VALEDICTORY ADDRESS 
TO THE 
GRADUATING CLASS 
OF 
JEFFERSON MEDICAL COLLEGE, 
PHILADELPHIA. 
Delivered March II, 1874, 
AT THE 
ACADEMY OF MUSIC. 
BY 
J. M. DA COSTA, M.D., 
PROFESSOR OF THE PRACTICE OF MEDICINE. 
PUBLISHED BY THE CLASS. 
PHILADELPHIA: 
P. MADEIRA, SURGICAL INSTRUMENT MAKER, 
115 SOUTH TENTH STREET, BELOW-CHESTNUT. 
1874. VALEDICTORY ADDRESS 
TO THE 
GRADUATING CLASS 
OF 
JEFFERSON MEDICAL COLLEGE, 
PHILADELPHIA. 
Delivered March II, 1874, 
AT THE 
ACADEMY OF MUSIC. 
BYJ 
J. M. DA COSTA, M.D., 
PROFESSOR OF THE PRACTICE OF MEDICINE. 
PUBLISHED BY THE CLASS. 
PHILADELPHIA: 
P. MADEIRA, SURGICAL INSTRUMENT MAKER, 
115 SOUTH TENTH STREET, BELOW CHESTNUT. 
1874. PHILADELPHIA: 
COLLINS, PRINTER, 
705 Jayne Street. CORRESPONDENCE. 
Jefferson Medical College, 
2d March, 1874. 
At a meeting of the Class this evening, it was- 
Resolved, That a committee, consisting of one from each State and Nationality repre- 
sented, should be appointed to present the compliments of the Class to Professor J. M. 
Da Costa, and request a copy of his Valedictory Address for publication. 
' E. E. MONTGOMERY, President. 
S. R. GORGAS, Secretary. 
Philadelphia, 2d March, 1874. 
Prof. J. M. Da Costa :- 
Dear Sir : We, the undersigned, acomtnittee appointedby the Graduating Class of 1874, 
take great pleasure in expressing the unanimous desire of the Class for a copy of your 
Valedictory Address for publication. And we earnestly hope that many future students 
may have the opportunity of listening to the very clear and instructive lectures delivered 
by you, which we feel to have been of inestimable value to us. 
Yours, most respectfully, 
H. G. McCormick, Pennsylvania. 
P. Joseph L. Carberry, Philadelphia. 
William S. Powell, Ohio. 
Abner F. Chase, Illinois. 
Alexander McLennan, Tennessee. 
J. D. W. Temple, Maryland. 
Emerson E. Snow, Massachusetts. 
Dennis Onan, Kentucky. 
John A. Campbell, W. Virginia. 
Archib'd M. McKennon, Arkansas. 
George H. Chapman, Georgia. 
Thomas V. Cahall, Delaware. 
Eugene R. Lewis, Missouri. 
Charles E. Sayles, New York. 
E. L. M. Bristol, Michigan. 
George B. Robinson, Connecticut. 
John A. Bitting, N. Carolina. 
Josephus D. Read, Nova Scotia. 
Joseph S. Simsohn, Germany. 
Calvin P. Gailey, California 
James P. Duckett, S. Carolina. 
George M. Jones, Alabama. 
Samuel R. Lamkin, Texas. 
William L. Leonard, Iowa. 
K. P. Graybill, Virginia. 
Richard T. D. Hays, Mississippi. 
George Ivins, New Jersey. 
T. W. Hammond, Minnesota. 
Archibald J. Fulton, Kansas. 
Samuel Gardner, Canada. 
Antonio Goicuria, Porto Rico. 
Frank M. Ross, Maine. 
1609 Walnut St., March 2d, 1874. 
Gentlemen : I acknowledge with many thanks your kind and courteous letter ; and in 
complying with your request, I beg you to accept for yourselves and the other members 
of the class my warmest wishes for much happiness and prosperity. 
Sincerely, 
J. M. DA COSTA. 
Messrs. H. G. McCormick, C. E. Sayles, P. J. L. Carberry, C. P. Gailey, Wm. S 
Powell, and others. ADDRESS. 
It has fallen to my agreeable lot this year to be the 
voice of the Faculty to address you on the successful 
ending of your medical pupilage. You have attained 
what you have worked for; and the diploma you coveted 
is fairly won. Heartily, then, do we congratulate you 
on its possession, and fervent the wish that in en- 
rolling you on the long list of its sons, this College has 
added names which shall be among the most brilliant on 
its bright escutcheon. 
The class to which I speak to-day for the last time, 
and which in so few hours will scatter in all directions, 
is one of unusual size and promise. Almost every state 
in the Union has sent us many of its best young men, 
while our list shows also representatives from England, 
Scotland, Germany, Cuba, Porto Rico, Mexico, Costa 
Rica, Russia, and India- 
Nor can we be otherwise than devoutly grateful that 
in this large assembly, the largest in our halls since the 
civil war, there has not been a case of serious illness. 
The breaks that have occurred among those connected 
with the Institution have been those caused by death in 
its Board of Trustees, and all its well wishers miss, as its 
Faculty deeply deplore, Thomas S. Smith, the lifelong 
friend of the College; Edward King, the celebrated 
jurist; Charles Macalester, known to the whole commu- 
nity by his traits of sterling worth; and James Thomp- 6 
son, the able Judge, whose ermine covered a spotless 
reputation. 
