THE PROPHECY OF SCIENCE. 
A n address to th*•; Graduating Class 
OP THE 
MEDICAL DEPARTMENT OF THE UN IYER- 
J 
SITY OF TENNESSEE, i / 
* \/ 
DUNCAN EVE M. D., 
Professor of Surgery and Clinical Surgery 
and Dean of the Faculty. 
Fashr'dlc, Trim., Tuesday, Feb. '27th, 1888 Gentlemen of the Graduating Class;—The true language of 
Science is ever the speech of phrophesy, and its phropecies are 
infallible. 
The fault is ours that we are not able to give the interpretation 
thereof. After the prediction has become history, we are amazed 
that we did not comprehend it, prior to its fulfillment. One dis- 
covery so inseparably follows another; one conquest so inevita- 
bly leads to another ; one attained elevation so invariably points 
to another, that each achievement in science is but the precursor 
of others of greater moment. But the field ot its operations is 
so illimitable, the duration of its existence is so endless, that he 
indeed is its true disciple, who can catch the adumbrations of 
coming events. The universe is the theatre for the display of its 
glories and the exercise of its faculties. Time only lingers upon 
its confines. It cannot grow old. It is as young this night as 
when “the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” 
Its past is a glance at creation. Its life the measure of eternity. 
It smiles upon what is complete, engages what is present, and 
carefully forecasts the future. How plainly and clearly we do 
perceive its prophecies when once verified. Then all men can un- 
derstand them. Occasionally, however some thoughtful student 
will see what it foreshadows. As glorious as is the past, as benefi- 
cent in result, yet more glorious and beneficent still is it in its 
potential anticipations of the future. The very contemplation 
of this phase of science is calculated to suggest to the patient 
enquirer, not only what can be accomplished, but also to afford 
the means which will lead to, and hasten the accomplishment. 
It were easy to imagine that science stood by the side of the 
deep-thoughted Franklin, and addressing the God of the storm 4 
exclaimed: I will pluck from your red hand the thunder’s bolt 
that can rend the gnarled oak, and make it as harmless as a 
child’s toy. And you envious flash of lightning, that fain would 
compass the speed of my thoughts, I will snatch you from the 
folds of thedurk cloud and taming your fiery spirit, harness you to 
my will, and compel you to play in healthful glow upon the wear- 
ied and exhausted nerves. I will fashion you a race-course 
between earth and sky; and in the bosom of the ocean, where the 
billows of the cyclone roll above you,and the Leviathans of the 
deep play about you, and ladened with my thoughts, you shall 
traverse the world with a velocity that shall make the swift carrier 
pigeon “droop the conquered wing.” You shall outstrip the flight 
of time, and distance the rotations of the globe. And anon from 
your burning, bursting, bosom, I will kindle a flame, that driving 
back the darkness of the night,shall swallow up the light of the 
stars, cause the moon to pale her ineffectual rays, and illumine 
populous cities with a splendor that shall rival the light of the 
sun. 
Approaching the patient Watt, it interrupts his meditations with 
the exclamation: I will take vapor, the veriest breath of the 
babbling stream,and supply a motive powcrthat shall laugh to scorn 
the combined strength of a thousand Sampsons and Titans. For 1 
will gather in my arms the fleets, the navies and the commerce 
of all nations, and resisting wind and tide, and with smoke 
and cloud, shall waft them to their destination. I will seize the 
ponderous locomotive and its iron wheeled train, and with a noise 
greater than thunder or the roar of the storm, I shall hurl them 
across a continent. 1 will supply the labor of millions of hands 
and propel the machinery of the world. 
Again it says, I will lock up human speech and reproduce it 
at pleasure. I will grasp the faintest whisper that ever lingered 
upon the wings of a zephyr, and bearing it through the rage of 
the tempest, the roar of the storm and the din of battle, deliver 
it unsilenced, and unbroken, to receptive auditory nerves. 
To the inspired toiling artist it says: I will catch the sun 
beams in their flight, and limn the features of your friend, with a 
fidelity, that the genius of you art can never equal. 
Looking up to the heavens it exclaims! You immense orbs that 
roll through immeasureable space, I will not only weigh your 5 
lingo bodies, ascertain your motions and distances, but I will 
analyze von, and dotermine your chemical constituents. 
