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BUFFALO MEDICAL JOURNAL.

A Monthly Review of Medicine and Surgery.

EDITOR:

WILLIAM WARREN POTTER, M. D.

All communications, whether of a literary or business nature, books for review and exchanges should be addressed to the editor: 284 FRANKLIN Street, BUFFALO, N. Y.

VOL. XLIV.-Lx.

AUGUST, 1904.

No. I

W

University of Buffalo Endowments.

HEN the leader "Keep in touch with Buffalo" was published in the last issue of THE JOURNAL, it was for the purpose of arousing interest in the University of Buffalo among the alumni of the medical department. It was not expected that the task of bringing the question of an ardent and earnest support of the institution before the friends of the college would be an easy one, therefore a series of editorial articles on the same general subject was contemplated with the intention of hammering at it until either an active interest was awakened, or until it should become apparent that apathy was so dense that nothing could penetrate it.

It is gratifying, however, to state that within a very few days. after THE JOURNAL had been placed in the mails, letters were received from some of the alumni and other friends of the University commending the stand taken and offering support. Personal visits to the editor of THE JOURNAL followed and so much. genuinely unselfish interest has been shown on all sides, that we feel safe to assume the university will henceforth have at least the moral support of the alumni as a body. The exhibition of what might be called a pyrotechnic outburst of enthusiasm, will not suffice. The article referred to was written with the sole purpose of calling attention to apparent shortcomings. Its language was plain. Its silent text was covered by that epigram uttered by ex-Governor Black at a dinner given in his honor a few years ago at the Ellicott Club in Buffalo by Mr. Butler, of The News,-"He has no place on the heights who is satisfied with the plains." Its object was upward and onward.

The faculty of the medical department can no longer rest under the suspicion, even in the minds of the self-inflated or discontented, of inactivity. The council by its action at a recent

meeting looking toward the establishment of a liberal arts department, has shown that it has not alone the interests of the university closely at heart, but the future educational welfare and reputation of the city of Buffalo as well. Yet the good-will and selfsacrificing endeavor of the gentlemen composing the council and those who have tirelessly worked as members of the medical faculty, are insufficient to bring the university before the world and place it in the position which by right of reputation and efficiency it deserves. Brains may make a university. Money is needed to support it. A man with money can always hire brains: but a man with brains, regrettable though it be, cannot always make money.

The University of Buffalo needs money. It has never in all its long and honorable career received one penny in endowment. Wealthy Buffalonians have given of their means to the church; they have given, with a swelling pride and a sense of work well done, liberally to charity at home and abroad; yet under their very eyes there has been for years struggling through the morass of adversity and hardship an educational institution of which the city should be proud, and which it should be considered a privilege and an honor to aid with a few of the dollars which they scatter with lavish hand. It is growing to be the fashion for rich men to give of their wealth during life. The motive for this innovation should not be questioned. It is well that it is so; it gives them a chance to see that they are doing good and aiding the cause of humanity.

When one scans closely the condition of the University of Buffalo and realises the pitiably small sum necessary to justify the establishment of a liberal arts' department, which necessarily means the enlargement and perfecting of the medical department, it seems as if there must be men in Buffalo sufficiently broadminded and public-spirited to remove the only obstacle that lies in the way of a brilliant future. It is estimated that $25,000 a year would place the university in a position to take her place among well-equipped and well-qualified educational institutions. If there are not twenty-five men in Buffalo sufficiently interested to give $1,000 a year each for this purpose, then there may be fifty such who might be prevailed upon to give $500 a year. In the meantime, while these twenty-five or fifty men are being canvassed and impressed with the importance of endowment, there is a chance for the alumni to distinguish themselves by creating an annual fund for the medical department. No matter how little it may be, if each alumnus would pledge himself to give so much each year, a very considerable and useful sum would be realised. Think it over!

A

Benjamin Rush.

FTER many years of hard work on the part of several prominent members of the American medical profession a monument to one of the earliest physicians of distinction, Dr. Benjamin Rush, has been erected in the grounds of the United States naval museum of hygiene and the medical school. The statue is the gift of the American Medical Association and was unveiled at 5 o'clock p. m., Saturday, June 11, 1904, in the presence of about 500 persons, including the President of the United States, members of the cabinet, officers of the army and navy, and members of the American Medical Association.

Dr. J. H. Musser, president of the American Medical Association, opened the exercises in a brief address at the end of which he introduced Dr. J. C. Wilson, of Philadelphia, who delivered an oration on the life and character of Benjamin Rush. At the conclusion of this address Mr. Louis R. Metcalf, the architect of the statue, unveiled the work while the marine band played "My Country 'tis of Thee."

