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THE
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INAUGURAL ADDRESS,
DELIVERED BEFORE THE
iMbneftipn flc^9eh)jj of lYfedicioe,
JANUARY 20, 1853,
J. A. McVICKAR

    /. NEW-YORK. 'O
:ar, M.D., fC

ANGELL, ENGEL & HEWITT, PRINTERS, 12 FRANKFORT-ST
            1853. 
 
ADDRESS.
Gentlemen of the Hahnemann Academy :

  We are members of a profession, which, for moral dignity
and usefulness to man, is second to none, save  only that of
the Christian ministry. To its care and vigilance are confided
the happiness and well-being of the community in the essential
department of life and health.   We are physicians; to the
healing art we have committed our all of fame and worldly
hopes.  We do well to be emulous in such a service; we may
reasonably be  jealous and  watchful  for the honor of our
profession.
  It is true that the history of our art presents a  dark  and
dispiriting retrospect; but, thanks to one  whose  name we
cherish in the title of our association, and who has left  to the
world an enduring legacy  in the fruits of his genius  and
industry, the last page  of that history shines with a brightness
which makes visible the darkness of the past, and throws a
strong and cheering light well forward into  the future.  As
we  rally  under the venerated name of Hahnemann,  let us
emulate his spirit;  and strive to provoke for his memory the
gratitude  of the world,  by practical demonstrations of the
truth and beauty of his great discovery, and  by extending the
range of its benefits.
  The advancement of medicine, or the healing art, which the
constitution of our Academy declares to be the  object for
which it  was  organized, presupposes a  present state or con-
dition to be improved,  in reference to its peculiar purpose or
end;  and  reasonably indicates, as subjects meriting our atten-
tion, everything which directly or  indirectly affects its means
and  opportunities for  fulfilling its mission—the  healing of
the  sick.  Certainly not the least in importance  amongst the 
4
INAUGURAL ADDRESS.
agencies which would favor or resist the benevolent purposes
of medicine, is the estimation in which it and the profession
are held by those it aims to benefit.
  Conceiving it, therefore, a matter perfectly legitimate to the
sphere of our duties, and not  inappropriate to the occasion, I
have selected as the theme of the present address, " The Social
Position of Medicine; on what that position depends,  and
how it can be improved."
  Not longer  ago than 1846, the  medical profession seemed
to have become suddenly and painfully conscious of a declen-
sion of their influence and  position in  the world, and as
suddenly to have jumped to a conclusion as to the causes of
their fall, and the remedy.   A quotation from a respectable
periodical published at that time, reputed to have been under
the auspices of one of our chartered medical institutions in
this city, and avowedly the  organ of an association then in
process of organization, will put the case fully  before you.
The words are these,  "the  science  of medicine stands  low
enough in public  opinion,  and the  preference so generally
given to quackery  and deceit  over  philosophy  and candor,
conclusively shows towards which side it now inclines." * * *
"The time has come when something must be done to change
the character of the profession;  owing to accidental circum-
stances, but mainly to the rampancy of quackery, the public
have but little confidence in our profession."
  These sentiments  seem to have  been  received as  " ex
cathedra," and adopted in mass by nearly the whole allopathic
school,  not only  in this city,  but throughout  the land;—
certainly they have endorsed them by their acts, and thereby
made them public property for all purposes of criticism.   In
this view alone—as the expressed sentiments of the allopathic
branch of the medical profession—I propose to analyse them;
and I must be distinctly understood, before proceeding farther,.
that in what I have to offer on the subject no personal appli-
cation or direction has been  or is meditated, and none must.
be inferred.
  We have here four distinct propositions:
  1st. The science of medicine stands low in public opinion. 
INAUGURAL ADDRESS.
5
  2d. The public have but little confidence in our profession.
  3d. Accidental circumstances and quackery  are the causes
of the two first; and,
  4th. The necessity of doing something  to change the cha-
racter of the profession as the remedy.
  Taking them up as the sentiments and views of the profes-
sion, then, I say, we cannot endorse them.  On the contrary,
we owe it to truth, to the public, and to our own reputation, even
at the risk of being accused of  a radical or heretical spirit, to
scrutinize severely so grievous a charge  against the public,
so damning a confession  from the profession, before we give
it our sanction, come with what weight of authority it  may.
