PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS 
TO THE 
J|ahu j|edical ochtti o n, 
• * . t/ '* 
V~ • sZcX 
JUNE 1 
SETH C. GORDON,. M. D., 
PORTLAND " 
PORTLAND, ME. 
STEPHEN BERRY, PRINTER. 
1880. PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS 
TO THE 
rr rr. t 
jl{ainc medical tao^ialifftt, 
iJUNE 15, 1880, 
BY 
SETH C. GORDON,VM. D., 
OF PORTLSHD. 
PORTLAND, ME. 
STEPHEN BERRY, PRINTER. 
1880. ADD R ESS. 
Members of the Maine Medical Association : 
For the honor conferred upon me at the last session of this body, 
permit me at this time to tender you individually my most grate- 
ful acknowledgments. It is an honor to which any true worker in 
the profession may have a laudable aspiration, and, in assuming it, 
I trust I am fully aware of the obligation it imposes upon me, not 
only at the present time but during all my future career in the 
profession. I owe it not only to myself, but to every one compos- 
ing this body, to so deport myself as not to reflect any discredit 
upon the Association of which we are justly proud. The more im- 
portant the position in life we fill, the more strongly the obliga- 
tion rests upon us to see that no one suffers through our fault. 
This becomes much more obligatory in an Association like ours, 
where the entire profession is involved. 
Success or failure in all organizations depends entirely upon in- 
dividual effort. Each man, feeling his own responsibility and dis- 
charging his whole duty in the promptest, best manner, must give 
success. No one has a right to shirk what is plainly his share in 
a combined enterprise. “What is everybody’s business is no- 
body’s” is a trite and homely adage, but a true one. There is 
always something for every one to do in all such organizations as 
ours, and the smallest work, if well done, deserves and usually 
receives its proper reward. It is a great mistake for anyone, how- 
ever young or inexperienced, to suppose that, because he can not 
accomplish all that age and ripe experience can, he has no place. 4 
Let him contribute his mite, and be prepared to do whatsoever lie 
may find himself fitted for in the best manner he can. 
In a profession like ours, one rises to eminence only by slow and 
laborious efforts—there is rarely a royal road to fame or fortune. 
The best advice I could give any young man to-day would he, to 
allow no opportunity to escape to enlarge his experience. The 
medical student of any one#of the London Schools and Hospitals 
thinks himself only too fortunate to obtain even the position of 
dresser in the wards of those large hospitals, while the position of 
house surgeon is a rare one, and procured only by the closest 
attention to duty and the sharpest competition. Many of the 
well known men of England are to-day serving as assistant physi- 
cians and surgeons, waiting for years for the promotion to the first 
place. I am sorry to say that for the past two years there have 
been but two applicants for the two positions of medical and surgi- 
cal pupil at the Maine General Hospital. To he sure, the advan- 
tages may seem small compared with these hospitals named, hut I 
am certain that the year spent there is worth any five years of 
private practice that the young man will have in after life—cer- 
tainly his first five. 
The failure of many young professional men, in my opinion, is 
that, like many sons of successful business men, they want to begin 
where their fathers leave off. “ Ho not despise the day of small 
things” applies to medicine as to many other things. One of the 
most successful of New York’s practitioners told me that his first 
years there were spent in doing an immense amount of work, for 
which he realized no money at all. He was always ready to do 
what many of his cotemporaries scorned to do. It gave him an 
experience which made him what he now is, and at the same time 
gave him the favorable opinion of his ol<h;r brethren in the profes- 
sion, who found him always ready to perform any duty to which 
they called him. Little by little he grew in their estimation, until 
to-day he stands the peer of the wisest. 
If I were obliged to point out a single individual thing that 1 
as most essential to success in our profession (I mean 
to a young man), I should say, obtain the confidence of your elders 
and brethren, generally, in the profession. Nothing hut faithful 5 
devotion to work, for work’s sake, can command this. The older 
members are always willing and anxious to aid such men. It is a 
mistake to suppose anything else. It is only to the assuming, 
pretentious young man that the cold shoulder is turned, as a rule. 
