-ANNUAL ADDRESS 
BEFORE THE 
ALUMNI ASSOCIATION 
OF THE 
UNIVERSITY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK 
MEDICAL DEPARTMENT. 
BY 
JAMES R. LEAMING, M. D., 
OF THE CLASS OF 1849, 
Professor of the principles and practice of medicine in the woman’s college of the 
NEW YORK INFIRMARY, ATTENDING PHYSICIAN TO ST. LUKE’S HOSPITAL, CONSULTING 
PHYSICIAN TO THE HOME OF REST FOR CONSUMPTIVES, FELLOW OF THE 
N. Y. ACADEMY OF MEDICINE, MEMBER OF THE N. Y. PATHO- 
LOGICAL SOCIETY, AND OF THE N. Y. CO. MED- f 
ICAL SOCIETY, ETC., ETC., ETC. 
PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF THE ASSOCIATION. 
NEW YORK : 
G. VV. CARLETON, 1122 Broadway. 
1870. ANNUAL ADDRESS 
BEFORE THE 
ALUMNI ASSOCIATION 
OF THE 
UNIVERSITY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK 
MEDICAL DEPARTMENT. 
—BV N 
JAMES R. LEAMING, M. D., 
OF THE CLASS OF 1849, 
PROFESSOR OF THE PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE OF MEDICINE IN THE WOMAN’S COLLEGE OF THE 
NEW YORK INFIRMARY, ATTENDING PHYSICIAN TO ST. LUKE’S HOSPITAL, CONSULTING 
PHYSICIAN TO THE HOME OF REST FOR CONSUMPTIVES, FELLOW OF THE 
N. Y. ACADEMY OF MEDICINE, MEMBER OF THE N. Y. PATHO- 
LOGICAL SOCIETY, AND OF THE N. Y. CO. MED- 
ICAL SOCIETY, ETC., ETC., ETC. 
PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF THE ASSOCIATION. 
NEW YORK : 
G. W. CARLETON, 1122 Broadway. 
1870. ADDRESS. 
Mr. President and Fellow Alumni—It devolves upon 
me to welcome you, at this anniversary, to the new home of your 
Alma Mater. There is something peculiarly touching and 
thought suggesting in this re-union—bringing together again 
those who, in days gone by, found themselves companions in the 
acquirement of knowledge in that profession which lias since 
been the highest object of their ambition, and placing them side 
by side as of yore. 
Our minds go back to that time—the beginning of our profes- 
sional life'—and it may be with some of you as it is with me, 
twenty years and more. Many who graduated in that class have 
passed from earth, others of you have struggled your way up the 
rugged hill of fame to conspicuous positions; all have been toil- 
ing in the good work of humanity, and, in so doing, have been 
accumulating large stores of knowledge, which you hold in com- 
mon with the profession and for the profession. Others of you 
but yesterday received your diplomas, and have just commenced 
your life duties. But whether you have grown gray in honor- 
able service, and come with stained weapons, and battered 
shields, and wide reputations, or whether vour armor be bright 
with unuse, no rust stains of experience, with unfrosted locks, 
and faces radiant with the expectation of youth, we bid you a 
hearty welcome. 
I well remember the October day, in 1847, when I became a 
medical student, and an inmate in the north tower room of the 
University at Washington Square. Standing by its high win- 
dow and looking northward the eye wandered among strag- 
gling buildings over vacant lots to a long row of houses gleam- 
ing white in the sun and running well down to the Hudson 
river. They were new then and were pointed at with pride by 
citizens and were known by the sounding title of “London 
Terrace.” All else from the elevation of that window suggested 4 
brick and mortar, delving down into the earth and blasting out 
rock—all to be done, something begun but nothing finished, as it 
is ever in a new city in the new world. The reservoir at Fortieth 
street raised its square and massive front like a belligerent fort, 
to arrest the march of improvement and defend the wild rocks 
of the upper island from the encroachment of man. More than 
this the eye took not in, and, certainly, it seemed that the time 
would be long ere the newness of the scene would have passed 
away, and age have been stamped upon the prospect. 
But place yourself at that same window now, and how altered 
is all that is seen. You look in vain for “London Terrace,” so 
prominent twenty years ago. The wilderness of a great city, 
compactly built up, rows of sumptuous dwellings filling out 
solid blocks, teeming with population, now hide the view of the 
once pretentious row, and if you wish to see “London Terrace” 
you must go up to Twenty-third street and there find it entirely 
outdone by its upstart neighbors. But you will be guided in 
your search by a line of remarkable edifices, stretching from river 
to river, and lifting their tall heads high above the rest of the 
city. The Young Men’s Christian Association building, the 
Fifth Avenue Hotel, Booth’s Theatre, and the Grand Opera 
House are now the prominent landmarks. 
