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              AI»UllESSF.n TO


  THE GRADUATES IN MEDICINE,


                AT Tllli


OOMTiSSKrCESyiEIS'T OF THE MEDICAL DEPARTMENT


                OF THE


      COLUMBIAN COLLEGE, D. C.


             MARCH 10, 1830.





        BY THOMAS P.  JONES, M. D.
    PKOFF.SSOU OF CH:;MISTUY AND 1IKAX.OF THE MKDICAI, FACULTY,





              WASHINGTON:

           PB1STEH II V GALES & SKAT05.

                 1330. 
\<33o 
CHARGE.
 Gentlemen :

   Upon me, as organ of the Medical Faculty of the Columbian
 College, devolves the pleasing duty of congratulating you upon
 the consummation of your labors as students of our Institution;
 and,  in expressing my own sentiments upon this  subject,  I
 know that I shall give utterance to those  of  every  individual
 among my colleagues.

   We now resign the relationship of teachers and pupils which
 has hitherto subsisted between us; and the bidding you welcome
 as equals and associates, is  accompanied with recollections of
 a  very  gratifying character.  During the session which  has
 terminated your collegiate studies, the deportment of the whole
 class, of which you have been members, has  been marked by
 a  general  and a uniform decorum  and propriety  of  conduct
 but rarely witnessed under similar circumstances;  so far as I
 am informed, the  babbling tongue  of rumor itself has been
 kept silent, and  a character  sustained by you, equally honor-
 able to yourselves and to the Institution.

   After the ceremonies of this day our intimate association
 with most of you will terminate ; you will become residents of
 other, and, several of you, of remote sections of our country,
 where you are to undertake those arduous and important duties
 which devolve upon you as professors of the healing art. When
occupied in the  performance of these duties, we  cherish  the
confident hope that memory will, not  unfrequently, conduct you
back to those halls in which were breathed many of your most
ardent aspirations after knowledge in the^Esculapian mysteries,
and to an affectionate recollection of those whose most  anxious 
I
desire  has been so to unfold these masteries to you, as to
«ive you a just title to the appellation of initiated.

  On an occasion like tin- present it will scarcely be expected
that (here should be any thing of novelty, either in the obser-
vations which  I may  make,  or  the  monitions which  I  may
offer.  The duties and the trials of the physician have  been
the  subject of hundreds of addresses to graduates in medicine,
and, in fact, appear to be almost  the only appropriate  themes
f„r  the season of parting.  The heart  is then peculiarly sus-
ceptible to those emotions which remind us of our intimate re-
lationship to each other, as members of one great family ; and
is especially fitted  to  receive impressions which, if durable,
must have a Mes-ed influence upon our future course.   Most
ha*  py. indeed, should I esteem myself, if, in  this last  official
lesson  which it  is my duty to  offer you. I might be the  honor-
ed moans of awakening, or of confirming, one noble sentiment,
one manly resolution of power to assist in guiding and sustaining
you in  that career of virtue, honor, and usefulness, which I de-
voutly pray it may be your happy, glorious privilege to  run.

  You are now, gentlemen, invested with the title of  Doctor
in Medicine.   In the  estimation of  those who have had the
care of jour  medical  education, and  who feel a warm and
jealous interest in the honor  of the profession  to which  they
belong, and of the particular school  of which  they are the
guardians, you have fairly won your laurels by faithful atten-
tion to jour studies, and by that progress  in  them which has
enabled  you to acquit yourselves,  most satisfactorily, in an
examination which we, and you, know was fair, impartial, and
thorough.  You have also presented theses, several  of which
have been marked by more than  an ordinary  degree of talent,
and by a depth of research which would  have done  credit to
much older heads.  Be assured that, it is as  gratifying to us,
to bestow, as it can be to you to receive this well-earned praise;
cherish the recollection of it—let it live in your hearts a per-
petual  monitor, reminding you of what you  are  capable, and
of what you, consequently, owe to yourselves and to society. 
5
You have produced the debt—the  discharge of it must be the
continued business of your lives.

