ART. I.-Address delivered before the Graduating Class of the Medical Department of the University of Buffalo at its Annual Commencement, February 25, 1868. BY J. F. MINER, M. D.

Gentlemen:-Receiving your diploma is very far from ending your labor; it only opens to you another course of education, more pressing in its obligations, and which, in this life is without end. If the diploma has been your object, you are unfitted for the duties of a profession, which imposes upon its members the most sacred obligations to preserve life, and to relieve pain, suffering and sorrow. If your object is to acquire fortune, or honor, or ease, you are as unfit for the profession as the profession is for you. You must look for reward, to the consciousness of being qualified and able to do your duty, and in having done it, even though misjudged and censured, by those you have benefited, and who are incompetent to form any idea of your capabilities, or of the long and anxious labors by which they have been reached. You now belong to a profession which gives you frequent oppor tunities to practice upon the command, "Do good to those who despitefully use you," and are expected to give up all control.of your time, and be constantly prepared for the most momentous and trying emergencies. You must expect to pass anxious hours and sleepless nights from the responsibilities which rest upon you, VOL. 7, NO. 8--36.

and the consciousness that the lives of others are dependent upon your skill and judgment. And yet, after all this, you will find very many, from the lowest and most ignorant, to the highest and most learned in other respects, advancing positive opinions in opposition to your own, and recklessly undertaking the care of the sick, and prescribing for their diseases, which is to you such source of mental anxiety and care,

"As fools rush in

Where angels fear to tread."

Such are the contingencies of the new life you have now entered, that you will gladly listen a moment to the reflections and observations of one who has preceded you in the experiences of professional labor, who has met the discouragements and been subjected to the opposing influences to which you will be exposed.

To one educated in the profession of medicine, a very different and much more expanded view is presented, than others, not acquainted with it, are able to gain. He sees in it the various divisions of labor and vast arrangements for it, spread out over the whole civilized world, acting with all the power which can be derived from an aggregation of the highest order of intellect, disciplined and strengthened to the utmost for its work. In every one of the various departments of his profession, the medical student sees a collection of distinguished individuals, whose mental power demands the admiration of all who can appreciate their labors-labors to which nothing short of the greatest intellectual strength is adequate, studying man in health and disease, from the microscopic elementary atom of each organ, up to his full development, and arrangement into families, tribes, and nations. Medical chemists, day and night, amid the machinery of their laboratories, hunting nature in her hidden recesses, and exposing the principles and laws of combination; medical microscopists finding beauty of form and structure, where the naked eye sees not at all, or sees only a confused speck; observing changes in texture and growth, and developing principles and systems, as wonderful in their minuteness, as that of astronomy in its magnitude. The Anatomist, the Physiologist, the Pathologist, concentrating all their powers and observations upon the various subdivisions of these extensive sciences. These men are occupied in gathering in discoveries, in trying supposed truths, with every precaution against fallacy, and then sending forth the proven results of their investigations.

The medical science of the present time, is distinguished from the practice of the earlier ages, by this fact, that it has been joined to, or proceeds from the natural sciences. What is it that has corrected our medical teaching and practice and given such impetus to our medical progress, that has revolutionized our systems and started us anew in the study of diseases, and their modes of cure, carrying away the dogmas and isms of past gener ations, and subjecting the present principles of medicine and surgery to the critical tests of experimental research? You are all now ready to the answer. Careful and intelligent observation of nature, has taught us all, or nearly all we know, and since we have discovered the fountain of real knowledge and have improved our instruments and modes of observation, we have truly grown much wiser, more clearly understanding what is truth, and the great care necessary to abtain it. Physiology is comparatively a new science, but it has already added to our knowledge of disease and its modes of prevention and cure, many of the most important facts, establishing principles of paramount value, and undermining false theories which had long been cherished. The study of life in nature, may be regarded in the practice of medicine, as the compass, rudder, and chart in navigation, showing the dangers of the sea, and guiding to the polar-star of truth. Anatomy has long been recognized as the basis of medical and surgical knowledge, and its necessity is too obvious to admit of comment. It is readily apparent how surgical practice depends upon it, and how medical knowledge also derives from it much of its accuracy and force. Chemistry also furnishes not only principles in medicine, but our means of curing disease-is at once the source of our principles and practice of medicine. Thus it is seen how legitimate medicine is founded in the natural sciences; how it stands by no assumed or supposed truths, but is truth itself, and much of it as capable of demonstration, as are the problems of mathematics.