Fifth Avenue, which, twenty years ago, had but a few resi- 
dences scattered along its lower commencement, is now one of 
the grandest streets in the world in length and structural ele- 
gance ; and so it is with all the beautiful streets on and around 
Murray Hill. The reservoir can no longer be seen, for it has 
been surrounded and captured, as it were, long since by the hur- 
rying architectural advance. Should you seek for it you will 
find it quietly hidden away at Fortieth street, its uncouth walls 
shamed by the magnificence of its aristocratic surroundings, and 
it has coaxed even a few vines to crawl up its rough sides as an 
attempt at ornamental conciliation. Twenty years ago from 
its top southward you saw the smoking city far below you ; 
now the sight is limited to the next street. Then the vision 
stretched north in a vista up to the acqueduct bridge, over 
shapeless rocks covered with shanties; now the stately piles of 
brick brown stone and marble extend to the Central Park, where 
green covered hills are reflected in beautiful lakes, and where 5 
float the graceful swan and the swift gliding gondola. All of 
these wonders, which seem to have arisen as from the touch of 
the wand of the magician, are solid evidences of material pro- 
gress. 
Notwithstanding that the country has just passed through a 
cruel and desolating war, the commerce, trade and wealth of 
this city keep step with its onward march; and if we con- 
sider her banking houses, exchanges, insurance offices, publish- 
ing houses, schools, daily papers—supplying the wants of a 
people hungry for intellectual food—we must conclude that the 
progress in wealth is more marvellous, because real, than the 
fairy tales of the Arabian Nights’ Entertainment. 
The yearly exhibitions of paintings, the splendid collections 
in private houses and public halls of native as well as of foreign 
art, attest to our progress in aesthetics. 
In the parent edifice at Washington Square was elaborated by 
actual experiment the new born thought of the electric telegraph 
—and its author was once the Professor of Chemistry. There, 
too, was perfected the discovery of Daguerre, permanently fixing 
the shadows of things till the human face expressing emotion 
grew immortal upon the polished plate, and the lineaments of 
those we loved, such as no limner before could catch or convey, 
became ours to carry with us, to be looked at with affection 
when the dear object was far from us or long in the grave. The 
discoverer of this process, Dr. Draper, still honors the Medical 
Department by presiding over its destinies, giving grace and 
dignity to its counsels and honor to its name at home and 
abroad. In my day there was still in the south tower room of 
the University building the plank filled with bullets which had 
been shot there by Colt, in his experiments while perfecting the 
revolving pistol. So we see that that building and the Univer- 
sity are connected with the birth of some of the most astonishing 
scientific discoveries of modern times. 
If this marvellous progress has taken place in material wealth, 
the arts, mechanics and science, has there been no corresponding 
progress in medicine ? There are those who affirm that there 
has been none ; and the profession in their reticent dignity 
have not deigned to make plain the truth. It is not unusual to 
hear the grave charge against our profession that, while there 6 
has been progress in every other department of knowledge, 
there has been none in medicine. Either this is one of the 
hugest falsehoods ever known or it is one of the most marvellous 
facts in our existence. Men of true science make no such charge. 
It is the ignorant charlatan alone, who, using the columns of the 
daily press as a mouthpiece, sends this calumny on its travels ; 
and where none assert the truth, honest folk, even among those 
of refined taste and superior education, may come to believe a 
lie to their damage in health and life. In their behalf, as well 
as for the sake of the divine art, I shall attempt to show that me- 
dicine has made progress, even in advance of other branches 
of knowledge. 
If we go back one hundred years we are amused at some of 
the pretensions of the medical men. The gold snuff box and 
the gold-headed cane were in keeping with the punctilious 
manners and stately bearing of the fashionable men of the 
times. Even the leviathan of literature, Dr. Johnson, had 
his gold-headed cane—but he acknowledged the great worth 
and the superior knowledge of medical men. Poor Goldsmith, 
one of the most charming writers of that brilliant literary pe- 
riod, was a doctor, but he lost his only patient by getting into 
a passion, because she burst out laughing at his ludicrous ap- 
pearance when he came into the sick room with his pompous 
manners and traditional accompaniments. Goldsmith could 
write divinely, both in poetry and prose, but he lacked some 
of the solid qualities that were demanded of the physician. 
Cullen, the eloquent apostle of nosology, and his brilliant but 
unfortunate rival, John Drown, set the world a wrangling as 
to the merits of their systems. Huxham, in a less prominent 
position, left his impress upon the times by one of the best 
monographs on fevers ever written, lie also made an excellent 
description of what we now call diphtheria. About the same 
time this was also done by Dr. Bard, of New York. Breton, 
neau refers to his monograph as giving an exact history of the 
disease. This reminds us that Dr. Bard was the physician of 
President Washington and also that Bretonneau expresses the 
belief that the great man died of diphtheria. John Hunter was 
a man of remarkable genius, and led the learned men of his 
day in the study of natural history. 7 
These gentlemen were all looked upon by their literary breth- 
ren as leaders in thought, but to none of them will the future 
world accord such high honor, and, perhaps, no other man will 
ever be privileged to put mankind under such deep obligations, 
down to the end of time, as hns been done by Jenner, the pupil 
of Hunter—certainly, that fairer portion with whom beauty is 
an inheritance and comeliness a birthright, will hold him in eternal 
remembrance. These facts it is well to consider at this day, 
when hall'educated or ignorant men attempt to depreciate the 
greatest boon yet vouchsafed to man. Vaccination has not only 
saved from loathsome death one tenth of the people directly 
but it has snatched many more from the jaws of consumption— 
for it is true that many who recovered from the dreadful dis- 
ease, variola, were made liable by it to phthisis, not to mention 
the multitudes saved from unsightly deformity. The prejudices 
against this remedy are fast dying out, and when the time comes, 
as it surely will, that this great gift shall be rightly understood 
as well as properly appreciated, the deadly scourge of the world 
will become but a terrible tale of the past. 
