the members of the profession. It saps all affection. It chills every warm desire of friendship. It destroys the decency of intention. It is the hand-maid of misrepresentation. Mischief sits with it, and crones over the faults of another. Fraternal probity is wounded. The meaning look, the significant nod, the artful innuendo, complete the dark background. Honor is no longer honor. The noblest work of God-man-and the noblest man, the physician, becomes

the knave.

"A physician," declares Hippocrates, "who is ready to blame others, must render himself contemptible-it is the common practice of quacks." This condemnation coming from the divine man of Cos is written for our learning, just as much so as if handed down from the Prophet of Nazareth. The odious patronymic quack, you see, is not at all modern. Mean as the title is, it is just as mean as its age, for the older it becomes the uglier it grows. Such the profession justly outlaws. All look up to the doctor. How many lives and how many secrets he carries. This esteem is improved by the frank manner, the freedom from prejudice of creed, birth, education. The bright, open face is a prize. Seek to win it. It is a gleam of sunshine. "He called my husband a case, I don't want him any more!" Such was declared one morning by the lamented Nathan R. Smith, our emperor" of surgery. He was warning young men from saying anything that the unprofessional might in their ignorance wrongly construct. This poor woman did not want him to call her husband a "case." Still deception should never be employed with anyone in the house of affliction. Assiduities of an ignoble kind should be avoided. Friendly visits for sinister motives will in the end confer odium on the man and his deed. Society has as many eyes as the fabled Argus. All are not asleep. He who will use cunningness in one instance and to one class of people, will not hesitate to use it at all times and in all places and to all classes. The profession may receive a sting, and the agent will not be forgotten. The imposter

will sooner or later be seen unmasked. In the old days of the physicians of Rome, there used to be a saying for every such individual. "Beware of yonder dog." The medical hypocrite is necessarily the antithesis of the medical gentleman. An incompatibility exists. They will not mix. Medical ethics disavow proceedings so dishonorable. Those who employ dishonest methods to gain practice think that the Hippocratic oath is purely nonsense.

"With purity and with holiness I will practice my art- into whatsoever houses I enter I will go into them for the benefit of the sick, and will abstain from every voluntary act of mischief and corruption; whatever I observe in connection with my professional practice I will not divulge; all such should be kept secret." This is very much like the Christian Code. But to a few perhaps it may be simply stuff! Nowhere more than in the consulting room is the physician open to criticism. Here he impresses his brother for good or for evil. "The consulting physician," wrote a doctor several years ago, "should carefully refrain from any of those attentions or assiduities which are too often practiced by the dishonest for the base purpose of ingratiating themselves into the favor of families or individuals. One may tolerate, in quest of practice the ordinary ruses to which those who do not respect themselves or their profession ingeniously resort; the fictitious devotion to study; the wily calls at large residences, with the old apology of having mistaken the house; the purchase of the unnecessary horse and vehicle standing conspicuously and long at hotel entrances, and before the doors of those whose patronage suggests success; the inevitable summons by the sexton or doorkeeper; the startling number on the prescription paper; an indomitable system of social visiting, in which time is industriously expended in speculative petting of children or in a lucrative flattery of their parents; that absurd air of affection, patronage and protection in the sickroom, which, as remunerative deportment, would have made a Turvey-drop green with envy; a hypocritical affabil

ity, didactic pretension and dogmatic grandiloquence with the uninitiated, which in the character of Pecksniff, Mr. Dickens has made so familiar and so disgusting. These methods, to secure subsistence, are familiarly ludicrous and justly contemptible.

The sycophantic empiric may smile, and with Mr. Burchell in the Vicar of Wakefield say, "Fudge." Though he be joined by the whole army of empiricism in the chorus of Fudge! yet the teaching of our venerable mother, our Alma Mater, has ever been to beware of this as false and treacherous. Quacks

must live, to be sure, and as the lines of a caricaturist describes them:

"Why then it shows its power." "I fear to die."

"Let not your spirit sink

"You're always safe while you believe and drink."

We are taught to unsparingly expose quackery in every form, and guard the public against the dangers of ignorant and mercenary charlatans. Now while our noble profession is uncircumscribed, and professes no exclusive dogma, it is nevertheless exceedingly jealous of of everything which may be brought before it from the great fields of research in anatomy, physiology, hygiene, surgery, pathology, materia medica and chemistry. It can never tolerate nostrums per se. Every graduate of this dear old school of medicine is taught that first of all, to move in society as its conserver, -he is a gentleman. If he is not this in all that bears on the honor of his profession it discards him. From the chair of ethics and medico-legal jurisprudence -a chair to my mind which should be in all medical schools-the student will be taught to go forth as an honorable member and guardian of human society.

The sick, rich and poor, are put into his keeping. Physicians are servants. They more than other of the genus homo are of the mould of the Saviour. They go out "to minister, not to be ministered unto."