To be sure there are exceptions. Now and then we find the man 
of age and experience who looks upon the younger members as in- 
truders, and, like the Pine Ridge practitioner, treats them strictly 
according to the “ Code.” 
For such men are “Codes” made, and, so long as the profession 
contains many of them, I suppose we must have our written law. 
I shall hope to see the day when much of the present “Code of 
Ethics” adopted by the American Medical Association may he ex- 
punged, and each man become a law unto himself. The military 
profession has comparatively few written statutory laws defining 
and punishing offenses. There is a certain esprit de corps, which 
puts every man upon his personal honor in all his relations with 
his brother officers and the world about him. The general charge 
of “ Conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman” covers a very 
large majority of all misdemeanors. 
The golden rule, of doing unto others as you would that they 
should do unto }mu, is the foundation of the best Code of Ethics 
that any body of men could adopt. Will the time ever come when 
“Conduct unbecoming a physician and a gentleman” will have as 
much meaning and as much force in our profession as the former 
has with our “brethren in arms ?” 
Our sister State (or, more properly, our venerable mother), Massa- 
chusetts, has taken a step in the right direction on this matter of 
“Code”—very much simplifying and abbreviating the old law. 
May we not do something in the same way to our advantage ? 
There are certainly some things we should all agree upon. I would 
suggest that a written law often gives a dishonorable man an op- 
portunity to try its full strength, and, without actually breaking it, 
he violates the spirit, leaving the “letter which killeth.” 
When we meet in annual conclave, throwing aside the every day 
work, no body of men play better than doctors. No more social 
enjoyment is experienced, no more courtesy is displayed, no more 
harmony preserved, even among our ministerial brethren. Can we 6 
not work together as well ? Need there be any or as much of the 
jealousies as are found even among us now ? Fortunately, I be- 
lieve less than formerly. 
I believe the Maine Medical Association has done much to cul- 
tivate this spirit of good feeling, and I look upon the advancement 
made in the social aspect of our meeting this year as conducive to 
hastening that era we all so much desire. I trust we shall take 
measures at this session to place this matter of an annual dinner 
upon a permanent basis. To the end that we may make it of 
more general interest, I hope to see a few laymen invited to join 
us in these festivities. 
The medical profession has become a power in the legislation of 
the country. The great questions of State medicine are contin- 
ually calling into the councils of the nation the science and skill 
of the ablest men among us; and, the more freely and closely we 
are identified with the other professions and vocations of life, the 
more will our power be felt. In the British Parliament we find 
several of the distinguished medical men of England. They have 
accomplished much in the way of sanitary reform, and are still labor- 
ing for those hygienic measures which promise so much to the 
wretched classes of that powerful nation. We are not in any way 
behind them in these matters, as every year shows, both in our 
State and national legislative bodies. 
In our own State we have much to do, and it becomes the duty 
of each one of us to use his entire influence towards accomplishing 
the end. First, we need most of all the Anatomical Bill. We 
have had two very severe struggles to secure something of this 
kind. Once in 1854—’55, I believe, and again in 1868-’G9. The 
last trial secured the passage, in both branches, of a bill which gave 
us substantially all we asked, but, through some little informality 
or amendment in the House, it was sent back to the Senate and 
there killed, through some over-timid politicians. We have now 
come to a point where it is almost impossible to secure material for 
dissection for the Medical School at Bowdoin, to say nothing of 
the Portland School for Medical Instruction. Every legislator 
will acknowledge the necessity for this, and it only needs a proper 
presentation of our case and I feel sure we shall be successful. 7 
Having served on this committee with Dr. Tewksbury and others 
for several years, I think I speak from what I know, that the time 
has come for united action on the part of this Association with 
a committee from each of the schools named. All we ask is, that 
only the bodies of those who, having no friends to care for them 
while living, are left to the tender mercies of corporations to see 
that they are buried in the Potter’s field after death, may be 
delivered to the properly authorized persons connected with either 
of the schools. Even any person, relative or otherwise, asking to 
have them buried, can have such wish complied with. With such re- 
strictions, such a law can do no injury to the living or become a 
desecration to the dead. I trust a committee will be raised for this 
important matter. 
