hft
^A^o
'Vy». -^ \ ■' *
ADDRESS
TO THE
GRADUATING  CLASS
OF
RUSH MEDICAL COLLEGE,
Session of 1848—49.
l/-*ry
Bv DANIEL BRAINARD, M. D.,
    PRESIDENT OF THE COLLEGE.
■rtv
       <Sr)Uago:
 PRINTED BY DUZAN, DAVJS80N, & CO.,
CORNER OF CLARK AND EANDOLPH STS
        1849.
 
f 
.-.....-    .....X   J
ADDRESS
TO THE
GRADUATING  CLASS
OF
h
RUSH MEDICAL COLLEGE,
Session /ft 1848—49.
By DANIEL BRAINARD, M. D.,
    PRESIDENT OF THE COLLEQK.
       <#l)tcago.'
 PRINTED BY DUZAN, DAVISSON, & CO.,
CORNER OF CLARK AND RANDOLPH STS,
       1S49, 
                                     Rush Medical College, February, 18-19.

  At a meeting of the class  of Rush Medical College of 1848-9,  A. W.  Armstrong
being called to  the chau; and J. F. Weeks appointed secretary, on motion it was
unanimously
  Resolved, That a committee of nine be  appointed  to wait on Prof. Brainard, and
solicit for publication a copy of his valedictory address to the  graduating class.
  Whereupon the following gentlemen were chosen said committee, viz: G. M. Hug-
gans, Ind., O. T. Maxson and J. H Warren, Wis.. C. B. Lake and Win. W. Cavarly,
111., L. M. Mering, Ohio, J. C Macon, Iowa, R. R.  Palmer.  Mich., and W. II. Wells,
N. Y.; whereupon the meeting adjourned.
                                             A  W. ARMSTRONG, President.
  J. F. Weeks, Secretary.


Prof. Brainard :
                     Sir :—The undersigned, a committee appointed at a meeting of
the  class  of 1848-9 of Rush  Medical  College, request for publication a copy of your
very able valedictory address  to the graduating  class.  If consistent  with your
pleasure, your compliance with this request will confer a lasting favor on,
                               Very respectfully  yours,
                                                  G. M. HUGGANS,
                                                  C. B.  LAKE,
                                                  J.  C. MACON,
                                                  O. T.  MAXSON,
                                                   W. W. CAVARLY,
                                                  R. R.  PALMER,
                                                  J.  H.  WARREX,
                                                  L. M. MERING,
                                                  W.  H. WELLS.


                                                          Chicago, Feb. 23, 1849,
Gentlemen:

    Herewith I send the manuscript of my lecture requested by you.  If you think  it
worth publishing as a reminiscence of your college days, you are welcome to put it to
that use.  In any other point of view, it would be of little value.
                                           Respt ctfully your ob't serv't.,
                                                                D. BRAINARD.
  To Messrs. HvoG.VNs,and other*, Committee. 
ADDRESS.
Gentlemen:

