INTRODUCTORY 
ADDRESS 
DELIVERED AT TIIE OPETWB OF 
THE MEDICAL COLLEGE 
OF THE 
STATE OF SOTJTH-CAROLINA. 
NOVEMBER 10, 1834 
JAMES MOULTRIE, Jr. M. D. 
PUBLISHED AT THE REQUEST OF THE CLASS. 
Charleston: 
PRINTED BY J. S. BURGES, 13 RROAD-ST. 
1834. ADDRESS. 
Gentlemen op the Class: 
By the will of Him, who is the Supreme Disposer of 
events, we have been permitted to assemble, once more, with- 
in these walls. Once more, have the Trustees and Facuity of 
this institution, been enabled to open to you its portals. 
In resuming, under a new organization, our respective du- 
ties and responsibilities, which have been so long, and so ably 
discharged elsewhere, by my associates, I should do injustice 
to their feelings, and my own, while I attempt to address you 
on subjects of the deepest interest to humanity, were I not to 
avail myself of this opportunity, to tender beforehand, our 
most cordial salutation, and to bid you welcome! thrice wel- 
come! to this newly dedicated seat of instruction. Permit me 
to congratulate you, as well as the community, on the past en- 
couragement given to our exertions to establish a College de- 
voted to Medical Science and the advancement of the profes- 
sion in our State; and to express our sincere acknowledgments, 
for the co-operation of those interested in its welfare, which 
has contributed so largely to crown our labours with more 
than anticipated success. 
As citizens of South-Carolina, we feel assured, that you re- 
joice with us, in coming together again, under circumstances 
so auspicious—that, notwithstanding the animosities, at all 
times so disreputable, but more especially to the educated and 
refined, threatening, in its results, to destroy one of the most 
distinguished Seminaries in this portion of our country, it has 
risen superior to the storm; and is destined, we trust, in the 4 
hands of posterity, if not in ours, to be an ornament and bless- 
ing to our city and common country. 
In submitting the reflections which have been suggested by 
a consideration of what is due to this occasion, it has not ap- 
peared to me to be necessary to engage much of your atten- 
tion in dwelling upon the utility or dignity of the profession. 
Of these, it is presumable, from the very circumstance of your 
having chosen, you are already convinced. Still less could it 
be imagined, that any one of you would have consented to ap- 
propriate the whole of this existence to the discharge of a du- 
ty, or the fulfilment of a trust, which he had priorly persuaded 
himself was wanting in either. 
It may be, however, that the nature, extent, and variety of 
its principles—the ends at which it aims—the resources upon 
which it relies—the means it employs—and the relations, di- 
rect or collateral, it maintains—together with the influence it 
has exerted upon the progress of the other Sciences, as well as 
that which it has experienced in return, are not philosophically 
apprehended; or that there are some doubts still lingering in 
the minds of a few, somewhat advanced in its study, as to the 
amount of the advantages it is reputed to have conferred on 
mankind, or the legitimacy of its claim to the character of a 
Science. These considerations, will justify me, I trust, in ma- 
king them therefore the subjects of our introductor}7 remarks. 
Medicine, by more competent witnesses than one, has been 
very aptly denominated, “a summary of many Sciences.” 
Based on facts, the number and variety of which, greatly ex- 
ceed what any one unacquainted with the subjects would sup- 
pose, it is linked by innumerable relations, with many of the 
departments of human knowledge. It is, in truth, a Science 
of relations, the study of which, presents us with much to 
confound and divert the attention and the judgment. There 
are, for example, multiplied resemblances, of a character alto- 
gether superficial; countless analogies, real and imagined; con- 
trarieties, unnoticed or unperceived; coincidences, as to time 
and space, misapprehended, and therefore misapplied; and 
many other associations, of names and events, having a ten- 
dency to mislead the reasoning powers of the mind, and to divert the faculty of observation, from its only true and legiti 
mate employment. Plence it is that there are so few sound 
reasoners in the art; and that, even in this age of general en- 
lightenment, and of clear and inductive thinking, there is still 
wanting a true and active natural philosophy, to regulate the 
conduct of the understanding, and teach it the real nature and 
value of the phenomena presented for its consideration. Igno- 
rance of the manner in which a subject should be investigated, 
its fundamental principles sought out, the nature of those on 
which it reposes, the evidence which sustains it, and the logic- 
al rules by which its deductions are to be evolved, is one of the 
commonest causes of failure, in all our intellectual researches, 
the simpler as well as the more complex. We cannot be sur- 
prised, therefore, at its pre-eminent operation in this. 
“To know things well, we should knowthem,” says Roche- 
foucault, “in detail.” This, however, being in a manner infin- 
ite, the attempt to pursue the indication could only result.inloss of 
time, and consequent discomfiture. Our knowledge, like that 
of the Chinese in the attainment of his alphabet, would neces- 
sarily be confined to particulars, and, withal, superficial and 
imperfect. Aided, even, by all of the modern adjuvants of 
intellectual improvement, the phenomena and their relations, 
here, are so multiplied and various, that there is not one of us, 
however comprehensive his capacity, tenacious his remem- 
brance, or orderly his reason, who could hope, in the course 
of a long life, to appropriate to himself a small part of the 
merit of what is known, or has been discovered in one of its 
departments only. From this is deduced the necessity, not 
to say value, of systems, or modes of philosophising; which, 
keeping pace with the advancements as they are made, from 
day to day, are ever actively engaged in the substitution of 
general for particulars, or special ideas. 
In this procedure, two modes are employed, known in the 
books upon elementary education, as analysis and synthesis;— 
analysis, which enables us to decompose all the phenomena 
presented to our observation and reflection, and to compare and 
examine their relations;—and synthesis, which puts it in our 
power to construct a fabric, according to the agreements 6 
oruifferences which their decomposition may unfold. Thus 
in natural bodies, while engaged in their study, we perform 
the operation of analysis—we decompose them—recompose 
the result of that decomposition,—and thus deduce the laws 
presiding over their outward and visible manifestations. In 
like manner do we proceed in the investigation of the intellec- 
tual, and in like manner in the medical; the latter of which is 
a combination of the two preceding. In the intellectual, we 
analyse our sensations—examine their origin, their substances, 
modes, and relations—and reduce the complex to the more 
simple. In the medical, the process is but repeated; the ob- 
jects only are more numerous and versatile. We still, how- 
ever, observe, analyze, compare and deduce; and analyze, 
observe, compare and deduce again; first with reference to the 
details, and then with their combinations. Hence, as will here- 
after be seen, the necessity of an acquaintance with several of 
the branches of physical and moral Science, and a thorough un- 
derstanding of them, to the scientific prosecution of the profes- 
sion which is to occupy the sum of your existence. 
But, independently of this, the Sciences in general, have 
been long remarked to be of a social nature, and always to 
flourish best when cultivated in the neighborhood of each other. 
This experience has proved to have been especially true, with 
respect to medicine, and its relations; for when many of them, 
as in this, are combined in practice, or coalesce in such man- 
ner as to constitute what may be called a professional unit, any 
change effected in one, is sure to communicate itself to all. Not 
an improvement, or a revolution, takes place in any of them, 
but, in due time, exerts its influence on the rest. Hence it is, 
that he who would wield with advantage the combination of 
powers thus placed at his disposal; or use them in such a man- 
ner, that good only, and not evil shall arise; must clearly com- 
prehend the sciences whence they are derived—the principles 
on which they depend—the desiderata in their application, 
which remain to be supplied—together with every other cir- 
cumstance and consideration, constituting a proper object of 
philosophical, or technical, or professional research. 