From to-day begins with you a new life. New hopes, 
new aspirations, far greater responsibility come into it. 
This, at first, is difficult to realize. The feeling now is 
one of pleasure, of relief; there is something definitely 
done ; the work seems accomplished. So it is. But the 
work of to-morrow remains, and the work of to-morrow 
is to be the work of a lifetime. While still standing at 
the threshold, and timidly lifting up your eyes to dis- 
cern your place, when past the portal, let the teacher 
once more speak to you, and with the words of welcome 
mingle a few remarks on the professional work that 
awaits you. 
This work is an arduous, but a noble one. It does 
not bring with it the popular appreciation, the wide- 
spread fame, the material results of many another pur- 
suit. But it has this striking advantage over most 
professional occupations, that it is invariably performed 
for good. Contrast its means and aims with those of 
other worldly callings, as with that of the soldier, the 
lawyer, or the statesman. 
The professional work of the soldier may have a great 
and lofty purpose, but its results are also seen in black- 
ened, roofless homes ; in brothers burying brothers; in 
empires in ruin. His path of duty, his aspirations of 
glory lead over the graves of thousands ; his work is 
flanked by heart-broken multitudes, and the inspiriting 
strains of martial music have a distant echo in the sobs 
of sorrow. The true soldier knows this, and proud 
though he be of the success of his exertions, is devoutly 
glad when they are over, and rejoices when he can feel 
that the cause upheld is worthy of the tremendous dis- 
turbances and sacrifices it has necessitated. His profes- 
sional work is that of stern necessity. 7 
The professional work of the lawyer is in many 
respects like ours. He sees all the phases of human 
nature, learns its strength and weaknesses, is obliged to 
analyze facts and sift evidence. But with all the charms 
of the intellectual exertions his career necessitates, it 
is the wrorst part of human nature he comes in contact 
with, and he may be obliged in his duty as an advocate, 
to defend much of what he knows to be questionable, 
no matter if others be injured by it. 
To the statesman we all look with admiration, and 
history mentions his name for the most part with pride. 
But does his professional work, renowned as may become 
the results, always accord with the dictates of morality 
and justice ? Are the weak never awTed, the strong 
never deceived into false security? And though we 
fondly believe that in our age the standard of public 
sentiment is much higher, and publie opinion exerts its 
potent influence so as to restrain even the most ambi- 
tious and crafty, has not the work of the Cavours and 
the Bismarcks, in founding the great empires that owe 
them everything, been necessarily often of the kind which 
charmed and formed the daily life of the Richelieus and 
the Talleyrands ? 
Now in regard to your calling, however inferior its 
exercise may seem to the brilliant achievements of men- 
tal work applied to questions of great public import, 
this much is certain, that it is the pursuit of unmixed 
benefit to all. You can have no object other than to 
better the condition of some fellow-being; if you fall 
short of this it is through want of knowledge, or because 
science has not furnished you the necessary means, and 
not because your profession does not command you to 
exert yourself in this direction only. There is in medi- 
cine no such thing as doing evil to one person, or one 
class of persons, that good may come to others. 8 
Your work through life will centre of course on pro- 
fessional subjects. Wil that goes on in medicine is to 
be the chief matter of interest to you. Hence you must 
be busy readers; and, as habits form, you will learn to 
look to medical journals with avidity, and new publi- 
cations will be examined with keen relish. But to 
become distinguished, nay, to become even respectable 
in your profession, you must be something more than 
readers, you must become active thinkers and sifters of 
knowledge, learn, as Bacon counsels, to weigh and con- 
sider books. Sir Edward Sugden used to attribute his 
success not to much reading, in which he declared he 
was surpassed by many of his cotemporaries, but to his 
habit of repeatedly examining and analyzing a few 
works. And what the great lawyer tells of himself is 
the experience in all professions. Then we are, I think, 
in this busy age of ours, in great danger of over-esti- 
mating the value of mere reading. It is often a lazy 
mode of half-culture, a kind of mental dissipation, 
relished the more because it is mingled with a feeling 
of self-satisfaction at following what seems an intellec- 
tual pursuit; a trouble-saving invention, indulged in 
fitfully, and without regard to its true purpose. That 
purpose is to make the knowledge sought completely our 
own, to examine it critically, and if fully satisfied with 
it, to adapt it so thoroughly as part of our mental organi- 
zation, that we are not conscious of how it came there. 
Reading in this spirit, we absorb into our very nature the 
gifts of the best minds, not merely of the day, but of 
bygone generations. Nay, we become the children of 
the thinkers and workers of the past; and, poor though 
we be, we inherit with their knowledge, some of their 
intellectual wealth, and of their sharp vision, their feel- 
ings, their glow. 9 
" So word by word, and line by line, 
The dead man touch'd me from the past, 
And all at once it seem'd at last, 
His living soul was flash'd on mine." 
But reading, no matter how carefully done, is but one 
phase of culture. You may learn much from conver- 
sation, more from observation; and the more you try to 
learn from observation-suggested or enlarged though 
it may be by reading-the better for your mental train- 
ing, the better for your higher professional life. Here 
it is, where medicine, like all the natural sciences, be* 
comes so absorbing, and furnishes such boundless oppor- 
tunities for useful intellectual exertion. Observation 
begets thought; this a desire for investigation; and by 
investigation your own knowledge as well as the boun- 
daries of science are enlarged. Research then comes to 
complete your medical culture and double your interest 
in medical work. 
