tilation had been adopted. Thus, more than 400 lives per annum were saved in a single institution. Even consumption, the most fatal of all diseases, causing onesixth of all the deaths north of the tropics, seems destined to yield, before the triumphant march of modern medical science. At least, it can no longer claim to be the resistless conqueror, before whom human skill and human power must flee away abashed and discomfited. The hectic flush on the cheek of youthful beauty shall no longer be regarded as the certain presage of an early and untimely grave-shall no longer be dreaded as Death's crimson banner, waving in triumph over the prostrate hopes of parents, relatives, and friends. More correct views of its pathological conditions, and more skilful adaptation of therapeutic measures, recently introduced, lead us to hope that the day is not far distant when consumption will be shorn of its terrors, and take its humble place along with other curable diseases. The discovery and application of anaesthetic agents marks another important era in the history of professional progress. If this great boon to suffering humanity has not accomplished all that its sanguine advocates at first claimed for it; if it has not smoothed forever the knotted brow of agony, it has yet prevented many a pang, soothed the anguish of many a pillow, and been the means of saving many a life. The triumphs of auscultation and the stethoscope belong to the early part of the nineteenth century. These have now become so familiar to the profession and the public, that we are apt to forgetthough older physicians have cause enough to remember it-what a vast improvement they have effected in the diagnosis, and, of course, in the treatment of diseases of the chest. The careful examination and thorough chemical analysis of the blood and the various secretions of the human body, entirely unknown fifty years ago, have thrown a flood of light on an extensive, obscure, and most important class of diseases. The skilful application of medical chemistry in aid of medical jurisprudence, has been of incalculable value in the exposure of crime and the detection of criminals, so that even the secrets of the grave are brought to light and no longer afford protection to the midnight assassin. Public hygiene, the proper drainage and sewerage of cities, and the prevention and control of infectious diseases, have all received careful attention from medical men, to the great advantage of the public health. The application of the microscope to the study of anatomy and the minute examination of diseased structure is of recent introduction, and has already furnished a rich harvest of important discovery to the earnest student. The treatment of affections of the throat has been greatly improved by the novel use of local applications—a valuable contribution to medical science by an American physician. Our intermittent, bilious, and congestive fevers have been placed under almost complete control by the use of large doses of quinine, an improvement hardly second in importance to any which has adorned the present century. To our country belongs the credit of this invaluable addition to our therapeutic resources. The education, development, and improvement of the cretin, the idiot, and the demented, are almost wholly owing to the nobly disinterested and skilfully directed efforts of physicians; and in no form of philanthropic labor has there been a greater success achieved or greater good effected. Midwifery, in all its various departments, bears witness to the successful labors of medical science. New and valuable instruments, operations before unknown, remedies and remedial appliances recently introduced, have rendered the pathology and treatment of the accidents and diseases of this important branch of the profession much more exact, thorough, and reliable than those resorted to by our predecessors. Among these great improvements, perhaps the most important of all, the only successful treatment of vesico-vaginal fistula is due to the genius, skill, and perseverance of a member of this Association.1 In surgery, time would fail us in the attempt to particularize the changes, the improvements, the discoveries, the inventions that meet us on every side. Since the commencement of the present century, the art has not merely been revolutionized, it has been created anew. The old landmarks have been swept away, so that scarcely a vestige of the labors of our predecessors remains. There is hardly an instrument or an operation that has not undergone some material change or been superseded altogether, while new instruments and new operations are continually being introduced, so that surgery, as now practised, may be said to be a modern art. In obstetric practice, fifty years since, one in sixty died; while now, according to the most reliable estimates, only one in two hundred and fifty. Dislocations are reduced by simpler and less painful manipulations; fractures are healed by apparatus and appliances more skil. fully adapted and more successfully employed; amputations and other operations are performed with instruments of novel design and improved construction; wounds are treated by dressings and applications better suited to their nature, and more likely to effect a rapid cure; deformities, congenital and accidental, which formerly were allowed to harass and disfigure the patient for life, are more promptly and effectually removed; the blind are restored to sight, the deaf are enabled to hear, and the lame to walk; life is daily saved from the aneurismal flood, from the bursting tumor, from the mortifying extremity, from impending tetanus; and, above all, the great glory of modern surgery is its conservative character, that life is often preserved and deformity removed or prevented, not by the use of the knife or the scalpel, but by avoiding both, and by waiting on nature with greater patience and aiding her with greater skill.' If the next half century shall witness a progress as rapid, discoveries as important, and improvements as striking, as have marked that we have just left behind us, we shall richly deserve the thanks of the world and the gratitude of posterity. It was the boast of Augustus, that arch-traitor to the liberties of his country, "that he found Rome of brick and left it of marble," and of Buonaparte, "that he found France without law and left it the 'code Napoleon," a monument to his matchless ability, before which the splendid triumphs of Austerlitz and Marengo sink into comparative insignificance. How much nobler might be the boast of the American Medical Association, if we, in future years, should be able to say-though we found the profession the prey of the charlatan and the empiric, we left it distinguished by science and ennobled by virtue-found it chaotic and discordant, we left it organized and harmonious-found it with the education of its members too much neglected, we left it with medical schools of the highest character and physicians in the foremost rank of science and learning-found it without its due weight or influence in society, we left it honored by the rich and sustained by the blessings of the poor. The records of the Parisian hospitals show that in 1805 one in seven died, while now the ratio is reduced to one in twelve, a gain of 71 per cent. in fifty years. |