But this, in a science so related, pre-supposes the existence of a degree of intellection, or maturity of mind, seldom to 
be found in the possession of those who devote themselves to 
its study; a memory already stored with the elementary mate- 
rials of knowledge; an habitual control over the attention; and 
a judgment and ratiocination, trained and disciplined, accord- 
ing to the established usages of modern theorising. 
There are, as Johnson remarks, individuals of such trans- 
cendant abilities, and gifted with such spontaneous powers of 
intellect, that they seem to supercede the necessity of all train- 
ing, and excel all that labour and study can bestow. But the 
mass, in general, is composed of very different materials, and 
“ Not alike to every mortal eye 
Is this great scene unveil’d.” 
The individuals comprising it lie under a very different injunc- 
tion. He, therefore, who would expect from his soil the 
blossoms of the reputed East, or fruit which shall compare 
with that of a more favorable clime, must not forget the condi- 
tions of his success. He must toil, with but little remission, 
and in well-doing be neither faint nor weary. As with the 
sons of poesy, ‘ ‘where nature’s kindling breath deigns not to 
fire the chosen genius,” nor “ nature’s hand” to “ string 
the nerves,” or “imp his eagle-wings,” “impatient of the 
painful steep, to soar high as the summit,” the attempt is only 
to be made “by dull obedience, and by creeping toil obscure.” 
Few, if any of the vocations in life, into which the race has 
been divided, by the wants characteristic of it, require so per- 
fect a union of those habits of philosophising, with the daily 
routine practice, that “fit a man,” to use the appropriate lan- 
guage of Stuart, “for the consideration of things either gene- 
ral or particular,” or which qualify him, “to conduct with a 
masterly hand, the details of ordinary business, and to contend 
successfully with the untried difficulties of new and hazardous 
situations.” Knowledge, in medicine, is emphatically power, 
and the mind the centre of its evolutions; one is the lever of 
Archimedes, the other the fulcrum which he wanted, to move 
the earth. 
Man, however, in the present state of his existence, as the 
very pursuit in which you propose to embark makes known; 8 
is by nature an imperfect, and very helpless being. Dependent 
on parental affection, from the very hour of his birth, for the 
continuance of his being, he seeks in after years to shelter his 
perishable organization, and to defend it from the vicissitudes 
of climate, by the artifices of his understanding, and the ac- 
tivity of his physical frame; and is content, if not forced, in 
the decripitude of age, to rely upon the sympathies of posteri- 
ty, for the relief of wants, which his infirmities otherwise 
have placed beyond his reach. Strong in youth, full of vigor, 
and replete with enjoyment, existence is, nevertheless, to him 
but a precarious tenure; liable to be lost by silent influences 
inhaled with the breath of life; by the bolder or more open 
assaults of disease; or the countless contingencies to which he 
is at all times exposed. These seldom permit him to spin out 
that portion of its thread, which has been allotted, in the rec- 
ords of Holy Writ, to his species. Often, the mortal shaft is 
sped, and the blow irresistibly and fatally given, ere the arm 
which aimed it, was suspected to have been raised. And were 
it not for the conservative principles implanted by the Su- 
preme Creator in his economy—I mean life itself, modified by 
the conditions of structure, resisting the powers tending to 
annihilate it—the race would long have been extinct. As it is, 
a false step may dislocate a joint—an atom of earth extinguish 
those orbs so that they may never more behold the revisitings 
of the great luminary, to whose rays they are indebted for the 
performance of their offices—“so thick a drop serene” may 
“quench” them, “op dim suffusion veil,” that they may “roll 
in vain,” to “find” his “piercing ray”—or the very element 
of being, escape through a puncture too minute to be detected. 
In the arrangement appointed to the present order of things, 
illimitable increase, is incompatible with determinate space: 
the older series destined for a while to the habitation of the 
earth, and the older revolutions, must give place to those 
which are to succeed them: and death is consequently the un- 
avoidable fate of all. “From dust thou art, and unto dust shalt 
thou return,” is the decree of Heaven, from which no organi- 
zed being can escape. The law is universal. We cannot, 
therefore, sufficiently admire the wisdom, which amidst such 9 
a scene of dissolution as that which perpetually surrounds us, 
has provided, in the very composition of our frames, and in 
the powers with which it is endowed, for the permanency of the 
generations of Adam. 
The condition of man, however, under the many vicissi- 
tudes to which he is exposed, is not alike in all. Restricted 
by incivilization to the procuration of food and shelter simply, 
urged by the indomitable instincts peculiar to that state, he 
scarcely ventures to speculate beyond what their early craving 
require. Or if, amidst the apparent inequality, which has 
characterised the designs of Providence since the creation of 
the world, there are some regions in which the seeds of plen- 
ty, have been scattered with an unsparing hand, and that are 
blessed with a perpetual verdure, where he obtains the ready 
fruit, and is provided with an ample foliage; there are others, 
which are cursed with comparative, and absolute inhospitality, 
where he contends with a ferocious tenantry for a highly pre- 
carious subsistence, in the conflicts with which, he must often 
fall a victim to infuriated hunger, or triumphing by superior 
sagacity, revel in the spoils he has not less predaciously won. 
Even in the lands, o’er which more than one of the votaries 
of science have trod, there are multitudes, who, still ignorant 
of architecture, take up their abode in the clefts of rocks, the 
caverns of mountains, or holes dug out of the bowels of the 
earth; or who cover their nakedness with expedients, scarcely 
less rude, contrived out of the twigs and foliage of the forest. 
Between the savage, thus untutored, who is exposed to the 
rigours of climate, scanty alimentation, and almost unendura- 
ble hardships, and the lord of creation, whose cornucopia is 
replete with the products of industry—at whose feet, agri- 
culture, commerce, and manufacture, have long poured out the 
treasures of knowledge and of wealth, there is truly an im- 
measurable disparity. Yet the same law of contingency at- 
tends them all; and but one end is the ultimate result. It is 
vain that man seeks, under the impulse of fear, to elude them. 
Of the millions that see the glorious god of day rejoicing in 
the east, not a fourth witness his return to the sign in the 
zodiac, where he first dawned upon their opening vision; half die before he shines upon their manhood; scarcely another 
fourth attain the climacteric of forty; and fewer still realise the 
fable of the sphinx, feel the grasshopper to be a burden, or 
wear the crown of glory that is found in the way of the right- 
eous. Besides the legions, daily devoured by the pestilence, 
and the numberless casualties that unforeseen beset and over- 
come us, thousands, nay, tens of thousands, fall daily and 
hourly victims, to messengers of seemingly unimportant note, 
incessantly engaged in spreading the mandate of the insatiate 
king. Generation after generation thus passeth away: and, 
tribe after tribe, of human beings, are not only swept from 
the earth, and are no more; but the very territories on which 
they subsisted—the lands of the most powerful and intellectu- 
al—the home of the brave and the free—where genius was 
wont to dwell, and patriotism to linger, are reduced, in the 
eventful changes that have occurred, to dreary solitude and si- 
lence—knowing no interruption. The causes and occasionsof 
dissolution are, in truth, not to be counted; for every object, 
that has ever contributed to, or been the means of supporting, 
the continuance of life, becomes, in turn, the instrument of its 
destruction. The living machine is literally worn out by their 
continued action: the organization dies, or perishes, simply 
because it has been forced to live. 
