OPENING  LECTURE
TWENTY-THIRD ANNUAL COURSE OF LECTURES
ttsft   UfMi^al   Offlllep,
J. V. Z. BLANFEY, M. D.,



  Professor of Chemistry and Pharmacy.
<S~0 */7
       CHI CJLG-O:



Joux C. W. Bailkv, Printkk, 104 Cukk Stbmt. 
)
                                Chicago, Oct. 8th, 186ft.
Pmf. J. V. Z. Blaney, M. D.:
  We, the undersigned, having been  appointed a  Committee:
by the Students of Rush Medical College, take great pleasure
in requesting a copy of your  Introductory Address for pub-
lication.
            Yery respectfully yours,
                                D. QtttRINI ScHEPPERS,
                                N. T. Quales,
                                P. S. Lang,
                                Henry Tombcsken.
                               Chicago, Oct. 10th, 1865.
-Messrs.  D. Q.  Scheppers, JV. T. Quales,  F. S. Lang, Henry
                  I'oriibaiken, Committee.
Gentlemen :
  X have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your com-
plimentary note of the 8th instant.
  In reply, I beg leave to say  that tlie hurried effort you a&k
for publication is not worthy of such favorable notice at you?
hands.
  In  accordance, however, with  usual  custom, deprecating
your criticism, I place the copy at your disposal.
             Yery respectfully yours,
                                    J as.  Y, Z. Blaney. 
      OPENING  LECTURE
                     AT THB
             TWENTY-THIRD

ANNUAL COURSE OF LECTURES
                      or
       RUSH  MEDICAL COLLEGE,
                   BT

J. V. Z. SLA-ISTEY,  Is*. ID.,

        Professor of Chemistry and Pharmaey.
Gentlemen:-—
  I have the honor to have been selected by my colleagues to
convey to you their cordial welcome to the Lecture Rooms of
this Institution, and to express their satisfaction that so many
who have previously, and so many who have not heretofore,
attended their lectures Are present, to exchange greeting*
With them, on this the first day of the Twenty-third Annual
Course of Lectures of Rush Medical College.
  It is with much pleasure that, after an absence of several
years, I find myself once more restored to peaceful avocation?
and resuming duties which, for years past, I have performed
in this institution.  Though I have regretted the long absence 
4                    OPENING  LECTURE
which I  thought was imposed  upon  me by my duty to the
Federal  Government, after that I had once  enrolled myself
on the Medical  staff of the  army of the Union,  I can not
regret for a moment the experience which I have had, or the
humble service which I have been privileged to render in the
<dorious cause of the  assertion  of tne integrity of  the Union
of these  United States,  and the establishment of universal
freedom to all those who respect the rights of other citizens of
a common  country.
  Gentlemen, our  country has pasped successfully  through a
crisis and a contest such as no other country, of ancient or of
modern days, has  ever experienced.   Those  only,  who  have
taken part in the contest, can appreciate the fierce fury of the
conflict when Greek met Greek. At last victory has perched
upon our  banners, and peace with her genial  influences, has
once more kindly resumed her sway  over our great  and still
glorious republic.  The fierce onslaught of contending hosts
has passed; the roar of artillery and the rattie of musketry is
no longer heard in  the land ; the bulletins no longer report the
thousands of killed and  wounded.   Thanks  be to God, the
struggle of brethren who should have  been linked in the most
indissoluble fraternal bonds, for the common good, and for the
cultivation of peaceful arts, is over, and a sweet, gentle peace
falls, like a soft and kindly twilight, over all the land, hushing
to silence all  discordant sounds, and preparing all  for the
sweet repose which follows  unusual exertiou.   God grant that
the dawn of a new  era, when science, literature, and art may
flourish as never before, may be the result of the bright prog-
nostics of the sunset of our  late lamentable, but unavoidable
struggle.
  Gentlemen, those  of yon who  are about  to prepare  your-
selves for  a  professional life, if living to the ordinary age
usually granted  to  those who pursue the liberal professions,
will  see great things.  Your lines have fallen in pleasant places.
Do your duty, and your whole duty to yourselves in prepara-
tion  for your  work, and the times  themselves will  afford you 
AT RUSH MEDICAL COI/LEGE.
5
opportunities  for success,  for  usefulness, and for  personal
celebrity, such as your predecessors in the Medical profession
have never known.  Only  be true to yourselves and commu-
nity will recognize and appreciate your qualifications, and
demand  your  services.