In the survey of his profession, the physician sees yet other important aids and appliances. What railroads, steamships and telegraph lines have done for commerce and trade, the arts of printing, photographing and electrotyping have done for medicine. Associations are now issuing annual volumes of their transactions, giving permanent record to every established fact, and to all subjects worthy of further investigation; medical conventions and

national associations, giving abiding place to every subject which has the least claim to respect, and constantly adding to, revising or correcting every principle of practice, or therapeutical conclusion, which the most careful examination shows capable of revision or improvement. In the various modern languages, we have going forth, through the channels of the medical press, and bearing to the most remote and humble member of our profession, whatever of fact, truth and wisdom has been discovered, tested, and found worthy of permanent record. Most of the medical journals of all countries are in charge of men of eminent literary and professional ability, and all of the leading ones will be found upon careful examination, to contain evidences of thought, study and investigation, as well as of intellectual ability, of which not only the profession, but human nature may well be proud. They embody the new discoveries, medical and surgical reports, bibliograghical notices of standard works. in every department of science and medicine, and are the repositories of all real progress in medicine and surgery. Standard works, illustrating with lifelike exactness every form and phase of disease, describing every symptom and the effects of all known remedies, are issued in vast numbers and in all languages. Printed texts, photographed likenesses of rare and important forms of disease or injury, rendered permanent and capable of being repeated in countless numbers, thus supplying all who wish, making the combined learning, experience and wisdom of the world available to all faithful, earnest seekers after truth.

Could all see the profession of medicine in its true light, could they comprehend the magnitude of its operations, and the learning, faithfulness and fidelity with which the search for truth is made, I could this evening draw a picture of your future lives far different from what I am now compelled to foreshadow. There are not wanting those, who charge upon your profession, limited selfish, and interested motives, opposed to truth, and ready to adhere to old and obsolete opinions. Nothing saves those who utter such illiberal sentiments from contempt, but the total blindness in which they are uttered—a blindness which pertains to those not educated in the profession, and not living under its obligations. The professional man sees with an enlarged vision into regions closed to his unprofessional brother, observes the

results of a vast system of intellectual machinery, while the latter forms his conclusions from a few crude and disconnected facts, or supposed facts, seen only in the limited circle of his own untutored experience and observation. It is as though one upon an eminence looks over a broad landscape, and speaks of its brilliant and varied scenery, while the man blind from birth obstinately contends that no such things exist, and that all is one uniform darkness, or as one by unaided vision sees in the pupil of the eye, a circular opening and a dark back-ground, while with the aid of our art and the use of the ophthalmoscope, you are clearly discerning the circulation in the vessels of the retina, and looking in upon the movings of one of the most intricate, delicate, and beautiful organs which the wisdom of the Almighty has ever created. The rude savage gazes at the blue arch above him, and sees only the fancied regions of future hunting-grounds lighted by dim and unknown tapers, but the astronomer with telescopic vision, sees worlds and systems of worlds, no less real than our own. While then, you are in possession of clearly-defined and welldemonstrated truth, forgive those who dwell in darkness and undisturbed ignorance.

ence.

There is imposed upon the science of medicine a no less boundary than pure truth; all which comes within its scope is yours, and belongs to legitimate medicine. Allow no one then to believe that you are from any cause unwilling to know what is truth, for this is a principle implanted in the human mind, which in all countries and ages, and in all sciences, has held its ground, and will at length assert its power against every opposing influTo attain this, is directed the undivided efforts of the best, most highly educated, and most earnest men in our profession. The best minds in the world are engaged in the pursuit, stimulated by ambition, rivalry and an unselfish purpose to discover truth and banish ignorance and error. A profession, such as yours, rests upon principles far above schools, dogmas and isms. It has every protection against fallacy which human reason can know; is independent of the teaching of individual genius, and the follies and absurdities of unworthy members. It includes within its scope every principle which can be established, and every system of practice which can be shown to commend itself to an enlightened judgment. It is yours to seek for truth wherever it may be ob