Encompassed as man is, with so many causes tending to 
destruction or decay; and so many deformities, bodily as well 
as-mental, he would be indeed a wretched and afflicted mortal, 
did he not carry within his economy the principles of self alle- 
viation. Although less-provident of individuals than of the 
species, the Beneficent Author of nature has, nevertheless, 
disseminated his blessings with an equal hand; and notwith 
standing good and evil are scattered over the earth, preserves, 
in the main, the equilibrium of the whole. Old things may 
be passing away, and new things taking their places, but the 
.common balance, in the lapse of ages, is unbroken,undisturbed. 
Il> the maintenance of this universal harmony, in the pres- 
ervation of continued order, in the perpetuation of the genera- 
tions of men, the select of whom are to constitute the inhabi- 
ants of the kingdom that is to come; Medicine, as a science.. has been ordained no unimportant agency; and physicians, so 
far as the preservation of health is material to the result, are 
the humble instruments appointed to forward the gracious plan. 
There existence, as a class of beings, is evidently, then, the re- 
sult, not of accident, but of the relations that obtain—the ne- 
cessity and congruity of things. The perfection of the science, 
the degree of its utility, its advancement and respectability , 
have been left where every thing else depending upon human 
exertions have been left, to be determined by the laws ruling 
the progress of industry in general. It is manifest, therefore, 
considered in this point of view, that the manner in which your 
hours of preparation for so important a calling may be employ- 
ed, is far from being of indifference; in which, if you mean to 
participate hereafter in the active duties to which it is devoted, 
you may innocently neglect, now, the golden opportunities 
that are offered. On the choice you may make, or the course 
you may pursue, depend the two alternatives, of being tribu- 
tary, either to the execution of the benificent design, or counter- 
acting its kindly fulfilment. 
The part which Medicine has contributed to the amelioration 
of the sufferings of the race, has, as you may suppose, not been 
the same in different ages, nor in different nations. Influenced 
by the degrees of civilization, to which they had advanced, it 
has been a barbaric instrument in the hands of some, while it 
has established its claim to the appellation of a truly divine art 
in those of others. Coeval in origin, almost with that of the 
history of mankind, it has partaken, more or less, of the vicis- 
situdes which have attended the communities in which it was 
practised; and been influenced or modified by the causes and 
circumstances affecting their progress, and which must, to the 
the end of time, determine the destinies of individuals. Founded 
upon the implied continuance of those conservative actions and 
principles of the organization, having in view the preservation 
of the individual, to which reference has been already made, it 
has moved onward to its present condition, though with a 
comparatively slow and unsteady pace, very unlike, it must be 
confessed, the regular and equal step which characterized the 
march of the less technical, or. in other words., more popular 12 
sciences. We have no knowledge, from the records ot history, 
whether there ever was a time, in which the first inheri- 
tors of the earth were totally ignorant of the means of mitiga- 
ting bodily suffering. As an art, it was practised among 
the Babyloneans and Chaldeans; and Heroditus, the father of 
historians, informs us, that they were accustomed to expose 
their sick in the market places and highways, in order that 
they might benefit from the personal experience of the passers 
by, or receive such council as they were able to give, from what 
they had seen beneficially done for others similarly circum- 
stanced. Analogous statements arealso related of the Assyrians 
in general—the Egyptians—Lucitanians—and of Greece, the 
fruitful mother of many sciences, in whose hands it assumed, 
for the first time, the character of a system. Here, it is well 
known, Esculapius lived, and that the first temple was raised 
and dedicated to the salutiferous deity, on the tablets of which 
were inscribed, the aphorisms constituting the early rudiments 
of the present philosophy. 
I have to regret, that the space allotted to this address, will 
not permit us to trace the course which it has subsequently run: 
to examine the chief revolutions, or other remarkable chang- 
es, through which it has so variously passed; to inquire, 
as to the effects of the belief, once so general, in supernat- 
ural power; of those of credulity; and of scepticism, the off- 
spring of credulity; of pre-conceived opinions, false theories 
and absurd conceits; habitual routine; and blind submission 
to authority and of fashion; of the many misconceptions as to 
the powers and offices of nature; and the misapprehension of 
circumstances, such, for example, as those of diet, air, caloric, 
habit, the nature of which were but illy understood;—of the 
aid which has been derived, and the corruptions which have 
been introduced, from the states of the collateral sciences; of 
the effects of soil, climate, season, and culture, upon many of 
the remedial means which have been employed; erroneous, 
and clumsy modes of preparing them; the vices of dietetics; 
unseasonable collection; fraudulental mixlures; and incompati- 
ble and unscientific complication or combination. It is suffi- 
cient to remark, that Medical Gymnasia have multiplied with the progress of knowledge, until they are now to be found in 
nearly every corner of the civilized world, advancing with the 
tide of population, diffusing the accumulated experience of the 
past, and widening that of the present. Their internal organ- 
ization, however, is, as may well be conceived, not the same 
in all. They differ in their endowments, as well as in the means 
and opportunities afforded for improvement, giving and receiv- 
ing a moral and intellectual tint, according to the communities, 
in the neighborhood, or in the midst of which, they have hap- 
pened to be located; and influenced by the guidance under 
which they have been directly regulated or governed. 
In the United States, with few if any exceptions, they are 
conducted upon principles nearly allied to those governing this; 
differing in the mode of distribution of the lectures, rather than 
in the nature of their objects. It is to be lamented, that in this 
particular they are so far inferior to those which are to be found 
on the Continent of Europe, more particularly of Germany 
and France. Compared with several of these, they are un- 
doubtedly contracted. Indeed, it is but a short time since, 
that some of the departments, which were regarded to be es- 
sential there, have been recognised as even useful here. In 
these long favoured regions of medical scientific culture, they 
have attained a degree of perfection as to detail and division, 
which our shorter duration has not yet permitted, or warrant- 
ed to be introduced among ourselves. With the daily increase 
of matter, and the extension of knowledge, relative and imme- 
diate, classification has necessarily been enlarged and perfect- 
ed, requiring, in its turn a multiplication of those who were 
laboring, both in the closet and the field. These deficiencies, 
we hope, as far as the short term of our course would permit, 
will be supplied, by the substitution of a supplementary series; 
and doubt not, from the known talents and zeal of the gentlemen 
who are to be engaged in deliveringthelectures,and the opportu- 
nities they haveenjoyed, that they will fully realize public expec- 
tation, and amply repay those, whose desire of improvement, 
may lead them to seek the advantages intended to be bestowed. 
The Medical departments of this Institution, comprise seven 
Professorships: Anatomy, which teaches the structure of the 14 
human oeconomy; Physiology, the actions and functions of 
that structure; Chemistry, and Materia Medica, the properties 
of the substances employed in the practice of the profession; 
the Institutes and Practice, the principles regulating their em- 
ployment, as well as the details of their application to particu- 
lar cases; Surgery, which has a similar object in view, and is 
governed by the same principles pmd laws; and Obstetrics, the 
aim of which is the mitigation of the pang inflicted upon our 
fair and penitent progenitor, for the violation of the law given 
as the test of her obedience; and the preservation of the lives 
and health of that portion of creation, for whom the sympathies 
of heaven have been so pointedly expressed, and in whom we 
expect to live a second and a third time, in our race. Time 
will not admit of our dwelling upon either of them now. In- 
deed, this would be entirely superfluous, since they will seve- 
rally be considered, in the course of the present season, by the 
respective chairs to which the duties have been assigned. 