  1 our  opportunities for acquirement of  the principles of the
profession  you have chosen  are almost unlimited.   All the
knowledge which has  been accumulated  by  ages of observa.
tion and experience,  is at  your  command.   It  has   been
quaintly said  that children begin where their parents leave off
If or not this be  true in the domestic relations, it is eminently
true when  predicated of the liberal  professions,  provided
always that the pupil avails himself, to the extent of his ability,
of  the experience and knowledge acquired by his predecessors.
Excepting under oppressive  governments, which have tempo-
rarily stifled  its  efforts, science  has never  gone backward.
Only in the dark ages were the arts lost.  In a liberal age, and
 in  a liberal community, under a liberal  government, science.
always advances.  Every  age adds to her treasures, and upon
those  who have the privilege of benefiting by the labors of a
 previous age, rests the responsibility, not to  themselves alone
 but to the age in which they live, to community,  to science
 herself,  of whom  they profess  to  be votaries, that they will
 not squander, but will add to the bountiful  wealth  which hass
 been prepared for their entertainment; a wealth of knowledge
 earned by the labors of thousands, who have worked earnestly
 and faithfully in her cause, many of whom have gone to their
 last rest, unknown and  unsung, but will reap the ripe fruits of
 their  labors  in the cause  of humauity in a better  and more
 appreciative  atmosphere.
    Gentlemen, I do not  propose to attempt to impress upon
 you the importance to our common humanity of the studies in
 which yon are about to engage, or the necessity of rendering
 yourselves proficieut as far as practicable, before engaging in
 the actual practice of your chosen  profession,.   Your presence
 here with the intention severally to  devote your lives to the
* 
6
OPENING LECTURE
 practice  of the  Medical profession, sufficiently  attests your
 appreciation of the importance of  proficiency, and the value
 to community  of  the  science  which  you  have  espoused.
 Tt  would, then, be  almost an  insult  to  you to  present
 'm  this occasion the  benefits  which  our  noble  profession
 has  heretofore, and still continues to confer upon mankind,
 though I regret  to aay  that frequently  the individuals bene-
 fited by their labors are so unappreciative  as not to recognize
 the man  of scientific  acquirements,  profound  investigation
 and solid  attainment, from the miserable  empiric whose foul
 advertisements  taint the atmosphere and  corrupt the moral
 sense of intelligent communities.  But so it must ever be, "80
 long as vice and immorality exist in  our large cities and su-
 perficiality in the intellectual training of our youth,  so  long
 also as wealth is to be considered the first object to be obtained,
 and so long as vice is winked  at and even apologized for in
 public society.
   True science can  only flourish and receive its proper appre
 elation when society is  itself intelligent, and its morals pure.
 In the foul and  pestilential atmosphere of a polluted and
 crowded population, all kinds of vermin and parasites find the
 proper conditions for their developement, existence and repro-
 duction, and all precautions which may be taken to prevent
 contagion will fail, unless the  atmosphere is purified  and  the
 conditions changed.  Hence  it is that  Quackery,  from tne
 most infinitesimal  to  the  most  magnificent of its various
 forms, finds its home in large cities, where there  exists  the
 most perverted ideas of morals and the grossest exhibitions of
 vice.  Under such conditions  it is curious to observe  that the
 public press, which professes to be, and should be, the censor
 of the morals of community, lends itself to the diffusion and
 perpetuation of these swindles on the masses.  But still more
 to be reprobated and regretted, members of other liberal pro-
i "esaions, (there are,  I am happy to say, most honorable excep-
ts  one,) ignorantly, but no less  injuriously, "lend themselves by
eei 'tificates to quack advertisements and recommendations  of 
AT RTT8H MEDICAL COLLEGE.
nostrums, to perpetuate and encourage the inherent tendency
of the masses to accept empirical systems and employ empir-
ical practitioners.  But enough of this, the foe, if foe it be, is
not worthy of our fire, except  to protect the ignorant.   Our
ammunition is wasted, if we contend with these excrescences
oh society.  Guerillas should be hung, not shot.   So long as
there are fools there will be quacks ; the milleniutn is not yet.