What has Surgery done in the last sixty years? Has it not 
raised itself from an ignoble art to the highest point of excel- 
lence ? Among the great names—Abernethy, the two Clines 
and Sir Astley Cooper—our own Mott ranks with the first, for 
he took a leading part in that marvellous progress when study, 
profound knowledge, decision, courage and will, with genius 
of the highest order, were necessary to success. Mott, from 
careful dissection, following Colles in the surgical anatomy of 
the neck, came to the conclusion that the great arteries supply- 
ing one half of the head and part of the thorax could be safely 
occluded, and the circulation be reestablished through the anas- 
tomoses of other channels. He told his colleague, the celebrated 
Wright Post, his belief on this subject. It was not long before 
a patient came into the New York Hospital with what proved 
to be an aneurism of the subclavian artery of the right side, near 
the bifurcation. I)r. Post placed the case in Dr. Mott’s hands, 
and he operated successfully, proving by demonstration the 
truth of his theory. 
Professor Granville Sharp Pattison used to relate in his lec- 
tures that, after the news came to London of Mott’s operation, 8 
he was walking in company with Sir Astley Cooper, who asked 
him if he had heard of the great operation which his pupil, Mott, 
had just performed in New York, and being answered in the af- 
firmative, said, “ Mott is the Napoleon of surgery ; I would give 
all that I have ever done to have been the author of that operation.” 
One other anecdote will illustrate Mott’s carefulness in keeping 
up his knowledge of anatomy. Dr. Post and he were in consul- 
tation in a case of agonizing neuralgia of the foot, when it was 
proposed to cut down upon and exsect a portion of the peroneal 
nerve ; this was agreed upon, when Mott asked Prof. Post the 
relation of the nerve to the artery and vein at the malleolus, 
and Prof. Post said, “I don’t know.” “Neither do I,” said 
Mott; “but I will know.” He went to the cadaver, and when 
he came to operate upon the patient he cut down upon the nerve 
and saw neither the vein nor the artery, for he had nothing to 
do with them. He never operated upon the living without re- 
freshing his memory by first operating on the dead body, and 
this accounts for his wonderful skill and neatness. He was 
another proof of the adage that there is no excellence with- 
out labor, and it would require a volume to properly speak 
of his great operations. Our city claimed other surgeons— 
Kearney Rodgers performed successfully the operation of tying 
the subclavian artery within the scaleni muscles, in which 
Sir Astley Cooper failed, as related by Mott. Reed, of Roches- 
ter, after patient study of the anatomy of the muscles and liga- 
ments of the hip joint, taught us to reduce its dislocations by 
easy manipulation. It was some time before our brethren across 
the water were willing to award to us priority, but it is now 
generally acknowledged that Reed deserves the honor of the 
discovery. 
Our great Civil War placed our surgeons in the front rank 
of military surgery, and if Baron Larrey was of more value to 
Napoleon than thirty thousand men, as the great captain as- 
serted, how shall we estimate our own surgeons, who, in actual 
and practical knowledge on all branches of surgery, are infi- 
nitely superior to Larrej\ This is not boasting. Larrey acquired 
his store of knowledge from his own vast experience. Our sur- 
geons had the benefit of his as well as that derived from the 
Crimean and Italian wars which occurred since. And now 9 
we are collating and making available this knowledge, supplied 
from so many competent sources, gathered from a four years’ 
war, carried on over a space of country so vast, with a climate 
so varied, with numbers engaged so great, with so many sick 
and wounded, both on the battle-field and in hospitals, that we 
wonder at its comprehensiveness, and doubt not that when all 
shall be placed before the world it will contain the most availa- 
ble knowledge on these subjects that has been put on record. 
But if the great surgeons of the past age were to-day to begin 
their professional life, or if another person with another name, 
yet having all the knowledge of Mott without his reputation, 
should put out his name for competition, he would find himself 
behind the majority of the young surgeons who are aspirants 
for fame in much that is now essential to success, for it is 
harder to unlearn what has once been believed than to prima- 
rily acquire much more new thought. We honor the great men 
of the past for what they have done ; we own our indebtedness 
to them for increased knowledge, and are quite certain were we 
placed in their situation we should not have exceeded them ; yet 
we began where they left off, and have been able, by the 
power of greater enlightenment, to reject as untenable and false 
much that they cherished as stamped with the divinity of truth 
itself. We are enabled to press on by the light of their ex- 
perience, through the darkness of doubt to the sure elevations 
of certainty. 
