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;TRUTH  LBA.IDS TO SUCCESS.
AN  ADDRESS
DELIVERED BEFORE Tilt:
GRADUATING  CLASS
DARTMOUTH MEDICAL COLLEGE
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       NOV. 11th, 1857.

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                              Dartmouth Medical College,     )
                                    Hanover, N. H., Nov. 11,1857. J
De. Geo. H. Hubbaed,
  Deae Sie :—At a meeting of the  Medieal Faculty, this A. M.,  a unani-
mous vote was passed, requesting Dr. Hubbard to publish his interesting and
instructive lecture on " Truth an element of Success."
                                Respectfully Yours,
                                                A. B. CROSBY,
                                                   For the Faculty.
                             Dartmouth Medical College,     )
                                    Hanover, N. H„ Nov. 11, 1857. J
De. Hubbaed,
  Deae Sie :—After the exercises at the College this morning,  there was a
meeting of the Graduating Class, when a resolution was introduced, and unan-
imously carried, that a committee of three should be appointed to request Dr.
Hubbard to publish in the N. H. Journal of Medicine, his able Address, deliv-
ered before the Class just previous to the conferring of the degrees.
                              Yours with respect,
                                              R.F. ANDREWS,
                                              A. H. CARR,
                                              J. M. RAND,
                                            Committee for the Class. 
ADDRESS.
   Gentlemen : — Having  safely passed  the  great  crisis  of your
 lives, it is fitting that whatever I may say to you should be concern-
 ing your future professional career.
   Every  event in life is the natural result of an  antecedent cause.
 The affairs of men are just as strictly governed by fixed laws as are
 the motions of the planets, and it is as impossible  to  succeed  in a
 course of conduct which violates these laws, as to suspend the laws
 which govern organic matter.
   My young friends, if I can impress upon your minds the truth of
 this proposition, and the necessity of so  governing yourselves  that
 your lives may harmonize with kind Nature's laws, I shall have been
 called here to some good purpose.
   Success in life is entirely dependent upon the relation our conduct
 bears to the Divine attribute truth,  on which is founded all the
 principles which should govern us as men and as physicians.
   Truth demands obedience to the law which governs human exist-
 ence, while Falsehood leads to its violation.   Truth is the simple
 and perfectly reliable test by which we are to judge our  own  con-
 duct and that of  others.  Truth is the only test by which human
life and human actions are to be tried  and judged and  Truth  is
the test by which your lives, as men and as physicians, will be judged,
not only by your  Creator, but by your fellow men.
  This being the case, if you are wise, you will so arrange your lives 
4
that they may stand this test.   Think not that I am about  to  read
you a homily on your moral relations and duties, for I will do so no
farther than is necessary to show, as I shall endeavor to, that your suc-
cess in life depends upon squaring your actions by this test of truth.
It is my desire to convince you that it is vain to hope for success but
by  a rigid adherence to Truth, Eight,  and  Justice.  If you would.
succeed, adopt the old Latin precept:  Magna est Veritas et Prcev-
aLehxt.   It is a very old motto, but by  physicians  should  be ever
borne in mind and its teachings never disregarded; for I can assure
you that whoever comes to regard it as a stale precept  is  in great
danger of failing in his dearest aspirations for professional success.
   Allow me to look forward upon your professional lives, try your
conduct and measure your success by  this test of Truth
   You have obtained your degree and title of Doctor by convincing
your examiners that you are good and true men,  and qualified  for
the important trust confided to you.   If you are really such, there
is nothing to fear and ultimate success  is  certain; but  if  by   any
cunning, artifice or imposition you have unworthily obtained  this
honor, you may well tremble for your position.  However much  you
may be satisfied with your present success, be assured that  " Truth
is most powerful and will ultimately prevail."
   Much has been said of the duties  and qualifications  of medical
men and the course of conduct necessary to success.  Now  success,
as applied to the life of  a physician, means two very different con-
ditions, according to the  light in which it is viewed.  While to most
people, that man only is  called successfnl who has been able  to  put
money in his purse — we know of many" who have lived and  died
in poverty, yet were really and eminently successful as physicians
and public benefactors.