   Gentlemen, up to  this moment we are responsible for the
sanction of our silence.   My counsel is,  that we  rest under
that  responsibility no longer.  Lend your  attention, if you
please, to  the consideration of these several propositions in
 detail.
   First. The science of medicine stands-low in public opinion.
 This we may safely  pronounce  monstrous, incredible, and
 inadmissible.   The multiplied  evidences of  insanity and folly
 which pain our senses every day might  justify the belief, if
 an individual, or even a limited community, were charged
 with refusing respect to science, but that the public, the great
 body of the human family, are so sunk down into a miserable
 fatuity, is harder  to be believed than many things which
 those who think themselves wise pronounce impossible.
   But let us inquire whether, by the  term science, as here
 used, was meant the same thing as that to which I refer, and
 which it would be an act of treason to the intellect and reason
 to repudiate.  Having for its subject man, the most complex,
 the most  perfect piece of mechanism which the world has
 ever beheld,  embodying in one slight form  a  contribution
 from every kingdom, an example of every  law, a demonstra-
 tion of every force in nature; and this form so  exquisitely
 fitted, so delicately balanced, constantly exposed to uncounted
 influences striving  to  disturb  its functions,  almost every
 natural science pays tribute  to the art of medicine; more
 emphatically, perhaps,  anatomy, physiology, and chemistry. 
6
INAUGURAL ADDRESS.
  But neither of these is the science of medicine.  The science
of anatomy is no more the science of medicine than is that of
natural philosophy;  nor the science  of physiology or che-
mistry than that of hydrostatics.   Each of these is a distinct
science of itself, and all are but auxiliaries to the art.  Besides,
none of these, nor all of them, could have been contemplated
for  each of them stands deservedly high in public regard.
  The science of medicine  must, of  necessity,  like  other
sciences, be distinct and perfect in itself—a system of princi-
ples and laws which shall account for  and explain the phe-
nomena of disease and its cure—the laws of relation between
diseases and  their causes, and diseases and their remedies; by
which the art of medicine—the application  of the means of
cure—must be  governed.   Had the  allopathic school pos-
sessed this, we should know at  once what was meant by the
term ; had they possessed it, this  charge would never have
been made ; had they possessed it, the occasion for making it
would not have existed.
  But they do not pretend to it.  A respectable and accredited
teacher of medicine and  surgery in that school, not fifteen
years ago,  declares, in his writings, that medicine, after its
boasted two thousand years, is but  " a complicated art, with
scarcely any  fixed  principles,"  and that "since the time of
Celsus very little improvement has taken place in medicine;
and if we take the weaker parts of Celsus,  as, for example,
the absurd variety which characterises  some of his prescrip-
tions, we shall not have much difficulty, at the present day,
in discovering similar violations of all rules by which anything
like a philosophical investigation of the effects of remedies
can be conducted."
  Now, as it is evident that, in the use  of the term science of
medicine, reference was not had to  what that branch of the
profession did not claim, so it is  equally certain that it did
refer to something they had, and  on which  they rested their
superior claim to respect and  confidence—and that was the
art  of medicine based upon experience—empirical .art.  What
advantage, then, may I  ask, can they claim over the vulgar
empiric or Indian doctress at  the bedside of the sick ?  None, 
INAUGURAL ADDRESS.                   7
save in a better education in auxiliary  sciences, and a more
extensive experience.   They equally appeal, and appeal with
equal justice,  I  do not say with  equal  force,  to experience,
and the plea is good.   "Experientia docet" is a maxim which
all can understand and all appreciate; while uMedicus sum"
unfortunately  has  not always proved  a  reliable voucher.
Gentlemen, we cannot upon such evidence  endorse the accu-
sation against the public, that they depreciate science.