No one says that this department of medicine has not made 
progress. It is easy for cavilers to acknowledge the progress 
of surgery, and deny that of medicine. But wherein is the ex- 
cellency of modern surgery ? It is not in knowledge of topical 
anatomy, for that was at the fingers’ ends of those of the past 
age. No modern surgeon had a better memory or a greater 
store of facts at his instant command than Valentine Mott, and 
his fertility of invention has never been surpassed. The differ- 
ence is great in favor of the modern surgeon, but it is owing to 
that part of knowledge which is essentially medical, in contra- 
distinction to what is surgical. It is what modern surgery has 
borrowed from medicine that places it far in advance of that of 
the day of Mott’s highest renown. I am sorry that it is true 
that a very few surgeons have been seduced by fashionable ir- 10 
regulars to lend the assistance of their name and reputation to 
what they know to be false. We say have been, for those 
surgeons are of the past, and if they still linger in the way, they 
seem to be hurrying through by-ways to the night of obscurity ; 
they will never be reproduced—they will have no successors— 
and so we bid them adieu. 
Having shown that surgery which is occult, and subject to 
the judgment of the unlearned, owes its position to the progress 
of general medicine, let us look at the sister branch of chemistry ; 
has there been progress here? Born of the old delusion of 
alchemy, it has ceased to be shrouded in mystery, or to deal 
with the impossible, seeking the assistance of the dark spirits of 
the netherworld. Nowit appears in the broad light of the sun and 
in the glowing heat of the furnace, dissolving the elements and 
discovering the secrets of the creation of lire, earth and water, 
and going beyond, it has discovered the metallic bases of much 
that was considered earthy, till the list of metals has been in- 
creased from a few, which could be told upon the lingers, to 
scores, and has demonstrated their valuable use in the arts. It 
has discovered the gaseous elements of this solid globe; has 
shown us the method of creation, and what may be that of dis- 
solution. It has found out new elements of mysterious power, 
and although we do not “ attempt to call up spirits from the 
vasty deep,” yet we do call upon that mysterious agent which 
may yet “ put a girdle round the earth in forty minutes,” and it 
answers, as in Manfred, 
“ I am the rider of the wind, 
The stirrer of the storm; 
The hurricane I left behind 
Is yet with lightning warm ; 
To speed to thee o’er shore and sea 
I swept upon the blast; 
The fleet I met sailed well, and yet 
’T will sink ere night be past.” 
Chemistry has taught us the intimate conditions of the com- 
ponent elements of our bodies. By it we are able to under- 
stand the processes of digestion, and much of assimulation—the 
perfection of the circulation of the blood, and of the vitalizing 
act of respiration. It has taught us, in the selection of food, to 11 
avoid mistakes and to prepare remedies of the most subtle 
power and certainty of action in the cure of diseases. Ignorance 
itself bows to this knowledge, for every quack advertisement 
claims its nauseous and useless compound to have been the re- 
sult of chemical science. Some will and do attempt to separate 
chemistry from medicine. But who, let us ask, are the votaries 
of this science? Are they not those educated as physicians, 
whose chief glory is medicine? Would there ever have been 
or would their be now, any chemistry, were it not for the needs 
of medicine ? 
We point to the names of our great chemists with the same 
pride that we do to those of our great surgeons. We remember 
that Hare and Bird were Americans, and we have an honest 
pride in our own Draper. We claim an interest in their reputa- 
tion, and place it to the credit of medicine. All the other 
sister sciences in like manner make their continual contribution 
to the parent medicine ; we need not particularize further. 
If next we take up for examination some of the specialties of 
medicine, as that of the eye, for instance, shall we ask has there 
been any progress? What was the condition and status of this 
specialty twenty years ago ? Then the little institution in 
Mercer street was all that we had. It is true it was an excellent 
beginning, and did its good work in building up the knowledge 
which has culminated in the introduction of the ophthalmoscope 
as a means of a more sure, as well as a more scientific diagnosis. 