   If money, fame or power is the aim of your lives, you  have gre.
viously erred in your choice of a  profession.   If you have strong as-
pirations for either of these, you cannot too  soon abandon scientific
pursuits, and enter upon  other and more direct roads to their acqui-
sition.
   Professional success is as incompatible with great personal selfish-
ness, as it is incompatible with that disregard for Truth and Hones-
ty so commonly found in very selfish men.
   But the temptation to cheat your Avay into the profession,  has 
5
been slight in comparison to the temptation to vary from the  truth,
which will beset your early professional career.
  That period'of the life of a young physician when he  is waiting
for practice is not only the most unhappy but also the most danger-
ous.   'Tis hard to drag out months of seemingly useless  existence;
to look  on and see men notoriously our  inferiors  enjoying that fav-
or and patronage to which we feel  ourselves  clearly entitled ; and
that the temptation to secure that  favor by some questionable arti-
fice,  is too often  irresistable, is not so much a matter of surprise, as
of regret.   To  be able to withstand these temptations you must be
determined to try them by the test of truth, and abide  the decision.
  If true to yourselves, you will not spend these months of waiting
in idleness.   There is full occupation for every hour.   Your  knowl-
edge of disease  at the best must be very imperfect, and an industri-
ous employment of all your time is needed to  carry on that  profes-
sional education which is now but  fairly begun, an'd which  should
never cease but  with your lives.   There can be no more pitiable be-
ing than the physician who has finished his education.
  During this trying period of your career you will meet with an-
noyances and discouragements so unexpected and so apparently un-
just as  to tempt you to retaliation.  Friends on whom  you  fondly
depend to start you in practice, will coolly employ your  rivals,  and
it will require all your firmness and resolution to  remain true to
yourselves and  quietly submit to what is really[only an annoyance,
but which will appear to you as a  personal injury.
  PeAaps one of these friends will employ you, and a case  trivial
in itself becomes of undue importance ; to you from your personal
anxiety; to the patient and friends because of their lack of confi-
dence in your professional capacity.  This lack of confidence is on-
ly to be dispelled by showing them that you are in truth as   well as
in name a good  physician.
   You  may be tempted to magnify the danger of  the case that your
credit fdr the cure may be greater, or,  from fear of being supersed-
ed, to give unwarrantable assurances of a favorable termination.—
Either  deviation from truth is dangerous, and will eventually result
in your injury.   The public are very shrewd in detecting attempts
to impose upon  them, and they soon become suspicious of the  phy-
sician whose patients are all very sick, yet all recover.    On the oth- 
6
 er hand, it is better to lose the care of a  dangerous  case than  to
 have it terminate unfavorably contrary to your prognosis.
   An open,  candid, straight-forward  course is the only safe course.
 It leaves you free to sleep o'nights, while  falsehood  and duplicity
 require continual vigilance to escape  the  detection  which  is  sure
 eventually to overtake their victims.
   But you must not conclude that an  honest  course  will command
 success if  unaccompanied by some manifestation of merit, for " some-
 times Virtue starves while Vice is fed," and  that truth, which  is
 sure to prevail, is not confined to your habits of speaking, but is true
 merit in its broadest sense.
   It is not enough for you to possess merit;  the  fact must  be
; known or there is small chance to make it useful to yourselves or oth-
 ers.
   How is  this  to be done ?   Not  by a brawling, boastful display of
 your acquirements, for, although by so doing you may gain  a tem-
 porary advantage, it is a false course, and will eventually fail.
   If you  start with  a fixed purpose to hold fast and abide  by the
 true and right, you need never be at a loss as to your  true course of
 conduct;  the truth will manifest itself so plainly as never to be mis-
 taken.
   On the  contrary, if you  allow   yourselves  to  vary  from strict
 truth in pursuit of some temporary advantage, it  will not be long
 before your ideas of  right and wrong as regards your own conduct,
 will become so indefinite and confused  that you will be left t9 follow
 every temptation  to wrong, however trivial may be the gratification
 or gain promised.