It can hardly be regarded, after what has been remarked, as 
irrelevent, to say a few words as to the cause or causes which 
have occasioned European Physicians, to do so much more in 
the advancement of professional Science than American; or to 
inquire, how it has happened, that the amount of obligation 
which remains to be paid, is so much larger on our part than 
theirs:—that we have made, in fact, comparatively so few dis- 
coveries, and given, in return, so few inventions. It-is evi- 
dently, not because we are less enterprising, less studious, or 
less given to application; nor yet, that we are less faithful to 
the trust which has been reposed in us. In either of these, 
American practitioners are not surpassed by their professional 
brethren, in any quarter of the globe. The reason, in my 
humble opinion, is easily explained. It is twofold: 1st, it is 
owing to the ampler opportunities of observing and experi- 
menting, which it has fallen to their lot to enjoy; and, 2d, to 
their being better qualified, by long existing seniority, as well 
as by virtue of their preparatory education, in general, to turn 
these opportunities to their proper and appointed accounts. 
The force, as well as the truth, of this latter observation, will 
readily appear, from a consideration of the laws of intellection, 15 
and the circumstances regulating the acquisition of knowledge. 
The acquirement of this indispensable treasure, every one 
knows is, in the first place, the result of the exercise of the 
senses; and in the second, of that of the operations of the un- 
derstanding. To obtain it, we must primarily see, and hear, 
and feel, and taste, and smell, and then judge, and reason, and 
conclude. Consequently thesum of it, which may be acquired, 
will, ccetisis paribus, bear a determinate ratio to the number, 
and variety of the phenomena that may be presented. These 
being numerous, or the field of observation extensive, or com- 
prehensive, the amount to be known must necessarily partake 
of their magnitude or complicity; and vice versa. Now this is, 
what has actually obtained, from our relative situations; and 
the advantage has, up to the present moment, been decidedly 
on the side of our trans-atlantic co-labourers. They have seen, 
or in other words, observed more, and have had, therefore, the 
superiority. The denser population of the older countries— 
their armies, navies, hospitals, and other congregations of in- 
dividuals, which they have been forced, from a sense of their 
own security, to sustain, for many years, and I might say 
ages, have served as so many seminaries, in which the facts 
ordinarily seen in private practice, at long intervals, and scat- 
tered, as it were, at several interstices, and presented to the 
view of a multiplicity of observers and experimenters, are col- 
lected together, and offered to one and the same mind, in so- 
condensed a form, as almost necessarily to elicit the results of 
frequent, minute, and comprehensive supervision. Each, 
having observed within the compass of a short career, a greater 
number of phenomena, together with their several relations, 
generalization and induction, must of necessity have been more 
common, and better sustained. 
But it is not alone to this, that the disparity is to be attribu- 
ted. The individuals who have done the most, and have been 
foremost in advancing the interests of Medicine, have been 
distinguished, not less by the second condition which has been 
stated, than by their eminence in the advances that were made. 
To the minds of the multitude, to observe, it would seem only 
to be necessary to open the avenues of the senses, and that knowledge must inevitably flow in; the objects, or phenomena, 
must, without the possibility of evasion, enter, and take up an 
arrangement, at once clear, comprehensive, and orderly. The 
idea thus entertained of its meaning, is, altogether, too mechani- 
cal or passive. That this, is not the case, every philos- 
opher individually knows; and were it otherwise, there is not 
an experienced hospital nurse, who would not be skilful in the 
management of most diseases, or deserving of nearly the same 
degree of confidence, as the youthful graduate, just let loose 
from the technicalities of the dissecting room. Observation, 
philosophically understood, is a truly active and complicated 
operation, implying the exercise of powers, which it is the aim 
as well as the end of philosophy itself, not less than of educa- 
tion, to cultivate and perfect. Objects and relations, may exist 
without number, but it is in vain that they present themselves 
to our intellectual organs, unless these be previously disci- 
plined, by having undergone the regular use or exercise. The 
ideas transmitted by the senses, are but the rude materials of 
knowledge, the accumulation of which can only make up a 
mass. It is by the action of the senses upon each other, the 
reciprocal operations of the faculties of the intellect, and the 
reaction of the former upon the latter, and of the latter upon 
the former, that order arises, and knowledge is induced to as- 
sume the regularity of system, which entitles it to be consid- 
ered as scientific. 
It is in this particular, that the men referred to, considered 
asaclass, possess over us the advantage. Education, academic 
and collegiate, is with them on a better footing. The prepara- 
tory period of life being spent in employments, the necessity of 
which, in this country, is felt with but too little force. Here, 
it is not unusual to leap over all the probationary steps, and to 
grasp solely at the results; unmindful of the fact, that in the 
unfolding of the intellectual faculties and powers, the develop- 
ment partakes of, and is exactly analagous to, the maturation 
of organized bodies in general. It is, in fact successional; 
stage following stage, in regular and progressive order, under 
the excitation of appropriate and appointed stimuli, the nature 
of which, if withheld, cannot be supplied by any other known 17 
or discoverable substitute. One of these stages, or excitants, 
omitted or dropped, renders the whole pi'ocess imperfect; no 
subsequent application being able to make up for the loss or 
deficiency of those inductive habits, which it is one cf the chief 
objects of education, at this season of existence, to establish. 
The utility of practical science is easily understood, and in 
general as readily acknowledged. In someway or other, it 
comes home to, and is felt by every one of us, in the concerns 
of life. But whatever is not thus felt, or seems alien to the 
daily details of business, is regarded, by the mass at least, as 
recondite, and therefore, but seldom appreciated or under- 
stood. Things, however, and their relations, are not to be 
changed, by our ignorance or knowledge of them; and their 
absence or presence, if related at all, must affect us negatively 
or positively, for good or for evil. For this reason, all studies, 
whatever their proximity, profundity, or extension, are to be 
estimated by their effects only on individual character, and 
consecutive tendencies, on National happiness. And as intel- 
lectual advancement, and practical utility, are the chief ends 
of existence;—the just and harmonious developement of all of 
the powers of the soul, the principal aim of philosophical edu- 
cation;—the object, from the first dawn of intellect, to the 
close, when it receives on earth its final developement, the “fil- 
ling of the whole mind with light,” and the whole heart with 
the softening and subduing graces of a universal and Christian 
philanthropy, it is evident that any thing which will prove 
conducive to these results, must, in a general sense, form not 
only suitable, but necessary aliment to man’s spiritual entity. 
Mankind in general, not less than the greater proportion of 
medical practitioners, are obviously too much given to the 
disparaging and unphilosophical habit, of estimating the hu- 
man and professional character, by different rules; of disuni- 
ting them in thought, as though they varied in reality, or in 
nature; and of supposing there are powers and capacities excre- 
ted in the one which are dormant in the other. 
Let us apply these remarks to the collateral sciences; and 
first, let us consider the relation of medicine and mat hematics. 