  The history of medicine  exhibits this peculiarity, that, up
to the  present century, the art has undergone  less change,
while it  has  suffered  greater vicissitudes than  any other
department of human learning or labor.   It is  a history  of
progress without advancement, of devious wanderings within
a circle in pursuit of the shifting light of an ignus fatuus, till
the number, absurdity, and inconsistency of its successive and
antagonistic theories,  might readily suggest to the  imagina-
tion the presiding  influence of some maniac demon over its
destinies.   And yet Nature's  law of cure, like the law  of
gravitation, existed from the foundation of  the world, direct-
 ing and controlling all phenomena within  its department of
 Nature's works ; like  it, undiscoverable but by  pure philo-
 sophical induction—the one approved and only road; like it,
 pointing for the proofs of its genuineness to the past, the present,
 and the future.  In the absence of the knowledge of Nature's
 laws, the imagination vainly wanders over floating fields of
 wonderful  but disjointed facts; with  it, harmonious  order
 reigns, the mystery of what has been is  resolved, what is to
 be can be safely anticipated.   Without Hahnemann's beauti-
 ful discovery,  experience  derived from the  observation  of
 phenomena is the sole and very  limited  guide of which our
 art can boast.  In it, we possess the key to these phenomena,
 and, in the language of an eminent statesman and jurist, that
 which gave to medicine the first shadow of claim to take her
  place  amongst the exact sciences.  Without it, medicine is
 but an empirical art, which the  public may judge, and, if
 needs be, condemn ; but science is  above the influence and
  independent of the world's favor and its frowns. 
■'■3
INAUGURAL ADDRESS.
   The second proposition is, "Thepublic have but little confi-
'dence in our prof ession?
   The standing of any profession would naturally rise  and
sink with the reputation of their art.  But let us examine the
medical profession itself, to learn if their own minds may not
have exaggerated the actual declension of their  position, or
admitting it to the full, how far  their own acts may have
contributed  to it.  A man, individually  or in his profession,
may deceive himself as  to his  real importance in respect of
those around him, and his pride may  receive a stunning  fall,
by an accidental circumstance simply  awakening  him to the
reality of his position, without the world being conscious of
any  sudden or special change   in their estimation  of him.
The  pride and sensitiveness  of physicians as a  class  is, we
know, proverbial; and the idea that medicine is their exclusive
right and prerogative, when in fact they are only its ministers
to the public,  seems to  have become almost a part of their
very being.   The world, however, does not so regard it,  and
rightly;  but metes  out to them,  as to  others, just  the amount
of credit  and distinction to  which their merits may entitle
them.  Accordingly, if they  assumed a position  which they
were afterwards unable to maintain, they subjected themselves
to the very casualty here complained  of, and became almost
the willing sport of accident.
   The days  of professional wigs and gold-headed canes—when
mere external insignia secured  deference—have  gone by to
the  profession; and we are come into democratic,  merit-
weighing times, in which science commands a premium, but
empty pretensions are at a discount.  The  sentiments  of the
age,  at any rate in this country, cannot be  better expressed
than in the  quaint but forcible  language of the day—" Birth
and parentage are of no account when compared  with a good
bringing-up," and, " The value of a thing is what it will fetch."
   The arrogance of the medical profession, however, has a
story.  We  are often forced to look  back to infancy to solve
the riddle of a life, and rarely fail to  find the thread in some,
perhaps  trifling circumstance,  which, operating  just  at the
fitting moment, has changed the current of its destiny.  The 
INAUGURAL ADDRESS.
9
history  of medicine offers no exception to the rule.  More
than two thousand years ago heathen Greece, according to the
best dictates of her dark mythology, deified her JEsculapius
and installed his  disciples Priests.   Looked at from  this
remote  and enlightened period,  it may seem a very slight
and unimportant matter, that, before medicine had dreamed
of a science, her journeymen  and apprentices should  have
been clothed with the highest honors, and invested with irre-
sponsible power—
         " Should for those arts mere instinct could afford,
         Be crowned as monarchs, or as gods adored—"
but it requires  no great stretch of the imagination to follow
this mischievous thread, by its mischievous effects, through
the whole interval of time, down to the present.  Tor as their
first acts were despotic, so have their last aimed to be tyran-
nical, and both have  been immoral.  The first were based
upon ignorance  and  superstition;  secluding medicine in
mystery,  and with affected sanctity commanding a servile
reverence and  submission; the  last was founded upon an
imagined or most overrated social necessity; over-estimating
as usual, their own importance, and the world's dependence,
they have presumed to dictate to the public insulting terms
of  submission,  and to thunder  their threats  of  excommu-
nication against all who shall dare to transgress their sovereign
will.  No disease, however  critical or obscure, however pain-
ful or dangerous, can have their aid in counsel, if the attending
physician be a disciple of Hahnemann.   Let his  academic
and legal credentials  be ever so perfect,  his learning and
experience  ever so profound,  his  moral  character ever so
pure, his professional  relations to the sufferer ever so dear,
whether earned  by success, where others had  as signally
failed, or by self-denying devotion in hours of  peril, if he has
honestly tried,  and proving has approved the law—the first
law discovered  in medicine  which gave it a shadow of claim
to rank amongst the exact sciences, their  fiat is,  " he must
be dismissed."  Not because he is unworthy, for he was late
one of themselves, and perhaps one of the first; not because
he is incompetent, for he has added knowledge to knowledge; 
10                 INAUGURAL ADDRESS.
but because true art and empirical art differ as essentially in
their practice as in their claims to public confidence.