   The public will watch your acts, and will judge you  much  more
 justly by what you do, than by what you say.  Therefore, when you
 find yourselves located, instead of endeavoring to talk up a reputation,
 go diligently to work to make yourselves worthy  of one ; and  fear
 not if you are so, and are true to yourselves and your profession, you
 will soon have all the reputation you deserve.
   Sensible people will be  much  more   favorably  impressed if they
 find you laboring to remedy the deficiencies of your education, than
 by any boasts of learning made by yourselves  or friends.
   If you have merit as physicians, you will have opportunity ere 
7
long to manifest it at the bedside, where will be  pot to  test your
boasted powers, and you will be judged by those shrewd to discern
the true and detect the false.
   To be prepared to acquit yourselves creditably at the bedside, you
must cultivate a habit of diligent and patient investigation.   Care-
fully study your cases ; not in any one book, but in all to which you
have access;  compare the written case with that presented to your
view; wake up all your perceptive faculties, that you may if possi-
ble learn something from the real case which is not recorded in the
books.
   Watch the effect of your remedies,  taking into consideration  all
the incidental circumstances which would modify their action; dis-
cover if possible the cause of any unexpected  phenomena, that you
may be prepared to anticipate  and prevent such in  future.
   Such care and study of a single case will do you more  real good
than to read volumes in an indifferent and listless manner; and the
study of all your cases in this manner cannot fail to make you emi-
nent in your profession.
   Another mode of searching for truth is much too often neglected,
especially  by country  practitioners.  I allude to making post-mor-
tem examinations in all proper cases, more  especially  where there
has been a want of plain diagnostic symptoms.
   The popular prejudices against these examinations are fast dying
out, and the better classes of society are  quite as ready to grant as
the physician to  propose  them.
   In many cases you  may not only satisfy yourself as to the real
cause of death, but what is often of greater consequence, you may
satisfy  the surviving friends, and often retain by this means tbe con-
fidence of  a family which you  would otherwise lose.
   The recorded results of post-mortem examinations have  changed
Medicine from a speculative into a comparatively  exact science,—
Most of your observations will be clouded by  more or less  uncer-
tainty ;  but a post-mortem examination made by a good  anatomist,
reveals the consequences of disease, and corrects or verifies  the  di-
agnosis, leaving  as a  result, an  addition of  facts to  our stock of
knowledge.
   By these examinations, conducted in a proper manner, you have
an advantage  over quacks and imposters, who rarely, if ever, make 
8
them, being pravented as much by a well-grounded  fear  that  they
may reveal their impositions, as by their ignorance, which would
render any developments of pathological anatomy unintelligible.
  I would not be understood to deny that you may make your way
by humbugging the public;  for that falsehood and deception are the
shortest roads to notoriety, is shown us every day.   But who of you
has no higher aspirations than to gain the noisy applause of the un-
thinking portion of community, or will be content with a false repu-
tation, which must be continually glossed over by new falsehoods ?
  A reputation founded on true merit will be of slow growth, and
when once acquired will stand the test of time ; while the fame  or
notoriety which has not truth for its basis is but a transient affair,
which leaves its possessor in a worse condition than before.
  In order to discharge your duties as true  physicians, it is neces-
sary that you be prepared for, and qualified to treat, every  disease
or accideat to which the human frame is liable.  It is useless to try
to shun difficult or dangerous diseases or to refuse  to treat  surgical
cases which  require courage and a high degree of professional knowl-
edge.  It is the  manuer in which you treat these  cases  which  will
decide your  standing with the public.
  If you shrink from your proper responsibilities  in  time  of*  diffi-
culty and danger, the  public will be perfectly just to conclude that
you do so on account of your incompetence,  and you will have no
reason to complain  if you are considered  inferior to your neighbor,
who has the moral courage to stand true  to his responsibilities  in
the hour of  trial.   Many men have pusillanimously yielded to their
inferiors for want of the moral courage to be true  to themselves.
  Let me not be understood as urging you to crowd yourselves into
places of responsibUfl^.   If you study to keep in your  true posi-
tion, you will never crowd yourselves at all, but will wait  for the
natural course of events to  bring up opportunities for action.
