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hospital of those who may require its accommodations, and this item of travelling expense is a very serious one in the majority of cases. Then again the risk to the individual, from the fatigue, the excitement and annoyances attending a journey of any length in a weak and depressed, or in a violently excited condition, is often very great and attended with considerable danger to life.

The friends and relations of the patients in any hospital for the insane often, very naturally, desire to visit them and examine into their condition, more particularly where the case has assumed the chronic form, and the expenses of a long journey often press heavily on their means, more particularly where the support of the person in the hospital has to be defrayed, in whole or in part, from the amount they derive from their daily labor. The same reasoning will also apply to the authorities of the townships or counties, who are necessarily required to look after the welfare of those intrusted to their charge. Every hospital should also be located in the centre of population of the district, because the most thickly settled sections are those wherein the largest number of insane will be found; and in those parts also will be more readily found those who will be relied on for the various occupations and employments in such institutions, and there also can be had more economically all those supplies of different kinds, which are required in the domestic economy of the institution.

To Pennsylvania belongs the high honor of having first estab lished an institution in the United States for the proper care and treatment of the insane, and while her authorities have not been backward in the promotion and establishment of all those benevolent operations which have aimed at the amelioration and relief of all the unfortunate of every class within her borders, there yet remains much to be done in the establishment of additional institutions for the care and treatment of the most afflicted and most helpless of all her citizens.

While other States have made or are now making ample provision for all the insane within their borders, let it not be said that Pennsylvania, rich in everything which constitutes the true wealth of a State-with unlimited resources daily becoming more and more developed, and thus adding to the ability for every good and great enterprise-falls behind in the provision which she makes for those who have the strongest claim on the sympathy, the benevolence and the liberality of those to whom her inhabitants have intrusted the charge of her public affairs.

Insanity respects no class nor condition, nor can any claim exemption from its visitations; and he who to-day may be in the full possession of high mental powers, and a pride and honor to all his friends and relations, may to-morrow be cast down from that high estate, and be the subject of the keenest anguish and anxiety to all those who had been accustomed to look up to him for counsel and direction, or on whom they depended for all that makes life desirable and pleasant.

The same distress, the same perplexing anxiety, the same or even greater disquietude at the sad condition of one of its members, often him on whom they leaned for support in all the trials of life, will be

found in every family in every section of the Commonwealth, when insanity makes its appearance; and shall it be said that the Legislature of Pennsylvania will not make ample and suitable provision for the care, the treatment, the restoration, or the proper custody of all who so much need it, and who are so entirely incompetent, by reason of their great affliction, to plead for themselves?

Your memorialists would therefore very respectfully, but most earnestly, urge the establishment, without delay, of a hospital for the insane of the district of the State lying north of a line drawn east and west through the junction of the north and west branches of the Susquehanna River, and east of the Alleghany Mountains, and composed of the counties of Wayne, Susquehanna, Wyoming, Luzerne, Columbia, Montour, Sullivan, Bradford, Lycoming, Tioga, Clinton, Centre, Clearfield, Elk, Cameron, M'Kean, Potter, and Forest; and also, if the finances of the State will justify it, one for the district composed of the counties of Berks, Bucks, Carbon, Lehigh, Monroe, Montgomery, Northampton, Pike, and Schuylkill; and your memorialists will ever pray that each one of you, in your own person, and in the members of your families, may be preserved from the visitation of the fearful malady, for the relief of which, in the persons of others, they trust you will speedily make the most ample provision.

On behalf of the Medical Society of the State of Pennsylvania,

JAMES KING,
TRAILL GREEN,
GEO. F. HORTON,
WM. R. FINDLEY,
JOHN CURWEN,
Committee.

AN ACT TO ESTABLISH AN ADDITIONAL STATE HOSPITAL FOR THE INSANE.

SECTION. 1. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in General Assembly met, and it is hereby enacted by the authority of the same: That Dr. Joseph A. Reed of Alleghany County, Dr. John Curwen of Dauphin County, and Dr. Traill Green of Northampton County, be, and they are hereby appointed Commissioners to select a site and build a Hospital for the Insane of the Northern District of the State, composed of the counties of Monroe, Carbon, Pike, Wayne, Susquehanna, Wyoming, Luzerne, Columbia, Montour, Sullivan, Bradford, Lycoming, Tioga, Clinton, Centre, Clearfield, Elk, Cameron, M'Kean, and Potter. That said commissioners shall not receive any compensation for the services herein imposed upon them, except the actual travelling expenses incurred in the discharge of their duties, nor shall said commissioners be concerned in any way in any contract for the erection of the said building, or for furnishing supplies of any kind for the same.

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SECTION 2. The said commissioners shall select and purchase, within ninety days after the passage of this Act, in the name of the Commonwealth, a farm or tract of land of not less than two hundred and fifty acres. The said farm or tract shall be good arable land, with an unlimited supply of pure water, and large facilities for drainage from the buildings. The property shall be within a convenient distance from some town, and easy of access by railroad. The farm or tract so selected shall be approved by the Governor in writing before the purchase money shall be paid, but nothing herein contained shall prevent said commissioners from receiving a deed in fee for any lands presented, or without compensation, for the purpose aforesaid.