The introduction of this instrument to the use of this specialty 
has lifted at once its posiiion from doubt and experiment to ex- 
act and unfailing science. It has allied medicine and optics in 
inseparable union, and while medicine is vastly assisted optics 
is ennobled, for its usefulness and value to the human race 
are made so demonstrable that what it had done before 
seems, in comparison, like toys for the child’s pastime. In- 
stead of one small house, now there are several large institu- 
tions, filled with patients, and the gentlemen who give their 
time for the relief of the poor have achieved reputations 
both in science and medicine. Yet this knowledge is not con- 
fined to those specialists nor to those institutions set apart for 
their use. Each dispensary has its department for the diseases 
of the eye and ear, and in our hospitals for general diseases are 12 
men of special knowledge on this subject/ If the specialty of 
the eye and ear has increased, and made available all that we 
know of the laws of light and vision, so also has the stethoscope 
in diseases of the chest the laws of sound. Laennec, the great 
discoverer of auscultation, published the second edition of his 
immortal work in 1826, and went to his country home to die of 
the disease he taught the profession to understand. Louis took 
up the subject, and his student, George 1J. Cammann, brought 
home to this city, in 1831, a knowledge of this science, and 
put it in practice, and conjointly with Alonzo Clark produced 
the article on auscultatory percussion. This was really a great 
advance in knowledge. Then Dr. Cammann gave us an article 
on the anastomoses of the blood vessels of the lungs, and we 
are only now appreciating fully the discovery. Afterwards he 
gave the profession the binaural stethoscope, the perfection of 
mechanism for the purpose intended, and it carries his name 
wherever auscultation is practiced. LI is knowledge of acoustics 
and habit of analyzing sound, with the marvellous acuteness of 
his practiced ear, made his teaching of great benefit to the many 
physicians and students who sought his valuable instruction at 
his dispensary clinics. Chest acoustics have become a necessary 
part of our primary studies. The beautiful laws of light and 
sound are cognates, and the knowledge of one makes it easier to 
acquire the other. With the one we are enabled to detect all 
the errors of vision, and where relief is possible to apply it; 
with the other, with wonderful certainty we mark out, define 
and characterize the very beginnings of diseases of the respira- 
tory organs, or detect the first structural or functional change in 
the great organ of circulation—and, knowing the defect, we are 
enabled to apply more certainly the remedy. It accomplishes 
the wish of the old philosopher, and puts a window in the chest, 
through which we may view the secret workings and springs of 
the mysterious cause of life. 
These two specialties have made the sciences their handmaids, 
and we admire the beautiful adaption; but others, without this 
brilliant assistance, have still made wonderful progress—the di- 
rect result of the application and close study of men earnest in 
their work and untiring in their devotion to devise means for the 
relief of suffering humanity. The progress of knowledge in the 13 
specialties is wonderful beyond belief, and yet it is open to the 
understanding and appreciation of even the unlearned upon medi- 
cal subjects. Every one must acknowledge the progress in the 
specialties of medicine. We divide the subject of medicine into 
parts, giving to men of general and enlarged views the particu- 
lar and concentrated attention of a lifetime to definite points, and 
thus produce an effectiveness that must greatly enlarge our 
knowledge of hidden laws and ultimate principles. The result 
of all this is wonderful progress. But medicine is a congeries 
of specialties, aided and assisted by the adjunct sciences. 
The general practice of medicine in New York—and we spe- 
cify this city, not from any invidiousness, but because what has 
taken place here is typical of what has occurred in the United 
States or in the world—has made notable progress. We have 
shown that the progress of the specialties has helped general 
medicine. An advance in special knowledge is not confined to 
the specialist; in the general societies he reads his elaborate 
article on special study, and then it becomes a part of the 
general sum contributed. The microscope, stethoscope, oph- 
thalmoscope and laryngoscope are means by which we inter- 
rogate the conditions of the health of the body ; they give us an 
intimate knowledge of the functions and organic changes of 
vital organs. The young physician of to-day commences prac- 
tice with knowledge superior to that of the most learned of the 
past age. So, if we go back to the beginning of the present 
century, we will find the general condition of the profession at 
that time vastly different from what it is at present, in its meth- 
ods and facilities in making diagnosis, in the remedies used, and 
the success of their application. . There has been almost a revo- 
lution in all the ideas of hygiene in treating the continued 
fevers, the exanthema, and diseases of a general epidemic char- 
acter ; and this the profession has wrought out of its own expe- 
rience, neither assisted nor impeded by any outside influence, 
associations, circumstances or accidents. It is the legitimate 
outgrowth of steady advance; many minds of educated power 
are directed with energy upon one subject, and that subject, 
from the necessities of the case, inherent in the life of 
man—one that can never be wholly and perfectly under- 
stood. The approach is by gradual advances, always near- 14 
ing perfection and never attaining to it—like those hypothetical 
parallel lines, always approaching each other but never to meet. 
The great system of rational medicine is founded on induction 
and the continual interrogation of nature as to her secret pro- 
cesses, and this renders it positively necessary that progress 
should be gradual, according to the powers of man to investi- 
gate, comprehend and accept of truth. On the contrary, the 
false systems have had their birth from the brain of one man, 
and are brought forth perfect at their very beginning. Let 
them attempt progress, and, like a child’s castle of cards, they 
tumble into ruins. So it is in the chimera of Hahneman—when 
his followers gave up the doctrine of infinitessimal doses the 
very foundations of absurdity were undermined, and the whole 
system is now falling down about the ears of its votaries. 
He who has stood upon the banks of a great river, like the 
hither of waters, and watched its rolling flood, bearing with irre- 
sistable power on its bosom, loaded steamers, and in its depths 
uprooted trees, spoils of mighty forests, must have been im- 
pressed with a deep sense of awe. It has gathered these tro- 
phies of its power from its far-off beginnings, thousands of miles 
away. The mountain spring has been increased by every rivu- 
let adding to its volume and it has become the mighty flood, 
majestically moving onwards, till it pours its treasure and its 
accumulation into the great ocean ; while bubbles, straws and 
rubbish near the shore are noisily running about in a circle, 
never advancing, with all their showy haste, and are momenta- 
rily dashed on the shore, left among the weeds, to be followed 
by others in a life as ephemeral. So it is in medicine—the pro- 
gress of the great stream is forever onwards ; its momentum is 
the accumulation of ages. Every one of the long past years 
helps to swell its volume and its force; every contribu- 
tion, great or small, adds something. Not only the moun- 
tain rivulet, fed by the clear springs of pure science and truth, 
but even the ooze and slime out of the stagnant marsh of quack- 
ery fin is there its use, and marks the great progress of medicine 
by its filthy deposits upon the shore. 