  Trite as is the observation, that the period of graduation
should be considered as that in which your studies  are  most
advantageously commenced, yet such  are its truth and its im-
portance, that it  is well worthy of constant repetition, and of
being indelibly impressed upon your hearts and minds. Whilst
your diplomas may be to others  the  mere testimony of your
rights, let them, upon yourselves, operate as perpetual evi-
dences of your duties ; of the obligations which you owe to the
Institution from which you  have  received them, to yourselves,
to mankind,  and  to Heaven.

  Whilst, in the frame-work of human society, it  becomes ne-
cessary to invest some with commissions to  "burn, sink and
destroy," the »«God-like attribute, to save," will belong to you;
and you  will prove  yourselves unworthy the name  of Physi-
cian, should not this consideration operate with you, both as a
motive and a reward.   From this day, gentlemen,  consider
yourselves,  as devoted offerings  on the altar of suffering hu-
manity ; let the vow be recorded  in Heaven, by which you en-
gage to  sacrifice every consideration, merely selfish, to the
benefit of those, who confide to  your skill, and  your care, their
most precious earthly blessings.  Resolve, for the good of your
fellow  beings, to spend sleepless nights, and days of anxious un-
remitted research.  A field of inquiry and observation, almost
boundless, lies open before you ;  you  have no time now, nor,
if you are faithful to yourselves,  will you ever have  any, to
devote to frivolous occupations ; you must consider yourselves
as  perpetual sentinels appointed to  guard  the  community
against the  ravages of disease and death ; and never forget,
that by a moment of inattention, you may betray the important
trust committed to you.  Countless thousands of  our fellow-
creatures have lingered out their lives in disease and pain, or
been consigned to premature graves, because their Physicians
have indulged in the evil habit of delay, or have neglected to
store in their minds, and to  render so familiar as to be called 
6
 to their aid at any requited moment,  those remedial applica-
 tions which  would  have been effectual, if promptly used.   Al-
 low me to hope—nay, you  have allowed me  to do more  than
 hope__prove well founded, then, the confidence you have estab-
 lished, that from among you, not one will  be added to the list
 of drones in our profession ; of those who, instead of its orna-
 ments, become its opprobria, affording specious arguments to
 the contemners of the medical art.

   It  is not merely to the perfecting yourselves  in the prac-
 tice of Medicine and Surgery, that your attention should be
 hereafter  devoted.  You are now admitted members of one of
 the liberal professions,  and one  in  which you can never ac-
 quire and  sustain a high  reputation, without a general know-
 ledge of the circle of  the sciences.  The distinguished Physi-
 cian must be a man of literature; it is not enough, that, in the
 every  day business  of life, he proves that he can converse with
 intelligence,  and  write his own language with correctness and
 purity; he must be  the associate of the literary and the scien-
 tific of his district, and,  in most departments, he ought to take
 the lead.  Shrink not, gentlemen, at the idea of the labour,
 which  a determination to sustain such a character will impose
 on you.  Labor ipse voluptas.   You  are  unworthy  of the ho-
 nours you have now received, and will  never become fitted for
 the station which you ought  to occupy,  if your  highest and
 most intimate enjoyments  are not intellectual.  There is,  in
 nearly every  instance, from the very nature of the  profession
 you have  chosen, a long season of probationary leisure,  be-
 fore its active duties will draw largely upon your time; in this
 season of leisure,  you may complete the superstructure of your
 education, and open new avenues to honour, and to usefulness ;
 let this time,then, be precious to you; instead of considering it as
 an evil, prize it as a valuable gift; regard it as an inheritance
 in which those fields that have been already cultivated, may be
 more highly improved, whilst new grounds may  be cleared,
 and new harvests  reaped, yielding a rich reward for the labor
bestowed. 
7
  You live at  a period of great moral and  physical energy :
all is activity, both in the molecules, and  in the masses of
whicli society is composed, and you must either accelerate, or
you must retard, the  onward  course  of man's intellect  and
glory ; the former is equally your duty and  jour privilege ;
but remember, as regards yourselves, that to stand still, is, in
effect to  retreat; for if you are to-day on a  line with the fore-
most in  the march of improvement, and you rest until to-mor-
row,  your more zealous and  persevering companion will have
left you,  and you will find it no  easy  task to regain the rela-
tive station which you have lost.

