We have also another important current index called the "Index Medicus," edited by Dr. Billings and Dr. Fletcher, of which I show you vol. xix. This monthly publication contains the titles of all the medical papers and books in the world for the year. The value of such an index is simply incalculable.

Now, suppose you are going to write a paper, and you have the material from the notes of your own cases (from your first card catalogue), and have read all you need in the books and journal articles (from your second card catalogue), and have supplemented these by reading the articles or books of importance which you have found recorded in the "Index Catalogue" or the "Index Medicus," how will you go about writing your paper?

First comes the title of the paper or case, and I would advise you to take pains to select a good title. Never use such a title as "Two Interesting Surgical Cases," or "An Unusual Surgical Case," etc. These papers will go in the "Index Medicus" under precisely the title you give, and the titles mentioned give no clue to the nature of the cases you report. Suppose I am hunting up cases of operation for perforation of the intestine in typhoid fever, how can I know that the papers just named refer to just the cases I am seeking for? The fact is that papers with such indefinite titles are probably never consulted. State what you are writing about clearly and tersely; if it be a case, give it a good descriptive name; and if there were any unusual complications deserving attention or any novel procedure employed, state it in the title.

When you want to write your paper and have your title and material, after any introductory or historical remarks, you will first consider the etiology; next the pathology (often these two are intertwined); third, the symptoms; fourth, the physical signs; fifth, the diagnosis; sixth, the differential diagnosis; seventh, the prognosis; and, eighth, the treatment. This plan gives a logical method to your paper. It is often

well, also, at the end of a paper to make a summary of your conclusions, so that there may be crystallized from your paper the principal conclusions that you have been led to. Always try to express yourself clearly. Never try to use fine language; write plainly and simply so that anybody may understand it. When I see a paper written by a man whose former papers have been marked by clearness and good sense, I always read it. You soon learn to "size up" the writers of papers and books.

It has been a great pleasure to me, gentlemen, to meet you this evening. I hope I have opened your eyes to the vast fields of medical bibliography in which you may roam at will; have shown you the means, the methods, and the great labor which your teachers and the writers of the books you study and often admire are compelled to undertake and find delight in; have exhibited to you the methods by which you can make your own work and your own reading valuable, because it is properly recorded and then made available by proper indexing; and, above all, have stimulated you to do the best work in your power and to add to your at first scanty knowledge, to the end that you may grow better, wiser, and abler men and make that larger knowledge available for the relief of human suffering and the prolongation of human life.

Bronze statue of Samuel D. Gross in the Smithsonian Park, Washington, D. C. The building in the background is the Army Medical Museum

ADDRESS AT THE UNVEILING

OF THE STATUE OF THE LATE
PROFESSOR SAMUEL D. GROSS, M.D.,
WASHINGTON, D. C., MAY 5, 1897.*

FELLOWS OF THE AMERICAN SURGICAL ASSOCIATION, MEMBERS OF THE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION OF THE JEFFERSON MEDICAL COLLEGE, AND FRIENDS:

G

O with me, your spokesman, to-day to the Woodlands Cemetery, that "God's Acre" or "Court of Peace," as the Germans so poetically call it,-which holds the dust of so many of the best dead of Philadelphia. Upon an urn there treasured you will read the following:

IN MEMORIAM.

Within this urn lie the ashes of

SAMUEL D. GROSS,

A Master in Surgery.

His life, which neared the extreme limits of the Psalmist, was one unbroken process of laborious years.

He filled chairs in four Medical Colleges, in as many States of the Union, and added lustre to them all.

He recast Surgical Science, as taught in North America, formulated

* Reprinted from the Transactions of the American Surgical Association, 1897.

The statue, in bronze, was erected by the American Surgical Association, the Alumni Association of the Jefferson Medical College and other friends of Professor Gross.