To estimate properly the entire scope of this subject, let us 
ask what is the aim of medicine? Do we expect to conquer 
death? The decree has gone forth that all men must die—it is 15 
the most certain thing in earthly events. Life is an extension 
of being, a reprieve from the sentence of death. The object of 
the physician is to lengthen the reprieve, and, by relieving the 
suffering of humanity, to render it capable of usefulness. The 
inspired writer speaks of the allotted time of man as “three 
score years and ten.” I take it for granted that this does not 
mean that or eighty years is the natural limit, but that 
it is the extent of the life of man under all his disabilities. If 
the laws of health were perfectly understood and faithfully lived 
up to; were our knowledge of physiology, pathology, physical 
signs, and the adaptation of remedies to diseases perfect, life 
would be individually and collectively extended. The inspired 
book tells us that, before the flood, man lived to a great age— 
the longest individual life being nine hundred and sixty-nine 
years. If the length of the year calculated by the ancients was 
but three months, as is stated, we can comprehend the length 
of their great age, for Methuselah only lived, according to this 
calculation, two hundred and forty-two years and three months. 
About two hundred years of our computation would seem to 
have been the natural term of life of men before the flood ; it 
was shortened afterwards by the Divine will in weakening the 
stamen vitae, multiplying the causes of disease, and, perhaps, 
by increasing the number and virulence of the diseases them- 
selves. 
The average time of life is being gradually extended—espe- 
cially among people who have been instructed in the laws of 
health, and are under the medical supervision of intelligent and 
careful physicians. The average length of life in Belgium is 
greater than in other countries where the health of the people 
is not under the care of the state. Bacon says, “ We divide 
medicine into three parts of offices, viz.: 1st, the preservation of 
health; 2d, the cure of diseases; and 3d, the prolongation of 
life. For this last part physicians seem to think it no capital 
part of medicine, but confound it with the other two; as, sup- 
posing that if diseases be prevented, or cured after invasion, long 
life must follow, of course. But, then, they do not consider that 
both preservation and cure regard only diseases, and such pro- 
longation of life as is intercepted by them ; whence the means 
of spinning out the full thread of life, or preventing, for a sea 16 
son, that kind of death which gradually steals upon the body 
by simple resolution, and the wasting of age, is a subject that 
no physician has treated suitably to its merits. Let none imag- 
ine we are here repealing the decrees of fate and Providence by 
establishing a new office of medicine ; for, doubtless, Providence 
alike dispenses all kinds of deaths, whether they proceed from 
violence, diseases, or the course and period of age—yet, without 
excluding the use of remedies and preventions, for art and in- 
dustry do not here overrule, but administer to nature and fate.” 
Is it possible to restore the natural time of the life of man to 
what it was before the flood? Let us look for a moment at 
the following facts: At eight years of age the child goes 
through remarkable changes; the digestive organs are made 
capable of receiving and of using more stimulating forms of food, 
and the heart suddenly enlarges ; at sixteen the heart again en- 
larges and corresponding changes take place in the system ; at 
twenty-four years of age, or three times eight, these changes are 
nearly completed, and the man is fully developed at twenty-five, 
which may be considered as the full time of his growth. It is 
said that a law prevails among plants and animals according to 
which the time of their growth is one eighth of the time of their 
life, and eight times twenty-five are two hundred, which may be 
considered as the possible time of man’s existence, as it is that of 
the recorded life of the antedeluvians. With the flood came a 
multitude of diseases, attacking man from his earliest infancy, so 
that even when he escapes death, while passing through the period 
of growth, it is with a stamen vitae so weakened that seventy or 
eighty years has come to be considered the allotted time on 
earth. Yet there are many cases on record, of undoubted au- 
thenticity, where individuals have attained almost to the time 
of two hundred years, the antedeluvian period, the natural limit 
of the life of the perfect healthy man. Thomas Parr is one 
instance, and, although not of the longest reported life, is yet 
one of the best authenticated—for the great Harvey made the 
post mortem examination, and has left us an account of the 
healthy condition of all the organs of his body, so that we may 
well believe that had it not been for the ill judged kindness of 
King Charles and his Court, he might have filled out his two 
hundred years, for he was cutoff before his time, dyingof surfeit. 17 
It is the object of medicine to extend the life of man as far as 
possible towards the natural limit, and to do this the hygiene 
must commence at the earliest moment, and be guided by en- 
lightened experience and thoughtful wisdom. As the child is 
nurtured so will be the vis vitce of the adult. Some disabilities 
are inherited, and some are the result of acquired diseases. 
