandizement, still they, at 
the same time, pertained to the material prosperity of the Miamical Medi College. 
15 
city. There was no medical college, his energy and genins 
and personal influence established one; dissentions, bicker- 
ings and discontent came in as a flood, and he labored to 
supply what he thought a failure by another school. A 
hospital was needed, and he exerted the same spirit of cre- 
ation, and the magnificent structure, whose beauty and 
completeness is become the pride of our city, is the final 
crown of glory to that labor of love nearly half a century 
ago. But not alone in mere medical matters, was he found 
an earnest citizen. He was one of the first and most far- 
sighted of our railroad men. He was one of the earliest 
advocates of the temperance reform; one of the earliest 
laborers in our forming system of Common Schools. So, 
that while Drake was the property of the whole profession 
of this great interior valley, and his thoughts and feelings 
were common property, yet his heart’s warmest affections 
were intimately intertwined with the growth, progress and 
institutions of this, his adopted city. 
Then, too, strive to avoid a restless, wandering spirit; I 
do not believe there is so much choice in a location as some 
suppose. Select a territory where there is work, where you 
will be contented to live, where you will find such people 
as you can respect and love, and settle down for your life 
work. Some of the most brilliant physicians of this coun- 
try have only made half a success in life, because, in a spirit 
of restlessness and impatience, they allowed various tempt- 
ations to attract them to new fields of enterprise. This was 
true, to some extent, of Drake with all his greatness. It 
was true of Eberle; it was eminently true of Lawson. 
Neither Drake or Lawson should ever, for any considera- 
tion, have left this city. Eberle should never have aban- 
doned Philadelphia. 
All of us, no matter how fortunate in life, will look back 
to our sad and damaging mistakes; but still the map of our 
journey may be drawn, and its chart followed with wonder- 
ful accuracy if we will. 
As a model in our profession, lot me commend you to 
study the life of Dr. Charles Frick, who died in the city of 16 
Introductory Address. 
Baltimore only a few years ago. It is interesting to me for 
its worth, for its systematized plan, for its steady progress 
toward that measure of success in life to which we may all 
honorably aspire; and, for me, there is a pleasant sympathy 
in the fact that we were born almost upon the same day, 
and a sad sympathy in the events of his early and untimely 
death. 
Having employed the usual means of reaching a thorough 
knowledge and fitness in his profession, he embarked in its 
practice, But this became for him no season of ''holiday, 
and we find him at this stage entering at once and with 
zeal upon those pursuits which serve to develop and mature 
a man’s capacity and resources. Thus, in those early days, 
when patients came slowly, the long hours were divested of 
their weariness by an earnest study of hospital cases, and 
their minute physical diagnosis. Other times he found the 
dead-house and the revelations of post-mortem lesions pleas- 
ant and profitable labor. Then we find him employing 
some of those early hours of his professional life in prepar- 
ing careful reports of observations in practice for the med- 
ical journals. A year or two later he organizes a Prepara- 
tory School of Medicine, which afforded a new and pleasant 
variety to his work, and very soon developed his talent for 
teaching; so that subsequently he ripened into one of the 
most acceptable teachers of his city. Still restless we note 
his analyses of the blood in disease, which have been ac- 
cepted as of standard authority. Continued studies in an- 
alytical chemistry; essays on renal diseases; oxaluria; the 
diuretic properties of various drugs, with extended experi- 
ments. All these exhibit the patient, systematic character 
of his studies, and rapidly ripened his ability and reputa- 
tion as a successful practitioner. Hot only did this sort of 
work tell on his home position, but when at the end of ten 
years of professional life he visited Europe, he was greeted 
most cordially as a brother pathologist by such men as 
Paget, Todd and Trousseau. And then, too, what an eye 
he had for the beautiful, especially bearing upon his studies. 
Thus he says, in his Continental tour, “I have never seen Miami Medical College. 
17 
anything so beautiful as the Alpine Flora, on every hand 
quantities of aconite with its tall spike of blue hoods, the 
delicate carapanella with its bell-shaped cup, and the modest 
blue gentian skirting the G-laciers.” 
Thus briefly I call your attention to this successful prac- 
titioner, graceful teacher, learned pathologist, as an illus- 
tration of what I tell you, that there is no such thing as 
luck in the practice of medicine; it is a matter of calculation 
and earnest work. Dr. Frick made himself worthy of pub- 
lic confidence and professional regard, and he speedily re- 
ceived them. 
It is lamentable to add, that on the 20th of March, 1860, 
while so steadily pressing forward to honor and usefulness, 
he operated for tracheotomy in a case of diphtheria, received 
some of the diphtheritic poison in his system, and on the 
fifth day afterward his pure and noble spirit fled from earth 
to the Creator. 
Dr. John D. God man has often been presented as afford- 
ing a like illustration. I allude to him chiefly for his emi- 
nent and correct character, but partly in remembrance that 
he was for a short period a resident of this city, the editor 
of probably our first medical journal, and one of the first 
Professors of Surgery in the Medical College of Ohio. Like 
Frick (and hailing from the same city of Baltimore), God- 
man realized that “life was short and art long,” and ho 
went to work with a will as soon as he had received his de- 
gree. Frick’s studies tended rather to pathology and med- 
ical chemistry. Godmau cultivated anatomy, and became 
one of the most brilliant teachers of that department of 
science our country has ever known. He wrote for the 
journals and became an accomplished editor. Phthisis in- 
sidiously developed itself; yet, while confined to his last 
sick room, ho wrote for one of the periodicals of that time a 
series of most beautiful papers, known as the “Hambies of 
a Naturalist.” At the eai-ly age of thirty-six, “he com- 
mended his family to the Father of Mercies, and calmly 
resigned himself into the hands of the Savior, whom lie 
trusted.” 18 
Introductory Address. 