    In performing the duty which devolves upon me on this
occasion, of giving you, along with  our  final  farewell  as
teachers,  tome  words  of  advice and  encouragement, my
thoughts naturally turn again to that profession whose duties
you are about to assume.  That they are important and diffi-
cult beyond the power of most men to perform, none will de-
ny ; that they  are  useful,  humane,  and  charitable  beyond
those  of almost any other profession is not less certain.  Our
Profession  has,  however,  its deriders; and these have more
especially directed their shafts against its  younger members;
the characters and skill of those more advanced being  too
be well known to admit of question.   It  will not, therefore,
inappropriate at this time to glance briefly  at the claims which
medical science and physicians have to public confidence and
respect, for it were well that these should  be fully impressed
upon  the minds of the  younger members at the commence-
ment  of their career.
  What has it done for the  good  of humanity?  This is  the
first question which should be asked respecting any art or sci-
ence ; for watever it  may have done  to  enrich or ennoble  its
professors, however  attractive and  delightful it may  be  in
its study or pursuit, it can scarcely be said to  possess claims
to confidence and respect, still less to the  gratitude  of man,
unless it has conferred essential benefits on the  human race.
  We inquire, then, whether physicians constitute an essen-
tial part of society, or can their services be dispensed with?
  It will  not, we suppose,  be denied that of all the evils, 
4
\ ALL DIC TORY ADDRESS.
 which afflict  man,  disease and pain  are the first and the
 greatest.    Whether  it  comes  in the  private  circle,  and
 lays its hand  upon the new-born child, blasting the budiling
 hopes of families, or seizes the mature  in years  and  mind,
 the guide  and  leader of society;  whether  it  steals in soli-
 tary dwellings, a single victim, or  stalks abroad as the pesti-
 lence, and falls upon terrified cities or  nations, disease is still
 the greatest  dread of man.   It  were beyond the  power of
 the pen to describe the sufferings of a  single individual in its
 grasp, and  when  taken in the aggregate the imagination of
 man could but faintly conceive the ills  it produces.
            Dire was the tossing, deep the  crroans,
            Despair tended the sick, and over them
            Death his dart shook but delayed to strike-
   There is  a  class of persons who deny, to a great extent,
 the necessity  of our art, because  they  say diseases  result
 from a. violation of the natural laws, and might be  obviated
 by their observance.
   Without, by any means, denying that a  violation  of the
 laws  of life is a  cause of disease,  we think that  it  by no
 means follows that they can be so observed as to entirely pre-
 vent its occurrence.   It seems  the natural inheritance of man.
 When he goes forth to brave the rude  climate of the north,
 his blood is chilled by the freezing blast; in the  tropics it is
 inflamed by the burning sun or poisoned by noxious exhala-
 tions.  The pursuit of those arts  necessary to his existence,
 leads to disease, and in the accomplishment  of those  efforts of
 mind required in all great undertakings, his  energies are bro-
 ken.   A world, where the observance of natural laws  would
 secure us against  disease, must be one when the  body never
 suffers from heat, cold, accident, or  imperfect nutrition;  where
 the mind is never subjected to  anxiety or  over  exertion, or
 the hopes to  disappointment.  It  would be  a  Paradise.  If
you live according to the best  known  rules, vou  are not se-
cure against disease; and to reproach men thus placed with
a violation  of natural  laws, is  often cruel and unjust.   It is 
VALEDICTORY  ADDRESS.
6
not true that nature is the best physician.  Inexorable nature,
like fate, heeds not the cry of the feeble but rolls on in her
iron car, regardless of the viciims crushed  in her path.  It
is to art the suffering spirit turns, and not in vain, for  relief.
   Since, then, disease is a part of the inheritance and history
of the human race, it is necessary, that a class of men should
exist for its relief—men who should  watch over it from the
beginning to the end of life, who should search out the causes
and nature of man's maladies, and soothe his sufferings in every
"lane  of life."  Such is the required assistance, and it  must
be admitted that  if anv class  does afford this, it deserves a
high rank among the useful classes of society.
   It will not be doubted by those conversant with the sub-
ject, that the accidents and  disease s  attendant upon child-
birth, are, in a great degree, within the  control of art.  In no
civilized country is the aid of medicine, under such  circum-
stances rejected;  and when we take into consideration the
debt which society owes for  aid so essential to its welfare as
that received from the art of  accouchment, we  see  at  once
its great and inestimable value.   Those even, who deny the
claims of medical science to  respect, fail not  to purloin and
apply  its principles in this  instance to as  great an extent
as their skill will permit.
   During the period of chidhood, the watchful care of art is
required to guard against the many dangers incident to that
tender  age;  and there  is,   perhaps,  none, even  among
those who oppose us, who may not be  indebted to it  for their
own health  and even their lives.
   When we come to consider  the different diseases of more
advanced years, we find the power of medicine  no less con-
spicuous.
   If we  take,.for example,  the class  of inflammatory dis-
eases, by which a  large part  of  mankind have  always pe-
rished, we find irrefrngible proofs of the utility and efficiency
of medical treatment.  Statistics  of cases of this kind  have
been given,  and  although forgery and  falsehood have been 
 5              VALEDICTORY  ADDRESS*.