  I would stimulate you to  exertion,  by the highest motives;
by such  alone, as accord with the dignity of learning, and the
elevated nature of man, as a moral, an intellectual, and  an im-
mortal being ; yet, it may safely be averred,  that, were your
minds mercenary, your ambition  for wealth  would  be most
likely to be gratified by  forming such a  character, and estab-
lishing  such  a reputation,  as habits of study will secure  to
you.  Confirm your taste  for   intellectual culture,  and you
 will be  fortified against those allurements  to ignoble gratifi-
 cations, which have proved  the  bane of so many  physicians,
 at once  arresting the progress,  and sapping the foundations of
their fame and their usefulness.   The  temptations to which
 the Physician, and particularly the country practitioner, is ex-
 posed,  have  been  the frequent subject of remark ;   that of
 drinking  stimulating  liquids  is  the greatest, and  the  most
 baneful.  You are too well instructed, gentlemen,  in the func-
 tions of the  human body, and in  the effects which  ardent
 spirits  produce upon it, to need any arguments which  I could
 offer, to strengthen your conviction of their deleterious ten-
 dency ;  you  know, too, that every  excuse for their general,
 habitual use,  is  a mere attempt  at an apology  for what can
 never be  defended  or palliated.  If one  man is worthy of a
 more unqualified condemnation than every  other, for intem-
 perate drinking, surely it is the Physician ; to all the moral
 considerations which present themselves to every well-order.
 cd mind, are, in him, superadded,  a  more intimate knowledge 
8
of its necessary result,  and to him  are presented  more fre-
quent examples of the dreadful havoc made by it, in the moral
and physical man.

  In entering upon the practice of any art or duty, its  claims
and its obligations  should  be duly weighed; what we have a
right to require, and what we are bound to give.  In most in-
stances, there  is no little danger that the former will occupy
an undue proportion of our attention, and certainly this danger
is  as  great in  the case  of the Physician, as in any one that
can be named.  Every voice is  loud  in  proclaiming that the
man who  undertakes the command of armies, or of navies,
is unworthy of  his station, if he harbors a single coward  feel-
ing, if he holds not his life, at every moment,  a ready sacri-
fice to his country's good; should this require it, he  must  be
the first to expose himself to danger,  and the last to retreat
from it.  Such  too, gentlemen, and so imperious are  now  the
claims of society on you; 1 again exhort you then, from  this
hour, to surrender yourselves up,  devotedly, entirely, uncon-
ditionally, to the relief  of suffering humanity.  Imbue your
minds with a deep sense of the incommensurable value of  that
which  is confided  to your care,  by your patients and their
friends, and determine never to disappoint their hopes by your
supinencss, never to abuse their confidence by  any  neglect of
duty.   We all  belong to  society, but there are always certain
individuals in  it who have especial  claims to our unremitted
exertions ; with you, those individuals will  be  your patients ;
their calls upon you must set  aside every other engagement,
must  be considered  as superior  to every  other claim ; even
the duties to your own  household must be neglected, or de-
ferred, unless they arc of the same imperious character  with
those  which  demand your  attendance,  and your  exertions
elsewhere.  You must prepare j'our minds to become familiar
with the haunts of disease, of loathsome wretchednesf), and, it
may be, of pestilence ; and to do this effectively and worthily,
you must  imitate the exalted  philanthropy of  Howard,  that
great exemplar of active, self-devoted benevolence ; you must,
like him, be ready «<to dive into the depths of dungeons;  to 
9
plunge into the infection of hospitals; to survey the mansions
of sorrow and pain ; to take gauge and dimensions of misery,
depression and contempt;  to  remember the forgotten; to at-
tend to the neglected ; to visit the forsaken."

