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ADDRESS
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DELIVERED AT A SUPPER
GIVEN BY
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1
THE FACULTY TO THE STUDENTS
OF THE
Atlanta  $pebtral  CuIIege,
ON THE
/    13TH OF AUGUST, 1855.
BY IV. J. HAMMOND, ESQ-
i
i
* -V -:
  ATLANTA, GEORGIA:
L. R. HANLEITER AND CO., PRINTERS.
        1845.
X


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^fe^-^»^ 
 
     ADDRESS

DELIVERED AT A SUPPER
GIVEN BY
THE FACULTY TO THE STUDENTS
OF THE
Atlanta  HUfotal  College,
ON THE
13TH OF AUGUST, 1855.
r^7
0
BY N. J. HAMMOND, ESQ-
   ATLANTA, GEORGIA:
C. R. HANLEITER AND CO., PRINTERS.
        1845. 
 
CORRESPONDENCE.
                                          Atlanta, August 18, 1855.
    Dear Sir :  The undersigned Committee appointed by the Faculty to ask for
publication your excellent Address to the Medical Class on the 13th instant, would
be pleased to have you furnish them with a copy of the same at your earliest con-
venience.
                      Very truly,
                                 J. P. LOGAN,           ")
                                 J. BORING,             [  Committee.
                                 J. G. WESTMORELAND, J
    To N. J.  Hammond, Esq.
                           Catoosa Springs,  Georgia, August 21, 1855.
Drs. J. P. Logan, J. Boring, and J. G. Westmoreland, Committee.
    Gentlemen : I am in receipt of a letter from my father enclosing a note from
you, as a Committee of the Faculty of the Atlanta Medical College, requesting for
publication a speech delivered by me, on the 13th instant, at a supper given to the
Students of the College.
    Knowing  how awkward a Supper-Table Speech generally appears in print,  I
would fain decline the proffered honor; but supposing its publication may tend in
some sort to direct attention to your young College, and thereby indirectly benefit
our common home, Atlanta, I forego all selfish considerations and will grant your
request.  I will be at home in a few days, and will furnish you my manuscript as
soon as practicable.
  With distinguished considerations for yourselves, gentlemen, and high hopes for
the success of your noble enterprise, I have the honor to subscribe  myself your
young friend,
                                                  N. J. HAMMOND. 
 
ADDRESS.
Students of the Atlanta Medical College :
    I gladly answer  the call upon me to-night.   It is at all
times pleasant to meet a  social gathering of gentlemen on  a
convivial occasion.  We come together, each having a common
desire to promote the enjoyment of every person present.  All
distinctions  of avocations which  separate us  in the every-day
walks of life are unthought of.   All  differences  in political
opinions are forgot.   Whether we stand upon this, that, or the
other platform, is a matter of little moment.   We meet around
the supper  table, a platform obnoxious to none.   We  present
the anomalous  page in  the history of conventions of a large
and highly  respectable  party, each member  of which avows,
and is ready to prove by  demonstration, that we are held to-
gether by a  desire to participate in the division of  " the loaves
and fishes."
     But the pleasure felt on such occasions generally is enhanced
at this time. We come not to pass an hour in pleasant conver-
sation, gay laughter, and  sparkling wit, and then part with no
expectation  of seeing each other again.  We desire  by this
evening's entertainment to perfect a more intimate  acquaint-
ance  and establish a more cordial intercourse between your-
selves and the citizens of  Atlanta.  In behalf of those  citizens
we welcome you in our midst,  and desire you to look upon us
no longer as strangers, but as fellow-citizens so long as you
sojourn among us, as friends so long as Atlanta and your con-
nection with it shall be unforgot.