  Rejecting facts unexamined because they  are inconvenient
to old prejudices, and answering'arguments  by ridicule and
invective, are vulgar and senseless follies, but by no means of
recent adoption by the pseudo-regular profession; so that the
plea of quackery and accidental circumstances, if admitted,
will not justify, nor the present exigency of their case excuse
it.  It has been their standing policy—their reserve force—
for  all similar emergencies, as the annals of medicine, the
veriest record of persecutions and sufferings as the rewards
for  great discoveries in medicine, can testify.
  It is but little  more than two hundred years since the circu-
lation of the blood was discovered and demonstrated by the
immortal Harvey.  This  discovery,  setting at nought the
previous .cherished theory of the  doctors,  that the arteries
were occupied by the animal  spirits, (because found empty
after  death,) brought  down  upon  the  devoted head  of its
discoverer, the utmost virulence of abuse and ill-treatment
that malignity could  invent.  So, too, with  Pare, who intro-
duced into surgery the practice of tying arteries to arrest the
flow of blood after amputations, in place of the barbarous
application  of the hot iron,  or boiling oil  and resins to the
amputated stump, which before had been the only resource,
and the uncertainty and cruelty of which practice had induced
some surgeons to prefer the slower and safer  course of stran-
gulating the limb they wished to remove,  by ligature, and
allowing it to mortify and fall off.  The author of this inval-
uable improvement in surgery, was forced to keep it hidden
in his own bosom for  years, by the stupidity, obstinacy, and
tyranny of the  faculty;  and was  enabled to publish it when
he did, years after he had demonstrated its  feasibility,  only
by  royal partiality.  A disgusting exhibition of the degree of
folly  and wickedness to which conceit  and prejudice  may
drive a sect.
  Such things were and  are.  I might recite to you from the
histories of vaccination,  and many other remedial  blessings
vouchsafed  by  kind  heaven  to  mitigate human  suffering^ 
INAUGURAL ADDRESS.
11
which have been  arrested in their  course, and detained in
their merciful career by the ignorance and selfishness of the
profession. But I forbear; enough, I think, has been submitted
to show, that, whereas the art of medicine is acknowledged to
have  changed but little since  the  days of Celsus, the body
which calls itself  "the regular profession" has changed less,
whether we look at it in its philosophy or in its morality; and
if the public has, as has been confessed, but  little confidence
in the  empirical  branch of the profession, it is certainly not
without reason.   Our experience, however,  if I am  a com-
petent judge, will not justify our uniting in a wholesale con-
fession which would include us all.  We only demand, and
 society is willing to accord to  us the respect and confidence
 which is due to an honest and earnest application of a noble art.
   This brings us to the third proposition, the supposed  cause
 of the public having but little confidence  in the medical
 profession; to wit, "Accidental circumstances, but  mainly
 the rampancy of quackery."
   The proneness of the human mind to attribute the miscar-
 riage of its schemes, or the disappointment of its hopes to
 anything and  everything but that  which would send the
 blame homeward, is confined to no class, condition, or calling.
 A dilemma such as we are considering, is just in point,  and
 displays  this  human weakness  exercising its ingenuity to
 escape from a responsibility by seeming to fix it somewhere
 else, yet implicating no person nor thing.
    "Accidental  circumstances," however, means something,
 indefinite as it is, and indefinite as it was intended here to be.
 The term conveys the idea of events which are too well known
 to require more than an allusion; or too numerous to repay
 the enumeration  ; or, again, so entirely casual that the sufferer
 was  altogether irresponsible, both  for the occurrences and
 their irresistible  effects.   If not referable to any of these con-
 ditions, its use must be set down as an evasion or a quibble.
    I  have endeavored, with all the care which a just criticism
 demands, to recall, if possible,  something which occurred or
 existed about that time, to which the expression " accidental
 circumstances," in this connection,  could be applied.    But, 
12                 INAUGURAL ADDRESS.
 although in reference to the occurrences of that period,  as
 affecting medicine, I can feelingly  say, in the words of the
 poet, " qumque ipse miserrim.a vidi, et quorum pars magna
fui," I declare to you that I can call up nothing to which the
 application could, reasonably, or by any stretch of  charity,
 be made.