And let me beg of you all to have always on hand 
something that you are investigating. This gives 
freshness and interest to your life, keeps the intellect 
active, benefits those who apply to you for advice, and 
enriches your profession. Thus discoveries are made; 
thus, and thus chiefly, is medicine daily extending its 
usefulness and power. The fountain of perpetual youth 
to the mind of the searcher, it becomes a lasting bless- 
ing to many others. Nor must you delay to become in- 
vestigators. Begin with the first opportunity. Begin 
to-morrow; begin while the aspirations of early man- 
hood are still warm; do not wait until the faculties, 
touched by the icy finger of Time, are being benumbed 
and chilled. Nor is it a matter of choice to all to be 
searchers. To those among you to whom God has 
given ability, it is a duty. With the power was given 
the responsibility; you are responsible for earnest work 10 
of which you can show the useful fruits. " Spirits are 
not finely touched, but to fine issues." No, men of 
ability, you have no choice, you cannot fail in your 
clear duty. While one disease remains on the black 
list, marked incurable; while there are limbs that move 
not, ears that hear not, eyes that see not; while a 
mother can hold up to you beseechingly in her fond 
arms a deformed child, your duty is to search, to in- 
vestigate, to try and discover the cure. Your gifts are 
but lent. No- 
" Spirits are not finely touched 
But to fine issues : nor nature never lends 
The smallest scruple of her excellence, 
But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines 
Herself the glory of a creditor, 
Both thanks and use." 
But far be it from me to urge that all your work shall 
bear exclusively on your profession. If it do, you will 
become dwarfed in your intellectual operations and in 
j our views. Literature and general science have some 
claims on us, and it is well to cultivate such parts of 
them as are to our taste, and as our time will permit. 
You will be none the worse physicians for being accom- 
plished scholars. You will better hold your own among 
educated men, be more respected by them, and, should 
occasion demand, be more able to instruct and influence 
the public in anything of importance to them or to our- 
selves. Dr. Johnson used to say that the medical pro- 
fession was the most generally learned of the learned 
professions; and long may the day be off when the 
sneer of Sir William Hamilton at the indocti doctores 
shall be nearer the truth. Nor has learning in our day 
a narrow meaning. I take it to include acquaintance 
with the masterpieces in our own and other modern 
languages, with the best literature of the time, whether 11 
it comes to us in books, journals, or newspapers, with 
the more important advances that are taking place in 
all the natural sciences. I hold it to be general knowl- 
edge and culture, and to embrace and demand the 
culture which comes from taking active cognizance of 
the questions of the period. This is culture which widens 
your sympathies. To be a doctor obliges you to be a 
man of culture, and to be a man of culture in the 
present time means to know something about, and to 
feel about, the living, seething questions of the hour. 
It is of far deeper, interest to watch how the sea is 
striking against a rock, to hear its sullen roar, to see 
the white spray flash angrily into the air, and note the 
ocean retire, baffled for a time, to renew its determined 
onslaught; it educates more to stand by and watch the 
struggle than to be told what has happened and what 
will happen when sea and rock come into conflict. 
The professional work we have been examining has 
been represented for the most part rather from the point 
of view of the student, than of the busy man of the 
world. Yet it is in the active practice of your profession 
that you will find the greatest share of your work, and 
also its greatest pleasures. Work becomes mixed with 
the exercise of benevolence, with pity and sympathy; is 
made attractive by the friendships formed; is rendered 
enticing by the consciousness of the active exertion it 
entails, and of the growing power it leaves. Then the 
struggle with disease shows you so often poor and 
abused human nature in its best aspects. You see 
noble self-sacrifices, pain borne without murmuring, 
resignation and death-beds which teach you to be better 
and purer. Sorrow preaches its own eloquent sermons, 
and you are so constant a listener that you can scarcely 
escape being benefited by them. Thus, from many of 
these causes, the active pursuit of your profession, not- 12 
withstanding the fatigue, the struggle, the cares it 
brings, is so full of varied excitement and interest that 
it is more pleasurable even than that life, so much 
sighed for, of learned leisure, and it becomes very diffi- 
cult for one who has been in the heat of the contest to 
retire to quieter pursuits. In his charming auto- 
biography, Sir Benjamin Brodie tells us that he tried 
to resume the exclusive occupations of his early pro- 
fessional career, but he adds that to one " long accus- 
tomed to the active pursuits of life and the variety of 
excitement belonging to them, mere reading and learn- 
ing is but dull work, and quite insufficient to prevent 
the miseries of ennui, and the degradation of mind which 
ennui necessarily produces." 
The life I have been sketching has shown you your 
work in its favorable aspect, at least uninfluenced by 
outside circumstances, excepting in so far as these form 
almost part of it. But everything is not clear and 
bright; there are strong, dark shadows in the picture. 
Your work will be hampered and your exertions made 
more laborious by the credulity and incredulity of man- 
kind, by ignorance and prejudice, and the clinging to 
obsolete views. 
Of the credulity of mankind you will soon see 
many examples. It is on this that the prodigious impo- 
sitions of the charlatan flourish. There is nothing too 
absurd to be believed, and the more mystery that sur- 
rounds the fraud the stronger is its hold. But I shall 
not speak to you on this point. Credulity is inherent 
in human nature, and you must accept the impeding of 
your work through it as something inevitable. 