In discussing this part of the subject, it is not my intention tb insist upon an acquaintance with mathematics as essential to 
a knowledge of medicine. This, as we all know, is a contro- 
verted point. But rather to show, that its study is not with- 
out considerable advantages, direct and indirect, to the physi- 
cian. To question its utility, because of its foreignness to his 
pursuit, seems to me tantamount to doubting its utility to him 
as a man; an objection which applies with equal force to specu- 
lative or recondite knowledge in general. Now it is an unde- 
niable proposition, that, whatever will exalt the understanding 
of the man, cannot fail to re-act upon that of the physician, and 
to produce effects, corresponding in ratio and in principle, to 
those which are produced upon national glory and national 
prosperity. Who can doubt that it will exalt the utility and 
dignity of both the one and the other? No one, who has felt 
the force of its influence, has ever questioned its widening or 
relining agency. The only question, then, as to its connection 
with medicine, should be, does it render the incumbent more 
or less theoretical, or more or less patient, inductive, or practi- 
cal? That it widens the sphere of activity by enlightenment, 
augments utility by new and more extensive views of truth, 
and by the presentation of new instruments of invention and 
discovery, rendering man less theoretical and more practical, 
subduing and controling his hypothetical and visionary pro- 
pensities, improving his logical habits, and conducting him 
to, and keeping him in, the direct path of knowledge, are the 
effects in general for which it is chiefly prized, and for which 
therefore, it should be valued, in the pursuit of a science 
the very nature of which, as it has been hitherto studied, has 
a tendency to produce a contrary result, and to beget the pre- 
cisely opposite states of mind. Dr. Cullen used to say, there 
were as many false facts in medicine, as false theories; an ex- 
pression which, though not true to the same extent now as 
when he uttered it, if rigidly interpreted, means what has oft- 
en been, by less philosophic observers, asserted of it, that it 
is nearly altogether conjectural. 
In considering what is, or is not necessary to complete the 
character of a physician, men are influenced, as in all other 
inquiries, not less by original peculiarities of mind, than the 19 
habits which forms of education have induced. They approve, 
or are biassed in favor of, what they like, or that which, by 
pains-taking or culture, they have been successful in attaining. 
They, in like manner, disapprove of, or are biassed against that 
which oppositely affects them. On this ground, we might 
suspect the testimony of Gregorie, who, conscious of his lean- 
ing to mathematical pursuits, modestly suspected himself. But 
we cannot say the same of Locke, whose authority is unrival- 
led in matters relating to the conduct of the understanding; 
whose candour is unimpeachable, and whose acquaintance with 
the principles of medicine, such as they were in the day in 
which he wrote, is said to have been equally profound and minute.* 
It was the opinion of this immortal man, it should be taught 
all, who had the time and opportunity, not so much to make 
them great mathematicians, as reasonable creatures; his ideas, 
being, that though we claim the title of such, yet that nature 
gave us only the seeds of it, and that it was only so far com- 
plete as we qualified ourselves to receive it, by use, exercise, 
or application. To be deep mathematicians was unnecessary; 
the object consisting in the attainment of that way of reasoning 
which it brings to the mind, so as to be able to transfer it to 
other parts of knowledge, as occasion may require. 
There can be no doubt that medical education, notwithstand- 
ing the advances which have recently been made, still lies un- 
der the imputation once cast by Bolingbroke upon the teachers 
of natural knowledge in general: “much pains are taken, and 
time bestowed,” as he expresses it, “to teach us what to think; 
but little of either to instruct us how to think. The magazine 
of the memory is stored and stuffed betimes; but the conduct 
of the understanding is all along neglected, and the free exer- 
cise of it is, in effect, forbid in all places, and in terms in some.” 
In consequence of these deficiencies, self-distrusts are almost 
universally experienced; and practitioners or the profession at 
large, incapable of investigating profoundly for themselves, are 
placed in habitual submission to authority; and errors are ex- 
tensively circulated to the injury of communities at large as 
well as of the profession. 
Tt is one of not the least of its advantages, that it enables us 20 
thoroughly to understand, and intimately to retain the spirit of 
philosophising, which appertains to strict, in contradistinction 
to vague reasoning; gives us settled or determinate ideas of the 
nature of demonstration, free from the perturbing influences 
of ambiguity, or sophism; and shows us, in a way which no 
other science can, the true nature, as well as the force of the 
foundation, on which our knowledge of the laws of natural 
phenomena, or the actual system of external things, rests; that 
it habituates us to language, precise in meaning, and otherwise 
free from the fallacies attending its employment in all other 
studies; enables us to stand on firm ground, and to progress 
unwaveringly, in matters which cannot be made to assume a 
tangible or visible shape; and notto rely upon the bare ipse dixit 
of those who have been led by a more philosophical spirit 
than ourselves. For it is not to be disputed, that, in connec- 
tion with the physical sciences, it has exerted a most direct and 
positive influence over this; as well in theintroduction of a more 
exact and enlightened spirit of inquiry; in a greater reliance 
upon facts, or verities, the materials of all knowledge—as in a 
more adroit and accurate experimentalism: that it actually 
banished the hypothetical notions of the chemicals and galen- 
icals; and by its relations to Chemistry, Pneumatics, Hydros- 
tatics, Hydraulics, Optics and Acoustics, has subsequently 
introduced various and important changes in the facts and doc- 
trines of the organic sciences. 
Should you ask where is the influence which medicine has 
exerted over mathematics, I would refer you to the name of 
Copernicus, associated with the soundest theories of Astrono- 
my : of Bernoulli, the inventor of the analytical and differential 
calculus; of Gessner, the colleague of Haller, proprietor in part 
of the authorship of the Fauna of Switzerland, and Professor 
of Mathematics, for nearly half a century; of Gregory, already 
mentioned; of Pitcairn, Boerhaave, and Borrelli. These 
were all educated as Physicians. 
The connection of medicine and the philosophy of the 
mind will be more readily conceded; and is, perhaps, better 
understood, than that which has just been discussed. By the 
philosophy of the mind, I do not mean that time-worn and ob- solete system, interested in speculating upon things hidden 
and unknowable, and in ascribing imaginary causes to realities; 
but the more modern and legitimate study of a more philosoph- 
ical era, engaged in ascertaining the real causes of phenome- 
na, and in rightly reasoning from verified data. 
Mental philosophy has an intrinsic value in itself, indepen- 
dently of the influence which the pursuit of it exerts in the 
prosecution of other sciences. For example : we are indebted 
to it for having furnished the rules of philosophising in gene- 
ral, and determined those which speculative minds are bound 
to follow, and by which they are to be guided in their research- 
es and meditations. In this respect, it has, in its effects, ex- 
ercised a paramount sway. If the arts have their origin in 
the sciences, as has very frequently been observed, it is not 
to be questioned but that the sciences have theirs, in the fac- 
ulties and operations of the understanding. If knowledge 
is power, the mind is not only its source, but the fulcrum from 
which it is to be applied. It is the centrum commune, indeed, 
of every thing which surrounds us,—the solar point, around 
which every thing revolves, deriving and reflecting the light 
of nature and of truth. Mechanics, Pneumatics, Hydrostatics, 
Optics, Acoustics, Chemistry, Electricity, Galvanism, as well 
as every other enumerated division of physics: grammar, log- 
ic, rhetoric, natural theology, morals, jurisprudence, law, di- 
vinity, politics, the fine arts, as well as the branches of philos- 
ophy, forming one of the terms of the relation under re- 
view, have, all of them, their roots therein, and through the 
instrumentality of their respective radicles, imbibe their appro- 
priate aliment and nutrition. Hume’s observations upon this 
topic, are worthy of being repeated. His words are, “all the 
sciences have a relation to human nature; and however wide 
some of them may seem to run from it, they still return back 
by one passage or another. This is the centre and capitol of 
the sciences, which being once masters of, we may easily ex- 
tend our conquest every where.” So also are those of Reid 
and Stewart. The former observes that, “The faculties of our 
minds, are the tools and engines we must use in every disqui- 
sition; and the better we understand their nature and force, the 22 
more successfully we shall be able to apply them;” and the 
latter, that “The powers of the understanding are instruments 
which all men employ, and his curiosity must be small in- 
deed, who passes through life in total ignorance of faculties, 
wnich his wants and necessities force him habitually to exer- 
cise, and which so remarkably distinguish man from the lower 
order of animals.” Locke’s opinions upon the subject are 
well known; and the consciousness on his part, of this necessi- 
ty, is what gave rise to his justly celebrated works—“Essays 
on the Human Understanding.” 