Following and closely connected with this matter of dissection, 
comes the legislation relative to suits for malpractice. I am sure 
that sooner or later this must come, and the only question is 
whether we had better attempt too much at once. I am inclined to 
believe that we can accomplish more by presenting one thing at a 
time. We have had this and the subject of a State Board of 
Health before the Legislature for several years past, without much 
success. The Anatomical Bill will be new to the present mem- 
bers. I suggest that, if the full force of the profession be brought 
to bear upon that alone, it will secure its passage. 
In reference to the State Board of Health I wish to say a word 
or two. I believe in its necessity. I think they are doing good 
work in States where they already exist, and there is much to be 
done in our own State. At the same time, I am inclined to think 
that in making our appeal heretofore we have rather overdone the 
matter. We have claimed too much, in my opinion, in certain 
directions. Unless we can substantiate our claims before the 
public, by facts which appeal to the common sense and ordinary 
experience of the people, we shall fail to convince them of the value 
of any one argument we may present. I believe we have claimed 
too much in way of preventing disease. While our school houses 
and public buildings generally are to a great extent the sources of 
many diseases, from overcrowding and deficient ventilation, and 
while much needs to be done in correcting the evils incident to 8 
these and many other things, I am constrained to believe that it 
has become the fashion to attribute too many things to the subtle 
poison we call malaria. Foul sewers, defective drainage and cess- 
pools are certainly bad enough and are deadly in their influence, 
but when we find typhoid fever, diphtheria, scarlet fever, &c., &c., 
devastating entire school districts in the healthiest portions of our 
State, where the closest scrutiny fails to show any of these sources 
of infection, I am free to confess it staggers my former notions 
upon this question of preventable diseases; and when I am met by 
such an argument as can be brought by many a man from the 
interior towns, I am slow to say he is wrong, and the theory that 
these diseases always come from local causes is right. 
I am aware that I am taking the extremes in way of contrast, 
but this is the way we are obliged to meet it with the average 
legislator; and I am not fully prepared to say that we know so 
much more about this question of “blood poison,” “bacteria,” “dis- 
ease germ,” &c., &c., than the careful observer in other directions, 
as to be able to convince him, beyond all doubt, that what we ask 
in way of legislation is, after all, so very desirable. During the 
past winter, we have had a very severe form of scarlatina prevail- 
ing in Portland and vicinity. It is a little curious that in what 
are known as the filthiest portions of the city—that is, in those 
streets where there is the most overcrowding in dwellings, and 
where the least attention is paid to cleanliness—the disease has 
been comparatively unknown; its worst ravages have been in parts 
of the town and in families where everything has been done to 
improve the condition of dwellings, streets and surroundings. 
I only allude to these things to show that we do not yet know 
all about thio matter, and when we claim that by an efficient Hoard 
of Health we can prevent a large part of these diseases, I think we 
claim altogether too much, and, in so doing, damage our cause before 
the body that we present our claim to. There are certain things 
we can all agree upon that are obvious, and that appeal to the 
intelligence of the people; these are sufficient reasons for asking 
for a Board of Health. In our zeal, we should not allow our minds 
to become too much imbued with theories that are untenable, lest 
we lose all. In New York and many other large cities to-day, the 9 
profession are “ malarial mad.” It seems that everything that 
cannot be explained at once, so far as regards the etiology of 
disease, is attributed to “ malaria.” I know several families, 
living in some of the healthiest portions of New York City, who 
have absolutely lived in constant fear of some dreadful attack, 
simply because they have been told by their physician that it 
was a “ malarial ” neighborhood. It is certainly the fashionable 
cause of all our woes. Now, while we are to be vigilant and alive 
to all causes of this kind, we are bound to show the evidence before 
convicting any house or neighborhood of harboring such an enemy 
to our lives. 