 resorted to, no reliable account of cases treated by any but the
 long established  and  approved met'nods  has been given to
 show results equally  favorable.   On the  contrary,  the  con-
 stant experience  of any practical man, shows the fatal results
 of delay and inefficient treatment in such cases.
  Next in point of  fatality  to  inflammatory diseases  are
 fevers, especially in the western states; the universal experience
 of those who hear me will bear testimony to their curability
 under skilful treatment.   It is probable that there is no coun-
 try where the public is so much indebted to the profession for
 aid in restoring to health the  great body  of its  citizens, as
 with us, and if the results are still fatal in many cases,  it is
 generally  owing to the fact that circumstances do not admit
 the general application of medical treatment.
  We might go through with  the whole catalogue of diseases
 and demonstrate  that in each,  art has been found either to cure
 or greatly to mitigate their danger.
  But it is not  necessary.  I cannot,  however, forbear ad-
 verting  to the surgical division of medical science.
  More difficult,  perhaps, than any other, because  coming in
 contact  with  incurable affections,  it is, in  many respects, so
 admirable  and certain as fairly  to  challenge the  admira-
 tion  of every  reasonable mind.    What more admirable
 than  the   operation  of tying  arteries  on the  surface of
wounds? what more beautiful  than the results of skill applied
 to the reduction of dislocation  or  the treatment of fractures?
 How many thousands has it restored to the sight when blind?
to the use of their members when crippled?  It  is the most
humane, beautiful,  and  admirable of arts,  and those  who
 most streuuously deny the utility of medicine, are compelled
to admit the value of surgery.
  In prevention of diseases, the application of medical science
has been at least as  efficacious as in  their cure.   What  lan-
guage can describe, what imagination  can conceive, the bless-
ings  secured, the ills avoided by the discovery and applica-
tion of vaccination.   We  are less sensible of evils  prevented 
                VALEDICTORY  ADDRESS.             7

than of those from which we are relieved, but when we learn
that the rate of mortality at the present time, during the pre-
valence of the most fearful epidemics, as the cholera, is no
greater than the  average mortality of ordinary times but
little  more than half a century  since,  and  find that the
average duration of human  life  has doubled in  a  century,
we shall be prepared to admit the benefit which science ap-
plied to health has conferred upon the human race in the pre-
vention of disease.
   Among all its benefits there is none more striking than the
cure of the disease called mental.  An individual restored from
insanity to the use of his reason, is a noble trophy presented
by science to humanity, and there are annually thousands of
this class  to whom we might point as evidences of the value
of our art.  But when we consider  that these affections are,
in  a  great degree, transmitted  by  hereditary descent, and
that in proportion as they are neglected they  become more
numerous and inveterate, and constitute a  larger proportion
to the whole number, we perceive  more  fully the value  of
such  treatment.   Extinguish the  lights which  science has
shed  upon the darkened chambers  of the human intellect,
and you consign the unfortunate  subjects of disease to their
former rank as outcasts or  criminals—objects of dread and
disgust, without sympathy or hope.
   It seems strange, if but  a small part of these benefits are
real, that  any should doubt the  utility of medical science,  or
question the claims of physicians to respect.  It becomes us,
therefore, to  examine the  objections which  may be brought
against them.
   The  first of these, urged  from the earliest times,  is that
medicine  is uncertain.
   This objection, more or less valid  in the earlier stages of
the art, has gradually become less so, until at the present time
it has no  real value whatever.   For we have already seen
that in regard to the great majority of diseases, the effects of
particular  modes  of treatment are capable  of accurate de-
% 
8              VALEDICTORY  ADDRESS