But who, in fact, will undertake to say, in any of the rela- 
tions to which reference has been made, what it has not done? 
or to pronounce that had not Bacon lived, medicine would 
have cast off’so much of its former con jectural character? That 
Sydenham, and Brown, and Rush, and Bichat, and Broussais, 
and Lannec, and many other kindred spirits, would have dis- 
persed so many of the midnight clouds that overshadowed it? 
Or that the scholastic jargon, so little looked into, yet now so 
universally condemned, contributed nothing, in the controver- 
sies which were so frequently repeated, between the fallacies 
of a super-annuated era, and the verities of a brighter day, to 
hasten the progress it has latterly so rapidly made? If they 
produced no other, they had this obviously good effect: they 
compelled the disputants to think; made them mistrustful of 
prior impressions; and having brought to light the true princi- 
ples of ratiocination, thus led to the adoption of that perfect 
axiom, so philosophically expressed by the Apostle Paul— 
“prove all things, hold fast that which is good.” Maxims thus 
acquired, lessons thus learned, or habits thus established,though 
they come from hypothetical studies, to use the phraseology 
of Locke, are transferred to other pursuits, and manifest their 
fruit, in the results. They more than compensate for the time 
bestowed in their acquisition. 
Bui it is not only the fundamental principles and laws of 
belief applicable to all sciences whatever, that we get from the 
pursuit of the study in question. From it, alone, we obtain a 
systematic view of them, and learn, in a brief and comprehen- 
sive manner, what the mind is, or is not, equal to. There, 23 
we are presented, with a monograph of what it has attempted; 
the causes of its success and failures; the distinctions between 
fact and opinion; the philosophical applicability of its different 
forces; of its functions and uses of analysis and synthesis; the 
grounds of uncertainty in science; the doctrines of materialism 
and spiritualism; nominalism and realism; the principles of re- 
lations; the relations of primary and secondary qualities; the 
sources of knowledge; the phenomena of the senses, and of the 
faculties of the mind itself; the nature of the compound notions 
entertained, of time, causation, motion, intuition, and of first 
truths; the evolution of testimony; distinctions as to events; 
the consequences of mis-managed or unregulated powers; the 
influence of opinion upon conduct; of human responsibility; the 
laws of investigation; grounds of confidence in our faculties; the 
rules relating to the detection of intellectual fallacies; the dis- 
tinctions of reasoning; effects of exercise or of culture; the phe- 
nomena of dreaming, spectral illusions, somnabulism, insanity, 
and jurisprudence; to which we may add, in special reference 
to medicine, the grounds of uncertainty in the science; the re- 
lative difficulties attending the use that may be made of analo- 
gy and experience; the rules observable in the reception of 
facts, their arrangement, combination, or separation; the theo- 
ries of cause and effect; the establishing of general principles; 
and the means proper to be employed in the culture and ad- 
vancement of its different branches. 
Yet has it been objected to as a department of philosophy, 
not only speculative in itself, but as wasting time upon a sub- 
ject of little practical value. The sick, it is said, as well as 
the world at large, want practical men—men who have the 
aptitude, and have acquired the facility of quickly administer- 
ing to their relief—not those who are occupied with the ab- 
stractions of philosophers. But who, I would ask, is it, that 
from generation to generation, and day to day, have contribu- 
ted towards its reformation? Your practical men, or your 
men of philosophical abstractions? Your inquisitive minds, 
who, knowing how to think, as well as what to think, and 
availing themselves of the opportunities afforded for observa- 
tion, and of the long lore of learning, come down from ages 24 
uot to be recalled, betake themselves to retirement and study, 
and seek out the reason of what they have seen and read? Or 
your practical minds, in other words mechanical minds, igno- 
rant of the laws of intellect,the rules of evidence, and the prin- 
ciples of human negation oracquiescence? Superficial thinkers 
little perceive the connection of metaphysical philosophy and 
medicine, for the same reason that superficial observers see 
few of the links which join the events of the present day with 
the past, the profound labours and researches of the Bacons, 
Galileo, Grotius, Erasmus, Newton, Locke, Milton, or any of 
the illustrious authors, whose names have been previously 
mentioned, with those which are actually transpiring around 
us. But the philosophy of one age, is, nevertheless, linked 
with that of the next, just as the antecedent is with the conse- 
quent. The discoveries of the one become the causes of the 
discoveries of the other; and the continuity is carried forward 
till its term is lost in eternity. Now your practical men ob- 
serve little or nothing of this; and knowing only what to think, 
are forced to take up the opinions manufactured for them by 
ihose who know how to think, and pass them as they receive 
them down the line of descent, to the rising and forthcoming 
generation. They believe improvements incapable of being 
made, because their own movement is the daily revolution of 
a circle; and are rendered tributary to the perpetuation of ig- 
norance or error, byT virtue of their own intellectual unsuscep- 
tibiiity, incompetency, or indolence. 
There is one view ol' the subject, which is more particularly- 
interesting to you as students of medicine, and which should 
not be passed over without being briefly noticed. The facul- 
tiesand operations of the mind are not ‘•tools’’ or “engines” on- 
ly, which man employs in the gratification of his wants, or the 
execution of his purposes. They are often, and in turn, the 
subjects of the tools and engines of others; they sometimes re- 
quire his remedial, as well as prophylactic, care. “Man is the 
subject on which,” not “the practical moralist, and the enlight- 
ened statesman,” only, “have to operate,” but the scientific 
physician also. And if to the first is committed the para- 
mount care, of engaging, as Stewart expresses it, his atten- tention in his own best interest, and alluring him into the 
paths of virtue and of happiness, by every consideration 
which can influence the understanding, excite the imagination, 
and affect the heart: and to the second, the philanthropic office 
of seconding the benevolent intentions of Providence in the 
administration of human affairs; of diffusing wddely and 
equally, the advantages of social union; and by the study of 
his organization, and of the circumstances under which he is 
placed, of modifying the political order, in such a manner, as 
to elicit and encourage the free exercise and improvement of 
those principles, moral and intellectual, implanted by nature 
in his species: it is not less committed to the last, by the same 
course of studies, to ‘•ministerto the mind diseased,” to ap^ 
from the memory a rooted sorrow,” and by the employment 
of his recuperative means, to restore it to the possession of 
those privileges, and the enjoyment of that happiness, which 
it is the aim of the foregoing to bestow and to preserve. 
