consideration, before whose champions at the bar or rostrum the world bows in willing homage) await his skill, he falters not, but amid the tears and agonies of weeping friends he patiently watches the conflict between science and disease. And when at last science triumphs, though the world may not know it, he knows that by means of his science, in the hand of God, he has averted a dissolution the most terrible-the dissolution of death. Our profession may be justly proud, also, of its advanced science in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases peculiar to females. Though this has up to the present assumed to a certain extent the character of a specialty, it is wonderful to see how rapidly the profession is awakening to a sense of its nature and importance. Almost instinctively does the mind here turn to a description of the ills and physical woes, the mental and moral agonies which make the lives of many of the fairest daughters of Eve a burden to themselves and their friends, and disqualify them physically and psychologically for the high and noble duties for which God and nature alike designed them. But we may only add that, if there is any one advance in our science to-day which may more than another lead in contribution the gratitude of kind parents, a true husband, or a suffering, weeping wife, it lies in the sphere of gynæcology. The sufferings of our race, now fearfully on the increase by reason of our artificial habits of living; the daily accumulation in the air, land, and water, of the débris of vegetable and animal organic remains; the accidents necessarily attendant upon our crowded and fast living; our constant travel and wonderful activity in the arts, and our fearful exposure, by reason of the changes our civilization is working in the earth's surface by the upheaving of the substrata of soil, and the destruction of our forests; subjects demanding more thought than they have ever yet received, find in our profession their only hope for hygienic deliverance. In all this do we find the necessity, not only of the highest order of science and skill, but the necessity, also, for such means as will promptly relieve the agonies of pain, and so control the human emotions as that quiet and rest, the essential conditions to life and health progress in disease, shall be secured. Graphically has the pen of the enthusiast, for centuries past, described the effects of our narcotics; and the deliverance of a mind weary and worn until sleeplessness, terrible and tormenting, has made it ready to die, has been the theme of poets and of song; but all this, as found in the past, bears no comparison practically with the wonderful improvement in their use at the present; and besides what our bromides and the hydrate of chloral are in hyperesthesia and irritable brain action, our anæsthetics are to the maladies of human life which require the intervention of surgery. And just here proudly might we dwell upon the triumphs of our profession in surgery, its achievements in conservative surgery, plastic and operative surgery, and in surgical anatomy, but time will not permit; and we pass on to a brief consideration of our last general thought in this connection, viz., What are the relations of "Our Profession" to the future? "I have but one lamp," said Patrick Henry, "by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience." And in the light of this same experience, especially as measured by the progress of the last few decades, there is awaiting us a glorious future. Always, since our profession first attained to any degree of self-consciousness, have there been found among its ranks men prominent for their intelligence and integrity. The Alexandrian school, before the time of Christ, exerted an influence which the world has never ceased to feel, and but for prejudice and superstition, the native and universal characteristics of the race, might have accomplished much for the amelioration of human suffering. The past four hundred years have witnessed occasional outbursts of intelligence and genius which have marked the profession with an honor lasting as the eternal hills; but it has been reserved for the nineteenth century to inaugurate those grand principles which, based upon anatomy intelligently apprehended, pathology and physiology, with their kindred branches, lead in the path of intelligent thought, and inspire the profession with a sense of its true dignity and importance. Accordingly, as fast as it is possible to carry the load of passive and indifferent public sentiment which retards its progress, there is a movement in the direction of a more general and thorough intellectual culture. In this movement more progress has been made abroad than here. With us, all is life and activity in the sphere of the practical; in Europe, it is energy and indefatigable labor in the sphere of the intellectual; and though these are necessarily the complement the one to the other, in the sphere of true progress, a higher order of subjective development in our professional life is now essential to our true destiny. This want is felt on every hand; and in imitation of our trans-atlantic brethren, efforts have been made, and are still in progress, to elevate the dignity of the profession on the one hand, and protect the people on the other, by means of legislative enactments. This, gentlemen, must utterly fail of permanent and important results, until we associate with our practical energy a higher order of subjective culture. "Like priest, like people," is an adage prac tically true. So long as our schools throw open their doors to the student, requiring little qualification, practically, beyond a good moral character; so long as young men are invited from the plough and the anvil, without any special intellectual training; so long as many of our graduates go forth into the world with the imprimatur of the schools, while their "Theses" are borrowed, or written for them by others; so long as at least a good English education is not regarded as essential to the dignity of the professional life-just so long is it useless to ask the State to do for us what we are not doing for ourselves. It is not only necessary that the physician shall think, but equally important also that he shall know how to think; not only necessary that the mind shall be stored with the leading facts and principles of the profession, but that it shall be qualified by suitable training and discipline to appreciate these facts, and use these principles intelligently. And just so soon as the world sees that the profession is consistent with its pretensions; when our schools shall have adopted some creditable standard of scholarship; and when by our testimony the world has learned to know that science involves more than the simple acquisition of facts, and that the highest order of intelligence is necessary for the high and noble functions of the profession, then will legislation come knocking at our doors. Less rivalry, gentlemen, in our schools, and a higher order of literary, classical, and scientific attainment on the part of our students, is the problem which concerns us especially now, and foreshadows our relations to the high destiny awaiting our profession in the future. In the sphere of true progress, science stands to-day pre-eminently above law, theology, and philosophy. With it there are no cycles for repetition, no stagnant pools when life and energy sink into indifference; no metaphysical idealism; but its life is the law of necessity, and its theatre the province of facts. The crowning glory of all science is found in the physical redemption of the race, and the relief of human suffering; and here is the key-note to the future glory of the profession. Here the "testimony of the rocks," Chemistry, Botany, Natural Philosophy, and even the intellectual sciences, are made tributary to one noble end, and through the order of "Our Profession" must reach ultimately the destiny for which God designs them. The very constitution of our profession involves the idea of subjective life and objective energy. Starting in human necessity, and unfolding its consciousness in the order of man's own being, it brings under contribution the highest order of intelligent and sci entific thought, and its very character is essentially that of progress. In the light of what has been accomplished up to the present, the hour must come when all theories shall have resolved themselves into facts, and when all principles shall no longer savor of doubt or uncertainty, but when the nature and character of disease-action shall lead to interpretation, infallible almost as truth itself. As auxiliary to the sciences, the speculum, the ophthalmoscope, the auriscope, the laryngoscope, and the more recent and very important principles of thermatology, promise much for the future glory of our profession. Such, gentlemen, is an epitome of the nature and character of the work in which you are engaged. Your high and noble calling, made sacred not only by the testimony of the Son of God, but embodying in itself also the "Formal Principle" of health-action-as starting in his incarnation-challenges your faith, and should lead for us to lives of purity and self-devotion. Just in so far as we are true to ourselves, and true to our profession-using every means in our power to elevate its standard, and bring its saving influence to bear legitimately upon the judg ment of the people-will we be found worthy of our calling, and contribute our part towards the high and honorable destiny awaiting its progress. |