A wise man, John Stuart Mill, wrote long ago that, the importance of understanding the true conditions of health and disease-of knowing how to acquire and preserve that healthy habit of body which the most tedious and costly medical treatment so often fails to restore when once lost, should secure a place in general education for the principal maxims of hygiene and some of those even of practical medicine. For those who aim at high intellectual cultivation, the study of physiology has still greater recommendations, and is, in the present state of advancement of the higher studies, a real necessity. This maxim has ever been held out also to the graduate of this school, and thus he will find himself equipped to obey all the demands of advanced society."

་ ་

Another thing that comes up for the physician's practical outlook and forbearance is the collecting of fees. Ethics have as much to do with this as with any other principle in the conduct of the doctor. The cold refrain often meets him: "I have my rent to pay;" or, "I haven't time now; call again;" or, "Your bill is too large,' You made more visits than necessary." Here is where great patience and ready charity is required. The poor we have always, I think may be put down as a medical belonging. Still the doctor has his turn. of blessings. For if it be said at times, "I hate to pay that fellow's bill;" "These doctors are troublesome fellows. They come, and look wise, feel our pulse, look at our tongue, and away they go, leaving their dark shadows behind them."

But do they not hear the sweet refrain often :-"O dear, dear, I'm dying;" Run for the doctor, the dear, dear doctor! what won't I do for him when I get well; God bless him."

Well, this is the versatility of human nature-the poor, sad, sad wail of humanity! We must respect it. Though

the old saw shows itself that, "when the devil was sick the devil the monk would be; when the devil was well the devil a monk was he." It is a moral wrong if the physician does not collect his fee guided by just discrimination, unless where absolute poverty calls for charity. To make the medical profession, as this University holds, honorable and respected both for its learning and its works, is the great care of all her graduates. When we reflect and see what science, what research has done, the last thirty years, I am quite safe in saying it, that our professors have kept abreast of the age, and that no claimant for the higher studies of medicine can plant the banner "Excelsior," higher. All things useful have been kept while the age has been outstepping that of the "Fathers of medicine," day by day, yet the "Fathers of medicine,' " of every age are still held to memory dear. The anterior splint of the Old School of Medicine of the University of Maryland has left a blessing behind wherever

used, and it has been used the world

over.

Medicine grasps everything, and honors the names of those who labor far down in the workshop of suffering humanity. Shaped like divinity, the servants should be as nearly divine as possible. Therefore above all things the diploma from our Alma Mater, sweet mother, Heaven bless her, should not only have written on vellum but on our hearts the "Filius sim dignus ista parente."

In conclusion let me say with B. Merrill Hopkinson, M. D., Class of 1885, of the dear old school to which we come back after many years, as children to the common mother of our united love, "Heaven bless thee! and grant thee a great destiny,

May thy sons still ennoble thy name,
'Filius sim dignus ista parente,
Be emblazed in letters of flame,

Ever onward we press in the combat of life,
In the strength of thy precepts and love,
We will struggle for honor, do battle for right,
'Till we touch on Eternity's shore.”

LEAVING for other and abler advocates some important needs which are presented in the last report of our energetic Health Department, viz., the erection of a hospital for infectious diseases, systems for the disposal of garbage, sewage, etc., I note, in passing, under food inspection, the chemist's report of his visit to 97 cow stables within the city limits, sheltering 1126 cows that furnished 827,450 gallons of milk last year. The majority of these stables are said to be in an utterly insanitary condition, as to ventilation, cleanliness, and bodily comforts provided. "Many of the cows never leave the stable, day or night, from the time they enter till they are sold to the butcher. Some of the animals are milked three times a

day and owing to the small space allowed, the object being in some cases to retain the animal heat and force the production of milk," I am told that it is necessary to dash cold water over the poor beasts to prevent spontaneous combustion. The presence of these stables in the very heart of the city is not only a public nuisance, but their product is shown to be decidedly unhealthy and its sale should be suppressed as recommended. Better still, an ordinance should be enacted making it illegal to keep cows within the old city limits for this purpose. The details of some of these pathological industries, as related to me, are positively disgusting.

Too much praise cannot be given to those who have vigorously pushed the

milk inspection law, and lessened the amount of municipal infanticide that called for its enactment. Says a writer: "Hygiene and sanitation are only at this comparatively late day giving their attention to child life. The first manifestation of the presence of bacilli—the early germ-like the early worm, receives prompt attention at the hands of the profession, but the early bird-the child life of the race-has been left to shift for itself. But the last is very apt to become the first."

When we erect a monument to the discoverers of the little organisms which have opened up such possibilities for preventive medicine, although they have created a salutary disease to be known as a microbiphobia, the most impressive inscription would be "They taught us the Hygienic Value of Cleanliness."

Dr. Simon Baruch, who has done so much in New York to popularize the use of water as a sanitary agent, gives in a recent paper the following interesting account of the Riverside Baths:

"The chief aim of the Riverside Association is to help workingmen and their families to help themselves. Modern hygiene has demonstrated most clearly that the essential principle of all sanitation is cleanliness. Clean food, i. e., food free from germs of disease (such as meat free from tuberculosis germs, milk and water free from typhoid germs), clean clothing, and above all a clean skin, prevent more diseases than all the quarantine stations in the world. To teach the poor and lowly these lessons is one of the objects of the Riverside Association, and as in other branches of our work, we aim to offer the people practical means for enforcing this teaching.