It is unnecessary to dwell now upon the influence of medi- 
cine or intellectual philosophy in general. We shall have oc- 
casion to examine the subject hereafter; when the relation will 
be more amply discussed, and the things which are Caesar’s be 
given unto Caesar. Suffice it to say, medical men are looked to 
now, more than any other class of philosophers, to fill up the 
desiderata which remain to be supplied. It is from them, in 
an especial manner, that the world expects a satisfactory eluci- 
dation, if such be attainable at all, of the two following inqui- 
ries, viz: to what extent are the operations of the mind depen- 
dant upon the organization, forces and conditions of the body? 
and what is the nature and degree of the influence which intel- 
lection exerts upon the phenomena of the organization? 
No one doubts the relation of Medicine to Physics; for 
every thing which exists, living and inorganic, are subject to 
its laws. They are all fleeted by attraction, repulsion, 
weight, motion, and the like. Man, in fact, is a physical, no 
less than an intellectual and moral being; and the very strug- 
gle of life consists in repelling the tendency which these laws 
have to dissolve his organization. It has, accordingly, been 
thus defined. Where indeed, except in his composition, shall 
we search for such a system of mechanical contrivances.' 26 
Where find such pullies, and levers, and other moveable appa- 
ratus? What in these respects to be compared to the human 
hand, to which has been ascribed, the cause of his rationality t 
Where such wonderful displays of hydraulicity, as the gently 
heaving and respiring chest? Where such acoustic contri- 
vances, as the listening ear? Such an optical instrument as 
the soul-reflecting eye? or organ of sound, as the human voice 
divine? or of speech, the noblest characteristic of humanity? 
To this head belongs the solution of the principles involv- 
ed in cupping, in the use of the hydrometer, barometer, hy- 
grometer, thermometer, rain guage, electrical machine, and 
galvanic battery; all of which the profession at large are in 
the daily habit of employing for purposes of meteorological 
observations, or in determining the laws and conditions of the 
air which preside over the phenomena of health and disease: 
as well as for other medical or surgical purposes. 
Chemistry deals with the minuter changes effected by the 
laws of affinity and repulsion among the atoms or ultimate 
particles of bodies in general. It includes within its power, 
both of the kingdoms of nature—the animate and the inani- 
mate. By its agency, the physiologist explores the very de- 
ments of the organic soiids and fluids; ascertains the means 
by which their inorganic individualities are maintained; exa- 
mines their mutations before and after assimilation; their con- 
version into food, into chyle, into blood; the aeration of the 
last; its products, the secretions, and excretions; and the 
final transformations of these, at their restoration to the 
great magazine of nature. 
To illustrate the influence which medicine, through its vo- 
taries, has had upon the two preceding branches of research, 
it surely cannot be necessary to recite to you the leading 
names in our science, of Stahl, and Fourcroy, and Bertholet, 
and Black, and Marcet, and Thompson, and Wollaston, and 
Dalton, and Turner, and Arnott, and others. 
The next consideration is with that of natural history: 
and here, it is not only necessary, but circumstances will ad- 
mit of our being brief. Not that the subject is in anywise 
uninteresting, or is incapable of equal simplicitude of illus- 
tration, but that it is so plain, as not to require it. 27 
Under this designation is commonly embraced mineralogy, 
botony, and zoology. In considering it, I shall include, also, 
comparative anatomy. They present themselves to us in a 
tiuo-fold point of view: 1. As furnishing the objects of ex- 
perimental or comparative physiology, and the consequent an- 
alogical deductions, which have been drawn from them; and 
2, as the three great kingdoms from whence are derived our 
prophylactic and remedial means. We cannot consider them 
in detail. Their relations are too numerous to be made the 
subject of our concluding remarks. The study of the pheno- 
mena presented by botany and zoology, is one of great extent; 
and with reference to life itself, the end and aim of medical 
science, leads us through a long survey of organized existen- 
ces. It conducts us from the lichen, covering the mouldering 
rocks, or the structure of plants so minute, as scarcely to be 
discernible to the naked eye, fixed to their native spot, and 
doomed, in the language of the poet, there to “draw nutrition, 
propagate, and rot,” along a chain of indeterminate links, to 
Man, whose extension over the earth is universal, whose 
mind, though finite, is gigantic, and susceptible of such illi- 
mitable improvement, as well may actuate us in contempla- 
tion of what he has, and is capable of accomplishing, to ex- 
claim in the words of the immortal hard of Avon, “What a 
piece of work is man! how noble in reason! how infinite in 
faculties! In form and moving, how express and admirable! 
in action, how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a 
God! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals!” 
Digestion, absorption, clylifaction, sanguification, aeration, 
nutrition, secretion, excretion, with their attendant pheno- 
mena, increase and decrease, maturity, age, decripltude, de- 
cay, dissolution and candaver, and reproduction, are func- 
tions which are common to both kingdoms—vegetable and 
animal:—-and to be thoroughly understood, should be examined 
under all the modifications of which they are susceptible from 
correspondingaltraetions of structure. Studied with reference 
to such an extended scale, all animete nature sheds its rays up- 
on the human oeconomy; and comparative physiology is made 
to diffuse a strong, though borrowed light, upon the analogous 
phenomena of organization, as they are exemplified in the 28 
most exalted of the races. To determine the laws of the 
animal economy, from facts derived from one of the genera 
alone, would be, as Mr. Lawrence has appropriately observed, 
like writing the natural history of our species from observing 
the inhabitants of a single town or village. As our observa- 
tion of the living races, is wider and more expanded, as the 
varieties of organization supply, in our investigation of each 
particular function, a larger proportion of materials for ana- 
logy, comparison, and conlrast, the principles of physiology 
are laid broader and deeper, and the superstructure rests upon 
a more lasting and solid foundation. Here, is properly the 
field, in which, without liability to the imputation of un- 
philosophical research, or unprofitable labour, we may in- 
dulge the spirit, which seeks to discover the hitherto hidden 
actions of our frames, or the uses of those organs and of 
parts, which have, as yet, bid defiance to the interrogations of 
physiologists. Here, is properly the field, in which, under 
certain qualifications, philosophers are permitted to extend 
their observations and deductions from the ascertained to the 
unknowu; and to reason, from species to species, with an ap- 
proximation to the verity, which flows from a like exercise, of 
the process, from individual to individual. Comparative ana- 
tomy, especially, has been the favourite pursuit of almost 
every individual who has distinguished himself in physiology. 
This is well known to have been the fact with Huuter; who 
has enriched the metropolis of England with one of the most 
extensive museums, as well as the annals of this latter science, 
with the most numerous, as well as some of the most import- 
ant facts, illustrated therein, that arc to be found in any coun- 
try. And it is well known also, that, through a devotion to 
the same studies, and by analogous means, Harvey demonstra- 
ted the circulation of the blood; Asselli the existence of lym- 
phatic vessels; Rudbeck, Bartholin, and Pecquet, the thoracic 
duct, as well as the fact of its termination in the venous sys- 
tem; Hoffman, the excretory duct of the pancreas; Stenon 
and Wharton, the ducts of the salivary glands; De Graef the 
ovaries; and their relations to the germs; and Malphigi, Vol- 
cher, as well as numerous others, the developements which 
successively attend the embryotic being. It is to the study of this branch of human inquiry, indeed, that physiology is 
indebted in the greatest degree, for the two last centuries, for 
the facts and inferences which have so much enriched its 
pages. Hence we may truly say, with the felicitous Buffon, 
that were it not for animals, the nature of man would be 
still more incomprehensible. 