  It majT, at some future period, gentlemen, be your lot to be
stationed where pestilence, in defiance of  your art, is spread-
ing its  ravages and  its desolation around you ; your  profes-
sional brethren, in the devoted district,  may all have fallen
victims to the power of the destroyer, and you,  alone, be left
to  do the Physician's heavenly  works  of love and  mercy.
In  an hour of trial  like  this, the natural attachment to life,
the silent, but  powerful  pleadings  of  affection  in your own
hearts,  and a  mistaken  estimate  of  what you  owe to those
depending upon you,  even as  a  husband and a  father, may
suggest thoughts to tempt you  from your duty,  may  whisper
that  " self-preservation is the first law of nature," and that,
therefore, you  would  be justified  in  deserting  your post;
but,  w ill  you  not spurn the  unworthy  thought ?  I know
you  will.   It is only under trials such as these, that a man-
ly  firmness of purpose, a noble self-possession, and a gene-
rous  and  perfect devotion to duty  and to humanity,  can be
fully manifested ; and he who fails at such a time, should be
viewed  as  a moral traitor, and degraded from a profession of
which he is totally unworthy.  You never may, and most
probably  you  never will,  be subjected   to a  test  like that
which I  have been  supposing, but you  will, and frequently
too, be called upon to act upon the principle that I would in-
culcate.   You  must run  great personal  risks, and  you must
run them unhesitatingly, fearlessly.  Humanity must often be
your only motive to exertion,  and  an  approving conscience
your only reward; this, however, is no mean one; to  a mind
capable of being  operated on  by the motive, the reward will
be more precious than gold.

   Were I to attempt to enforce precept by example,  I should
enter upen a field so abundant in its productions, that it would
be difficult to determine which  of them to cull.   The  history
         2 
10
of the lives of Physicians  is replete  with instances which, a
thousand fold,  redeem the  profession from the ojiprobrium of
selfishness, with which it has been charged, and place  its pro-
fessors  among the most worthy, the most exalted of our race.
I could  relate facts respecting living Physicians, which  would
compare with anj' upon record ;  I could tell of  the  most self-
denying acts, performed in the hovels  of wretchedness  and
disease, when praise would  have been  unheard, and  remunera-
tion was impossible : but the agents  in acts of benevolence like
this, would ''blush to find  it fame," and  such histories must
remain  untold.

  Venerating, as I do most devoutly, the memory of that emi-
nent Physician and Teacher, Dr. Rush, whose life was dedica-
ted to the best interests of  humanity,  and whose name grows
more illustrious  as  time  rolls on, I  will indulge  myself in
briefly narrating  one of the evidences  of that benevolence,
which formed a  distinguishing feature in his character.  In
presenting it to you, I do not offer it as any thing extraordina-
ry, but merely to exemplify a genus,  by the  exhibition of a
single species.   In the year 1795, a worthy  and pious man,
in Philadelphia, the father of a large family, was attacked with
inflammation of the brain,  which, though at  first apparently
subdued, returned,  and terminated fatally.   Rush, to whom
the family had been previously unknown, was called in, as a
consulting Physician.   He attended day after  day, and, in  the
consolation which he administered to  the afflicted family, ap-
peared like one  of more than earthly  mould, whilst  he was
exhausting the resources of art upon the patient; the disease,
however, was not to be arrested.   When, after the lapse of
some weeks, the affairs of  the family  were arranged, and it
was found that there was enough to discharge the debts of the
deceased, a messenger was sent to the Doctor, to  thank him for
his kindness, and to inform  him,  that the widow was ready to
pay his bill.   He made immediate and  particular enquiry, res-
pecting  the number of children,  and the circumstances of the
family ; then wrote a  few  lines of  kindness  and condolence,
and requested the acceptance of  a sum,  which  was enclosed. 
11
to aid, he said, the virtuous exertions of the bereaved mother.
This is a simple tale, but it is a tale of simple truth.  I was
the honored messenger; a youth unknown to fame,  and  then
altogether unlikely to become  the recorder of an event which
related to a family as undistinguished as myself.  Gentlemen,
as far as the heart is concerned in actions like this,  I would
say to you, "go ye, and do likewise."