These may be unavoidable, but are much ameliorated by proper 
hygiene and the intelligent administration of medicines. The 
child of healthy parents, with properly adapted food and other 
hygienic conditions, as nearly perfected as possible, will not 
only pass through what are called the necessary disorders 
of infancy without acquiring diseased tendencies, but the 
stamen vitce will be so vigorous and corroborated that it may 
scarcely vary from a healthful standard, and so continuing, 
the individual may arrive at much greater age, and the time 
of usefulness be extended. flow far have we progressed in 
this object? Vaccination has been introduced since the be- 
ginning of this century, and has increased the average life 
of man ; the management of disease is far more successful in 
prolonging life now than half a century ago ; there is much 
more of pure air and proper attention to the needs and habits of 
the digestive system in the selection of food and in the manner 
of preparing it. How very different are our dwellings, as re- 
gards ventilation and heat, and the accommodation for bathing. 
Croton water, so indispensable now, was not even thought of 
then. The profession has ever given its powerful influence for 
all the measures of public utility, increasing the general health. 
The subject of sewage has received its earnest and intelligent 
attention. How has the health of Paris been improved since 
the time of Louis Philippe, when it was the most insalubrious 
city in the world ? Now it is one of the most healthful. This 
was brought about by the labors of one physician, who, in his 
enthusiasm, personally traversed that great labyrinth of noisome 
stench, and mapped out, so as to exhibit to the eye where the 
sewers were most defective, agreeing with the localities where 
low fevers and contagious diseases were most prevalent. These 
facts aroused the authorities, and the whole subject of sewerage 
was placed under the direction of competent engineering 
authorities, with the result of making Paris the best sewered 18 
city in the world. New York has not yet attained to this, but 
may, she not look forward to that hopeful day when partizanship 
will give way to sanitary improvement? When we look at our 
Croton water, and our beautiful Central Park, surely we may 
hope for this consummation as certain and soon. When it shall 
be well done, so that the tides shall wash out the sewers into each 
of the deep rivers on either side, and the flood of Croton shall 
clean them down from the centre ; when the tenement house 
system shall be changed, so as to agree with the teachings of 
sanitary science, and a health police be wisely and firmly esta- 
blished, New York may be the most healthful city in the world. 
Not only have we improved, and are improving in sanitary 
science, but we have learned much of the use and proper 
administration of drugs. We have new and more potent re- 
medies, and we have learned to use them with a more spar- 
ing hand. Large and indiscriminate dosing is of the past. 
When Dr. Martyn Paine came to New York, being still a 
young man, he commenced the treatment of disease by with- 
holding medicine, except when it was plainly indicated, and 
then applied it with successful wisdom. The foremost men of 
that day were astonished, and prophesied that the innovator 
would have but a short professional life, so strongly were they 
wedded to the old way; but, instead, he gathered about him a 
host of warm friends and admirers, and made his mark upon the 
practice of the time, and the day of indiscriminating dosing 
passed away forever. This was before the day of little pills. 
Twenty-two years ago the provisions for typhus fever patients 
at the Emigrant Hospital were far different from what we have 
now. I remember well the temporary rooms in which the 
patients were crowded in the winter of 1848—long, narrow and 
with low ceiling, that you could reach with your hand. Was 
it wonderful that the mortality was frightful ? The hygienic 
conditions were as bad as possible, and the treatment by medi- 
cine but illy understood. The young men who went there, 
and to Bellevue and Quarantine, full of hope and honorable 
ambition, laid down their lives as sacrifices to their love of 
science. How great was the mortality of cholera in 1832, and 
again in 1849, and would have continued to have been so, had 
not our investigations led us to find the cause of the disease, or 19 
wherein the disease consisted. Just as soon as that fact was 
fully comprehended it was in our power to tramp out the 
pestilence, as has been twice done by the Health Board of 
this city. Cholera has ceased to be a fearful word, and so also 
has diphtheria. Not so ten years ago, when it laid its cruel 
hand upon so many of our little ones, and withdrew them from 
our sight. Our city enjoys a wonderful immunity from disease, 
and medical intelligence applies the corrective to the evil and 
holds it in abeyance. If there were no other proof of general 
medical progress the good that the Health Board has done is 
sufficient. It has prevented the spread of epidemics which 
would have carried away thousands, and has lessened the 
number of incidental sick. 
Twenty years ago the privileges for clinical experience were 
but just commencing to be appreciated, and the advantages for 
study were only beginning to be offered in the hospitals and 
dispensaries. Bellevue was about that time opened to the stu- 
dent, and its vast aggregate of disease made the subject of accu- 
rate clinical observation. The island hospitals in the East 
River, filled with a variety of disease, are now open for clinical 
study. The dispensaries, covering all of the inhabited part of 
the island of Manhattan, are continually filled with patients, and 
the able corps of physicians, both out-door and in the class 
rooms, are willing to explain peculiarities, and to teach methods 
of making diagnosis, and how to successfully treat each case. 
The great abundance of means for the study of diseases and 
their treatment in the public institutions of New York, render 
it a place of unsurpassed excellence for the student. 
