public approval. Your reward of merit which you take. with you to-night to your several places of practice, will prove of no value to you unless re-enforced by such deportment, professional and personal, as only befits the upright and true physician. You are to remember to conform strictly in your practice to the golden rule, which is the spirit of the Oath of Hippocrates and of our Code of Ethics. Place yourself always in your patient's place and consider in deciding what you would do for the patient, what you would have the patient do for you, under similar circumstances. You must, if needs be, burn the midnight oil, poring over your books, and subjecting yourselves to many vicissitudes and inconveniences.

On life's voyage before you are thorns to prick as well as flowers to inspire. Manfully take the thorn with the flower. They grow together on the same stem. Beautify and adorn your lives by a manly devotion to duty. Make of duty a pleasure, and your life will be reasonably happy despite its trials.

On your pathway you will find imperiled human. lives. The happiness of others will be in your hands. Your only safeguard, therefore, will be the Divine injunction, Whatsoever ye would that others should do unto you, do ye even so to them." To follow this out in your profession will enjoin upon you the practice of selfabnegation and make necessary, oft-repeated sacrifices of personal ease, comfort and convenience, for the welfare of others. You must aim to be just and fear not. Be true to yourself and these demands of your high calling, and you will surely be just to your patients.

As you have sown and shall continue to sow in fidelity to the high demands of duty to your exalted calling, so shall you reap in rich reward of approving consciences, mental peace, gratitude and pecuniary recompense. With what measure of duty, fidelity and zeal you shall meet in your practice, it shall be more than meted unto you again, in the appreciation of your patients, personal satis-. faction and Divine approbation.

Seeds of diligent industry sown in searching out the causes and remedies of disease, and in the fruitful application of this knowledge in behalf of afflicted humanity, will bring into your life the ripened fruit of contentment. You will plant your own vine and fig tree of happiness, under whose delightful shades you shall rest in the evening of your days and lie down to pleasant dreams of duty well done.

It

We warn you against the shoals, quicksands and pitfalls of your professional career. The first pitfall is the practice of medicine solely for a mercenary purpose. is something higher and nobler than a mere money-making business. It is a profession in which the highest welfare of humanity, promoted through your efforts, is to be your special reward. Selfishness may lure you from the necessary sacrifices that will be essential to the proper performance of your duties as physicians. You must consider your patient first and yourselves afterwards. Selfishness should have no place in the physician's vocabulary of conduct. You cannot be extremely mercenary and selfish and succeed as high-minded and worthy physicians.

Though you have labored faithfully and diligently, and well earned the reward bestowed upon you to-night, you cannot relax and become indolent in after life and discharge your duties to yourself, to the community or to your Creator.

What I have said against being mercenary does not in any manner militate against your being diligent in business, strict in your accounts, and particular about presenting them and carefully collecting them after the manner of other business men. Do the very best work

you can and study each year to do it better still, and when you shall have done it, put upon it a just estimate and demand your reward.

The physician, of all public servants, is worthy of his hire. If he is faithful, as he ought to be and as his high calling demands, he is worthy of far greater rewards than he usually receives. Do not be afraid of being called a high-priced doctor, but have a wholesome fear

and labor diligently to avoid it, of being considered in the community where you locate a doctor of mediocrity, for M. D. often signifies this. Keep abreast of the times. Keep in the vanguard of your profession. Study to advance its interests and advance each day in the knowledge of the nature and cure of disease. Cultivate the amenities of life. Be suave, amiable, natural and unfeignedly sympathetic in your manner and always neat in person. Neither act, nor speak, nor dress so that you might be considered insincere, peculiar or repulsive, to your patients. If you use tobacco, use it moderately, discreetly, and in the sick room, sparingly, if at all. Keep your office faithfully during office hours and it will keep you. Be punctual to your appointments. Take particular care of your own health by being temperate in all things and regular in your habits, thus setting such an example as a physician should set to those about him. Aim to be scholarly, as well as scientific. Aim to be agreeable, as well as useful, in your intercourse with people. Read some of the best literature of the day. Be able to talk something else than shop and something else than disease to your patients. Do not run your business into the ground like a well-borer or an undertaker. Do not go into partnership with either a druggist, a natural mineral water man, an undertaker or a tombstone dealer. It would not look well to do so.

You will be estimated by your skill in curing disease. You will be judged by the fruits of your work, but you will also be estimated by the common standards by which other cultivated men are judged. And, above all things, avoid that kind of training of yourself which is likely to result in making you one-sided in your judgments. Be broad and liberal in your views of affairs. When you speak in public, speak reservedly, but speak with force.

You have nothing to do with the politics or religion of your patients. This field belongs to others, and as a wise physician, you will not run counter to the prejudices and predilections of your patients, except in so far as

these prejudices or predilections may tend to impair their health or retard their recovery from existing disease. But you should not ignore either your political or your religious duties as you may understand them.

No rank, no nationality, naught but duty should influence your conduct in the sick room. The poor are your best patients. They will trust you as you will have to trust them. They will give you experience in return for your skill, and God who has said, "For inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these," will be your final paymaster. You can trust Him with confidence to repay in peace of soul and the final plaudit, "Well

done!"

The sum of your obligations and your duties is embodied in that oath of the Father of Medicine, who, though he lived and died before the advent of Christianity, practiced his profession in the spirit of the Christian charity of our day; and here I give you the substance of the Oath of Hippocrates, that you may see that medicine of to-day comes in possession by heredity, of the practice of justice, truth, honesty and charity towards mankind in its efforts to heal disease.

THE HIPPOCRATIC OATH.

I swear by Apollo, the physician, and Esculapius, and Health and Allheal, and all the gods and goddesses, that, according to my ability and judgment, I will keep this Oath and this stipulation-to reckon him who taught me this Art equally dear to me as my parents, to share my substance with him and relieve his necessities, if required; to look upon his offspring on the same footing as my own brothers, and to teach them this Art if they shall wish to learn it, without fee or stipulation, and that by precept, lecture and every other mode of instruction, I will impart a knowledge of the Art to my own sons, and those of my teachers and disciples bound by a stipulation and oath according to the law of medicine. I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my

ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to anyone if asked, nor suggest any such counsel. With purity and with holiness I will pass my life and practice my Art. Into whatever 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, in connection with my professional practice or not in connection with it, I see or hear, in the life of men, which ought not to be spoken of abroad, I will not divulge, as reckoning that all such should be kept secret. While I continue to keep this Oath unviolated may it be granted to me to enjoy life and the practice of the Art, respected by all men, in all times; but should I trespass and violate this Oath, may the reverse be my lot.

Finally, since Solomon said wisdom is the principal thing, and that in all your gettings you should get understanding, I think he certainly must have meant to include getting married, for, with all his wisdom, he was a very much married man. I, therefore, think it wise for each of you who may be single to soon get a wife. Doubtless, some of you are thinking the same way at this very moment, eager to hasten to your beloved with your license to practice and to marry at the same time. A good wife will help you to get understanding of many things. A doctor without a wife is like a wild locomotive without an engineer, an engine without a governor, an establishment without a superintendent. Woman first came to man's side in a garden, with the highest recommendation. She is a good institution, not only in a garden among the roses, but to have about the house, notwithstanding the little trouble she once got Adam into, for which she has long ago been forgiven in consideration of the good she has since done him. It is not meet for him to be alone. Solomon valued women above rubies, and he knew enough of her to know what he was talking about. He said this