SECTION 3. The said commissioners shall have power to select and appoint a gentleman of thorough medical education, familiar with the treatment of the insane, who, together with themselves, shall prepare a plan of the proposed hospital, and superintend its erection; the said plan shall be drawn out in detail by a competent architect, employed by said commissioners, and the physician so appointed and selected by them; which said plan shall be in strict accordance with the propositions on construction of Hospitals for the Insane, adopted by the Association of Medical Superintendents of American Institutions for the Insane, and be approved by the Governor, or such experts as he may select for deciding upon the propriety of the same, and no changes shall be made in said plan to materially affect its general character without the consent of the Governor, or said experts, in writing.

SECTION 4. The commissioners shall fix the salary of the medical gentleman herein provided for as superintendent, during the time. he is engaged, in connection with themselves, in directing and attending to the erection of the building, as also of the architect and all others whose services may be required in the proper construction of the same.

SECTION 5. To enable said commissioners to purchase the farm and make all necessary preparations for the building provided for herein, the sum of fifty-thousand dollars ($50,000) is hereby appropriated, but the whole cost thereof, when fully completed, shall not exceed two hundred thousand dollars ($200,000), exclusive of the cost of the farm, and not more than fifty thousand dollars ($50,000) shall be drawn from the treasury during the present year for said purpose.

SECTION 6. The said commissioners and physician shall proceed to erect said building and complete the same at as early a period as possible, compatible with the perfection or skilful execution of the same, and make report to the Governor before the meeting of the next Legislature of the amount of money expended by them, and the progress made in the erection of the building.

Approved the thirteenth day of April, A. D. 1868.

ADDRESS

OF THE

PRESIDENT, TRAILL GREEN.

GENTLEMEN OF THE MEDICAL SOCIETY OF PENNSYLVANIA:

I KNOW no title that is more honorable than that of physician, no calling more noble than that of medicine, no ministration more worthy of a generous and loving soul than that which is constantly performed in the chamber of sickness by those who practise the art of healing. The Creator and Governor of the Universe has not thought it unworthy of his character to be interested in the sicknesses of our race. The prophets and priests of our holy religion received from Him healing power, and were instructed by Him in the principles of a sanitary code which were wisely adapted to their condition during their journey in the wilderness, to their settled state in Canaan, and to the preservation of the health of the human family to these later days. The Author of Salvation under the new dispensation was not less interested in relieving the sick, and while he appeared as the Divine Teacher, he also manifested himself as a healer of the sicknesses of men. His first disciples received healing power from this Divine Teacher, and established the truths of the religion which they preached as they healed the sick, gave sight to the blind, and power to the lame to walk. One of our profession has said: The servant of religion hath not more true sanctity about him than the good physician. The service, indeed, that was rendered of old in special temples to the Divinity, conceived in one of his most beautiful attributes, is not yet extinct upon earth, but has its ministering priest, ennobled by Christianity, in every worthy member of the profession.1

I have given this view of the exalted portion of the physician and medicine much thought for many years, and I am most happy to find that my most worthy predecessor in this chair has so well de

Dr. Willis.

fined his opinion in the closing paragraph of his address. He says: "If we would be physicians, indeed, knowing nature as the term implies, and practising medicine according to the will of God, we must know the laws which his finger has inscribed for our guidance, not only on every structure of the human organism, but on all created forms, animate and inanimate, by which we are surrounded. This, it is true, involves the necessity for patient and laborious study in the light of medical philosophy. To those having the proper devotion, and following this light, success ultimately is secure; but ultimate and utter disappointment in reputation to those who pursue the isms and the pathies, which, like the will-o'-the-wisp, shall only continue to mislead the ignorant and credulous until all such false and deceptive lights shall fade away beneath the blazing sun of scientific medicine." 1

We have, in these words of Dr. King, an index pointing to the subject to be studied, and indicating the spirit with which the true physician pursues his investigation, feeling that he is learning God's laws and pursuing his calling according to His will.

Assembled to-day in our annual meeting, let us direct our minds to these thoughts as left to us by Dr. King, and we shall, I trust, find in the consideration of them much to establish us more firmly in the conviction of the greatness of our work, get clearer views of the divine origin of our noble science, a clearer insight into the principles which govern us in our intercourse in these pleasant gatherings, and further preparation to go again to our daily labor with renewed love to a work so honorable, and with a more exalted sense of the obligation under which we rest to advance its interests.

The physician then must know the laws which God's finger has inscribed on all created forms, animate and inanimate.

Our profession has been greatly honored in having from the earliest period of its history devoted itself to the science of the natural world, hence the name physician, applied in early times, denoting an observer and interpreter of nature, and Bacon's oft-quoted words, homo minister et interpres naturæ, have always been more applicable to physicians than to men of other pursuits. It would be well, indeed, if all who are devoted to scientific medicine would use this title, and leave the name doctor to be used by the various followers of doubtful systems of medicine, and by those of other honorable professions.

Until recently the medical schools were alone in maintaining complete courses of chemistry. The first courses in botany were

'Dr. King's Address, 1867.

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