tralize the toxines elaborated by the micro-organisms. Hence the treatment of disease is no longer empirical, but based largely upon well-known chemic and biologic laws. What is it that has wrought this change in teaching and practice? It is this: "Medicine has been willing to profit by the teachings of chemistry and physics. It is chemical analysis, histological analysis, auscultation, percussion, thermometry, the use of such instruments as the spirometer, the sphigmograph and the microscope, and the application to clinical investigation of the various methods and instruments of chemical and physical science, that, placing medical study on a scientific basis has remodeled it as an art. We, to-day, not only estimate with great exactness the value of an ailment, the heat and work it can furnish, but we know how to utilize these facts according to the needs of the organism, just as we determine the amount of combustible material required by a machine to furnish a given amount of force. We now determine the variations in the temperature of the body, not in a general way, as formerly, but up to the fraction of a degree. The characters of the pulse are no longer judged by the sense of touch more or less delicate of each individual practitioner, but they are recorded in their most minute details. These methods and many others that could be mentioned have given medicine an honorable and legitimate position among the sciences, because they substitute for simple approximation or guesses, the most certain methods of examination, and for the variablility of individual sensation the inflexibility of figures." Armed with this knowledge we welcome you to the profession of your choice, we entrust you with the honor of this institution and hope that with you the fairest and most honored name will ever be, Alma Mater.

I take it that during your course of study, extending over a period of from three to five years, during which time you have been constantly associated with medical men, you have learned how physicians should conduct themselves toward each other. And also, that to reach and maintain the highest respectability as a physician, it is essential that you observe both the spirit and the letter of the Code of Medical Ethics. "This is the moral law of the profession," any infraction of which is punished by loss of professional standing. Even the laity now-a-days admire

an observance of the code, and become suspicious of any one who does violence to that ancient and honorable instrument. Study it well. The lessons it teaches are well worth the time and labor necessary to become familiar with it. Our code alone is sufficient to guide you aright if you will but observe it; but there is another shorter and better code which should not be lost sight of: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you"-this is the eternal symbol of ethics. Elaborate this principle and apply it to your daily lives and you have a code which everyone can understand, and which cannot mislead you into doing injustice to any. Now the treatment of your fellows is the most delicate point for your consideration. Doctors are but mortal, and the modern fever of money-getting leads some to treat too lightly the rights of others. Some are mislead into the belief that the readiest way to fame and fortune is by advertising a knowledge which they do not possess. If you were willing to sacrifice your professional standing by flagrant advertising, there is the fact that not one in a hundred who does so makes even a financial success of such abuse of the confidence they once enjoyed. The chief reason for this is that there are only about two classes of people in any community who can be caught by such chaff—the excessively ignorant and the excessively wise (?) -both classes fortunately small. Between these two extremes is the great body of common-sense people who are too smart to be caught by such chaff. It is from this great body of commonsense people that you will draw your clientel. If you would command their respect and patronage you must be skillful, honorable, ethical physicians. Unless you are this, it will not be necessary for you to resort to the public prints to become chaff, you are chaff already, and fit attendants only upon the gullible.

Not the least part of your duty as physicians is to carefully guard professional secrets. You will be entrusted with the doings of men and the follies of women. The skeleton of the closet will be shown you, and while you must look upon the sad remains of lost happiness, perhaps lost honor, your lips must be forever sealed as to its nature or existence. The whole world recognizes the sacredness of professional secrets. The courts, even when a life is at stake, do not require that professional secrets shall be betrayed; even if they should, better perish in

prison n betray a sacred trust. Keep before you this part of the Hippocratic oath: "I swear by Apollo, the physician, Æsculapius, Hygea, and Panacea, with purity I will pass my life and practice my art. Into whatever houses I enter I will go there 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 lives of men, which ought not be spoken of abroad, I will not divulge, as reckoning that all such should be kept secret." We do not impose the Hippocratic oath upon you, but when you accept that evidence of our faith in you, you assume an obligation no less binding upon your honor to hold sacred every tenet of the profession, than the oath itself would impose. Again, a still tongue upon matters not necessarily secret will add greatly to your self-respect. The garrulous, gossiping doctor, who discusses his cases, and the nature of the affections he is called upon to treat, on the street corners, in the club, or in private, either for the purpose of advertising himself, or for the want of decency, should engage in some pursuit requiring more use of the tongue and less use of the brain.