monstration.   If it is  in many cases uhcertain, the difficulty
is  in the varying and changeful nature of the  objects with
which it deals, and not in the principles  of the science itself.
These, so far as relates  to the symptoms of disease and  the
effects of remedies  in given cases, have, within  the last half
century, been brought to  an admirable degree of perfection.
   But another objection  is, that it  cannot cure  all diseases^
Consumption, cancer, typhus fever, and other diseases,  are
beyond  your  reach.
   To this we reply, that  it is not the object or probable end
of medicine to cure all diseases; death being the allotted end
of all human beings, will  doubtless take place  through  the
means of disease.   But the cases in  which medicine  is use-
less, are yet much  fewer  than  is supposed.   Consumption is
in  a large number of cases a curable disease;  and if the conj
trary appears to be the case, it is only because from its insidi-
ous approach it is usually after organs essential  to life have
been destroyed that relief is sought.  Indeed, there  are  few
diseases in their nature incurable ; they mostly become so by
neglect, and of these the  number is daily becoming smaller.
   When a cure is  not to be effected, there still remains  the
alleviation of suffering,  the cheering and sustaining  of  the
restless  sufferer  under disease, which are  among the most
precious services which man can render to his  suffering  fel-
low-man.
   Such are the services which the medical profession through-
out the  civilized world  daily renders.   In every  climate, in
every place, wherever  disease is  found, there  is a  physi-
cian strvingto lelieve it; and  whether successful or not, his
mission is nevertheless divine  and  charitable, soothing and
consoling  beyond the power of words to express.  Such is
the science you profess,  and so noble  is  the  work on which
you are bound.  Beware of them who would draw you from
it, or make you undervalue its  ministrations.  They are dis-
appointed candidates for eminence in some useful way, nar-
9 
VALEDICTORY  ADDRESS.
9
row  minds which cannot embrace a  subject so extensive, or
apply in practice an art requiring so much skill.
 Medical science embraces every known method of curing dis-
ease.  Whatever may be the principle, if it be found useful
it is  adopted.   The  true physician, therefore, cannot select  a
partial class of remedies exclusively, or devote himself to  a
single idea to the rejection of all others.   He  seeks out and
adopts every improvement; his motto is, progress; his course
is  onward, but he advances by the path  of experiment and
induction, not by that of imagination or conjecture.
   But whence comes it  that  empiricism thrives, that  false
theories prevail, that absurd systems are built up ?  It results
from two  causes: first, the power  of falsehood, which, by
means of the facilities of giving notoriety and  practising im-
position, is enabled to fatten and thrive upon public credulity.
It is  useless to expect that this will ever be otherwise, so long
as knavery and folly exist together in the  world.
   But the  second cause is  of a different nature, and is sus-
ceptible to a great degree of being remedied.   It consists in
the wide difference  between medicine as a science, and  its
application to practice.  If, as a general  rule, patients when
they called upon a  physician, received all the relief which
the art of medicine is capable of affording, there would, it is
probable, be  but little  reason to complain of the public pre-
ference to  quackery in so  large a number of  cases.   But  it
happens, unfortunately, that this so far from being the case, is
the rare exception.   How few do we find thoroughly skilled
in a single  branch of the art.  How much more rare to find
one  acquainted with all.  But the public are obliged to judge
of it from what they see of its  application to practice. Every
false diagnosis, every failure to arrive at the most appropriate
remedy, every error of judgment, is by them circulated as  an
evidence of  the uncertainty or insufficiency  of  medicine.
Here we see that a  great part of the evils of which we com-
plain, a large proportion of the inconveniences we suffer,  exist
in the profession itself.   For if we believe that the science of
              2 
10
VALEDICTORY ADDRESS.
medicine has attained a high degree of perfection, and that
its skilful and qualified practitioners are among the most use-
ful of men, we must admit that the unskilful and ignorant are
its opprobrium, and fully as likely to be nuisances as useful
in their vocation.
  These facts have long been felt, and so  much so of late
that, a general and combined effort, through the medium of a
National Medical Association, has been made for their  re-
moval.  What will be the result of its action, it is difficult to
say;  whether  it  will  accomplish the work of  reform, or
whether it will but represent the conservative  influence of
the profession, remains to be seen.
  The recommendation to lengthen  the lecture terms—the