  These opportunities will not fail to appear; soon enough it you are
truly prepared for them, and quite too soon and too often if you al-
low yourselves to change a true for a false position.   By a false posi-
tion, I mean any condition in which you may be placed by a failure
to stand up  to the  rigid standard of right which I  have  mentioned.
  Not only will this test  of truth  guide  you   in shaping  your
course of conduct  as men and as physicians, but  it is the  test  by
which to try all remedies and modes of treatment. 
9
  The whole difference between the inductive philosophy of the pres-
ent day and the wild speculations of the past is that now we judge
professed facts and theories by this test, and are taught to disregard
whatever is found deficient when thus judged.  So should you judge
every new theory of practice or mode of medication.
   From this general view of the necessity of making  truth  your
guide, let us pass to consider its relation to the popular medical her-
esies of the day.   Of these, most prominent, because  most success-
ful, is Homoeopathy.
   The recognition of a few well-established truths will show us why
this imposition has flourished; and it seems impossible that any per-
son of ordinary intellectual capacities, can be misled by its preten-
sions, after being shown their utter falsehood.
   The experience of every practitioner of medicine goes  to  show
that a very large proportion of all cases of sickness eventually re-
cover.   That the per centage of fatal cases is  small,  whether  well
treated,  ill treated, or not treated at all.   This being the case, it is
not to be expected that the  public  can very well determine under
which mode of treatment the per centage is greatest,  and  it is per-
fectly natural that very slight  circumstances  should influence  the
current of popular favor.
   To most people, disease is an identity which hinders the opera-
tions of the human machine, just as a little dirt will hinder  the mo-
tion of a time-piece, and is to cast out by the doctor's drugs, just as
the tinker removes dust from the wheels of a  watch.    They  know
nothing of the laws which govern the  economy,  of the  processes
of reasoning by which the true physician  comes to his conclusions as
to the violations of  those laws, or the processes to be  gone  through
to bring the sick body to a state of health.  They  only know that
they are sick ;  nature instinctively demands aid  to  recover, and  as
instinctively looks for that aid to those who profess to be  able  to
render it.  It is consequently the most natural thing  in the world
for sick people to call to their aid those who make the loudest pro-
fessions of ability, aud who make the least calls on them for the ex-
ercise of that trying virtue, self-denial.
  This being the case, it is not at all strange that a system of  prac-
tice bearing externally so pleasant an aspect as Homoeopathy, should
become excessively popular, and remain so in spite of its many and
glaring faults and vices. 
10
  There is a class of people who have cultivated their sensibilities
at the expense of their intellects ; by whom plain  common  sense is
voted flat, stale and unprofitable.  They are called the  fashionable
world.  Truth is to them an obsolete idea.   The real  facts which
have stood the test of time,  are disregarded,  and he who would
weigh the truth against the dictates of fashion is declared old fogy-
ish and  vulgar.
  Fashion delights in romantic and mysterious assumptions; and to
fashionable people there is something irresistably  attractive in be-
coming disciples  of a mystery which neither they or others can under-
stand.   Fashion has decided that her votaries must not be cured by
the unpalatable drugs of the apothecary, but by the genteel  potenti-
zations of a transcendental mystification.
  To fashionable people there is something sufficiently romantic and
attractive in this mystical philosophy, and the idea of  being cured by
pellets of sugar, to overcome the  cautiousness which should  restrain
people of common sense from trying unwarrantable experiments; and
if a few lose their lives, it is considered sweet and becoming to die a
sacrifice at the shrine of  their divinity.
  That  tbe advent and reign of this humbug is to be  of value to
medical science and to the human race, I firmly believe ; but it is in
the same way as wars and revolutions benefit the human race, by de-
veloping great truths at the expense of immense individual  suffer-
ing and the loss  of vast numbers of  human lives.
  I feel to judge it righteously, giving it credit for all its good, but
holding  it strictly to account for its short-comings,  especially its
falsehood, hypocrisy, and the want of moral honesty which it induces
in its disciples.
  In the first place, it was the  dreamy  chimera of a disordered
brain; was originally a lie, and has  gradually drawn to its  associa-
tion those vices which go hand in hand  with  falsehood the  world
over. Its practitioners have no claim to be considered honest.  How
glaring  the falsehood of  the whole farce!  They send their  students
here to  learn a pathology which they affect to despise — a system of
therapeutics which they  profess to ignore.