"The establishment of public baths, in which the workingman and his family may obtain a thorough cleansing of the body, has been a salient feature of this Association. Sanitarians are strongly urging the establishment of public baths on the simple ground of prevention of filth diseases. It will not do to await the slow growth of public sentiment. We must lead. Pursuant to this platform, the Association built a number of small baths on the principle of the rain

bath, recently introduced into this country. They have been such a comfort and benefit to this neighborhood that now a larger bath has been constructed, which offers facilities for about 350 bathers a day.

PUBLIC BATHS-WHY NEEDED.

"Are such baths needed? it may be asked. Those who are familiar with the bathing facilities of the tenement population can testify how imperatively they are needed. The wealthy have one or more bath tubs, and they may resort to public baths, where the price is prohibitory even for the middle classes. The poorer classes, the laborers, who crowd the tenement houses of the dense east and west side of the city, have absolutely no means of washing their bodies, on which are accumulated not only their own impure emanations, but also the dirt and dust incident to their occupations. Their tenements consist of two sist of two or three dark bedrooms and one or two lighted rooms, in which the cooking and washing are done. Decency prevents these people from necessary ablutions of the entire body in each other's presence, and their water supply is scant.

"Cold water is not effective for thorough cleansing-fuel to heat a supply is too costly. Hence every obstacle stands in the way of obtaining that which would preserve the health more than all other means. Even the servants in most of the better class of houses have no decent bathing facilities. Thus the very people with whom we associate most intimately in our households, they who prepare our food, care for our children, attend to our personal wants-those domestics are, as a rule, not provided with such facilities as would encourage the practice of bathing.

"Moreover it is a well recognized fact that the filthy condition of our poor people is frequently responsible for the spread of disease among those better situated, with whom they come in contact in pursuit of their calling.

"By offering these dwellers in tenement districts this opportunity of cleaning themselves, we protect our own fam

ilies. Even from this mercenary standpoint this enterprise of the Riverside Association would seem a laudable one, and the dwellers in this portion of the city would do well in sustaining by contributions an institution which proposes to stand as a protecting Aegis over their homes and families. Physically and morally, the influence of cleanliness is elevating and its diffusion among the masses must inure to the common good. The dictates of a sympathetic humanity, the demands of public safety, the claims of private interests, all combine to commend this institution to the best endeavors of the community.

RAIN BATHS.

"The practical workings of baths in which large numbers seek cleansing and health have been recently investigated. It had long ago been discovered that a pool, artificially supplied with warm water, was impracticable for the public bath.

"In this practical age, open bathingplaces, except in flowing rivers, have been discarded, and the problem of the best public bath has long awaited solution, because the tub baths of our households proved inadequate. Owing to the time occupied in filling, emptying and cleaning the tubs and the danger of communicating disease, sanitarians have been greatly hampered in their efforts to provide extensive bathing facilities. The discovery of the rain bath has solved the problem. Instead of immersing the bather in warm water, which soon becomes soiled, he stands under a strong shower of warm water and carries on his ablution aided by the stream descending upon him. The soiled water flows away at once. There is no need of cleaning such a bath each time it is used, because it cleans itself automatically. The supply of warm water is always ready in the boilers for the next bather. Thus three persons may successively bathe every hour in the same compartment.

"The Riverside Association has just built a neat and most economical bath of this description. It consists of thirteen compartments, built of corrugated

iron below and wire netting for light and ventilation above. These are covered with white enamel paint, presenting an inviting, cleanly and fresh appearance. The front of each compartment is adapted for a dressing room, the back portion for a bath room. In twenty minutes a warm bath may be taken, soap and towel being furnished, the cost being only five cents. Such a bath is at the command of any workingman whom inclination to be clean may induce to seek one.

"That this inclination is very strong among the tenement population is evident from the fact that the People's Baths in Center Market Place, which was the first public rain bath in this country, bathed over 80,000 people last year, the charge being five cents.

TURKISH BATH FOR 25 CENTS.

"An important feature of the public bath is an improved Turkish bath. Up to the present time this kind of bath has been accessible only to people of means, who have used it as a luxury. The Riverside Association has been led, by the experience of its officers, to believe that the Turkish bath is a necessity to men who are begrimed in the pursuit of their avocations. An ordinary warm bath scarcely suffices to cleanse a fireman, engineer, or machinist, who has spent the whole week amid soot and oil and smoke. A good perspiration bath, following the rain bath, starts the secretions and throws out impurities which have been driven deeply into the skin. For the small sum of twenty-five cents this comforting and useful bath may now be obtained, a boon never before offered to the workingman. It will be seen that the Riverside Association has carefully studied the needs of the laboring people, and it aims to meet them in the most practical way."

Baltimore, with its magnificent water supply, should need no urging to at once inaugurate a similar system of public baths, centrally or conveniently located to its crowded districts. $500 already spent for open bath facilities has done some good and was followed by a bill to appropriate $8000 for

The