   " Quackery" is another term of vague signification, but  of
 most suicidal import, when urged as a plea by the medical pro-
 fession.  As well might a  gardener excuse the unproductive-
 ness of his grounds by pointing to its weeds, or the housewife
 reflect censure upon the vermin which breed by her  neglect,
 as doctors raise  the cry  of quackery to cover their defeat.
 Quackery is the  fruit, and strongest evidence of their  art's
 defects.  It is the counterfeit of what science should,  but has
 failed  to provide.    It is  the  straw which drowning hope
 seizes upon, while it curses the necessity.  Tell it not  that
 quackery is indigenous to  medicine, and found nowhere  else.
 Where true art is, quackery cannot live.  True art is based
 on laws ; laws are  the plummet  and the line, the touchstone
 and the test by which all claims are tried, the truth endorsed,
 and all false  tokens nailed to the counter to  circulate no
 more.
   To charge the discredit of Medicine to accidental  circum-
 stances and quackery, is a  base slander upon society, besides
 being, as a defence, ridiculously puerile and absurd.
   The  fourth  and last  proposition' is, " The  time has come
 when something must be done to change  the character of the
 profession^
   With all  the knowledge  had  of the medical profession,  of
 their views of the nature and degree  of the evil under which
 they supposed themselves suffering, and of the imagined
 causes  of that evil,  I venture  to affirm that it would have
 defied all legitimate inference, and left every conclusion  at
 fault, in any attempt to find out the change in the character
 of the  profession that was contemplated in this proposition,
 and the process by which it was  to be effected and main-
 tained, had we not witnessed the  operation in its  inception
 and progress. 
INAUGURAL ADDRESS.
13
   Who could have imagined so improbable a thing, as that a
body so proud, so dignified, so  sensitive to the  crowd (the
profanum vulgus), boasting, too, the title of a liberal profes-
sion,  and  looking  with  horror  upon  everything which
connected the idea of trade with their profession, so far forget-
ting their propriety as to put that profession upon a level with
the lowest trades, and  themselves with journeymen  artisans,
by organising a Medical Trades- Union I—a combination to
force employers to their terms, and to shut out the  competi-
tion of all who should decline  submitting to the requirements
and rules of the order.
   It is useless to attempt to oppose this construction by point-
ing to the  stereotyped avowal of that  association: "The
 improvement of Medicine, and the elevation of the Profes-
 sion."  That is but the conventional  flag which every craft
 carries at her peak on  leaving  port, and is easily lowered or
 run up as  occasion suits.  Showing  an honest  signal is  of
 small avail when actions witness to the contrary.
    If quackery furnished the necessity, why did they not unite
 years before to put it down ?   No,  no, it was  not  quackery,
 rampant nor couching, against which they would  war.   It
 was against Homoeopathy, though  they deemed it prudent to
 disguise the name.   No arbitrary classification can change
 the nature  of a thing,  or  make it  what it is  not.   Placing
 Homoeopathy by the side of quackeries in  an artificial and
 unauthorised arrangement cannot make it quackery, when it
 does not possess a solitary element  of what is understood or
 implied by that opprobrious term.   It recognises no nostrum,
 deals  in no secrecy,  but displays its treasures and courts
 inquiry.    The  fact that no charge  has ever been brought
 against the school specifying a breach of professional decorum,
 is conclusive evidence that quackery is not their crime.
    No opprobrium was attached to the practice of Homoeopa-
 thy till recently.  The sect had existed in their midst for years,
 but the allopathic body had  not  as  yet suffered  materially
 by its presence, and they could afford to meet their homoeo-
 pathic brethren cordially and upon equal terms, and, except
 an occasional harmless joke, nothing  would have  indicated 
14                 INAUGURAL ADDRESS.
that any difference of sentiment existed.   They did not blush
even to ask counsel of them in cases of disease which  had
resisted empirical treatment—and  I will venture to say they
never asked in vain.   Homceopathists were  and are ready
to meet them whenever the  common  enemy—disease—is to
be opposed, or humanity demands  their aid,—holding, as in
duty bound, their  knowledge and experience to be a sacred
trust for the benefit of others.  Do I misrepresent you, gentle-
men ?' I know that I do not.