  They profess to be  governed by certain  hypothetical principles,
but which every man who watches their practice finds they  abandon
at the first approach of danger.   Cases in proof of this are abundant. 
11
   The most audacious of their impositions upon popular  credulity
 is the excuse they make, or reason tbey give, for using the most ac-
 tive drugs in enormous  doses ;— that it matters not  in  how large
 doses medicines are given,  if administered homocopathically ; or, in
the language of the British Journal of Homoeopathy :— " the whole
 question of doses is left open to the discretion of the physician, who
 may be as strictly a homoeopathist as Hahnemann himself, though he
 should give his medicines in the ordinary form, simply if he select
 them according to their homoeopathic fitness."
   What this n.eans is past  an  ordinary  comprehension,  unless it
 means that the patient must be cajoled by the mystifications of hom-
 oeopathy while dosed by the well  tried medicines of the scientific
 physician.
   This brings us to the two classes of cases which recover under the
 care of sell-styled homoeopathic practitioners.
   Firstly, the great mass of symptomatic and  self-limited  diseases
 which recover if well  nursed, and kept on the spare diet which is so
 rigidly prescribed by these  practitioners.    These are  the real cures
 of homoeopathy.
   Secondly, those cases which fall into  the hands of self-styled hom-
 oeopathy,  Avho know enough  of medicine to enable them to  treat
 and cure by active remedies really dangerous diseases.  There are
multitudes of such homoeopathic practitioners.  Possibly some of you
 are intending to pursue a like course.   To any such I would  say,
 stop and consider if you are willing to acquire wealth  by  a  life of
 deception and falsehood; if you can coolly make up your  minds to
take the position of deliberate practical deceivers for the rest of your
lives. If so, you are just the men for homoeopathic practitioners.
   But we have gained much from this humbug  called  homoeopathy.
 We  have learned  that the tendency of most cases of sickness, if
left uninfluenced  by medical treatment,  is towards recovery; that the
recuperative powers of the  human system  are  much  greater  than
was formerly supposed ;  that the per centage of deaths in  all  the
ordinary cases of sickness, if  treated by rest and  abstinence alone,
would be very trivial; that  in most cases we owe more to  the recu-
perative powers than to drugs, and that  true practice is to aid  these
powers, rather than to attempt to cure by drugs alone.   We have
learned that minute sub-division increase the efficiency and  practi- 
12
cal value of drugs.  It will be well to push our investigations in this
direction and learn the true value of trituration,  however much we
may despise the insipid twaddle about  attenuations and potentiza-
tions.
   It will not pay at this time to follow up and try by  the  test of
truth ail the phases of quackery, but it will be profitable for you to do
so at your leisure.  We will however trace from itsbirth to its present
condition  the root and  herb  system  which had  had a  long succes-
sion  of names from that of Thomsonian, derived from its originator, to
the arroganily assumed title of Eclectic.
   Samuel Thomson started with the crude proposition that " heat is
life,  and cold is death."  On this and a few  collateral  propositions
he based a system of practice, the indications of treatment in which,
consisted mainly of the use of the vapor bath, capsicum and lobelia.
Its apparent simplicity and adaptation to the comprehension of the
most ignorant, caused  it to be vastly popular, especially among the
lowest and most prejudiced classes of society.
   This difference in the adaptation of this system and  homoeopathy
to the two extremes of community, has been happily described by
the lamented Bartlett, who called the  one  the  philosophy  o  the
drawing room, the other that of  the barn-yard,
   The outrageous abuses of this system  soon caused it to sink into
disrepute and its practitioners either returned to their former meni-
al employments or  appeared as botanies,  professing to use only veg-
etable remedies.  Latterly they call themselves Eclectics, claiming
to have especial faculties for selecting remedies  and  practicing  on
sate principles.   The  whole of this system owes whatever of tempo-
rary success it has  met with, to its false  promises and  impositions"
upon the public.