Incredulity in all honest scientific endeavor will at times 
act as a damper on your exertions. Men of the world will 
hint to you, or tell you plainly, that they have no faith 
in the power of your profession to accomplish anything. 13 
They like the doctor, but disbelieve in his art; and 
affect to think that you are practising a deceit. But is 
it a deceit which in a few minutes by the simple process 
of the hypodermic injection relieves from pain? Is it a 
deceit which produces insensibility that lessens the shock 
and does away with agony during the removal of a limb ; 
which extracts the blur from the eye and restores the 
blind to sight; which causes the withered, palsied arm 
to act again? Nay, the very doubters are the ones who, 
when the necessity arrives, are the most anxious to 
avail themselves of your means of relief. And fortu- 
nately the scoffer is not much listened to. The great 
centre of the family rebukes him; she believes in her 
doctor. She knows that she cannot face the dangers 
with her teething child without his good judgment; she 
knows to whom to fly when her darling is threatened 
with convulsions; to whose kindly help to turn in her 
own hour of trial. 
Then the disbeliever in the power of scientific medicine 
is sure to be very credulous on other points. He has 
supreme confidence in some extraordinary article. Some- 
times it is a secret nostrum, but more usually a very 
simple and inoffensive substance which he cherishes. 
Just as Cato thought that cabbages were a universal re- 
medy, some hold to horseradish, others to garlic. I have 
heard of a great leader in the French world of fashion 
and of art who had faith in nothing except mustard. 
And there must be something about this article very 
confidence-inspiring, for I met the other day with an 
advertisement recommending a preparation of mustard 
as good for culinary purposes, as strengthening the ap- 
petite, improving the digestion, invigorating the me- 
mory, quickening the imagination, and deepening the 
affections and moral nature of man. 
Ignorance in its various forms is always a barrier to 14 
the success of work; and one among the forms it has, is 
the lack of understanding on the part of the public as 
to what thorough friends of theirs we are. Thus when 
by our advice the ravages of an epidemic in a com- 
mercial centre are averted or stopped, we, by our science, 
save them, in mere money, millions, for which we do 
not even receive thanks. And supposing that our 
means were really inert, we act as the strong conserva- 
tive element around the sick man; we save him from 
his friends. You will not be many days in practice, 
you will scarcely have begun attendance on your 
first case, before you will discover one thing which is 
beyond doubt, that everybody considers himself a born 
doctor, and that everybody on every conceivable medical 
subject knows much more than any physician who has 
spent a lifetime in its study. This amiable trait comes 
out very perfectly in a case of serious illness. "What 
remedies are not thrust at the unfortunate sufferer; what 
extraordinary suggestions are made to you. One has 
known this to do good, another that; one thinks that all 
the food should be given hot, another that it should be 
cold; a teetotaller scorns the idea of the stimulus, and 
believes cold water or a mild beverage of chamomile 
tea would be the thing; a votary of Bacchus sends 
some cobwebbed bottles, and is convinced, if several be 
taken, there is a chance; mysterious garments of red 
flannel make their appearance; and though nothing may 
be wrong with the innocent organs suspected, a pre- 
scription is sent, with a secret hope that it will be given, 
whether you approve of it or not, which infallible spe- 
cific cured somebody's grandmother in her youth of a 
severe attack of colic. 
Now do you not see what good you do to your patient? 
Do you not perceive that you can cause the suggestions, 
well meant but ill-judged, to become harmless; that you 15 
stand between him and destruction? You act as the 
lightning rod along which the flash passes, and which 
protects much valuable pipperty from damage. 
Another disturbing element which impedes profes- 
sional work is found in the tendency to cling to the old 
and obsolete, and to resist improvements. Still this is, 
on the whole, not a very strong tendency; it is not what 
it once was. The laudator temporis acti has always ex- 
isted. In the age of Horace he bewailed the good old 
days when the verses of Ennius or of Lucretius were the 
poetry of Rome. In the time of Shakspeare he paid very 
grudgingly his sixpence to go to the playhouse of the 
Blackfriars, and see on the stage of the place he used to 
frequent such unworthy and unconventional characters as 
Hamlet and Othello. In our times he may secretly sigh 
for the days when there were no extras to annoy, and no 
telegrams to excite him. But he is not a very strongly 
disturbing figure among us. In our relations with the 
public we are not much troubled by him. And as a 
member of our profession, we find him on the whole very 
quiet and non-interfering. He is a good-natured old 
gentleman whose sympathies are warm, whose specta- 
cles moisten at tales of distress, and who, if he secretly 
cherish a fancy for the calomel and jalap of his youth, 
is not usually so very loth to believe in the power of 
modern therapeutics. Indeed, want of appreciation 
of progress, of adaptation of research, is not a failing 
among us. Perhaps we are now a little too eager for 
change. Certain it is that we are ever ready for improve- 
ment. Before the printer's ink is fairly dry, a discovery 
to detect disease more readily, is tested by hundreds of 
eager hands, and we honor its discoverer. What New- 
ton wrote so bitterly of science in his time, that " a man 
must either resolve to put out nothing new, or to become 
a slave to defend it," does not apply to the science of 16 
medicine in the nineteenth century. We adopt a remedy 
instantly that we find it of use, no matter where it comes 
from. And this is the best answer to all the exclusive 
modes of practice and isms that surround us. If their 
teachings were true, they would long since have been 
incorporated in our science. 