Connected with dieting and materia medica, natural history 
offers many considerations, which it would be profitable as 
well interesting to consider. From plants and animals come 
all that we consume for food, and much that is administered 
for medicine. Our bane and physic the self-same earth sup- 
plies; at the same time, that the bee, the cochineal, the Span- 
ish fly, the mosch deer, and the beaver, furnish ample proof, 
how bounteous nature has been in the provision of succedanea 
to the ills that have been consequent upon the fall of our first 
progenitors. 
But, much as has been furnished from the system of vege- 
tables, is there any one present who will say, that these are 
exhausted? that with the advantages of modern analysis, and 
the keenness for modern discover}7, there is not more, to 
excite our astonishment, than we yet have experienced? that 
some new principle, or constituent, shall not yet be detected, 
which, although it may not prove a specific for consumption, 
or an antidote to cholera, shall magnify our controul over 
these two distempers, and increase the fruition of our present 
inheritance? Who can venture to assert, that an antidote may 
not be found to the poison of the viper? or, that there are 
not new triumphs awaiting the activity of the labourers in this 
field, which shall crown their efforts with success, e’en o’er 
the pestilence that now stalketh over the earth, and transmit 
their names, in imperishable glory to posterity? Has this 
green earth been fully explored, or exhausted of her wealth? 
Has nature nothing still in store? Has her vast and fruitful 
womb at length become barren; having nothing which can 
either add to our comfort, or mitigate the ills that flesh is heir 
to? Shall investigation cease, or be no longer regarded as 
worthy of continuance? Or should we not rather hope, with 
Rush, that at the foot of the Alleghany, or on the banks of 
the Columbia River, if not on those of the Monongahela or 30 
Potomac, there blooms a plant which shall lessen the fatality, 
if it does not eradicate the effects, of these unrelenting mala- 
dies? The book of nature is open to our view, and the mate- 
rials of knowledge, as ever, at our disposal. It is for you to 
take advantage of the profusion with which these are scattered 
around you; and, aided by the improvements which have cha- 
racterized and distinguished, above all others, the present era, 
to direct them to their proper uses, and thereby to perfect the 
good which it was intended that your powers should produce. 
To the illustrious names of Gessner, Danbenton, Bonnet, 
Vallisneri, Camper, Blumenbach, Jurine, Vic d’Asyr, Brous- 
sonel, Dumeril, Home; Meckel, Blainville, Lamark, Law- 
rence, Carus, in comparative anatomy; as well as a host of 
others, in the three other departments that have been named, 
it remains for you to add those of your own. 
A few words must terminate all that I have to observe 
on the relations of the Classics. I say nothing of their ap- 
propriateness as food or discipline for the mind, at the season 
of life in which they are usually studied; of the insight which 
they impart as to the power of language in general and that 
of using it; of the precision of expression and thought, so 
inseparably united; the grace, simplicity, terseness, harmony 
and vigour of taste; the emotions, high resolves, self-devo- 
tion, and firm purpose, they inspire; and of all those other 
excellencies, moral and intellectual, so eloquently dwelt upon 
by those whose experience qualify them best to judge. It is 
sufficient for you to know, that if their acquirement is neces- 
sary at all to any class of individuals, it is to those who fol- 
low the learned professions, and to none more so than physici- 
ans. To the last, it is a part of the system of preparation for 
active life. This, may be, as has been alleged, factitious; but 
usage at least has made it so; and it is vain to attempt, by any 
sudden exertion, to change it. As long as the usage lasts, it 
is requisite, for all who are concerned, to comply with its con- 
ditions. For many ages the Latin was the universal medium 
of communication of the learned, while nearly all of the 
terms of the art, or of the science, are of Grecian derivation. 
Hence it is that the larger proportion of the language conse- 
crated to it, has thus, this double origin; and that, those who 31 
are entirely ignorant of them, must find numerous difficulties 
to contend with at the onset of its study, as well as many 
others, which, throughout the whole of their literary career, 
will prove no inconsiderable barriers to the full understanding 
of the works, that may fall under their perusal. Besides 
which, it may with truth, as well as suitableness, be remarked, 
that there is not one, who has attained a lasting reputation, in 
any one of its departments, who has not exhibited some testi- 
monial of having made them an object of early study. 
If a knowledge of the French was necessary in the day in 
which Gregory wrote, and pronounced it to be so, it is not less 
so now; for not only has its use become more universal now 
than then, but the custom has grown among the authors of that 
nation, the numbers of which have also greatly accumulated, of 
publishing their literary and scientific productions in the lan 
guage of their own beloved and enthusiastically lauded France. 
The same observations apply to Germany; many of the medi- 
cal communities of which are not far, if at all behind, their more 
vivacious neighbours, in the number and intellectuality of their 
works, or the importance, extent, or variety of their results. 
But, gentlemen, you greatly undervalue what our profes- 
sion has done—misapprehend the extent and depth of its con- 
dition, or its relation and influence upon the affairs of the 
world—if you suppose that what has fallen from my lips, em- 
braces all that might be said in reference to the matters which 
have at this time been brought to your notice. You have been 
presented with but an imperfect view of the horizon. The cir- 
cle is wider far; and there is much which still lies beyond it. 
Did time or space admit, or there were not just cause to fear 
that your patience has been exhausted by an effort already too 
prolonged, I might go on to exemplify others, not less interest- 
ing and important. 
I might hold up to you the connexion between it and agri- 
culture; show how it has given impetus and direction to al- 
most every branch or division of human industry, through the 
agency of scientific and literary journals and associations, con- 
tributed to the pleasures of music, poetry, painting and the 
fine arts; and held even listening senates at command. But 
it is time to conclude*’ 32 
It is possible that the effect of what has been delivered may 
he to startle some of you at the magnitude of the objects, as 
well as the extent of the preparation comprehended in the 
study; or to occasion some of you to doubt your present quali- 
fications for pursuing it; or the propriety, under present cir- 
cumstances, of continuing according to the plan you may have 
laid out for your adoption. Should it drive any of you back 
to begin where you should at first have commenced, I confess 
I shall entertain no feelings of regret. This is unavoidable, 
where a proper sense for your own welfare, as well as that of 
mankind, is not swallowed up by a criminal and insatiable pre- 
dominance of avarice, which seeks and thinks of no other than 
its own self-aggrandisement. When the works of Herodotus, 
as history informs us, were read, for the first time, by its il- 
lustrious author, in the competitions periodically excited by 
the Olympic Games, the youth Thucydides, inspired by the 
praises which were awarded to him, wept tears of emulation. 
Posterity, in justice to his own merits, which were afterwards 
displayed, enrolled his name on the same durable tablet with 
that of his predecessor. Cabanis, a name which is inscribed 
on one of the most luminous pages in the annals of medicine, 
and whose memory as a philosopher is held in conspicuous re- 
membrance, saw, in the number and diversity of the objects 
and pursuits entering into the composition of our profession, 
and in the extensive fields of research which it every where 
opened to his view, rich and nourishing food only for his ac- 
tively curious and inquiring mind. He felt that wholesome 
degree of excitation merely, which is necessary to stimulate us 
to uncommon exertion. And he, also, has had allotted to him 
a place within the temple of fame. Numerous others have 
emulated their example, and received in turn the plaudits of 
the wise and good. I cannot permit myself to doubt, that 
many of you are moved by a similar emotion, and that, having 
equally served your fellow mortals, in your day and genera- 
tion, your retirement from the world will be not less memo- 
rable or glorious.