     We rejoice at your coming amongst us, not solely  because
of the pecuniary advantages which your presence from year tp
year vouches-safe to our city.  (You will doubtless remember
that, a few days ago, on the occasion of laying the corner stone
of your College, our worthy friend  Judge Ezzard, in  urging
upon the people the necessity of fostering the institution that
day established  upon a firm basis, appealed to their pecuniary
interest alone.   He showed, you know, most conclusively, that 
6
every man in the city would be individually benefitted in a pe-
cuniary point of view, and indeed his remarks were so very
general, that I suppose they included even Pilgrim, our worthy
sexton, who lives upon Death !)  But we hail your coming be-
cause it will bring into our young city  a large body of well-
educated, high-minded, and polished young men.  We  expect
to be able to perceive, even by a casual  observation, a change
in the intelligence, case, and affability of our citizens, brought
about by your influence.   We expect honor abroad for starting
out from our midst annually so many useful citizens.  We ex-
pert blessings abroad for sending out into the world so many
scientific physicians to alleviate the physical pains of suffering
humanity.
    Xo profession, gentlemen, is better calculated to make you
both well educated and scientific, and at the same time  render
you so  dear to the hearts of all intelligent persons as medicine.
Its  age elicits the respect, while its usefulness challenges  the
love, of mankind.
    I)i  speaking of its age, however, I would  not make it as
hoary-headed as some would have it.  Because, probably, never
since our once sinless parents trod the perfumed walks of Eden
ha* man been free from physical suffering, some of the devotees
of medicine refuse to give any date to its birth.  They would
almost have us  believe that Abel struggled in death, and that
Ins mother pillowed his head upon her lap and tried with some
unknown  preparation to check the warm blood gushing from
the wound inflicted by his brother's hand.  But when men saw
the rising and setting suns  of hundreds upon hundred.; of years,
I apprehend that  their systems  suffered  but little physical de-
rangement.   With the juice of >onio crushed herb they proba-
bly cased  their  pains, and with draughts from some bubbling
fountain gave vigor to their systems. Addison  declares  that
the existence of doctors and short-lived men has been contem-
poraneous, and  makes  a  guess as  to the  existence of which
made a necessary consequence of the other.  Without com-
mitting ourselves on this last (to some) doubtful point, 1  feel
safe in saying that Mathuselah never shook hands with a de-
votee to the Ars Medica.
    It  is said that the streets and market places of the Chaldeans
and Babylonians were at one time  made loathsome by the  pre- 
7
sence of the diseased, waiting for a suggestion from some pass-
er-by which might  restore them  to  wonted health.  But we
take it that their knowledge of medicine was about as perfect
as that of our old women of the present day, who believe reli-
giously that ginger  tea and hot bricks arc the very best appli-
cations, internal and external,  in any case, from the scratch of
a pin to the fracture of the spinal column.
     I do  not by any means wish to disparage your science, gen-
tlemen, by taking away from it  the  years which have been
ascribed to it by others.  It is the boast of the Astronomer that
his is the most ancient of all sciences;  yet, for my part, I find
more pleasure in dating its  birth from the  time at  which the
Ptolemies noted  their observations in the Almagest, and in
watching its healthful growth under the fostering care of Kepler
of Germany, Tycho Brahc  of Denmark,  and Copernicus of
Prussia, than in supposing that it first saw the light five hun-
dred years before  Christ, with  Pythagoras at the school  of
Crotona.
     When, in  imagination, I see Galileo, in 1609, for the first
time point his telescope to the star-studded sky, and behold
him  exult as  he discovers  the satellites of Jupiter, the  encom-
passing rings of Saturn, and  the  seas and mountains  which
cover the face of the moon, 1  confess that  1 forget to sympa-
thize in the patient mental suffering of the men of Chaldea,
China, India, and Egypt, who vainly  sought  to  learn some-
thing of  the  blazing  worlds which, like islands,  studded  the
ether ocean above them.
     No doubt something was known both of astronomy and me-
dicine  also thousands of years before  the Christian era, but to
call that knowledge the sciences of astronomy and medicine is
to call dark night day, simply  because the moon reflects a few
rays of light from the unseen sun.