Nor is there any reason why, in medicine, we should 
cling obstinately to the past; for no science has ad- 
vanced more rapidly, scarcely any so rapidly, as ours. 
We have inherited much from our forefathers, but have 
added in this century as much as in all preceding ones 
put together. The spread of vaccination, the discovery 
of auscultation, the employment of anaesthetics, are alone 
sufficient to mark the nineteenth century as the great era 
of medicine. * And it is a trait, I think, which all should 
cultivate, to believe in the time in which we live, and 
to take thorough interest in its work. Certain it is that 
now in all directions the work shows' glorious results. 
Some colossal names in art may be wanting. But when 
you see the tremendous strides in nearly everything; when 
chemistry has reached the point of analyzing the compo- 
sition of the heavenly bodies; when a metallic thread 
links continents, and transmits with the flashes of thought 
and intelligence the pulsations of great national hearts, 
binding the human race in bonds of interest and sympa- 
thy as it never before has been bound; when English 
literature alone has so recently, in Macaulay, Thackeray, 
and Dickens, lost names which would have added lustre 
to the famed time of Queen Anne; when great naturalists 
like Owen, and like Agassiz-but the other day taken 
from us, leaving his pupils, as orphans in the household 
of science, bewailing their lost head-have been showing 
us the chain which unites the animal creation, and have 
paved the way for striking generalizations; when great 
revolutions are silently effected by the work of thinkers; 17 
when diffusion of knowledge and popular education are 
the points of unceasing endeavor; when to the workman 
the blighting poverty of ill-requited toil, poverty which 
crunched into his very being, is a thing of the past; and 
when poor and rich alike enjoy comforts which even to 
the richest were in the last century inaccessible-you can 
but be devoutly grateful that it has pleased Providence 
to let you be here now to witness this great and grow- 
ing life. 
It is the law of nature that there shah be gradual, 
steady development and improvement. Even what we 
hear of the physical degeneration of our race is very 
doubtful. I think the men as well formed and as capa- 
ble of continued exertion as ever. I have read some- 
where that in a castle in England numbers of the sturdy 
yeomen from the neighborhood tried to put on the 
armor of some redoubtable warrior, and that they could 
not get their strong bones and muscles into its narrow 
confines. And when we call to mind the marches of the 
British troops in India and Abyssinia, or of the Prus- 
sians in their late campaign; when we reflect on the 
splendid heroism, the privations endured, the extraordi- 
nary vigor of the men both from the North and South, 
who were citizens one day, soldiers another, and who, 
brethren again, have raised the American name into a 
synonyme for determination and endurance-it takes very 
strong faith to believe that the men of the second half 
of the nineteenth century are degenerating. Andas re- 
gards the women, can any one who a few weeks ago, in 
this very place, had seen them eagerly at work for the 
hundredth celebration of their country's birth, fail to 
recognize how, in the very dress of another time, they 
presented such matchless forms and such a look of 
spirited refinement, that if their grandmothers could have 
stepped out of the frames of the old family portraits, they 
2 18 
would speedily have had to retire from the unequal 
comparison ? 
In the matter, too, which interests us all so much, 
that of medical education, there is striking improvement. 
Even here, where we have had to do all for ourselves, 
where the public until very recently have not aided us 
at all, or have helped us but sluggishly, and where our 
facilities cannot, therefore, contrast with those of the 
richly endowed seats of learning in Europe, we have 
made such strides, that it is certain that with more liberal 
aid we could obtain most desirable results. I read in 
" The Pennsylvania Packet and the General Adver- 
tiser," Monday, October 28th, 1771:- 
" To-morrow Dr. Rush's introductory lecture to his course of chem- 
istry will be delivered at his own house, at 3 o'clock in the after- 
noon." 
Or in the same paper, Monday, November 4th, 1771 :- 
" This afternoon, at 3 o'clock, Dr. Morgan's introductory lecture to 
his course on the Theory and Practice of Physic will be delivered at 
his own house." 
Now remember the well-ordered lecture-rooms of this 
city; recall the opportunities afforded in the hospitals 
and clinics, far from perfect as they still are; think of the 
necessarily meagre teaching of the distinguished men 
mentioned, and the contrast is no less remarkable than it 
is between the few who little over a century ago sought 
instruction in the modest house of Dr. Rush, in Fourth 
Street, then much beyond the centre of the town, and 
the numbers who, surrounded by this brilliant assem- 
blage, receive the tokens of their completed college 
education, in the splendid building which stands in 
what was then a pasture ground. 
So that with all drawbacks, there is much in which 
professional work has gained. But there is one point 19 
in which it has remained unchanged, simply because 
there is no change for the better; in the spirit, the zeal, 
the self-devotion in which it is carried on. Are not 
military surgeons, as ever, constantly dressing wounds 
under fire, sharing the dangers of the troops, though 
rarely their honors and rewards ? Who ever hears of a 
doctor refusing to see a case because it is contagious ? 