Standing upon the continent of Europe, it declares, I will leap 
athwart the Atlantic, and dwelling in a new world, shall gather 
me a peculiar people, whose only search shall be after truth; 
whose mission shall ho the felicity of the human race; whose civil 
pohtv shall secure justice toal : whose goverment shall be at once 
so broad and national, and so local and minute, as to embrace the 
peoples of the earth in one happy nation. 
Of all the protean hums in which pestilence appeared, none was 
more appalling than wlu-n the destroyer came mingling with the 
winds e.f winter, lingering in the appaiel of the afflicted, dwell- 
ing in his breath and in the atmosphere which surrounded him, 
communicated by bis touch, attaching to the very walls of his 
habitat ion, and its contagion increasing with the numbers attack- 
ed, reaching out for populous cities and delighting in crowded 
thorough-fa res, racking its victim with pain, consuming him with 
fever, and hut tying him with a wild agonizing delirium to an 
untiim ly grave; or if permitted to survive, forever stamping up- 
on his features its hideous impress of scarred disfiguration. Yet 
when the monster appeared with Gorgon-head and a whip of 
scorpions, and held a ‘‘horrid banquet at which the genii of death 
j lyously drained their glasses,” Science declared I will extract 
your sting and neutralize your poison. I will shiver your lance 
with a cambric needle and upon its attenuated point place an anti- 
dote that shall by prophylactic anticipation render harmless and 
inert your most malignant venom. 
Ref bring to Anaesthesia, Science exclaims: I shall surpass the 
wildest dreams of Greek and Roman fable. I shall discover'and 
utilize an agent so subtle and etherial that floating in the air it 
shall mingle with human respiration, and holding sensation in 
suspension, render the nervous system impervious to pain, strip- 
ping the operating table and chair of their horrors; and the knife 
and other surgical instruments and appliances of the power of 
torture and agony. \rea, amid what once had been terrors, the 
patient shall find delightful repose, and smile from the visitations 
of pleasing dreams, while the piercing cry of anguish is changed 
to the gentle murmur of painless rest. 
We need not multiply examples; the voice of science is always 6 
so full of import, that its every utterance is at once history and 
prophecy. It never announces an accomplished fact that the 
very annunciation does not presage a more important discovery. 
He is the best interpreter who acquires fullest knowledge ot what 
is known,and he indeed, aided by this very power of interpretation 
contributes most to the attainment of unnachieved results, and is 
enabled rightly to exercise his faculties in estimating the pos- 
sibilities of scientific conquest. 
The Almighty Author of all science has placed man as an 
epitome of creation on this globe, only revealing to him such re- 
lations and truths as the human intellect could never discover, 
leaving his faculties to accomplish all other knowledge, thus 
giving to him the felicity of ceaseless employment, and the luxury 
of continuous work; and the benevolence of the Creator is display- 
ed in presenting a field of such amplitude, as to engage in the 
labor of discovery and invention, the entire capacity of each in- 
dividual, of every succeeding generation, to the end of time 
The part of science which your profession occupies, is large 
enough and broad enough for all the intellectual effort of the 
Medical and Dental World. Yours is indeed a profession re- 
splendent with a thousand glories, rich in its noble history, rich 
in the great lives that have illustrated and adorned it, rich in 
deeds of benevolence, rich in the contributions of every branch 
of science, rich in the splendid achievements of the past, rich in 
the duties and occupations of the present, but inconceivably rich 
in the promises and potentialities of the future; and with a part 
of this future, your lives, your time,an i your toil are to be blended. 
Your hopes are now busy with this future. The past to you is 
but a memory, the present only a starting point. How gladly 
you would gaze with prophetic ken upon this unexplored land, and 
bring its arcana into the living present. 