President Roosevelt was then introduced by Dr. Musser and accepted the statue in the following language:

I accept on behalf of the nation the gift so fittingly bestowed by one of the great professions-this statue of a man who was eminent not only in that profession, but eminent in his service to the nation as a whole. We have listened to the interesting study of the life of Benjamin Rush, and it must surely have been brought home to each of us here that his career derives its peculiar significance in part from the greatness of his pioneer work as a physician on this continent, in part from the way in which he combined with arduous and incessant labor in his profession the greatest devotion even outside of that profession to the welfare of his fellow countrymen.

Here, at the national capital, it is earnestly to be hoped that we shall finally see commemorated, as the services of Rush are henceforth to be commemorated by this statue, all the great Americans, who, working in widely different lines, by the aggregate of their work, make the sum of achievement of America in the world. I thank and congratulate you of the medical profession today upon what you have done, not merely in commemorating the foremost pioneer in your own profession, but in adding at the national capital a figure to the gallery of great Americans who should be here commemorated. (Applause.)

As you said, Dr. Benjamin Rush was not a specialist in the modern sense. He could not be. There were not any specialists in the modern sense, as you pointed out. There was no possibility of there being such. But I would like, in this age of specialisation, to say one word in the way of a short sermon to eminent

specialists. Today, no specialist in a democratic country like ours can afford to be so exclusively a specialist as to forget that one part of his duty is his duty to the general public and to the

state.

Where government is the duty of all, it of course means that it is the duty of each, and, the minute that the average man gets to thinking that government is the duty of somebody else that minute the republic will begin to go down. It is a fortunate thing for our country that we should have before us the lives of men like Rush, who could take a part in our public life as distinguished as is implied by having been a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and yet do it without a particular neglect of the man's own proper duties. (Applause.)

I would earnestly plead, in addressing this audience, and especially the members of the high and honorable profession which has given this gift to the nation, that you never for one moment permit yourselves to forget the fact that the well being of the republic ultimately depends upon the way in which, as a rule and habitually, the best citizen of the republic does his duty to the state (applause); and that we have a right not merely to expect but to demand from our hardest worked men, from the leaders of the great professions, the full performance of that public service which consists in a zealous, intelligent and fearless performance of the ordinary duties of public life by the ordinary private citizen. (Applause.)

I thank you for having presented to the national capital, to the people of the United States, the statue of a man who was foremost as a leader and a pioneer in his profession, who was a great physician and a great American.

This brought to end one of the most interesting ceremonies that has fallen to the lot of the American medical profession to participate in. It witnessed the culmination of the hopes, ambitions, and energies of a group of earnest physicians who have struggled against odds for twenty years to bring about the result thus happily accomplished.

Many of the original projectors of and workers for this consummation have gone to their reward. To those familiar with the inception and early history of the Rush monument scheme, the thought will instinctively arise "Oh, that Gihon, the erudite and genial surgeon who served his country so long and faithfully in the navy, could have lived to witness the scene above described!" For it was to the indefatigable energy, even persistency, of Commodore Albert L. Gihon, medical director, United States Navy, who served for more than fifteen years as chairman of the Rush monument committee, that the work has been brought to such a happy conclusion. He was ably seconded by George H. Rohé, and other members of the committee, but almost everyone knows

that Gihon, though met by discouragements and even ridicule, laid the foundation so deep and firm for the building of the statue that those who have finished his work have done so with comparative ease. We should not enjoy the splendid art tribute to the memory of our distinguished colonial physician unless, in this record of its unveiling, we recalled the work in relation to its building of ALBERT LEARY GIHON.

The English Courts Deal With Substitution.

OLLOWING closely upon the heels of the successful fight against medical substitution in New York City wherein the proprietors of pepto-mangan, Gude, secured a permanent injunction against a big department store restraining it from exposing any preparation in any way similar to their protected article, word comes from London of the end of a substitution case which will take its place in medico-legal history as something of a cause celebre, because of the high standing of the representative and distinguished professional men who appeared for the plaintiffs, and because the victory over substitution was so sweeping.

Burroughs-Wellcome & Company have been doing business in England for a great many years and their medical products have become known for accuracy, purity and standard strength. The tablet or compressed pill form of drugs which they fathered were some years ago given the trade name of "tabloids," and as such were advertised to the profession. This "carried" name was registered as a trade-mark under British law. Tabloids became synonomous with honesty in drugs and accuracy in dosage and were specified in prescriptions. Other manufacturers of tablet drugs made no attempt to infringe openly, but many large drug firms did a fine business in substitution. When tabloids were written and the Burroughs-Wellcome make specified, it was the custom of substituters to dispense a similar looking tablet of an entirely different make.

The chief offenders were Thompson and Capper, who own many drug stores, and they were brought into court before Mr. Justice Byrne. It was merely a business case in the beginning and no one apparently took much interest in it until BurroughsWellcome & Company began to call witnesses to prove the value of tabloids as a distinct product. Then the drug trade and the medical profession and the lawyers and the reading public generally sat up and took a lively interest in the case, for among the witnesses who appeared opposed to substitution were such men as Sir Francis Laking, surgeon to King Edward; Dr. A. Pearson

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