Let a city be invaded by pestilence, let yellow fever or 
cholera ravage it, from all parts, regardless of the dan- 
ger to themselves, out of their humanity, their high 
sense of duty, come the doctors, and death in their own 
ranks does not stop the readiness with which they labor; 
the ranks are closed up, and the work goes on. Nay, the 
work goes on under dangers of all kind when it may be 
merely scientific, or at best advisory. During the late 
siege of Paris, the French Academy of Medicine did not 
suspend its sittings. Shot and shell struck the splendid 
buildings of the gay capital, the iron circle was being 
drawn tighter and tighter around it, gaunt and angry 
figures appeared in its wide streets, but the Academy 
knew that its advice might be needed, its example 
pointed to, and in the simple words of its distinguished 
President, " during the agitated and disastrous period 
we have just passed through, our society held to the 
honor of not having interrupted its labors." 
This keen sense of duty and of honor is one eminently 
belonging to the profession you have chosen. In exca- 
vating Pompeii were found in a niche the bones and arms 
of a sentry who had evidently died at his post. Through 
the dim light of centuries we can see him in that awful 
scene in the doomed city. Hundreds are flying past; 
surrounded by the shrieks of women, the screams of fright- 
ened children, accosted by the youth hurried from the 
festive couch with the ribald jest still clinging to his pale 
lips, half stifled by the heat and sulphurous smoke, the 20 
earth rocking under his feet, he looks around anxiously 
for relief. Can he fly ? There is scarce a moment of 
hesitation. Proud of his Roman citizenship, a veteran 
of the eastern legion, who had been with his Emperor 
in siege and battle, he stands erect, the weighty stones 
falling more and more rapidly on his bronzed helmet and 
raised shield, and he waits for the call from the guard. It 
comes not, and in its stead he sees inevitable death. The 
trusted spear is firmly grasped; the weatherbeaten 
features are lighted with a proud smile ; he is fighting 
his last fight with the consciousness that it is one of 
duty nobly done; and in this spirit he meets his fate. 
This, also, is the spirit of your profession. It is to be 
at the post of danger without thought of reward or of 
glory to be gained ; it is to do your duty, though it 
costs you your life. 
Friends, pupils no longer, preserve and cherish this 
spirit. It is at all times your best guide, in trouble, in 
temptation, or in prosperity. Going home rejoicing, 
bearing your sheaves with you, and while the hum of 
affectionate voices reaches your ear, mixed with the 
tones of pride that you return not empty handed, hold 
to it that, with the diploma, you take that which 
during the gloomy nights of patient waiting, the 
struggles and laborious exertion, the calms, the storms 
of your existence, will give dignity to the life of the 
humblest. And may the Great Captain so direct you 
that at his call he finds you calmly waiting for orders 
at the post where he has placed you. GRADUATES 
OF THE 
JEFFERSON MEDICAL COLLEGE OF PHILADELPHIA, 
MARCH, 1874. 
At a Public Commencement, held at the American Academy of Music, on the 11th 
of March, 1874, the Degree of Doctor of Medicine was conferred on the following 
gentlemen by the Hon. J. R. Burden, M.D., President of the Institution, after 
which a Valedictory Address to the Graduates was delivered by Prof. Da Costa. 
NAME. 
Bachmann, G. A. 
Baldwin, James F. (A. M.) 
Barr, John W. 
Barrett, William C. 
Beatty, Arthur J. ■ 
Beaver, E. M. S. 
Berlin, James 0. 
Bigelow, Brown A. 
Bitting, John A. 
Blackwood, Thomas 
Boland, Richard W. 
Bradford, T. Hewson 
Bristol, E. L. M. 
Brock, Luther S. 
Brown, George C. 
Brubaker, Albert P. 
Brundage, Frank M. 
Butler, James G. 
Cahall, Thomas V. 
Callihan, Robert 
Campbell, John A. 
Carberry, P. Joseph L. 
Carr, Edward S. 
Chapman, George H. 
Chase, Abner F. 
Colley, Horace G. 
Cooper, Joseph M. 
Coover, David H. 
Cresler, John M. 
Cummings, Joseph J. 
Cunningham, William N. 
Dirickson, Edwin J. 
Donehoo, R. S. 
STATE OR COUNTRY. 
Pennsylvania. 
Ohio. 
Pennsylvania. 
Illinois. 
Maryland. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
North Carolina. 
Ohio. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Michigan. 
West Virginia. 
Missouri. 
Pennsylvania. 
Illinois. 
Tennessee. 
Delaware. 
Pennsylvania. 
West Virginia. 
Pennsylvania. 
Tennessee. 
Georgia. 
Illinois. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Maryland. 
Pennsylvania. 
SUBJECT OF THESIS. 
The Beneficence of Pain. 
The Relation of Ozone to Disease. 
Non-Inflammatory Softening of 
the Brain. 
Reproduction. 
Gastritis. 
Cerebro-Spinal Fever. 
Cerebro-Spinal Fever. 
Erysipelas. 
Typhoid Fever. 
Chorea. 
Abuse of Alcohol in Children., 
Earth as a Surgical Dressing. 
Malaria. 
Diabetes Mellitus. 
Consumption. 
Histology of Nervous Tissue. 
Management of the Placenta. 
Pneumonia. 
Pneumonia. 
Gonorrhoea. 
Diphtheria. 
Bromine. 
Typhus Fever. 
Physiognomy of Disease. 
Typhoid Fever. 
Tobacco. 
Oleum Morrhuae. 
Tracheotomy in Croup. 
Variola. 
Digestion. 
Scarlatina. 
Individual Treatment. 
Medical Creeds. 2 
NAME. 