     It will not be expected that a person of my profession will be
able to interest you in the History of Medicine.  Your profes-
sion, if I  mistake not, ascribe the healing art in its first tangible
shape to the great student of the Centaur Chiron.  I know noth-
ing of him except what I have picked up in classical literature.
The  ancients made him a god, and relate many amusing things
concerning him.  Ovid tells us that he was  the son  of Apollo
and the nymph Coronis ; or rather, that he was the son of (<o- 
8
ronis, who had been unfaithful to the bed of her lord for which
he killed her, having first  taken  the child  from her womb.
From this it would appear that he owed his life to the perform-
ance of the Cesarean operation.   Xot liking an account which
makes the god of the healing art to have been a bastard, I prefer
another from the Greeks which contends lhat he was born from
the egg of a raven.  I take this to be true in  the  main,  and
would correct it in but one  particular.  I rather  suppose  that
the ego' from which he was  born was not that of a raven but
     ou
of quite a different bird ;  for I believe all arc now agreed that
^Esculapius was a regular Shanghai.
     Of his merits as a physician I can not speak knowingly.
Apollodorus  informs us that he possessed the  blood which
flowed from the  veins of  the  snaky-haired Medusa, and  that
with that which came from  her left side he worked the destruc-
tion of men.   Since I have learned by observation, (of course
I cannot speak from experimental knowledge,)  that the snurtr
of the blood which is situated  upon  the left side  of a  woman
as beautiful as Medusa will  run a man crazy at the present day,
I find no great difficulty in believing that the blood itself would
work most instant death in his day and generation.
     For a  number of yearn after him  the  Asclepiades were
the sole repositories of his learning.  From the fact that  they
were sworn to act in concert, and  not to  disclose;  their secrets
to any one who  did not belong to their order,  I  suppose  they
may afford some clue as to  the origin of the  Know  Nothings.
This guess is rendered  more probably correct, from the fact
that the former had the same object  in view as  the latter,
though they  operated upon different subjects.  The  one at-
tempted to counteract the derangements of the body physical,
the other intends to cure  the diseases of the  body politic.
     Hippocrates did some  valuable work upon  the building
whose corner-stone  had been laid by  ^Esculapius.   But  from
his time to that of Aristotle nothing was done upon it of last-
ing  importance.  He brought to it the powers of a master-
builder.  In  speaking of him McCauly says, " Both in analysis
and in combination, that great man is without a  rival—no phi-
losopher has possessed in an equal degree the  talent either of
separating established systems into their primary elements, or
of connecting detached phenomena into  harmonius  systems. 
9
He was the great fashioner of the intellectual chaos ; he chang-
ed its darkness into light, and its discord into order."
     ft was reasonable to suppose that one of such ability and
skill, when he applied himself to medicine, would have stripped
it of its crudities, taken away its superfluities, made sure what
remained, and made valuable additions to it.
     This latter he undoubtedly did,  but he loaded his work
with so much material which was unconnected with the science,
and  heaped upon it so much rubbish  that  had to be  cleared
away by his successors, that he  did but  little  towards the ad-
vancement of medicine.   We  again  quote from  McCauly—
" The general propositions of Aristotle, are valuable; but the
merit of the superstructure bears no proportion to that of the
foundation."   So far your science had breathed almost exclu-
sively, the atmosphere of Greece.  Among a people hardy and
warlike, by whom Virtu.< was translated personal prowess only.
he whose only recommendation was that he could heal a wound
or cure a sick man was held in  no high estimation.  Indeed.
1 believe we are informed by Gibbon, that none  were physi-
cians at Rome, except slaves.
     Hut now she sat mistress of the  world; now her savage
nature was in some degree eradicated ; above all,  now  enerva-
ted by indolence, and debilitated by luxury, disease fell heavy
upon her and she  yielded  a reluctant respect to the men of
your profession.