   Now, if your desire is to be and become learned and hono-
rable members of the medical profession, a course of study is
to be  pursued which  should  be well  laid  out,  your plane
drawn and your determination fixed to follow that plan to its
consummation.   And in this regard, I have first to say  that a
preliminary education  is of the first and highest  importance
to every student, not  only of our own but of any liberal pro-
fession. As regards the amount of previous education required
to enable the student to  master  the profession of medicine,
 authorities and the committees of conventions and  associations
 differ, but all agree  that a good grounding in all the branches
 of an ordinary  English education  is absolutely  necessary to
 success, and that some knowledge  of the Ancient Latin and
 Greek languages, materially facilitate the acquisition of the
 principles of our profession.  Excepting in unusual instance-
 where genius has overridden the rules which govern the gen-
 eral  proposition ; the cases are rare in which high position ha*
 been attained without preliminary education.
   Permit me then,  gentlemen, to exhort you that, if you feel
 the want of previous education, you will endeavor, without
 delay to repair your deficiency ;  with industry, it may be done
 while still pursuing your course of studies, delaying somewhat,
 perhaps, your reception  of your diploma, but, if  effected, on
 entering the ranks of the profession at the completion of your
 course of studies, it  will be  with  advantages which  tenfold
 repay you for the delay.   I have been incited to make these
 remarks because of the fact that there is a disposition, stronger
 perhaps, in the West than  in the  older and more developed
 portions' of our country,an almost unconquerable disposition, in 
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OPENING LECTl'RE
young men especially, to push forward to the goal they have
set before them, and that with insufficient training before  en.
k-iin-r the arena.   In the Olympic games  of ancient Greece
severe training was submitted to  before the contest was ac-
cented,  or the contestants  permitted to enter the course. This
haste, except in extraordinary cases where genius surmounts
all precedents, is  not only injudicious, but almost invariably
condemns a man, whatever his industry, to simple mediocrity
for a long period of his early professional life, and unless he has
a powerful will, strong hope and unflagging industry, he is apt
to despair of success, while inferior minds, with the advantage
of a good preliminary education, will distance him in the race.
   The  most important  step in your  advance to professional
attainments is this: That  you become thoroughly grounded in
the rudimentary branches of the profession.  First in order of
importance, perhaps, comes  Anatomy — the  science  which
teaches the structure of the human frame, that most perfect of
all machines which  God himself has yet  constructed, won-
 derful in the beauty of  its proportions ; wonderful in its adap-
 tation to the  varied  uses  demanded of its several  parts;
 wonderful in its power of self repair ; wonderful in its resist-
 ance against abuse of natural laws ; wonderful  that it can, in
 exceptional cases, exist a  hundred years, resisting all diseases
 all climates, and all  conditions of  life ; still more wonderful in
 }ts connection with and dependence upon that invisible essence
 the soul of man, which controls, modifies, regulates, or  abuses
 this most wonderful of all machines.
   Should the superintendent of any of our railroad companies
 employ, to take charge of and manage a locomotive engine, a
 man who was not fully  and perfectly conversant with all its
 parts, the object of each and every part, the mode and manner
 in which the vital energy of heat converting water into steam
 acts  upon and  through each valve,  on every lever, on every
 crank, and on every wheel, he  would be  thought derelict  of
 duty, and held responsible by an indignant community, for the
 loss  of life and property  consequent upon the ignorance of his 
AT  RUSH MEDICAL  COLLEGE.
0
employee.   Yet, forsooth, any ignoramus who, by flaming ad-
vertisements,  and  fulsome  self-adulation,  obtrudes himself
upon   public  notice,  will  find  fools  who  will trust  that
most   perfect,  most  intricate  and delicate  piece  of work-
manship to  the  hands  of a  man, or  rather  a  madman,
who never saw the  interior of the machine, has no knowledge
of its mode of working, does  not know where are its valves,
or what the power, or how it propels its separate parts—in a
word,  is as  totally ignorant as a child  unborn of the subject
he is acting on, or the means  he is using to remedy its aber-
rations,
   Suppose, gentlemen, that either of you had a valuable watch,
perhaps an heirloom  in your family.  It has become deranged
in its  movements; it is  not reliable  in  recording  the hour:
what would yon do ?   Would you go to a blacksmith to have
it repaired ? or to a  scissors-grinder ?  No, you would say—
 this man  may be expert to  shoe my  horse, but he may  not
t  ouch  my  watch.  And why ?  Because he does not under-
stand  its anatomy and physiology.  You would  even hesitate
to employ a watch-makeor  until you were  certified by indis-
putable references  that he understood thoroughly its mecha-
nism,  and how to remedy the derangement of your  treasure.
