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ANNUAL ORATION.

Ladies and Gentlemen:

This is the 32d Session of the Medical Association of the State of Alabama. Being a year or two its junior I cannot speak from personal knowledge, but, like some of you, I have heard that upon the night of the first day of each session, an oration has been delivered, to which the public have been specially invited, as some evidence of our appreciation of kindness and lavish hospitality with which they have always treated us; and while they are always welcome at any of our business meetings, still, as this is the only meeting set apart for their special benefit, it is supposed that while the oration will, directly or indirectly, bear upon some medical topic, yet it should be one with which the people are interested and partly familiar. Such an one, I trust, I have selected, namely:

"The Dignity of the Flesh, or The Temple in which we live." In other words, I want to demonstrate that flesh is not so vile, as many would have it; and to prove it, cite authorities that have never yet been gainsaid. I hope, too, to prove some other things to be entirely devoid of truth.

If I can do all these things, I shall be very proud, for I am no public speaker, in any way whatever, and as the time approaches, more and more do I feel very sensibly my inability to do justice to this occasion, or meet the expectations of those who may anticipate "a speech." But I beg my audience to reflect that it is a physician who attempts to address them-one whose vocation is pursued in silence, and the employment of whose art calls into exercise none of the faculties of the orator. I lament, indeed, that a mouth which speaks at least out of the fullness of the heart, cannot speak

eloquently to you that heart's gratification that I am permitted to greet this assembly of beauty and intelligence; this concourse of so many learned and honored men of science, to express my earnest appreciation of the importance of the objects that have called us together, and my earnest hope that our deliberation may result auspiciously, may advance the science to which we have dedicated our lives, and benefit the people among whom our lot is cast.

We have met in consultation, (fortunately not over a patient some one may remark) to compare the experience of a memorable year in the sad history of disease, to take those. observations that shall tell us where we are in relation to the past; to unroll the charts of the discoverers, and ascertain if there be any new track laid down which penetrates more deeply the terras incognitas of Nature-benignant, but mysterious Nature, whose humble servitors we aspire to be, whose gracious confidence we constantly solicit, and at whose altars we perpetually implore that she entrust to us more and more the mighty secrets of her dealings with materiality. Among our purposes, are those which concern not ourselves alone, and our personal advancement, but involve also the tenderest interests of humanity, which illustrates the civilizing virtues of cleanliness and self-restraint, which tend to the alleviation of bodily suffering, the ills that flow from it, and which, perhaps, more than all things else is the enemy of human happiness, the pursuit of which, with Life and Liberty, is the chief object of government and society. And here let me charge it upon those of my brethren present to see to it, that not one of us return to our respective fields of labor in this great State, without being efficiently armed and equipped with every weapon of the latest pattern forged in the vast armories of our art throughout the world, to act as intelligent aide-de-camps of Nature in the ceaseless warfare with the grim adversary of human life. I trust it may increase our vigilance and endurance as sentinels of the public health, and that it may fortify that untried blockade of our shores against that

pestilence, which even now just there across the gulf, in envy of the charms of those greatest and fairest valleys with which Heaven has blessed this Southern land, is pluming its black wing for the autumnal flight that shall overshadow us with death. 'Tis true, as I (and others) have said, that we aspire to be only ministers of Nature, and we believe that it is she who heals. And so the world is, therefore, prone to say that we are her worshippers; that we think she is all-powerful and withdraw too much our dependence on Him who is the author of Nature. Now, this is all wrong. Indeed, so far from being any conflict, there is absolute harmony between the service of the mighty subordinate and her Omnipotent superior; for God is not the enemy of Nature. He who violates Her laws, violates His laws; and the punishments of the one for such violation, are not to be distinguished from those of the other. Self-restraint is the perpetual injunction of Nature, as self-indulgence is her interdict. So is self-restraint the summary of the Christian virtues, and the secret of the power of Christian civilization. "Thou shalt not! thou shalt not !!" was thundered from Sinai in nine out of the ten commandments. Then, besides, Health, which is the priceless recompence of a conformity to the laws of Nature, is one of the surest blessings that attends the life of him who walks in the way of the Lord; and a long life in the land which He has given us is the promised reward to him who keeps the sweetest and the holiest of His commandments. The guileless Nazarene who came to dwell among us as the Physician of the soul, acted often as the Physician of the body. He was moved by its woes, and constantly ministered to its necessities. He turned no deaf ear to the despairing anguish of the. leper, the moan of the fevered, or the out-cry of the blind. He manifested his sympathy with those who attempted the alleviation of bodily suffering, by selecting the performance of that benefaction more frequently than any other, to attest his divine sympathy, as well as his divine power, and by inspiring a physician as one of his four evangelists. It is no proof of

our denial that death is a messenger from God, who may not be resisted because we require strict evidence that the time for his arrival is at hand. We only guard against those false alarms that scare unnecessarily so many good old orthodox people, and who are so pleased when we demonstrate that "all danger is not death." We oppose no obstacles to the inevitable hour, for we know that no art of man can turn back even the second-hand of Time; but we do endeavor to catch a glimpse of his hour-glass, and note the level of its sands; and by every device known to our art, render all the aid we can to Nature in her almost ceaseless conflict with our common foe; but who, generous and courageous as she is, when her skill is finally exhausted, (unlike the hero of Buena Vista), knows exactly "when to surrender." We believe, in fact, that God helps those who help themselves; He takes care of those who try to take care of themselves, and punishes those physically reckless, with bodily aches and pains, and may be, death itself, according to the gravity of the transgression. And, besides, are we to treat this comely palace of the soul with disdain, when the great "I AM” fashioned it after his own image? Nay more, did he not consider it a tenement that even he, as tenant, might enter in, and inhabit? And for thirty-three years did He not occupy it, preserving it from harm; withdrawing it from danger? and in one instance, almighty though he was, actually hid himself from those who have stoned him; and the body He selected to inhabit, tradition at least tells us, was perfect in form and manly beauty, and free from every physical infirmity. And though we know that he had all the weaknesses of mortality, with all its sorrows and its tears, though He hungered in the desert, and thirsted at the well, neither the record nor tradition tells us that he was ever sick, or suffered from disease, in any form.

That we believe then that health in man is as fully and entirely subject to the unvarying laws of Nature as that of all the lower animals, argues no want of faith whatever in the limitless power of Him who made those laws; and who could

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