We should be true to ourselves in this matter, and, so far as 
possible, honest with our patients. We should seek to become 
beacon lights to the public, warning them of danger where we 
know it exists. Let us be careful that we do not become an ignis 
fatuus, misleading them by false lights. Honesty in all these 
matters is undoubtedly the best policy. 
Hr. Cakletost, President of the Connecticut State Medical 
Society last year, made this subject of “ Honesty in the profession ” 
the theme of his address. I commend it to the careful attention of 
each one of you. I would carry it still farther than he did. I 
believe the profession are to a great degree responsible for the 
spread of many of the delusions that have become so popular 
throughout the world. As a rule, we are too much afraid to say 
“ we do not know.” Let us be frank enough to admit our ignorance 
of many of these things of which we are entirely ignorant, and 
then our positive assertions will be worth something. There has 
been too much of the wise, mysterious manner about the profession 
—it has often been but the cloak to cover what we did not under- 
stand. I believe we should carry this honesty into our daily work, 
and prescribe remedies only when we are satisfied they are abso- 
lutely required. 
This being our rule of practice, sensible people soon learn what 
nature does in disease and what medicine does, and from that learn 
of how much value is the assumption of quacks and charlatans 
that they cure all cases that get well or improve under their hands. 
I am sure that the success of homoeopathy depends largely upon 10 
the course pursued by our own profession, in not daring to follow 
their own convictions in regard to administering or withholding 
remedies. We have encouraged the idea too much that we cure, 
when nature cures in spite of us. 
Within the past week, I saw an editorial in the New York Post 
which so nearly expresses my own views that I trust I may be 
pardoned for copying a portion. The meeting of the American 
Association led the editor to say, among other things : 
“There used to be a belief, which was shared largely by physi- 
cians themselves, that it was the business of doctors to cure disease. 
All educated physicians know better now. After more than two 
thousand years of recorded practice, the doctors know now that it 
is unsafe to speak of ‘curing’ anything except aneurisms and the 
itch. For the one, they have an operation which pretty certainly 
cures the lesion; for the other, they have a specific remedy. Beyond 
this doubt intervenes, and the greatest lesson that physicians have 
learned is, that their province is not to cure disease, but rather 
to understand pathology, and to take such measures as will place 
the patient in the most favorable condition for recovery by natural 
processes. * * * In older times, when doctors were expected 
to cure disease by efforts of their own, and when patients de- 
manded this at their hands, the whole work of the physician was 
surrounded by an atmosphere of pretence and mystery which 
savored strongly of quackery, and, in abandoning the pretence and 
teaching the people the real nature of the physician’s functions, 
the profession has made a great advance, and has prepared the 
way for a still greater one. Honesty and frankness in the admis- 
sion of ignorance are of the essence of investigation, and scientific 
investigation is the business of all physicians. Old ideas die hard, 
and quacks prosper to-day merely because the old notion, that it is 
the business of doctors to cure disease, survives. The faith in 
specifics is still great, and the quack plays u{>on that faith.” 
This is a strong statement of the case, but it certainly is on the 
whole a very sound one, especially from a layman’s standpoint. 
Let us see to it that we do our part, as members of the Maine 
Medical Association, to teach the people sound doctrines, and we 
shall then take our proper place in the community as guardians of 
the public health, and shall be consulted and our advice followed 
on all matters connected therewith. 
This Association has now existed for a period of twenty-seven 
years, and has been prominently identified with all the leading 
medical questions of the day. I think its meetings have done much for the advancement of the profession in the State. We have 
yet much to do, and it is only by a united effort that we can suc- 
ceed. The younger men must come forward and fill the places so 
rapidly becoming vacant. Since mjr first connection with this 
body (now twenty-two years), I am shocked when I look upon the 
stars that mark the names of those who have “ ceased from their 
labors.” Among our honorary members, we find Mussey and 
Peaslee—both most highly honored with us and throughout the 
world. The active list is too long to even mention, but, among the 
men who were the founders, we can not forbear mentioning the 
names of McRuer, Rich, Weston, Monroe, the Lincolns, 
Ellis, Briggs, Daveis, Thomas, Robinson, Cakr, Cary, 
Harris, Kilbourne, Wiggin, Nourse, Stockbridge, Putnam, 
Buxton and McKeen, and, indeed, I might fill an entire page 
with the names, who were all prominent in the early history of the 
Association, many of whom we were accustomed to meet year after 
year. They have gone to their rest and “ their works do follow 
them.” Many of them were honored names among us—honored 
in every way the society could bestow honor. We cherish their 
memory, and are reminded that soon we too must follow. 