Duckett, James P. 
Duff, John Milton 
Duffield, Harrison 
Eaton, Albert M. 
Edie, James Orton 
Engel, Hugo 
Farrar, John N. 
Fooks, John W. 
Foster, William C. 
Foulke, Samuel L. 
Fulton, Archibald J. 
Gailey, Calvin P. 
Gale, George T. 
Gardner, Samuel 
Getz, 11. L. 
Gilmore, A. P. 
Goicuria, Antonio (A.B.) 
Goodman, Edward E. 
Gordon, J. Crawford 
Gorgas, S. R. 
Graybill, K. P. 
Gresham, William F. 
Hammond, T. W. 
Hare, Thomas Dabney 
Hartman, Paul A. 
Hays, Richard T. D. 
Hays, Robert M. (A.B.) 
Hildenbrand, Louis W. 
Hines, Eben P. 
Hollenback, Jacob S. 
Hoover, Albert M. 
Hosack, William 
Hottie, Edwin B. 
Hudgings, John C. 
Humphreys, George L. 
Ivins, George 
Jessop, Charles J. 
Jones, George M. 
Keller, Franklin B. 
Koch, Josiah A. 
Koogler, M. A. 
Lamkin, Samuel R. 
Latham, James C. 
Lebcher, Chester 
Leberknight, F. B. 
Leonard, W. L. 
Lewis, Eugene R. 
Lockwood, John S. 
Loeling, Gerhard 
STATE OR COUNTRY. 
South Carolina. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Michigan. 
Pennsylvania. 
Massachusetts. 
Delaware. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Kansas. 
California. 
Ohio. 
Canada. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Porto Rico. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Virginia. 
Georgia. 
Minnesota. 
Arkansas. 
Pennsylvania. 
Mississippi. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Tennessee. 
Pennsylvania. 
New Jersey. 
Pennsylvania. 
Alabama. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Ohio. 
Texas. 
Pennsylvania. 
Ohio. 
Pennsylvania. 
Iowa. 
Missouri. 
Illinois. 
Pennsylvania. 
SUBJECT OF THESIS. 
Acute Articular Rheumatism. 
Variola. 
The Female or Obstetrician's 
Pelvis. 
Gonorrhoea. 
Fistula in Ano. 
Fatty Liver. 
Physiological and Pathological 
Changes. 
Intermittent Fever. 
Value of Correct Diagnosis in 
Surgical Diseases and Injuries. 
Gout. 
Tumours in the Region of the Neck. 
Pathology of Faulty Menstruation. 
Scarlatina. 
Symptomatology. 
Requirements of the Sick Room. 
The Ophthalmoscope as an Aid in 
the Diagnosis of Diseases of the 
Nervous System. 
Puerperal Convulsions. 
Physiology of Digestion. 
Dropsy. 
Staphylorraphy. 
Dropsy. 
Tetanus. 
Propagation of Typhoid Fever. 
Intermittent Fever. 
Acute Hepatitis. 
Hemorrhagic Malignant Fever. 
Avoidable Causes of Disease. 
Smallpox. 
Scarlatina. 
Cholera Infantum. 
Physical Education. 
Typhoid Fever. 
Circulatory Apparatus. 
Asiatic Cholera. 
Catheterism. 
Diagnosis of Continued Fevers. 
Lenticular Cataract. 
Pneumonia. 
Puerperal Fever. 
Scarlet Fever. 
Lead Palsy. 
Chemical Incompatibilities. 
The Blood and its Circulation. 
Opium. 
Inflammation. 
Puerperal Fever. 
Cerebro-Spiual Fever. 
Typho-Malarial Fever. 
Light Cases of Typhoid Fever. 3 
NAME. 
Maclay, Archibald I. 
Mann, Charles H. 
Mathews, Adrian 
McCarthy, Henry C. 
McCormick, Horace G. 
McCosh, Samuel A. 
McKennon, Archibald M. 
McLennan, Alexander 
McNeil, George W. 
Meyer, L. George 
Miller, D. Rentch 
Miller, Martin L. 
Montgomery, Edward E. 
Moore, William J. 
Mullan, Eugene A. 
Nevins, John C. 
Onan, Dennis 
Parker, Gilbert L. 
Parks, Edward L. 
Partridge, Conrad L. 
Patterson, Howard 
Powell. William S. 
Pursel, W. Wilson 
Ramsey, Robert W. 
Read, Josephus D. 
Reed, George K. 
Reeser, T. Howard 
Register, H. C. 
Rich, J. Bartlett (A.M.) 
Ritchie, M. M. 
Ritter, J. Ellis 
Roberts, John B. 
Robinson, George B. 
Ross, Frank Marcellus 
Runkle, William V. 
Sampsel, D. S., Jr. 
Sayles, Charles E. 
Schmidt, Henry 
Shoemaker, John V. (A.B.) 
Silliman, James E. (A.B.) 
Silvara, Joseph W. 
Simsobn, Joseph S. 
Small, John A 
Snow, Emerson E. 
Sowash, Millard 
Spalding, A. Eugene 
Spangler, Jacob R. 
Staub, Franklin N. 
Stehley, Martin L. 
Strong, Charles D. 
Stubbs, D. Alfred 
Taggart, Horace D. 
STATE OR COUNTRY. 
Illinois. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Arkansas. 
Tennessee. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Maryland. 