He has been styled one ot the brightest stars which have 
as yet risen above the horizon of our profession, but, like 
the lamented Frick, ho, too, fell from our firmament before 
ho had as yet reached his meridian splendor. 
Before I conclude, I should be sadly derelict to feeling, as 
well as propriety, if I did not embrace this occasion to bring 
a feeble but sincere and grateful tribute of affection to the 
memory of one who was so recently of us—so recently gone 
from us. 
What a frankness and freshness; what pleasant, manly 
beauty; what a cheery personal magnetism—all gave char- 
acter and attractions to him, when first I came, twenty years 
ago, to listen to the teachings of Jesse Parker Judkins. 
In his later days he may not have exhibited the same in- 
clination to the toils of professional life, but then he was 
ambitious, and spared no study, observation or labor that 
led to the accomplishment of his aspirations. He worked 
up, too, in the same rugged path that we all have to follow; 
a young city physician, he cared for the poor, and in his 
prime, and up to the end of his career, he was ever the kind 
friend of the needy. Steadily he made his ascent. He had 
the qualities of head and heart that attracted about him 
hosts of friends. As an anatomist, Hr. Jesse Judkins had 
few, if any, superiors. He was an expert operating surgeon, 
and had he elected to devote himself to that department of 
our profession, he would have attained an eminent success. 
His presence and manner inspired confidence in the sick 
room to a wonderful degree. He was modest, dignified, 
courteous in his bearing, and by his kindness of heart and 
the charm of his. social qualities, he endeared himself to all 
with whom he had any relations. 
“Noneknew him but to love, 
None named him hut to praise.” 
He was in the highest sense a gentleman, and stood forth 
a noble representative of that chivalric manhood which no 
time, place or circumstances can conceal or cause to be for- 
gotten among his professional brethren. I especially com- Miami Medical College. 
19 
mend to your study and imitation that largeness of heart 
and loyalty in friendship that grappled them to him as with 
hooks of steel. For me, there was a threefold bond of af- 
fection for Dr. Judkins—preceptor, friend and colleague. 
He guided some of my earliest studies. He was my gener- 
ous and advantageous friend in the earlier days of my pro- 
fessional life, and he was one of the ardent founders of this 
school of medicine. He was warmly devoted to the enter- 
prise, and, alone, excepting the venerated Mussey, lending 
to it, perhaps, more of individual character and reputation 
than any other member of the Faculty. He continued his 
anxiety for its success and perpetuity with his latest days. 
On the 6th day of last December, after a lingering illness, 
this beloved friend went from us—we are permitted to be- 
lieve—to join the throng of the good in a better and happier 
world. With sad hearts, many of those now present looked 
upon his face for the last of earth, and sadly followed him 
to the tomb. Let us earnestly and honestly forget his in- 
firmities, imitate his virtues, and treasure up in our hearts 
his love. Peace and honor to the memory of Dr, Jesse 
Parker Judkins. 
In the suggestions which I have thought fit to make, for 
your instruction and guidance, I have studiously avoided 
all allusions to irregular medicine and its votaries. I com- 
mend you to follow through life the example which I thus 
give you. The complete study and practice of your pro- 
fession will give you little time to waste upon what are 
styled quacks or quackery. 
Steadily, as our country is filling up with intelligent, cul- 
tivated people, the line is being distinctly drawn between 
science and pretense. Let us so employ the talent God has 
bestowed upon us, and the days he kindly lengthens out to 
us, that there shall be no mistake as to where we belong, 
or our individual fitness for our calling. 
And in my remarks at this time it has simply been ray 
wish to present our profession to you in its just character. 
And, while I have desired to disabuse you of visionary 
hopes and notions, I am. at the same time, ready to say to Introductory Address. 
you that, in ray opinion, no calling in life is more honora- 
ble; none presents to you a wider field of usefulness; no 
human pursuit requires so entire and enlarged a personal 
culture. So that, with a wise estimate of yourselves and 
your relations to life, you enter upon a profession affording 
the noblest incentives to earnestness and patience; a pro- 
fession, after all, though not presenting the gross ends, yet 
affording the most attractive of earthly rewards. No man 
is justified in determining his choice of medicine, as a pro- 
fession, except upon the satisfactory settlement of the in- 
terrogations I have presented to you; but having made the 
choice, let it he for life. Cast no look backward. Give your 
best affections, thought, energy, enthusiasm to this art, and 
it will then become for you truly sacred and divine. 
You have read that “ There were giants is those days.” 
I have alluded to some of those, who, by toil and brains, 
have reached such title. These famous men have, one by 
one, been passing away. Some of us have sat as Pauls at 
the feet of these learned Gamaliels, and treasured up their 
teachings as inspirations. These colleagues who surround 
me, have lived in the warmth of their presence, have en- 
deavored humbly to tread in their fotsteps, and to emulate 
their example. Standing thus, as the mature men of to- 
day, the link binding the glorious past, with a more glori- 
ous future, we stand ready to deliver into your younger 
hands the flaming torch of medical knowledge which we 
received from them, that you may, in your turn, keep its 
luster ever bright, its pure flame ever unsullied, and thus 
transmit the sacred deposit to coming generations.