     Celsus wrote, classical iu knowledge, chaste in expression,
and  elegant in style.  One of extensive information, an.d ma-
Lured judgment holds this language—"Roman literature, oth-
erwise so barren of good medical authorities, can  boast of pos-
sessing in Celsus one, who, for elegance, terseness, learning,
good sense and practical information, stands unrivalled.  Eve-
ry branch of the profession has been treated of by him, and it
may be well  said of him,  Xihil  quod tetigit -non omani."
     Passing  as unworthy  of notice,  (in  a  review  which only
takes the most prominent points,) Pinly  and  Dioscorides, and
with them  the vagaries of a hundred  years, we come to Galen*
     Ppon the authority of Dr.  Adams, "he was a man skilled
in all philosophy, a profound reasoner, an ardent admirer of
truth, a worthy member of society, and a distinguished orna-
ment of his profession.''   His star shone in unrivalled splen-
                            2 
10
  dor for fourteen hundred years, and even now, throws back itr-
  light over the path of him  who  wanders about  in  search ot
  profound scientific lore.
      He first  discovered  that  our arteries contained  blood.
  Prior to that discovery, you  know, Erasistratus had taught that
  the arteries of the human body were filled with gas.   We hope
  the old gentleman  has gone where his knowledge  has been
  made perfect.   But we would congratulate him upon approach-
  ing so near the truth as he did; for while  we know  gas doe
  not fill our arteries, we know equally well  that it  is  found in
  no small quantities in mens' heads.  Erasistratus made a mis-
  take as to its location only.
      From that time, barring  a few  disparagements, your science
  has had a steady growth.   The crusades ran the world mad with
  cveitemeut: they brought men into strange lands;  presented to
  view strange objects, and medicine received its share of the gen-
  eral improvement resulting from the intercourse of all nations.
  The learning of earth's different nations was like the waters of a
  stagnant ocean, and it was well that such a wild tempest of en
  thusiasm should lash it into an healthful commingling.
     The old feudal system was in  some sort broken down, and
  with a cessation from its constant  petty wars came leisure for
  study.  The invention of printing gave to medicine, as to eve-
  ry other department of knowledge, a fresh impetus.   Man had
  learned also, " to map out the once blank ocean and turn  over
  the winds  to the  custody of commerce."  The discovers  of
  new countries opened a wider field before the scientific travel-
  ler.   Herbs which  before had but perfumed the breezes,  kis-
  sing the leaves  of our vast forests, or made glad the eye of the
  Indian hunter, were now collected and made useful by the de-
  votee to your science.   Not the  least important of the acquisi-
  tions  of  medicine during the seventeenth century, was the dis-
  covery of the circulation of  the blood, by Harvey.
      But that hundred years passing away, and as the eighteenth
  century dawned upon the world, Stahl, Bumaave and Hoffman.
• stood upon the stage contending for the mastery.
      Xot being  very well acquainted with either the  names or
  respective merits of the  many  medical celebrities who  have
  flourished from that time  till now,  I  would  persuade uivself
  that any attempted notice of them would  be inappropriate to 
11
this occasion.  Indeed, in the foregoing, I have necessarily left
out much history, not only of deep interest but of great  im-
portance.   But he who would give a detailed history of the
vast accumulation of knowledge, which during the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries has constituted the science of medi-
cine, would take upon himself a task akin in difficulty to an
attempt to  examine seriatim  the  minerals  which  compose a
lofty mountain.
    I fear, that in saying what I already have said,  after de-
claring that I knew nothing of the history of medicine, I have
laid myself liable to some such criticism as was visited upon
Mr. Stephens for disapproving in  most unqualified terms, of
the principles, aims and objects of the American Party,  after
premising that, of those principles, aims and objects, he knew
literally nothing.   If, however, by  committing great blunders
and inaccuracies,  I have been guilty of a crime in  maiming a
science which you consider so nearly perfect, you cannot prop-
erly charge me with the intention,  however properly my  fail-
ing to have informed  myself upon  so important a subject, may"
render me  answerable for  criminal  negligence.
