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1867

ADDRESS.

IN accepting the invitation to address you this evening, I have been governed alone by a sense of duty. Had I consulted my own wishes, or been guided by the estimate of my own powers, I should not have presumed to place myself in so embarrassing a position. But there are duties in life whose obligation. should not be ignored, and it is no excuse for leaving them undone, that we cannot discharge them as brilliantly as some others. There is virtue even in the effort; and we should at least undertake to meet their calls, recognising the cardinal truth of Bacon, "that every man is a debtor to his profession, from which as men do of course seek to receive countenance and profit, so ought they of duty to endeavor themselves by way of amends, to be a help and ornament thereto."

This is an occasion sacred alike to Memory and to Hope. To Memory, as a treasurer of past events, formal, impartial, inexorable; and to Hope, that joyous friend of man, whose torch is never quenched but in death. Standing near the close of another year, we look back across its past months of opportunity with thanksgiving and praise to the Author of all good. Its days now nearly numbered, and its record soon to be classed among things historical, admonish us of

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another milestone passed in the journey of life. The budding spring, the gorgeous summer, the fruitful autumn, all the promises of seed-time and harvest, have been fulfilled in their appointed season, each of which has poured a lapful of blessings upon our land. Our days have been full, fragrant, satisfactory; our hours laden with golden opportunities; commerce and the arts have flourished as never before, and Science has added fresh laurels to her fame on every shore and beneath every sky. It is permitted us, therefore, to rejoice, and to hope in all directions; and it is well, accordingly, that there comes an occasion like this, when we can look back upon the accomplished past as a source of sustenance and encouragement, asking what is needed from us in the future, as a scientific body, to assist the progress of civilization and true philosophy. For, the acquisition of knowledge was not left to chance, but to reason aided by effort. Each department of science, therefore, owes a special contribution to the general cause of advancement. This debt is perennial. It can never be extinguished, and justly so, since it is the tax imposed upon all for the support of the great commonwealth of intellect.

For these reasons, and departing somewhat from the usual style of discourse adopted on this occasion, I have undertaken to lay upon the altar of our annual commemoration an offering which shall be sacred to Medicine alone. As this festival belongs exclusively to her, it is but right that first, midst, and last, all things should be said and done in her name, and to her honor. Accordingly, I have selected from the

field of medical philosophy for my theme the subject of Prophylaxis; a topic which has loomed vast and shadowy in every system of medicine, both ancient as well as modern, and yet has remained behind all others in positive development. The very simplicity of the laws upon which it rests, seems to have blinded men to their importance as the natural basis of a system, although it might most justly be supposed that all would agree in recognising natural medicine to be the legitimate parent of rational medicine. Philosophers have indeed done so in all ages; but practically, men think, as well as act, in herds, and what is not taught in schools is generally relegated to the department of Ideology, as only a museum specimen for the delight of curiosity-seekers. In reality, however, systems, like great cities, require time to construct them, and Prophylaxis has ever been to practical medicine what the Platonic Atlantis was to the Greeks-or Cathay and Zipango to the Middle Ages -a mythical land of unfulfilled promises. What Columbus did to resolve the former problem, and De Gama the latter-Jenner has already done in medicine, and others are closely following in his track. And to-day, the noblest offering which our profession can make to posterity, is the reduction of all previous elements of Prophylaxis into a system, which shall stand as a first bulwark everywhere against the encroachment of disease. In discussing this encyclopædic topic, I shall, not unmindful of the proprieties of the hour, limit myself to fundamental propositions in the domain of physics alone; for the world of mind is in itself too imperial a realm to be trodden with

hasty strides, or made subordinate to matter. It deserves a special investigation under the best lights of Natural Philosophy and Metaphysics.

In an age like our own, fraught with the grandest results of human progress, and in this day of meridional civilization, the part played by science in the various fields of discovery has become one of the chief of national glories. All true progress begins and centres in her bosom; all enduring results, as potential for good in the future as in the present, start from her lap. Commerce in all its forms—education-the control of the physical forces-the conquest of matter, and the accumulation of wealth, are each in turn fed from this parent reservoir. Science is, in her benefactions to society, what the sun is in his genial warmth to the earth. Blot the one from the skies, and living nature perishes; paralyze the energies of the other, and man becomes as immovable as a vegetable. It is to science, then, as the expression of method, and a system of laws in all departments of the universe, that we owe our present progress and our future prospects. And we who stand related to her in so many ways, and have put our rootlets out in so many of her fields, cannot too ardently cherish this noblest of the systems under which all laws of matter may be classified and utilized.

Now in the hierarchy of the sciences, while all are equally sovereign in themselves, there are yet laws of precedence, and differences of dignity. As all originally begin with the Godhead, so each, as it follows His attributes more or less nearly, reflects the resem

blance of its Author. As there is one glory of the sun, and one of the moon, and one of the stars, though all be equally heavenly bodies, so there are diversities of glory among the sisterhood of the sciences. And as everything on this beautiful earth was made for the happiness and prosperity, both secular and spiritual, of man, so all things take rank and precedence according as they directly or remotely contribute to these ends. If this be the law, and all observation seems to confirm it, then next always to the science that teaches of the salvation of the soul, and foremost among the physical sciences, stands that of MEDICINE. At all times and among all peoples somewhat of a Divine character has always been associated with it; and even our Saviour, when on earth, thought it not beneath His prerogative dignity to assume some of the functions of a physician of the body, as well as that of the Great Physician of souls.

It is not necessary, however, to review the history of Medicine, or to enter into that vast field of research, involving the rise and fall of successive systems, the commingling of religion with physical science, the multiple attempts at discovery in anatomy, and physiology, and chemistry, which occupied so many centuries, or the special contributions of different ages and different centuries to the storehouse of this great science. Its history, like that of most of its sisterhood, is linked with that of civilization. Wherever this has advanced, physical science has kept even pace, nor has it ever suffered itself to fall in arrear of the most forward of its compeers. Despite all cavil