   Wim can bo better entitled to the term  Eclectic than the  true
physician, who selects his remedies from  any and every source ; hav-
ing no prejudice  but against the  false —  no preference  but  for the
truth ?
   There are other  false  theories  which make captive silly women
and more foolish men, and which will trouble you in your future ca-
reer, but their antagonism to truth is so apparent  that  there  is no
danger of any permanent mischief therefrom.
   It is your duty as well as for  your interest to enlighten those with 
13
whom you come in contact, as to matters which concern their  health
and its preservation. This is to be done only by  candidly bringing to
their view the facts in regard to which there is no question.    Con-
vince them that Medicine rests on a basis of truth, and that all the
systems of quackery contain  at best but little truth to an immense
bulk of falsehood.
   The fact that most diseases are self-limiited  and  will recover  if
carefully nursed and left unembarassed by drugs,  is  in itselt suffi-
cient to prove that the boasted cures by the globules of homoeopathy
and the lobelia and capsicum  of Samuel Thomson are really so many
evidences of the recuperative energies of the human system and its
endurance when abused.
   Allow me to mention a few results to which it is hoped  the truth
will lead you.
   It will lead you  to avoid  excessive   medication.   The  lancet
and the list of heroic remedies are much less  frequently resorted to
now than twenty years ago; not because our opinions of their powers
have changed, but because we have learned that  they are not often
needed ; that in most cases rest, abstinence, and a careful attention
to the condition of the  several  secretory functions of the body, are
all that is needed to restore  the  sick  to health.    To know when
these mild measures are sufficient, and when and how to apply more
active and violent remedies is the province of the  true physician.
   When the safety of your patient demands active  treatment, the
truth will lead you to put your trust in those remedies  which have
proved worthy.  When the life of a fellow being hangs upon your
 decision, it is no time to tamper with crude speculations or specious
 analogical deductions.  You know what you can do with the lancet,
the warm bath, opium, calomel, antimony, ipecac, quinine, and bran-
dy, and while in these you have what you need in a case, why should
you go prospecting over the whole domain of creation, in search  of
something new ?  Are there better narcotics than -opium ?    Time,
with the permission of Divine Providence, will make them known.
Are there better remedies than those in which we have confidence ?
The Almighty  Ruler of the Uuiverse will make them known  in his
own good time  and way,  but wickedly false is he who rashly experi-
ments upon suffering humanity, and perils the lives of his patients
to prove his conjectures'or to hunt out new remedies. 
14
   But be not too conservative; seek for the truth wherever found,
 and in however bad company it may be detected.    The virtues  of
 lobelia are none  the less because they were  developed by  the fool-
 hardy practices of  Samuel Thompson.  Np true man will be deter-
 red from making free use of water because a class of imposters pro-
 fess to cure all diseases by its exclusive use.  Nor,  however  much
 we may lament the numerous lives  sacrificed by imposters,  should
 we neglect to possess ourselves of every truth deA'eloped by  the im-
 position.  There have been knaves  and dupes in all ages,  and it  is
 our duty to learn from their dishonesty  and foolishness  how to be
 serviceable to those who are better and wiser.
   The truth  will lead you to exert  its mighty power  upon  the  men-
 tal and moral as well as physical welfare of your patients.  Not to
 make an  hypocritical manifestation of a religious interest that you
 do not feel;  but feeling and acting upon the power of truth,  infuse
 its spirit into your  patients.
   Finally, the truth will determine your standing professionally and
 as  men among men.  However low in the scale of  humanity may
 be those with whom your professional duties may bring you in  con-
 tact, it will be at a time when they need and demand the truth, and
 they will accept or reject your ministrations just  as they  think you
 true or false.
   If the bad demand truth in a physician, how much more  do the
 good ?   HoW can you expect those   who cannot tolerate  falsehood
 when well, to endure it when  ill; and who  can mask himself so
 closely as to  escape the scrutiny of  the sharpened  faculties  of the
 sick?
  Gentlemen: —  many of you I have hero met for the first time ; al-
low me to beg of  you so to conduct yourselves as true men and true
physicians, that we may finally again meet where truth is unmolest-
ed by falsehood, and where only those who have maintained its pow-
er can  gain admission.