PROCEEDINGS.

The Twenty-seventh Annual Session of the Illinois State Medical Society was held in the Grand Pacific Hotel, Chicago, May 15th, 16th, and 17th, 1877. The President, T. D. FITCH, M. D., called the meeting to order at 10 o'clock, A. M.

H. HOLLISTER offered prayer.

Prof. J.

Drs. J. O. HAMILTON, T. F. WORRELL, and H. A. JOHNSON, ex-presidents of the Society, being invited by the President, took their seats on the platform.

Dr. J. N. HYDE, Chairman of the Committee of Arrangements, delivered an address of welcome, substantially as follows:

MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN OF THE ILLINOIS STATE MEDICAL SOCIETY:

I learn that it becomes my duty as Chairman of the Committee of Arrangements, to extend to such of you as are nonresidents of the city, the greeting of the medical profession of Chicago.

While I am sure that there are many of our number, who could in a far more acceptable manner discharge this agreeable duty, I am equally convinced that there are few who could not find occasion for congratulating you upon an occasion like the present.

We meet together at an hour when there comes to us across the Atlantic the echo of the tread of advancing armies. We assemble at a time when the nations of the Old World are agitated with war and the rumor of war, but we find our own beloved country enjoying the blessings of a profound peace. But a few weeks ago, the submarine cables which unite us to the shores of Europe, announced that a Russian General was prepared to sacrifice 30,000 human lives, if necessary, in order to effect the passage of the Danube. What a bright contrast is

presented us between the avowal of such a purpose and the express object which calls us together! It is the glory of the profession which we have embraced that its highest aim is the conservation of human life. It is ours-not merely to study the phenomena of disease; not merely to read in the bodies of the dead the baleful record of the maladies which destroyed them, but to investigate the measures by which the lives of our fellow beings may be surrounded by safeguards against illness and accident, and by so doing to prolong them. Thackery once stood behind a grenadier of the Guards when the Queen of England was passing in front of them, and because the big hat of the soldier interfered with a view of Her Majesty, he protested that the student of history had always found the big hat of the soldier obstructing his view of passing events. Such an impertinent interference can never be charged against science. In order to view the royal source of power and law, it has been for centuries removing the obstructions interposed in the name of authority and precedent. Not with the bayonet and sword, but with the microscope and the thermometer, it has advanced to conquests that have brought blessings upon the race.

Three years have passed, gentlemen, since we had last the pleasure of welcoming you in Chicago. During that time many changes have occurred in our midst; but, I feel assured that I express the sentiment of my colleagues, when I say that you will find us unchanged in our desire to extend to you a most cordial greeting. You will find that since you were with us, our ranks have been reinforced by the advent of younger men who have added to our numerical strength and our resources. Among some of us you will note that sprinkling of grey among darker hairs, which is supposed by the laity to be accompanied by an increment of experience and wisdom. And such we trust you will find to be the truth. But among those whom we are proud to look upon as the veterans of the profession, I am sure you will look in vain for any evidences, that they have lost either their well-known vigor or skill.

One of them an honored member of this society, whom you had doubtless learned to love and respect-has recently gone to his rest-Joseph Warren Freer, late President of Rush Medical College. You will doubtless hear from worthier lips than mine

an expression of the grief that we felt when we first learned of our loss. I feel my inability to frame in words a fit tribute to the worth and purity of his private character, to the rugged simplicity and directness of his methods, to his hatred of everything superficial and false, and to the fullness and ripeness of his professional success. Like the immortelles which the French people lay upon the tombs of their dead in the cemetery of Pere la Chaise, his friends and colleagues have tenderly strewn his grave with their testimonials of affectionate recollection.