   There was a charm, too, in the manners of Dr. Rush, when
visiting  bis  patients,  which I have never seen equalled, and
of which the best chosen words could give but a faint descrip-
tion—there appeared to be in  his character an assemblage of
all the best affections of our  nature, embellished by a grace of
manner, which exhibited them in their loveliest forms.  I could
scarcely express for you a wish of greater kindness, than that
you might in  all points resemble him.

   The cultivation of a disposition of kindness, and the expres-
sion of that disposition by manners which at once  please the
taste, and captivate the  heart,  are essential features in the
character of a great Physician, and contribute to his success,
as much as does the possession of extensive knowledge.  Allow*
me earnestly to recommend to you,  to cultivate this grace of
manner  ; it ought to be  one of  the attributes of every gen-
tleman,  but, more especially, of every  Physician : cultivate it
as an invaluable appendage to that knowledge, which is indis-
pensable.   I do not say to you, "assume a virtue, if thou hast
it not;" I would  appoint you a  nobler work: I would  invite
you to a more exalted conquest; instead of directing you to
assume  any thing, I would adjure you to acquire, and to cher-
ish,  and to perfect all those  virtues, and assiduously to culti-
vate those manners,  which exalt the man, and surround  the
Physician with a charm equally advantageous to himself, and
welcome to his patients.   Say not, that you have dispositions
and  habits  which you  cannot  control:  we form  our own
characters—establish our own habits—and are the arbiters of
our own fortunes. 
12
   The duties  and the associations of the Physician are better
calculated to elevate the mind, to soften the heart, and to polish
the manners, than those of any other  profession.   Whilst in
the enjoyment of vigorous health and intellectual strength, he
often witnesses  the  rapid prostration of those who, but a few
hours before, were strong and vigorous as himself,  and is thus
taught frequent lessons  of pious gratitude,  and  forcibly re-
minded that his motto should indeed be, homo  sum; he sees
humanity in situations of the greatest delicacy; he not  only
beholds the strongest arm unnerved, but the most  delicate of
our species called upon  for  endurance and  exertions, which
require, and which  manifest, the greatest s'rength of mind ;
often, too, under circumstances which, in prospect, would ap-
pal a hero.   In the performance of his  professional  duties, the
Physician is as much  called upon to strengthen and  uphold
the prostrate mind, and to bind upand sooth the wounded spirit,
as to remove or mitigate the suffering of the diseased  body;
ami if the repeated exhibitions of scenes of this description, the
frequent exercise of feelings and of duties such as these, can-
not obliterate  all 'he asperities of  his character,  soften his
manners, and  confirm him  in habits  of untiring kindness and
sympathy, he ought  to  relinquish the  profession he has cho-
sen, and betake himself to some pursuit  more congenial  to
the feelings, the habits, and the manners, which he is determi-
ned to cherish.

  I might enlarge upon this, and upon many kindred  topics,
but perhaps I have said as much as the occasion will justify;
I, therefore, close this address by devoutly wishing that your
whole course may be equally honorable  and honored ; that you
may, in this world, reap the richest rewards of virtuous  ex-
ertion ; that, throughout your lives, you may imitate Ilim  who
went about doing good, and secure to yourselves that blissful,
glorious immortality, which awaits  every good and faithful
servant. 
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