Let me counsel you further, that you are something more than physicians to look after cases of individual sickness; you are in a sense the guardian of the health of the community in which you live; at least upon matters pertaining to hygiene, sanitation, etc. You are also a teacher of, as well as attendant upon, individuals. Teach them to live wholsomely. Teach them that their chances for recovery when ill will depend largely upon their observance of the laws of health when able to do So. Teach them, too, that the high nervous tension through which the people of this country passed a few years ago has been transmitted to their offspring, and that for one or two generations yet we must meet and combat affections due chiefly to this, which were unknown to our predecessors; teach mothers that the pernicious habit of discussing nerves with or in the presence of their young daughters will perpetuate this condition, impair the vitality of our successors, even if it does not ultimately wreck it altogether. We have already seen the mental and physical vigor transferred from one part of our fair land to another. From those sections of country where that terrible state of nervous ten

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sion was greatest many brilliant intellects have since sprung it is true, but in nearly every instance, while flashing like a meteor across the firmament, vitality was lacking, and, meteor-like, they consumed themselves almost before we were aware of their presence. As guardians, then, of the public health, as guardians of the future of your country, help the people to throw off this incubus engrafted upon them by their patriotic, liberty-loving fathers in their brave efforts to give them a glorious inheritance.

Finally, gentlemen, a few words from The Morning Visit as to your general conduct in the sick room, and I have done. But first, a word in behalf of a particular class of patients, the poor. In your intercourse with those unfortunates who, by accident of birth, are deprived of every comfort of life, whose very lives have been dwarfed by the cold, heartless hand of poverty, I beg you deal gently with them, handle them tenderly, let the glow of a warm heart and a generous manhood cast a ray of light into their darkened lives. They are your best patients. Your reward is assured. There is no repudiation there.

But when, at last, by Fate's transferred decree,
The visitor becomes the visitee;

O, then, indeed, it pulls another string,

Your ox is gored and that's a different thing.
Your friend is sick-phlegmatic as a Turk,

You write your recipe and let it work.

Not yours to stand the shivering and the frown

And sometimes worse, with which your draught goes down.

Calm as a clock, your knowing hand directs,

"Rhei, jalapae-ana grana sex."

Or traces on some tender missive's back,

"Scrupulos duos-pulveres ipecac,"

And leaves your patient to his qualms and gripes,

Cool as a sportsman banging at his snipes.

But, change the time, the person, and the place,
And be yourself the "interesting case;"

You'll gain some knowledge which it's well to learn,
In future practice it will serve your turn.

Leeches, for instance (pleasing creatures, quite),
Try them, and, bless you! don't you find they bite?
You raise a blister for the slightest cause;
But be yourself the great sublime it draws,
And, trust my statement, you will not deny
The worst of draughtsmen is the Spanish fly.
It's mighty easy ordering when you please
"Infusum senae, capiat, uncias tres."
It's mighty different when you guzzle down
Your own three ounces of the liquid brown;
"Pillulæ, pulveres," pleasant sounds enough,
When other throats receive the shocking stuff.
But, oh, what flattery can disguise the groan
That meets the gulp that sends it through your own?
Be gentle, then; though Art's unsparing rules
Give you the handling of her sharpest tools;
Use them not rashly, sickness is enough,
Be always "ready," but be never "rough."

Of all the ills that suffering man endures,
The largest fraction liberal Nature cures.
Of those remaining 'tis the smallest part
Yields to the efforts of judicious Art;
But simple Kindness kneeling by the bed,
To shift the pillow for the sick man's head.

To give the draught that cools the lips that burn,
To fan the brow, the weary frame to turn;

Kindness untutored by our grave M.D.'s,
But Nature's graduate, whom she schools to please,
Wins back more sufferers with her voice and smile
Than all the trumpery in the druggists' pile.

Once more, be quiet coming up the stair;

Don't be a plantigrade, a human bear.

But stealing softly on the silent toe,

Reach the sick chamber, ere you're heard below;
Whatever changes there may meet your eyes,
Let not your looks proclaim the least surprise,