and sanitary laws. I firmly believe, however, that at some future time this will be the case.

Suppose it does take centuries to arrive at a good result. What is a century in the grand conception of the Creator of the Universe. If it has taken millions of years for the world to arrive at its present state of improvement, what may it not be a few centuries hence? Standing here to-day, and casting a mental horoscope of the remote future, with the far reaching eye of imagination I can see our beloved art towering far above all other arts or callings. I see it enshrined in the hearts of all the people, and through its influence I see an evolution taking place almost as startling as that told us by Darwin of what took place in the first dawn of creation, when, according to his theory, man's first entrance upon the world's stage was nothing save a little bit of jelly. I see the physical man, grand in his proportions, almost exempt from bodily suffering, his mind wonderfully strengthened and God-like in its perceptions. Mysteries that have no solution to us of to-day, and to our feeble brains are utterly unknowable, will then be as plain as the sunlight dancing upon the mountain's snowy summit. I can see him good and pure, made so by the long observance of well known sanitary laws that are now almost unknown, and are totally unobserved by the people.

This, then, is to be our mission. We are to be the instructors in this great branch of art, that is destined to do so much for the good of the human race. Our profession has been called holy and noble, and so it is; for its great business is to protect and prolong human life. The battle will no doubt be fierce and long, but truth and right will eventually prevail. The duty of the profession, then, is two-fold. It is to show how physical disease can be prevented or ameliorated, and also that a correct observance of certain laws, if applied to

marriage, will prevent or at least diminish the amount of crime in the world. Is it too much to expect that in the course of time some effectual means will be found of preventing notoriously bad people from propagating their iniquities to posterity? If it can not be accomplished by natural selections, why, then I say, let the strong arm of the law interfere. Better for the liberty, yea, even for the life of one individual to be sacrificed, than to have a dark and poisoned stream of vice and infamy slowly oozing its slimy way down the course of time, blighting and corrupting with the exhalation of its nauseous vapors every thing that comes near it, until it loses itself in the vast sea of eternity.

It is a question in sociology which must be considered, and probably pondered over for a long time, before any definite action is taken. But we may cast the pebble to-day that will lash the waves of the moral ocean into billows of improvement, that will break upon the pure sands of a new and regenerate world ages hence.

ANNUAL ORATION:

AN ADDRESS ON MEDICAL ETHICS.

BY GEO. A. KETCHUM, M. D., OF MOBILE.

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the

Medical Association of the State of Alabama:

When, at our morning session on yesterday, it was announced that the Orator and the Alternate Orator appointed at the meeting of last year were both absent, and that in consequence we would be compelled to omit this usually interesting portion of our annual programme, the announcement was the occasion of much regret and disappointment. But my valued friend, Dr. R. F. Michel, who in every emergency is so full of expedients, suggested that he saw a happy (to him) issue out of the difficulty, and very pleasantly proposed that I should be appointed to fill the place of the gifted Sommers in his absence, and play the Orator before you and the large audience of ladies and gentlemen whom he felt would honor us by their attendance on the occasion. What was considered at the time as an exhibition of the proverbially playful good humor of my venerable friend was made a serious matter of fact last evening, by the public announcement at the conclusion of the President's address, and by the like an

nouncement in this morning's papers, that the Annual Oration would be delivered by me this evening, and that the public generally, and the ladies particularly, were invited and requested to attend. This, of course, left me no loop-hole of escape; and not having had a moment during the continuous session of our Association for preparation, I must beg your indulgence, ladies and gentlemen, whilst I ask permission to repeat an address on Medical Ethics, prepared especially for a class of medical students, at their request, on the occasion of the anniversary of the "Nott Medical Society," connected with the Medical College of Alabama.

Ethics may be defined to be "the science of moral philosophy, which teaches men their duty, and the reasons for it." Medical ethics must conform to and be based upon this same principle of right and reason, to be morally binding, and bestow blessings and good upon the profession and upon the world. Medical ethics is the profession's moral law, founded on truth and justice, intended to promote professional honor, to elevate the standard of professional excellence, to increase the sphere of professional usefulness, and thus to subserve the cause of humanity. It is that code of honor by which every true and worthy member of the medical profession feels himself bound and guided in his intercourse with his brother, his patient, and the general public.

It is that expression of feeling and sentiment that gives to our profession its ideal of complete and thorough oneness; that makes a scientific truth for one, a scientific truth for all; which gives all a common estate in the facts, aims and purposes that belongs to the science and practice of medicine; that acknowledged law of the profession, which, dictated by the true spirit of a scientific and humane brotherhood, becomes at once the interpreter and sign of the elevated char

acter and lofty purposes of the science; and the rule by which the individual professor's claims to merit, to honor, and to professional standing, must be measured.

It is that expression of manly sentiment, and intense humanity springing from broad and genial sympathies, which should be, and I trust is, the animating principle of the very soul of the profession; and without which no learning, no skill, not even usefulness itself, can rescue it from sure and speedy degradation.

It is that voice from the masters of our science which proclaims, in unmistakable language, that the first and last requisite of professional life is not power of intellect alone (however valuable that may be); nor those acquisitions of knowledge that enrich our thoughts, and give thoroughness and power to our intellectual resources; but those other and finer qualities of generous manhood, of gentlemanly courtesy and professional dignity, which, as subtle and pervading essences, enter with its healthy vigor and animating impulses, to harmonize all rough and discordant elements, and make professional intercourse a brotherly re-union.

It is this link which binds the consistent representatives of medical science in one noble brotherhood-and which makes those who are true and faithful to its requirements, feel that their allegiance to the true professional spirit is paramount to all selfish considerations, and that the claims of that science where the interests of life and death meet continually-that science with whose undisclosed mysteries they must ever wrestle for the well-being of mankind-demand that each and every one of its professors, guided by its code of ethics, should add to its purity and its power, and thus aid by its disinterested and generous sacrifices in the cause of humanity, and its large outgoing of sympathy, kindness and usefulness, to