I have mentioned the fact that your profession was rich in his- 
tory. It antedates all history. It existed before the inspired 
oracles were written, before the foundation of ancient and grand 
empires, before secular history was dreamed of, and in the Penta- 
teuch it was found not unworthy of a place. The science of dis- 
eases and the art of healing, is founded in necessity, is dependent 
on the study of man’s physical and moral nature in health and 
disease. It enthrones man within its circle and explores every 7 
kingdom, mineral, vegetable, and animal, alone for his advantage 
and benefit. It purposes solely to bless, it seeks only to do good 
It inflicts no wounds, it produces no sorrow. Its ambition is 
not to slay, but to make alive. Its march is followed by no tears, 
its presence causes neither sighs nor groans; its kindly offices are 
received with confidence, and remembered with gratitude. Bless- 
ings, and not execrations are its reward. It rests upon observa- 
tion and reflection. It is essentially progressive. It moves with 
slowness, but with sureness. It has ever struggled with theories, 
but has acquired more from the discoveries of close observers, than 
from all theory. It has been influenced by every form of phi- 
losophy, religion and superstition. It has combatted error and 
prejudice in all their phases. In Egypt it was the secret of the 
priesthood. In Greece it was carefully concealed and transmitted 
from fa'her to son, by the family of the Asclepiades. But even 
thus early we find the genius of Hippocrates seeking to separate 
the results'of practical experience from vain speculation. Soon 
afterwards we find his followers blending this doctrine with the 
Platonic philosophy, and forming what is termed the ancient dog- 
matic, system. It was cultivated when Alexandria was the seat 
of learning, and then degenerated into mere dialectics, and was 
followed by the empirical, the methodic, the pneumatic and fin- 
ally eclectic schools. The great Galen appeared relieving it from 
confusion. The school of Salerno diffused the light of medicine 
in the West. Afterwards we find the science fostered by igno- 
rant monks and suffering from every superstitition, and it was 
not till the fourteenth century that practical medicine began to be 
understood. Then sprang up successively the chemico-theoso- 
phical, the chemico-material and dynamic systems. 
Thus at a glance you perceive the varied forms medicine has 
assumed, the vicissitudes through which it has passed; and yet in 
its every age, stage and condition, it enlisted the ablest minds anc 
mqst zealous devotees, and their aim was to improve and elevate 
it, to increase and extend its sphere of usefulness, and each per- 
iod of development has with, whatever, of error or misconception 
there may have been, tended to produce that degree of excellence 
which the profession has at last attained. So that now a thorough 
knowledge of medicine as it exists would include the whole range 
of natural sciences, etc. What a glorious panorama of science is 8 
spread out before you, embracing everything that can awaken 
intellectual curiosity, that cau arouse a noble ambition, that can 
(■harm a cultivated mind, that can refine and elevate human 
nature, that can engage the love and excite the enthusiasm of the 
human heart, that can enlist the highest energy and employ the 
most tireless industry of our being. What now are the proph- 
cies of all science? That the past is but the dawn, that tight is 
increasing, and will continue to increase, until each particular 
branch shall shine with the splender of a noonday sun, till the 
scientific heavens shall blaze with the combined effulgence of a 
thousand suns. Will you gentlemen pursue the investigation of 
your department of science with careless indifference, o/will you 
from this night forward, resolve so to acquaint yourselves with 
the truths that have been attained, as to enable you to anticipate 
the revelations and discoveries that are to be made, and prophecy 
coming events bv the shadows they cast before? You have torn 
yourselves from home, relations and friends, and come to a 
distant city to sojourn among strangers, you have renounced 
the fascinating pleasures and amusements so delightful to 
your age, and for months, and years, you have given your 
time, your labor and your lives, to the acquisition of only such 
knowledge of Medical and Dental Science as would make you an 
accredited member of your chosen profession. From this we be- 
lieve, we know, that your exertions and efforts to be honorable 
members and living lights of that profes-ion, shall be commensu- 
rate throughout your lives with the brief but brilliant past which 
you have spent with us, and the honors and distinctions which 
we have conferred upon you, shall be reflected with lustre and 
glory hereafter, upon the University from which you take your 
degree. 
You graduate in an age of enlightment, from the University 
of Tennessee. Your Alma Mater is the young and beautiful wife 
of the historic and illustrious University of our commonwealth. 
Phis night from her fair forehead, she throws back the golden 
tresses that fall upon her graceful shoulders, her eyes beam with 
intellectual animation, and love and tenderness; the rose lias 
kissed the lilly upon her cheek and sprinkled her lips with dew. 
She places the wreath of victory upon your brows, folds you to 
her heart and with hope and confidence points you to the future.