  To return from this  digression, the harmony  which then
existed might have continued unbroken, and  quackery gone
unrebuked indefinitely, had Homoeopathy remained as it
was—within the narrow limits  which it  had thus far occu-
pied.   But in the nature of things it  could  not, and already
it was observed making its way, surely and rapidly,  into
larger and more influential circles.  The assurance had been
reiterated  and re-echoed that its lay-adherents were only the
weak and  the imaginative, who  are  ever  on the alert for
something new or  fanciful, and who would  be ready to  for-
swear their allegiance upon the first appearance of danger;
that its doom was certain and  near at hand, under the stern
ordeal of reason and experience.   They counted without their
host.   A  change was  working, a change  which has since
given more aid and comfort to  the cause  than any other one
thing could have done, and  has effectually  blunted their
childish weapons—ridicule and abuse.  It was engaging the
attention and convincing the reason of educated and strong-
minded men, until now we count its advocates by hundreds
from the bench, the bar, and the pulpit.
  Such a breast-work, I need not  say, is  impregnable to all
the puny  weapons which  malevolence can  invent, or the
imagination fabricate.  Facts must there be  combatted by
facts, reason by reason; and, without a total change of arma-
ment, a combined assault in solid  column, in the  shape of an
association, possesses but little  advantage over individual or
guerilla warfare.
  It is, however, unnecessary to dwell upon their strategy or
their tactics.  We needed not to be told, what their abortive 
INAUGURAL ADDRESS.                 15
attempts at legislation proved to  their discomfiture, that  no
excluding act can be framed, which  can legally shut us out
(individually) from any  medical  association which rests  its
qualifications for membership  upon  professional regularity.
Regularly  educated,  holding  the  regular  legal diplomas,
having  regularly conformed to all the requirements of law
and usage,  and  chargeable with no irregularity,  save,  by
misconstruction, this, that we  apply a law of nature in our
art, if we are disfranchised, it must and can be only  upon
this fact.  Herding us with quacks and ignorant pretenders,
that they might surreptitiously  exclude  us, was an act of
violence; and none but their own eyes were blinded to the
odium which attached to the deed, and to the too apparent
baseness of the motive.
   Here, gentlemen,  they have placed  themselves,  and here
we may safely leave them.  But  in reference to that " some-
thing "  which they predetermined " must be done" and which
we have a  right to  presume, was done in the way contem-
plated in the proposition, we are bound by every consideration
of social duty,  to say   nothing  of  professional dignity and
propriety, to repudiate  and disavow it, as utterly unworthy
of a liberal profession.
   The constitution of the Hahnemann Academy makes eligible
to membership, " any physician residing in the city of New-
York or its vicinity, having received the degree of doctor of
medicine, or a diploma  of license to practice according to the
laws of this  State."  It proposes to carry out its object—" the
advancement of the healing art,  by  mutual consultations and
by public and private  teaching."  Comment upon these sec-
tions, by me at this time, is as unnecessary as it would be out
of place.  So long as our acts are  not in violation of them,
they speak for themselves and for us.
   I am fully persuaded that the evil, under which the public
and the profession are  at present  laboring, is  simple and
remediable.  For, gentlemen,  if the profession be suffering
from the effects of medical infidelity, the public are infinitely
more.
   It is one thing to ridicule medicine, and mock at doctors' 
16
INAUGURAL ADDRESS.
 quarrels and differences of creed, in times of health and fan-
 cied security, but quite a different thing, when the body is
 racked  with pain or the subject  of inexorable disease, or,
 worse,  when the heart's  treasure perchance lies  struggling
 within the jaws of death.  Have you been  so unfortunate as
 personally to  witness  such  a case ?  Have you watched the
 undisguised anguish of the husband, or father, at the bedside
 of his darling, looking from one faith to the other, with con-
 fused mind and distracted heart, unable to  decide his doubts,
 and yet unwilling to resign  the chance ?  The experience of
 one in  such a  condition I will give you in her own strong
 simile;  I am, said she, " like a heathen awakened to a full
 sense of his danger, but not yet convinced of the saving truths
 of revelation."
  Gentlemen, this state of things—this condition of the public
 mind—is an immense social evil.  It is not a subject for
 reproach, nor  captious animadversion, and anything like
 complaint or upbraiding comes with a  peculiarly bad grace
 from our profession.  It is entitled to our sympathy, and best
 efforts for its correction; and we may rest assured that those
 efforts will not pass unnoticed nor unrewarded.