   Yet, strange as it  may seem, there still exists in  this  nine-
 teenth century, men  who profess to practice upon the intricate
 mechanism of the  human body, who have never seen and who
 have  not the slightest  knowledge  of its interior  structure.
 Truly it has  been said that it is strange  that "a harp of a
 thousand strings should stay in tune so long.''
   The science of Anatomy stands, as I have said, at the foun-
 dation of  medical science.   It is the corner-stone, and upon its
 faithful acquirement  depends the  whole success of the future
 candidate for professional  honors.  Having become proficient
 in this branch of the profession, the department of Physiology
 next claims your attention.   It will teach you the mode  of op-
 eration  of the vital  forces,  which  act  upon  and keep in
 constant  motion  this intricate machine. 
l(j                   OPENING LECTURE

  The study of Pathology will instruct you in the aberrations
in the movements, and the changes  of structure which result
from disease.  Therapeutics,  Materia Medica and Chemistry,
will supply you with a knowledge of the mode of action, and
the materials with which to  remedy such  aberrations.  Sur-
gery supplies and directs the application of the instruments in
the treatment of those cases and conditions in which the more
subtle remedies of the Pharmacopoeia fail to relieve, which for
the most part are injuries which occur from the applications of
external force, or from hidden causes which produce abnormal
growths and excrescenses.  Obstetrics will inform you of the
laws of birth and generation—the starting point of human ex-
istence—and the  management of delivery, or the ushering  of
this fieetir.g body into this fleeting world.
  The practice of Medicine is the department which instructs
you  how to diagnose  disease, to recognize  the existence  of
various pathological changes,  and suggests the remedies to  be
applied, which are furnished by the Pharmaceutist.  With all
and each of these  branches must you become familiar before
you can enter even the threshold of  the Medical  Profession.
  Now, gentlemen,  with  this  curriculum  laid out  before
you, yon  must  perceive  that  the terra allowed for the
existence of any individual is too short to permit  the acquisi-
tion of a perfect knowledge of every branch of  this vast field
of study.   In the  older and more developed countries  of
Europe, the subdivision of labor and of studies has come to be
recognized as  the main condition  essential to success.   In this
country, where society may be said to be  yet in a transition
state from the more primitive to  the most cultivated, the sub-
division of studies, so far as the liberal professions  are concerned
is yet looked upon with jealous eyes, and the man who dares
to announce  that he has devoted his time, his labor, and his
life, to the special cultivation  of a  particular department  of
Medical Science, is by  many, not only of the uninformed, but
by men of standing  in the profession  itself, characterized  as
approaching, if not actually having arrived at, the position  of 
                AT  RUSH MEDICAL COLLEGE.              11
.. .j.____.___________________________________
an Empiric.   Never was there a greater mistake.  There is
an ancient proverb which  says, " Beware of the man  of one
book," which strictly applies to the  matter of specialities in
the medical  profession.
  If it be true that no  one can perfect  himself in  all,  why
should he not in one branch of study ?  Instead  of a feeble
incompetency, he could offer himself as  a competent servitor
to the public in  the matter of his  specialty.  For one I ad-
vise that you select for yourselves, as soon  in  your course  as
practicable,  a  particular branch  of medical study to which,
after the due acquirement of the rudimentary branches, you
propose to devote yourself.   Having made your selection, let
your course of studies thereafter, while not  neglecting  others,
tend specially to that branch which you may have selected as
your speciality.  You will  thus probably,  if you have ordi-
nary ability, attain eminence when otherwise  you would be
obliged, by diluting your efforts  in  the  attempt to turn your
attention into too  many channels, fall into a meagre medi-
ocrity.
  I have endeavored, gentlemen, to give you a simple ontline
ovf the course of studies you are about to adopt, and briefly to
indicate to you your duty to yourself and the profession.
  Take as your maxim  the ancient aphorism, " Arslonya vita
brevis est''''—Art is long and life is fleeting.  Remember that
no one mind can comprehend or bring into useful application
all of science.   That in the  study of Medicine you have, aw
were, three separate problems to solve—Life, Disease,  Death.
Your object is to preserve  Life, to prevent or cure  Disease,
and to prevent death.   This is  the  task, and these the prob-
lems you have to solve as Students of the Medical Profession.
Are you prepared, and  will  you submit to the labor necessary
to render yourselves competent  to perform  these duties? ar«
the questions that I leave for your own c .nsideration.