But other changes have occurred in our midst. Unlike the man in the Scripture who pulled down his barn in order to build a greater, Rush Medical College has left its old barn standing on the South Side, and has erected upon the West Side a structure which is a credit to the faculty of that institution, and one in which the profession of the Northwest may well take pride. You are invited to visit this, as well as the newly-erected Cook County Hospital, in its immediate vicinity. The Chicago Medical College, and its immediate neighbor, the Mercy Hospital, you will find dressed in their old clothes, and ready to receive you. Still nearer are St. Luke's Hospital, and the Chicago Academy of Sciences, which we shall be pleased to have you visit. The Library of the Medical Press Association, within a block of this building, is the nucleus of what we trust will one day become a flourishing institution. Its possessions are the exchanges and books for review sent to the Chicago Medical Journal and Examiner-the union of the old Medical Journal and Medical Examiner, now issued by the Association. I will say, in praise of that periodical, that it probably has more editors to the square inch, than any other similar journal published in the country!

Two other medical organizations-the Chicago Medical Society, and the Chicago Society of Physicians and Surgeons-as the representatives of the profession of the city, request me to invite you to be their guests at a banquet to be given in this hotel to-morrow evening. I can only say, that I trust this may be as happy an occasion as that of the 20th of May, 1874.

But, gentlemen, I was told to welcome you to Chicago. I suppose you know enough of our city to be assured that, what

ever may be the faults of its residents, they are not given to exaggerating the merits of the town! At a time of unparalleled financial depression, Chicago has enjoyed a degree of prosperity which seems to be almost exceptional elsewhere. And in that prosperity, as well as the prosperity of the Northwest, we, as medical men, cannot but feel interested. It may be true, that "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church" that religious sects flourish best when poor and persecuted, but it is certain that medical science produces its best representatives, and its best results, when commercial enterprises are being floated on to prosperity by the swelling tide of trade. Just in proportion, gentlemen, as the grain fields of Illinois are heavy with rich harvests; just in proportion as manufactures and industries are pushed to success in the large metropolitan cities, not only will the medical man reap the just reward for his labor, but— what is of far greater importance-capital can accumulate a surplus which can be devoted to the foundation of our large public and private charities, and the endowment of our institutions of learning. I wish that I could quote exactly the words used by Dr. J. Marion Sims, in his late address before the American Medical Association. Said he: "What greater thing could a rich man do, for his country, for education, for humanity, for science, than the endowment of some great medical university which might overshadow the private corporations which are in such active competition with each other?"

For what has been done, and for what is now doing, we have reason to be thankful and proud. At the time of the recent opening of the English Parliament, we learn that in accordance with long-established usage, one dozen good and true yeomen, with flaring torches in their hands, explored every nook and corner of the basements of the old Parliament houses, in order to be assured that no descendants of Guy Fawkes were there secreted. So, gentlemen, before we meet here to-day, our predecessors have explored the foundations upon which the superstructure of our science rests; but, unlike the yeoman of the guard, they were not seeking for foes, but for facts. Searching for the truth, Malgaigne, the philosopher, counted to be greater happiness than even to be in possession of the truth itself.

Whether he were right or wrong, I congratulate you upon

assembling with an object in view so ennobling that both search and possession have equally their reward.

At the conclusion of his remarks, Dr. Hyde, on behalf of the Arrangement Committee, submitted the following order of

exercises:

1. Call to order by the President.

2. Report of Committee of Arrangements.

3. Reception of members by invitation and reading of letters from absentees.

4. Calling lists of standing and special committees, and fixing the time of hearing their reports.

5.

them.

6.

Calls for volunteer papers, and fixing time for hearing

President's annual address.

7. Election of permanent members on recommendation of Committee of Investigation.

8. Selection of Committee on Nominations on morning of second day.

9. Miscellaneous business.

10. Reports of committees on nomination, election of officers, committees, delegates to medical societies, and selection of place of meeting.

11. Adjournment.

Wednesday morning session from 9 a. M. to 1 P. M.; afternoon session from 2:30 to 6 P. M. Thursday morning from 9 A. M. to 12 P. M.

A banquet will be given at 7 o'clock Wednesday evening, at the Grand Pacific, tendered by the medical profession of the City of Chicago.

Dr. J. L. White, of Bloomington, on behalf of the Society. spoke in response as follows:

MR. PRESIDENT.

I have no response to make, except to thank you for the very cordial welcome extended to the members from abroad. It is, as has been very justly remarked by your chairman, pleasant to be a member of a society having for its object so good and use