most  important  it  has yet  made—seems to be regarded in
many quarters as of doubtful propriety.  It is in imitation of
the courses of European  schools, where  the instruction, ex-
tending through a longer period of time; is composed of about
the same number of lectures as with us.  But in  their case
the attention of the student is in the mean time occupied by
attendance upon hospital practice and  private courses, so as
to fill the whole period of time fully as much as it is occupied
during the few months in this country. Whether the increase
of the time of attending lectures, without any other additional
facilities for obtaining instruction, is likely to prove very ben-
eficial, is extremely doubtful.  It would seem that the lectures
already occupy a sufficient share of the time and attention of
the student.  They are aids, but by no means substitutes for
study, dissections, and  observations at the  bed side  of the
patient; and it would seem that these latter should be the
parts of medical  education to whose improvement attention
should be more especially directed.  It is not theoretical, but
practical knowledge and skill which is deficient.   No doubt a
proper acquaintance with  medical literature is desirable ; no
doubt an attendance upon lectures greatly facilitates the ac-
quisition  of knowledge; yet when these are unaccompanied 
VALEDICTORY  ADDRESS.
11
by clinical teaching, they are far from  making practical phy-
sicians.
  The art of observation, which lies at  the  foundation of all
practical skill, is learned and can  only be acquired at the bed
side.   Here, if we mistake not, lies the great evil  and defect
of our system of education.  It is not  that  our lectures are
not well attended, or  that as a general  rule the lectures are
not sufficiently instructive; it consists in a want of the means
of familiarizing the student with  the forms  of disease—in a
habit of passing too rapidly and superficially over the differ-
ent branches he should pursue.
   The plan for a national association of delegates, seems to
have  been  a fortunate one.   Even  whether the measures it
adopts are  sufficient to remedy the evils complained of or not,
it will have the advantage of arousing public attention, and of
directing it to the proper means of effecting  that object.   It is
here, if we mistake not, that the source of improvement is to
be  found.   If physicians are not properly educated at the
present time, it is assuredly due in a great measure to the fact
that public opinion in the profession has been wrong  on this
point, and  young men have  been taught to believe that two or
three years' study in  the office of a  physician,  and attending
a course of lectures, was not only sufficient to enable them to
"get along,"  but was a 1 beral allowance of instruction.  It
certainly was a great improvement on the system which pre-
ceded it, for then nothing more was required than  that a stu-
dent  should appfy to a  judge of a court, who in the exercise
of his discretion could  grant a license  to practice.   At that
time  a large number of practitioners never  witnessed dissec-
tions, and there were even many who  never saw  a skeleton.
If we compare the period of which we are  speaking—not by
any means remote—when medical books in circulation were
scarce  and imperfect, when medical schools were few and
distant from each other, and the attendance  upon a course of
lectures a  rare exception, and hospital attendance almost un-
known, with the present, in which the  press teems with ela- 
12
VALEDICTORY  ADDRESS.
borate works, in which schools are multiplied and attendance
upon  two courses of lectures with frequent dissections and
clinical instruction, are required,  surely we cannot fail to per-
ceive  the rqpid advances which have been made, nor to look
forward to the future with confident and well founded antici-
pation of further improvement.
  Those who complain of the degenerate state of the profes-
sion  in  recent  times, must, it seems to  us,  have  failed  to
imbibe its spirit.  They cannot be aware of the vast strides
which it has almost yearly made; it is they alone who are
benighted.
  Our own country has shared honorably and largely in the
general  activity and improvements, although its medical cha-
racter and literature are far from having attained  that high
national standard which they should acquire.  We are  de-
pendent too much on foreign works, even as text books ; but
there  are indications of a favorable change in  this respect.
  The  western states have been  the  theatre of far greater
advancement in the character and intelligence  of the medi-
cal  profession, than  any other  part of this  country.  From
having  had a  few  years since  but two or three  medical
schools, there  are  at present at least a dozen ;  and with-
out instituting a comparison between  these and other schools,
we  may safely claim that the teachers in them are as capable
of teaching practical medicine in the  diseases of the country
in  which they  reside, as those at a distance   who have
never seen  them ;  and they give advantages  of  public in-