We may not stop to partioularize those medical gentlemen in 
middle life in our midst who have done and are still doins so 
much, with such honorable courage and skill, whose names we 
speak with pride, whose reputation and character we emulate, 
but will turn to the young men of the profession who are just 
coming on the scene of action, and we are filled with admiration 
and hope ; for, great as has been the progress of the last twenty 
years, we have the promise of far more in the next decade, and 
we are assured that the energy, the indomitable perseverance, 
and the excellent preparation of these gentlemen will not dis- 
appoint us. 20 
Medicine comes down to us from the past honored by the 
splendor of great names and venerable in its antiquity ; yet in 
every age it has been the first to lead in progress for the benefit 
of mankind. From the days of Aristotle human thought wound 
itself up in theories, like the worm in its silken shell, till the 
time of Bacon; when, bursting its prison house, it came forth a 
thing of beauty and motion, soaring higher and higher in the 
clear sunlight of eternal truth. The great mind of Bacon, 
warmed to the study of medicine as the true path to the secret 
store house of nature. Harvey was his physician and his 
friend. Bacon taught us to think, Harvey taught us to accu- 
rately observe—qualities of the mind indispensable to medical 
progress. Knowledge has accumulated ; methods and means of 
investigation have multiplied ; average life is extended, and the 
promise is that in the immediate future the advance in know- 
ledge of hygiene, health, disease and remedies, will enable us to 
extend further the life of man, relieve him from suffering and 
disability, and make it possible for him to be both happy and 
good. University of New York. 
MEDICAL DEPARTMENT. 
J[aculty of Medicine. 
Rev. ISAAC FERRIS, D.D., LL.D Chancellor of the University. 
MARTYN PAINE, M.D., LL.D 
Emeritus Professor of Materia Medica and 
Therapeutics. 
JOHN W. DRAPER, M.D., LL.D 
Emeritus Professor of Chemistry and 
Physiology. 
Professor of the Principles and Opera- 
tions of Surgery, with Military Sur- 
gery and Hygiene. 
ALFRED C. POST, M.D. 
CHARLES A. BUDD, M.D. 
Professor of Obstetrics, with Diseases of 
Women and Children, and Clinical 
Midwifery. 
JOHN C. DRAPER, M.D Professor of Chemistry. 
ALFRED L. LOOMIS, M.D. 
Professor of Institutes and Practice of 
Medicine. 
WM. DARLING, A.M., M.D., F.R.C.S. 
Professor of General, Descriptive and 
Surgical Anatomy. 
HENRY DRAPER, M.D Professor of Physiology. 
WILLIAM H. THOMSON, M.D. 
Professor of Materia Medica and Thera- 
peutics. 
J. W. S. GOULEY, M.D Professor of Clinical Surgery. 
Clinical Professor of Diseases of the Eye 
and Ear. 
D. B. St. JOHN ROOSA, M.D. 
F. D. WEIS3E, M.D Clinical Professor of Dermatology. 
E. G. JANE WAY, M. D., Lecturer on Morbid Anatomy. 
W. R. GILLETTE, M. D., Lecturer on Venereal Disease. 
JOSEPH W. HOWE, M. D., Lecturer on Surgery. 
G. EOHEVERRIA, M. D 
Clinical Professor of Diseases of the Mind 
and Nervous System. 
Clinical Professor of Diseases of the 
Throat. 
L. ELSBERG, M.D 
H. S. HE WIT, M. D., Clinical Lecturer on Surgery. 
WM B. LEWrS, M.D Lecturer on Disease of the Kidneys. 
JAMES F. FEELEY, M.D Demonstrator of Anatomy. OFFICERS 
OF THE 
(SImbmei Jlsg0idBtt0E irf % djtfbMind 
OF THE 
JJniversity of the Pity of JIew York. 
Jfyesidcnt, 
SAMUEL S. PURPLE, M.D., New York. 
Ttfice-Jfjjesidents, 
JAMES B. McGRAW, M.D., Virginia. 
DANIEL AYRES, M.D., New York. 
SOLOMON S. SATCIIWELL, M.D., North Carolina. 
HENRY S. HEWIT, M.D., New York. 
FREDERICK D. LENTE, M.D., New York. 
JAMES R. LEA MING, M.D., New York. 
$ecnetaify, 
CHARLES I. PARDEE, M.D., New York. 
WM. B. LEWIS, M.D., New York. 
College Jjtistorjian, 
H. M. SPRAGUE, M.D., New York. 
fot| 1870, 
JAMES R. LEAMING, M.D., New York. 
J87J, 
FREDERICK D. LENTE, M.D., New York. 
(ftomraittee on dominations and $t|t|angements, 
D. B. St. JOHN ROOSA, M.D., 
J. H. ANDERSON, M.D., 
WILLIAM B. LEWIS, M.D., 
A. W. STEIN, M.D., 
F. V. WHITE, M.D., 
STEPHEN J. CLARK, M.D. 
A. Catalogue of all the graduates of the College is in course of preparation. 
Any information or funds therefor may be sent to C. I. Pardee, M. D., No. 72 
West 35th Street, New York.