    Some  of you may be  displeased with  my remarks as to
the age of  your science, but I  think  unjustly.   No  doubt the
stream of medical science percolated the earth  unseen, almost
from time immemorial; but I take it that the fountain did not
burst forth until it reached the rich soil which supported the
^Esculapian schools.  From that time, I grant you its course
has been plainly traceable, though  it has at times  been inter-
rupted by charlatanry and empiricism, corrupted by foreign ele-
ments, turned from its channel occasionally by superstition,
dammed up by prejudice,  and even at one time, almost denied
a bed by civil oppressions, the bane of all knowledge, of all
progress of any kind  of science.  To-night its location is clear-
ly defined, and it affords draughts refreshing to the philanthro-
pist, and reflects from its broad bosom the  beauties  of centu-
ries to the  eye of the  exulting student.  Those draughts  and
those views your Faculty here present to your lips and place
before your eyes.   For your own sakes, for  the sake of human-
ity, render not yourselves  unworthy of such privileges.
    It would give me pain to know that any of you have chosen
this profession with no higheraim than becoming rich.  If, how- 
12
ever, there be one such persou here,  1 would  remark to  him
en passant that he is  wasting  time in studying medicine.   Let
him first read the Autobiography of Barnum. that  he may
learn  to lie  unblushingly, and  how to gull  the  credulous.
Then let him invent a system of  his own ;  or if he be  not gift-
ed with inventive talent, he can pick up something Of  the  ma-
ny nostrums and isms which disgrace  the nineteenth century.
[t is immaterial what, so he professes to cure everything.   Tie
may, for instance, promulgate that if a teaspoon-full of calomel
should be thrown into lake Superior,  and  an ounce of tartar
emetic into lake Michigan, he who would drink a thimble-full
of the waters mixed once in a century, might look upon   Ma
thusalah as having been but a beardless youth.   (I hope  the
llomrepathists will not suppose this intended  for them.)  Or
if that will not suit him let him adopt the plan of a man, (a
preacher, by-the-bye,) whom  I met at Jonesboro a few days
ago—let him get a big black negro wench,  dress her  up in  a
blue tarletan and gold chain, and  declare that when put into
:i clairvoyant state, she can  tell  the  disease of  any  man in
Europe, Hayti or Otaheite, simply by hearing his name, or  see-
ing a piece of his grandmother's  old  bonnet-string.  Let him
burn all scientific  works ;  let him talk learnedly; let him boast
like  Paracelsus, who, in the preface to his "Paragranum," de-
clared that "the very down of his bald pate had  more knowl-
edge than all their writers; the  buckles of  his  shoes  more
learning than Galen and Avicenna, and  his beard more expe
rience than all their universities."  Let him have flaming  ad
vertisements, headed  by rampant horses, crawling serpents  and
fiery dragons, and he need not fear the result.   With a world
full of fools for his patients, he will grow  most  contemptibly
rich, and most richly contemptible.
    Xor should you be enamored of your science for its beauty
only.   The Geologist wanders about through caves and moun-
tain-gaps in search of rare fossils and sparkling minerals; he ex-
amines strata thrown up by volcanic action, and reads upon the
pages of rock a history, not perishable, but stamped with  the
hand o[' nature's God, of  a world whose age the numbers of
arithmetic cannot reckon.  The  beauty and  sublimity of his
researches alone, would ainply compensate him for all his study
and all his toil.   But it is by applying his information to agri- 
13
culture, mining, &c, that he elicits the respect and commands
the admiration  of the world.
    So with you, gentlemen.   You may, in the study of your
botany, deal with flowers only less fragrant than  those which
scented the bowers of Eden ; you may find in chemistry beau-
ties unknown to earth's unlettered sons ; you may gain pure
devotional pleasure  in  studying the mechanism  of man—the
chef d'oavre of the Omnipotent. But it is not without enriching
your  Materia Medica, perfecting your anatomy, or by actual
practice, curing the maladies of men, that you will draw forth
the quotation from old Homer—
             •' A wise physican, skilled our wounds to heal.