Since the meeting of last year, some complaints have come to 
me in regard to the action of the Board of Censors in a case where 
two members of the Society recommended an applicant for member- 
ship and the application was rejected. On inquiry of the Censors, 
by one of the sponsors, on what grounds the application was 
rejected, he was told that the Censors voted not to make known the 
reasons. It seems to me that is not quite just to the member. 
While the Board have an undoubted right to withhold reasons 
from the applicant (he not being yet a member), I can see no good 
reason for withholding any evidence, tending to impeach his char- 
acter, from the men who in good faith recommended him. If there 
be good grounds for keeping him out of the Association, certainly 
the men recommending him should know it, otherwise they may 
continue to treat him as a physician in good standing, as they 
believed him to be when they proposed him for membership. 
Again, any member of the Maine Medical Association has an un- 
doubted right to call for any and all evidence brought before any committee chosen by the Society. Certainly, the Association can 
demand a full report from all its committees, otherwise the body 
created would be greater than the body creating it. And, if the 
Association can do this, any member should have the same right 
in a case where his own personal reputation may be involved. A 
Board of Censors certainly cannot vote to maintain secrecy, only 
so far as authority to do so may be delegated by the Association. 
This action of the Board caused a good deal of feeling on the part 
of the member aggrieved, and I therefore feel it my duty to lay 
the matter before the Association and ask that there be some 
expression in regard to it. While we have delegated nearly full 
power to the Board of Censors, so far as matters of discipline aro 
concerned, we should see to it that the rights of the Association 
are most carefully guarded and maintained, and that no one indi- 
vidual suffer through any assumption of power not delegated. 
The stream cannot rise above its source. 
By a wise provision, I think, of our Association, the residing of 
papers is limited to twenty minutes. Any paper requiring more 
time must be presented by abstrsict. I see that the Business Com- 
mittee have csilled attention to this rule. They have arranged 
the business so that it must be observed, in order to do justice to 
all parties. No man has a right to infringe upon the rule and 
thus deprive the next man of his time. In my opinion, by fsir the 
greatest interest of our meetings lies in the sharp, short and 
decisive discussion of papers presented. Unless we have this, the 
session becomes “ flat, stale and unprofitable.” The last meeting 
of the American Medical Association had the same rule, but, from 
disregarding it, I am sure the section meetings, especially in 
surgery and gynecology, were to a great degree devoid of interest. 
To be sure, the papers were of high character, but these could be 
read if worth publishing. What the majority desired was to hear 
from the leading men in the different departments. I hope the 
members of the Maine Medical Association will heed the sugges- 
tion of their Business Committee. 
In conclusion, I commend to your careful consideration the 
various reports that will be presented by the several committees 
appointed and continued at the last session. I am happy to say 13 
to you that the Maine General Hospital will be able to present 
you a most cheering report. The wisdom of this Association in 
originating it, and the indefatigable zeal and noble generosity 
displayed by the men to whom the trust of directing it was com- 
mitted, are now apparent, notwithstanding the trials through which 
it has passed. 
In the reports from the Medical School of Maine, you will find, I 
trust, evidences of a renewed interest in the subject of a higher 
standard of education, now so much required and so generally 
adopted throughout the country. Maine will not be found far 
behind any State of equal resources and advantages. The great 
demand of the day is not for more doctors, but for better ones. 
To the teachers of the many schools scattered all over the land, we 
look for correction of many of the evils now existing. Upon them 
rests the responsibility of improving the character of the profession. 
Upon us, as an Association, rests the responsibility of sustaining 
them in all attempts to accomplish this.