  We have seen that the great cause of the want of confidence
on  the  part of the public  toward physicians, has been the
imperfection of empirical  art.  The evil is wide-spread, and
we, in common with our brethren  suffer by it.  Though, in
Homoeopathy, medicine has  become a true  art, and therefore
the cause has ceased to exist, its influence remains, and time
will be required to recover for legitimate medicine its rightful
position.  But much may be done  to hasten the event, by a
very simple and I think reasonable and proper means—and
that is, popular instruction in medicine.
  There is no good reason why medicine should be entirely
excluded from  the catalogue of popular studies.  Popular.
lectures on mechanics do not set every man to mending his
own watch when it needs repairs; on the contrary the know-
ledge imparted to him makes him the more careful. to avoid
tampering with its delicate arrangements, or submitting it to
incompetent hands.  The preservation of health and the safe 
                   INAUGURAL ADDRESS.                • __ IT

treatment of disease are certainly matters of infinitely greater
delicacy and importance; the  first being  of necessity  com-
mitted to the discretion of each individual, and the proper
selection of a medical adviser left to his judgment;  yet how
incompetent from lack of knowledge,  are a  considerable
portion of the laity to exercise either in the premises.
  Medicine is no mystery, and we  can no longer  make  it
appear a mystery if we would; but to many it is practically
a nullity.   In sickness, it would seem, they must (from  habit
or example) do something in the way of treatment, but what,
they  think of little importance.  Their idea of means toward
a cure is that it is a chance, and they blindly take of anything
that offers.  How frequently does it occur that,  to the physi-
cian's question,  " what have you taken for your disease ?" the
answer is returned, " something (pill or mixture, as the case
may be) we had in the house," in entire ignorance of its com-
position, whether applicable or injurious.
   With an appropriate kind and degree of knowledge,  think
you a man would trust the repairs of his delicate organism to
his own unskilful hand or to that of an ignorant  pretender,
when  he would not  commit his  watch to the rude manipu-
lations of a blacksmith ?
   Quackery, which owed its origin to a defective art, owes its
protracted existence to popular ignorance in medicine.   The
age in which we live  demands  that we should forsake  the
ancient policies of our craft, and  conform to the spirit of the
times.  The nineteenth century is a great practical fact, which
cannot be  kept too  constantly  before the mind  in all  the
concerns of life, but it has a special bearing upon the prospect-
ive course of our profession, and particularly of our own insti-
tution. As individuals, we are  meeting and correcting, day by
day, the prevailing medical scepticism; as an institution we
owe it to society to act upon the masses.
   This evil spirit grows out of that degree of knowledge which
enables its possessor to discover faults and apparent  inconsis-
tencies in medical practice, but not to weigh and appreciate
its difficulties and  its merits; while a greater  degree would
convince  them  that  a regular and systematic education is 
           4                               //*     \
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18                 INAUGURAL ADDRESS.

necessary even to a safe application of remedies to a known
disease;  whereas,  without such education, and much experi-
ence and practical acumen, many diseases are undiscoverable,
and all are liable to be mistaken and consequently maltreated.
  The advanced state of  general  education  has made  the
public mind familiar  with many  things which  a very few
years ago were abstruse, and sealed to all  but the few;
accordingly it is not only  prepared to grapple with anything
which is interesting, or can be made practically useful,  but it
is entirely  unprepared to yield a blind  submission of the
reason to any.   If in medicine we  desire its confidence, that
is attainable, but only by convincing its  judgment.  If we
wish the public  to respect  the true physician, we  must give
them such knowledge as will enable them  to appreciate him
in the intellectual and artistic features of his profession.
   Give  them the means of thinking for themselves.   Let
them see that the art  of  medicine relies upon no  faculty of
second-sight,  intuitive or  acquired, by which the qualities of
disease can be discerned at a glance ; that it does not sanction
a careless application of means  scarce  shrewdly guessed at;
but that the unravelling of disease and its reasonable  treat-
ment are processes which demand the exercise of the highest
qualities of mind.  In other words, we must teach them what
the art of medicine is, and what it requires, and we may then
safely leave it and the profession to find their own  level, con-
fident that our art, founded  as  it now is on true principles,
will yield to none in  dignity, and  that  its practitioners will
receive that place in  public estimation to which their  noble
and self-denying labors so well entitle them.