             Is more than armies to the public weal."
     Be active, then.  A vast field of usefulness lies before you.
 The diagnosis of diseases, for instance, is but imperfectly under-
 stood.    Hydrophoba  defiies  all cure;  consumption draws
 slowly millions to the tomb;  variola makes the world fright-
 fully loathsome with the spectacle of its victims, while yellow
 fever, with a touch  more deadly than "the stroke of the de-
 stroying  angel  in groaning Egypt or Assyrian camp," ravages
 earth.
   Discard from your minds that creature*of a fool's brain—that
 ambition in a  young man is the  index of a disordered head.
 Without it, man  is but as a splendid machine without a hand
 ro work it.  No man ever yet attained to usefulness, greatness
 or excellence,  whose soul did not
                       ■• burn with virtuous flame
                 To rise to glory oj to die to fame."
      Be active, and remember, oh! remember, that as you go
 forth  into the  field prepared  or unprepared, you  render your-
 selves a blessing to your race or careless murderers in the  sight
 of your God.
    * To you, Trustees and members of the Faculty, I would re-
 turn my acknowledgments for the honor conferred upon me in
 calling on me to-night to address  the students of the  College
 in behalf of yourselves and the citizens of Atlanta.
     Those citizens rightly understand and properly appreciate
 vour valuable   services for our city's good.  They thank you
 that  you have  not  despised " the day of  small  things."  In
 founding this institution you have exercised great perseverance 
u
 and promptitude of action.  A summer course of lectures in
 medicine has long been a desideratum in Georgia.   Yon have
 given yourselves to  the work and selected Atlanta as the field
 for your operations.   Many thought that selection would prove
 to  be not  only injudicious but ruinous to the enterprise.
     It was no uncommon thing for men abroad, Georgians, too,
 to give Atlanta a character but little removed from that of Botany
 Bay.  It made no difference if they had not been  here during
 the last six or eight years—it was useless to talk to  them of im-
 provement.   Not knowing that we were a city counting eight
 thousand inhabitants, and paying taxes upon three millions and
 a half of dollars' worth of city property, they looked upon us
 as a collection of paupers and a congregation of rowdies.
     Tell them that in our midst the steeples of ten churches
 pierced the clouds, pointing to the Christians  God, and they
 could only account  for such falsehood by knowing that you
 yourself were from Atlanta.  Inform them that they might  re-
 main a  month in  our midst and not see  one of our citizens
 drunk in the streets, and they  were ready to swear that they
 were acquainted with your character for  truth and veracity in
 ihe neighborhood in which you lived, and from that acquaint-
 ance would not believe you upon oath in a court of justice.
     If, by chance, they met with a person well-clad, intelligent
 and  polite, if they believed him  at all  when he said he was
 from  Atlanta, they seemed sorry for their new acquaintance, as
 one might be supposed to pity an angel who had lost his way
 to Heaven, and by mistake settled down in Pandemonium.
     Nor were our better-informed neighbors at all anxious to
 remove  these  false  impressions.  They would have had fixed
 upon Atlanta as immortal the character which she once so rich-
 ly deserved.  While we despised the jealousy which dictated
 such a course,  it was flattering to our pride, for observation had
taught us that
               "Envy will merit as its shade pursue.
               But like the shadow proves the substance true."
    Even now, when they  know our present attainments, and
that the causes which madeour city what it is, have only gained
strength  by age, they ask tauntingly, What is  there to keep
your city up ?  Will it not inevitably become a hole  for bats and
a roost for owls'(
    We tell them no, and for three very good reasons : 
15
      In  the first place it is easier to get here than to any other
 place under the sun.  Secondly, it  is the healthiest place in
 Georgia.   I believe the numoer of females and young  ones is
 a good index  to the healthfulness of any city, and we defy the
 world  to show a place wiih the same population  which  can
 count more women and children to the acre.   Thirdly, and above
 all, we have got.more corn and more meat for less money than
 can be found anywhere else, from the mountain to the seaboard,
 and we have the best authority for saying that "where the ear-
 case is there will the eagles be gathered together."