s.ruction yearly to hundreds of  young men  who  otherwise
would be entirely deprived of it.  The idea of  a  country  or
a part of a country being dependent upon another for its edu-
cated men in any branch of science,  implies an inferiority in
intelligence which is not for a moment to be tolerated  as  ap-
plied  to the west.
  The statement has recently been  made by a Dr. Holmes,
Professor in a not very flourishing medical school at Boston,
that  the multiplication  of  medical  schools  at the west is 
VALEDICTORY ADDRESS.
13
doing great mischief in the profession.  Whether this opinion
was formed  after a full  consideration of the wants of the
western states, and an acquaintance with the schools them-
selves, or whether it  was but the expression  of a prevalent
impression, founded upon what  the  west  was  some  years
since, we have not the means of knowing; but we feel assured
in either case that it cannot  be sustained after considering the
facts of the case.  The western states have heretofore  been
supplied,  to a very considerable extent,  with their  medical
practitioners from the country schools of New England. These
setting aside the fact that their professors possessed no acquint-
ance with the peculiar diseases of this region, afforded no
opportunity for  clinical instruction, and  in  many cases their
rules admitted of graduation  after two  courses of  lectures,
both attended during the same year, without reference to the
term of study.   Under these  circumstances, medical schools
have been established  in  various cities and towns of the
western states, possessing every facility for affording medical
instruction.   The right to do  so is clear, and the good policy
of this course is equally evident.
  For a country, possessing all the advantages for  containing
a large population, calculated  from its extent and situation to
be the centre and great body of the republic of which  New
England will soon be but a  a  small appendage,  inhabited by
a population composed of a fusion of the different European
races, and brought, under favorable circumstances,  to a de-
gree  of activity and enterprise unequalled  elsewhere—for
such a country,  with all its advantages, to be dependent upon
some villages a thousand miles off for its physicians, would
certainly present an anomaly in the general  order of things,
which nothing but an inability to observe and teach  success-
fully could explain.  We  need not say that no  deficiency of
this kind exists, and that the  western  states  have abundant
talent  of native growth, and names among her professional
men known  and deservedly honored throughout  the  whole
country.
  We are not of the number  who think that the increase of 
It
VALEDICTORY ADDRESS.
medical schools is likely  to be attended with any very injuri-
ous effects upon the public or the profession.   If it be true
that the great difficulty in the way of the profession consists
in a want of  sufficient  qualifications, it seems but natural to
suppose  that  by the increase of schools  a larger number of
persons might be qualified to perform the duties with success.
   It is certain that until some mode is adopted by which to
open  the roads  to  eminence equally to  the  profession at
large, no other remedy for the evils of monopoly can be found
but the indefinite multiplication of medical schools. Nor does
it seem probable that the number is likely to exceed the wants
of the community to so great an extent as many suppose.  In
the new states, the labors of the physician  are extremely ar-
duous ; they  are  often  so  severe  as  speedily to impair his
health, and the inducements to draw him from professional to
other  occupations are numerous.   The fields for the exercise
of professional skill are daily increasing in extent.   But a few
years  since,   the place  we inhabit  was  on  the extreme
verge of civilization, and stretching far away to the west was
a desert scarcely trodden by the foot of civilized man.  Now
the emigrant turns from our crowded streets, and well-peopled
prairies  to the  far distant shores  of the  Pacific  ocean,
where his hopes, taught by the recent  history of the western
states, paint cities, towns, and a thriving land—the home of
freedom and  the arts—as about to  rise  and  expand before his
view.  To you,  young gentlemen, about to enter upon the
practical duties  of life  in  a profession so  useful, honorable,
and charitable as ours, life  seems  to present attractions not
often  found in  similar  circumstances.  The field of useful-
ness is rich—vast as the ambition of man  can desire.   Your
life, if you worthily follow your profession, is to  be one of
perpetual charity, of daily relief to suffering. Let me urge
you never to  forget those pure and honorable principles which
should ever guide and characterize  men  entrusted  with  so
important an office—fidelity and strict  attention to those en-
trusted to  your  care, respect  for your professional brethren,
and above all, a regard for the character and usefulness of the 
                VALEDICTORY  ADDRESS.              1.3