Ohio. 
New York. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Kentucky. 
Pennsylvania. 
Massachusetts. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Ohio. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Nova Scotia. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Connecticut. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Connecticut. 
Maine. 
Pennsylvania. 
Ohio. 
New York. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Germany. 
North Carolina. 
Massachusetts. 
Pennsylvania. 
Michigan. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Georgia. 
Pennsylvania. 
Ohio. 
SUBJECT OF THESIS. 
Rational Treatment. 
Infancy. 
The Physician and his Duties. 
Acute Pneumonia. 
Causes of Intermittent Fever. 
Cerebro-Spinal Meningitis. 
The Tongue an Index to Disease. 
Idiopathic Erysipelas. 
Scarlatina. 
Cerebro-Spinal Meningitis. 
Alimentation at night in Disease. 
Diphtheria. 
Pyaemia. 
Typhoid Fever. 
Inflammation and Ulceration of 
the Cervix Uteri. 
Acute Pneumonia. 
Scarlet Fever. 
Electro-Therapeutics. 
Venom. 
Simple Fractures. 
Scarlatina. 
Chloroform. 
Icterus. 
Typhoid Fever. 
Medical Diagnosis. 
A neglected Source of Nervous 
Disease. 
Typhoid Fever. 
The Teeth. 
Club Foot. 
Digestion. 
The Mind. 
Mechanism of the Spinal Column. 
Cerebro-Spinal Fever. 
Typhoid Fever. 
Pneumonia. 
Ascites. 
Therapeutics of Collyria. 
Vaccination. 
Heat Fever. 
Alcoholism. 
Rubeola. 
Ileus. 
Acute Lobar Pneumonitis. 
Heritage. 
Acute Gastritis. 
Anaesthetics. 
Erysipelas. 
Wine is a Mocker. 
Erysipelas. 
Typho-Malarial Fever. 
Constipation. 
The Properties of the Human 
Body. 4 
NAME. 
Taylor, Thompson J. 
Taylor, William S. 
Temple, James D. W. 
Turner, Henry H. 
Uhler, Tobias M. 
Venn, John Francis F. 
Walrond, Benjamin 
Weaver, A. S. 
Wedge, Dudley O. 
Wentz, Thomas H. 
West, George W. 
West, William L. 
Willetts, Theodore L. 
Wilson, Harry M. 
Wingerd, C. Z. 
Young, A. G. 
Ziegler, Charles R. 
STATE OR COUNTRY. 
Kentucky. 
Pennsylvania. 
Maryland. 
Arkansas. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Nova Scotia. 
Pennsylvania. 
Illinois. 
Pennsylvania. 
Ohio. 
West Virginia. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Pennsylvania. 
Ohio. 
SUBJECT OF THESIS. 
Etiology. 
Typhoid Fever. 
Scarlatina. 
Trials and Pleasures of a Medical 
Student. 
Cerebro-Spinal Fever. 
Cerebro-Spinal Meningitis. 
Coxalgia. 
Acute Pneumonitis. 
Anatomy and Physiology of the 
Uterus. 
Inflammatory Diarrhoea of Child- 
hood. 
Anchylosis. 
Typhoid Fever. 
Thermometry of Diseases. 
Physiology of Death. 
Pulmonary Tuberculosis. 
Medical Science. 
Typhoid Fever. 
Of the above there were from- 
Pennsylvania . 
. 83 
Connecticut 
. 2 
Kansas . 
. 1 
Ohio 
. 11 
Delaware . 
. 2 
Maine 
. 1 
Illinois 
. 6 
Missouri . 
. 2 
Minnesota 
. 1 
Maryland 
. 4 
New York 
. 2 
Mississippi 
. 1 
Tennessee 
. 4 
North Carolina 
. 2 
New Jersey 
. 1 
Arkansas. 
. 3 
Nova Scotia 
. 2 
Porto Rico 
. 1 
Georgia . 
. 3 
Alabama . 
. 1 
South Carolina 
. 1 
Kentucky 
. 2 
California . 
. 1 
Texas 
. 1 
Massachusetts . 
. 3 
Canada 
. 1 
Virginia . 
. 1 
Michigan 
. 3 
Germany 
. 1 
West Virginia - 
. 3 
Iowa 
. 1 
Total . 
151 
The following Prizes were awarded :- 
1. A prize of $100, by H. C. Lea, Esq., for the best Thesis, to James F. Bald- 
win (A. M.), of Ohio, with honourable mention of the Theses of John N. Farrar, 
of Massachusetts, and Charles D. Strong, of Georgia. 
2. A prize of $50, by the Professor of Anatomy, for the best Anatomical Pre- 
paration contributed to the Museum, to Charles J. Jessop, of Pennsylvania, with 
honourable mention of the Preparation contributed by H. L. Getz, of Pennsylvania. 
3. A prize of $50, by the Professor of Surgery, for the best Report of his Surgi- 
cal Clinic, to John B. Roberts, of Pennsylvania. 
4. A prize of $50, by the Professor of Practice, for the best Essay on Practical 
Medicine, to Hugo Engel, of Pennsylvania, for an Essay on Fatty Liver. 
5. A prize of $50, by the Professor of Institutes, for the best paper of Physiologi- 
cal Investigation, to J. G. Simsohn, of Germany, for a paper, entitled Contributions 
to the Physiology of the Voice and Speech.