"And when life's sweet fable ends, Soul and body part like friends; groans of While But the world is not prepared to inaugurate a doctorless era, and our ears as well as those of our successors are to be burdened with the anguish, and our eyes with sights of woe. we cannot prevent the occurrence of all diseases, there are many disorders which we can relieve, and there is not one in our nosology, however incurable, whose pangs we cannot at least mitigate. We have at least arrived at such perfection that we are generally acquainted with the nature of the disease even in every irremediable case. It is a painful duty, but a pleasurable success, to define the cluster of tubercles, to discover the granular kidney, to mark the course of the internal aneurism. It is a sad task, but a scientific triumph, to compare the symphony of healthy respiration with the daily vary. ing intonations in the hectic's bosom, and foretell the approach of the harsh death-rattle which will soon be audible, and its import appreciable to an untaught bystander. The task is a pleasurable one, however, when the same acoustic skill enables us to proclaim the recession of disease. Mournful though it be, is there not music in the rhythm of the diseased heart as it murmurs its own knell ? If it be interesting to study tissues and viscera in health, it is scarcely less so to examine them when altered by disease,-in ghastly masquerade, so mor bidly disguised that they bear little resemblance to their normal condition. Though we exercise our best genius, our great enemy death will finally gain the mastery. Sir Walter Raleigh has thus apostrophized it:-" O, eloquent, just, and mighty Death! whom none could advise, thou hast persuaded; what none hath dared, thou hast done; and whom all the world hath flattered, thou hast cast out of the world and despised; thou hast drawn together all the far-stretched greatness, all the pride, cruelty, and ambition of men, and covered it all over with these two narrow words, Hic jacet." Medical science has not as yet reached the acme of its triumphs; but however great may be its future achievements, there will always be physiological phenomena beyond the comprehension of finite wis dom, and pathological lesions beyond human means of restoration. The lamented Webster, in speaking of the "Progress of the Mechanical Arts," has said:— "God seems to have proposed the material universe as a standing perpetual study to his intelligent creatures, where, ever learning, they can never learn all; and if that material universe shall last till man shall have discovered all that is unknown, but which, by the progressive improvement of his faculties, he is capable of knowing, it will remain through a duration beyond human measurement and beyond human comprehension." With our comparatively limited knowledge we are encouraged to delve further into the mysteries in which our profession involves us. Nor are we to seek wisdom in the hope of escaping final dissolution : "Death but entombs the body, life the soul." -- 71 Indeed we can say "There is no death! What seems so is transition; This life of mortal breath Is but a suburb of the life elysian Whose portal we call Death." We are to continue to labor, not in the expectation of making man immortal, but with a desire to prevent many of his diseases, to soothe many of his pains, and to enable him to live out the Scriptural measure of his days. We have received the Divine sanction upon our work in the gift of reasoning faculties and in the assurance of remedial agents. Amid the difficulties which beset our path we need not be discouraged— "For o'er the blackness of the storm Can we not already begin to discern the signs of the times? By the success of our professional labors the average term of human life has been augmented and is now greater than it has been for many centuries. Again through the efforts of our countrymen an electric girdle unites in intelligent communication many of the nations of the earth, and will soon enclose all in its embrace. Is not this one of the important initial steps toward the advent of a far distant period when, in a brotherhood of nations, the Babel of Tongues shall cease, and a common vernacular shall again be employed by mankind in the expression of its ideas; when, by the gradual spread of a Christian civilization through orient and occi dent, from pole to pole, man shall rise from a fallen estate to enjoy a renovation physical as well as spiritual; when patriarchal longevity shall be restored, and the prophecy of Isaiah fulfilled :-"There shall be no more thence an infant of days, nor an old man that hath not filled his days; for the child shall die an hundred years old. . . And they shall build houses and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them. They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat for as the days of a tree are the days of my people"? (lxv. 20, 21, 22). Fellow-Associates, upon you in common with your brethren in other parts of the world is imposed the sacred duty of advancing the progress of medical science. Act well your part; humanity will reward your zealous and successful labors with its regard and honors, while at the same time you will contribute to the glory and dignity of the Institution which you so fondly cherish-the New York Academy of Medicine. |