profession.  Your character and interests are henceforth iden-
tified with it.  In proportion as  you  devote  yourself to it,
will be the return you may expect to receive.  Set your mark
high.  Fear no obstacles ;  let the one object of eminence and
usefulness be always before  your mind.   Whatever you de-
termine on now, if  followed  out  with  suitable perseverance,
you will scarcely fail to accomplish.   Whatever may be the
result, no pursuit is more worthy  of occupying your lives than
the acquisition of knowledge and its  application to the relief
of human suffering.
   For us who have aided  you, according to our means  and
ability, in your progress thus far, our desire for your welfare
and our efforts for the dissemination of knowledge and correct
principles, will not be relaxed but followed up with renewed
vigor.  It is now seven years since the germ  of our medical
college was planted. Six individuals were found willing to
listen to the teachings of a private course at that time upon a
 single seat;  the next year another was added, and the  third
year some  twenty persons were  in attendance upon our
course.   By some these early efforts  were regarded as  pre-
mature, by others as altogether misplaced; yet the  progress
of events has shown that the time and place were well chosen.
Step by step has the school advanced, until its alumni consti-
tute a large  body of the most respectable practitioners  of a
wide extent of country.  Their students constitute our classes
in a great measure; and our infant  institution has already ac-
quired a developement  which is a guarantee of its future ad^
vancement.  It is associated with  the destinies of a  great
and powerful city,  and  its prosperity and continuance will be
commensurate with her growth and duration.   It can never
perish.  Like a ship entrusted to the sea with  bright sunshine
and smiling skies, in its course it must meet with storms ; the
winds may rage against it, the waves may beat upon it, dark
clouds  may gather  above, and rocks  rise beneath  it, but it
will come in safety through every danger to the  protected
waters of the distant haven. 
?^2s^^Sg&fi3&}^
                  TO THE
GRADUATING  class  of  rush  medical
                COLLEGE.
    SUNG  FEBRUARY  22,  1849.
  WRITTEN BY HENRY A. CLARK, ESQ.

Long years of anxious toil and care,
  At length have passed away;
/iii.' now, with pride, wo bid j on brar,
  The honoi-s if this day—
Marks of our warm esteem for you—
O! prove in life our trust is true.

Go forth upon your mission high!
  Go cheer the sufferer's bed;
Bid sorrow's tears and anguish fly;
  And raise the mourner's head;
With science anned, contend  with death—
Restore  anew life's passing breath.

Call back to beauty's pallid cheek,
  Its loveliness and bloom;
Bid love's fond light her eye reseek,
  And save her from the tomb !
Heal, by the magic of your art,
Thebleedln-• u;ul the broken heart!

When madness chains the throbbing brain
  With dark cloudd, gathering o'er,
Bid ini jd to reign supreme again,
  Bright,—glorious, as; before;
Wave o'er his head your magic rod—
Restore  the image of your God.

And when beyond your aid or power,
  The sufferer yields his breath,
Stand by him in that fearful hour;
  And cheer the bed of death;—
Light up the shadow and the gloom,
That chill the pathway to the  tomb.

A lofty mission this of thine,
  A proud gj and a brave;
Next unto thr.
  Whou*c Ine,
:^^3Wi5p^Sf;
^5^2<