      But there was  another objection to  the establishment of
 this institution more formidable, because it  sprung from a di.,
 interested  opposition, and  because  il  awakened serious mis
 goings in  (he  minds of sonic  of the  warmest  friends  of  the
 enterprise.   That objection was  that  there were already  loo
 many medical  colleges in the country—that their multiplicity
 destroyed their  influence and  detracted  from  their respecta-
 bility.
     There  is  nothing  which so incessantly jars our auditory
 nerves a. this  everlasting harping about  "-too  many schools,
 loo  many  new papers."  Old fogies declare that our fathers
 studied geometry, for instance, for its practical use in after life;
 that  they learned the ancient languages  because it improved
 their literary taste and strengthened their minds.  But our col-
 lege students of the present day, they say, k.:ow  nothing of the
 former save how to describe a circle by the smoke arising from
 a fine  Regalia, or to arrange  with precision the angles of the
 square formed  by the fashionable tie  of a fancy cravat, and that
 the only language (earned by them is entitled to the appellation
 "ancient" only because it has  been the vernacular of black-
 guards from time immemorial.
     They almost go into spasms at the thought that almost everv
 country town in  the United States, which can afford a grogery
 ami a public horse rack, has also a newspaper.   The editors of
 the present day are characterized by  them as a set of men who
get a hard-earned living by the Sheriff's advertisements of their
 respective counties, who are exceedingly glad to  procure occa-
sionally  a good  dinner of vegetcbles and  bacon b\ fulsome
puffs of early gardens and commission merchants, whose high-
est aspirations  never  go beyond an ambition to be considered 
16
the best po ted man in political trash and party clap trap in all
their respective militia districts.
    (On  professional  men .these  rtnerable  erodes  /novum arc
peculiarly severe.  They say that while there are in the United
States only about -J,o00 ministers of the gospel, there is about
the same number of lawyers and more than 40,000 physicians.
thus showing by statistics that a dying man  who calls in  a min-
ister to despatch his  soul  to Heaven, may also  be attended by
"lie lawyer to cany his goods to  his heirs, and two doctors  to
place, his body in the coffin.)
    Let us examine these uo.ion.s. for they are nothing more.
is it true  that men are not so well educated now as they were
thirty or  forty  years ago?   We think  not.  Then  fewer men
received a polished education.   The  masses, being more igno-
rant, magnified their merits.   Place a few statues in an other-
wise unoccupied plain, and surround them by a mist, and each
one appears to be a Tolossus.   But fill that plain with statues,
dissipate the mists which have heretofore enveloped them, and
while i heir proportions are not lessened, the contrast is destroy-
ed, and we .case to wonder at the si>ce of any.
    So it is with respect to newspapers.   Let us compare (hose
of the ("niicd States and England.   It may be because  we are
not well informed upon the subject, but we contend  that besides
the Times, the  newspapers of Great Britain are not so vory  su-
perior to ours.   Besides it, there is not in the English domin
ion a press of higher character than our National Inielligem.-. r,
of wider extended inlluence than the New  York Herald. The
ureal age of the Times, its location  in London, and the immense
amount of capital which it wields, make it an  exception.   It
standfe as  a huge hui  in the zenith of the political firmament
of Great Britain, darting its rays to the limits of the Kingdom.
and  far beyond, invigorating whatever it  shines  upon, and
dooming to chilly death whatever  wants its warmth.
   But  suppose we admit, for the sake of argument, that men
of the present times are not as learned individually as the few
educated  men of former  days.  Would that prove their posi-
tion, that  a multiplicity of scholos is an injury ? Which would
Georgia  prefer, to have every  one of her  citizens sufficiently
well educated  in  the agricultural departments of Chemistry
and Geology to cultivate properly their respective farms, or to 
17
claim Leibig as one of her  native born citizens \  While the
latter would gain for us the character of being the birth-place
of the greatest Agricultural Chemist who ever lived, the former
would make the  Empire State of the South  one vast garden
spot.
    Which  would Americans prefer, the  meagre supply   o
newspapers  in Great Britain or the  abundant supply in  the
United States  ?  In our States and Territories we have an an-
nual aggregate circulation of 426,495,078 copies, while  Eng-
land,  Ireland,  Wales and  Scotland, all have  a circulation of
but (>1,495,503.  The latter would give us the London Times,
the former enables us to boast  that we  read seven  rimes as
much as the English.
    To apply  this analogical argument to your own profession.
When a city  was ravaged with a pestilence, which  would it
prefer, a supply of physicians of modest  pretensions, or one
physician who knew  more  of diseases than any other  man
living r  \ think thev  would take  the former,  even though
    r-               *                                   O
they were all Thompsonians, believing that  the  only reason
why Elijah  went to Heaven without dying  wa   because his
prophetical cloak kept him in a continual <u:eat.'
     Such is this whining about "too many schools, too  many
newspapers."  Everoppose it.  it is not less injurious in itscon-
sequences than it is absurd in reasoning.  Away with such a phi-
losophy.  It would rob the bosom of night of the ten thousand
jewels sparkling richly  there, that the moon might boast in her
train another Mars, another Venus, and another ,i upiter. Away
with  such a philosophy.  It  would  make the rest of earth  a
Sahara that some land might boast a deeper ocean.   Away with
it.  It would  render creation  black with  darknes:'  that  the
concentrated rays of the sun might blaze upou some favored
spot.
    So unfounded was this greatest objection, even when you
admitted the false pretences upon which it was based.   But ]
reach you  no new lesson, gentlemen,  when T declare that  it
worked you no inconsiderable damage.
    Besides this, the people of Atlanta itself had but little faith
in the success  of the College, and would not  speak of it  even
as being among the probabilities of Atlanta's improvements.
The press, so  eager to  touch  upon all other subjects, shunned
that one as if  its very contact was death 
18
     Under  these circumstances, it  would not  have been sur-
prising had it  been born with little  strengtli,  dragged out a
weary life of a few  days, and died.  But, as if by a miracle, it
sprung like  Minerva from the head of -Jupiter  full-grown and
prepared to  brook  all opposition.  Your doors had scarcely
been opened when  over seventy-five young men enrolled their
names as matriculants.   No higher compliment could be paid
you, gentlemen, than was proclaimed by that result.
     In accounting for the success of the  College, you  cannot
quote that " it was owing to a heterogeneous concatenation of
fortuitous circumstances, superinduced by a  succession of im-
panelled coincidences."   For I have already alluded to a num-
ber of uiif<>rlitit<>nx circumstances which surrounded it.
     But more—at a time unprecedented for pressure in mone-
tary affairs;  at a time when the heavens were like brass,  and
men everywhere fell that famine  was about  to lay his long,
lean, gaunt hand upon them and  crush them to death,  your
College Course was commenced.  Well may we say, " If these
things be done in the green tree  what shall be done  in the
dry ?"   " What shall  be done ?"   We  cannot tell, but  this
thing is certain, the success of the Atlanta Medical College is
no longer a matter of a doubt.  On the healthful hills of our
youthful city, you have  founded a temple in  which the sons of
the South may congregate to worship  -Eglc, Hygiea, Panacea
and Iaso.  The South needed it and the South will thank you
for it.
    Begging pardon tor having trespassed upon your kindness
so long, I leave fhe  floor with the  following  sentiment :   The
Medical Colleges of (Georgia : The  honor and glorv of  each
should be the common property of all.   Entertaining a proper
respect for each other, and a proper  love for  themselves,  thev
will ever grow brighter.
            •' Till like two twin suus in yon blue vault afar.
            Each *hnll round each revolve  a ruling star."