PRESIDENT ELIOT'S WELCOME.

I welcome you to an exceptional community in which physicians and surgeons have for generations held equal rank with the members of all other learned and scientific professions. Massachusetts has long recognized in physicians and surgeons as a class powerful contributors to the public health and happiness, to the advancement of medical knowledge, to the industrial and economic interests of the community and to its moral welfare. For generations this fortunate community has enjoyed the privilege of knowing intimately physicians who illustrated the highest qualities of human nature-men courageous and resolute under responsibility, imperturbable in the presence of danger, conservative and yet bold, in professional relations patient, cheerful and tender, diligent learners throughout life, and diligent teachers of sound doctrine concerning health and disease, virtue and vice. Experience of these noble qualities in the best physicians and surgeons during the past two hundred years has led Massachusetts to recognize completely the dignity and serviceableness of the profession of medicine, and to treat it, therefore, with the highest official and social consideration. This is more than can be said with accuracy concerning the standing of the physician in many older and more conspicuous communities.

I welcome you as promoters of public health and efficiency to a community which under the guidance of physicians has effectively protected its water supplies, regulated the production and sale of milk, foods and drugs, controlled smallpox, typhoid fever and diphtheria at the public expense, established humane treatment for the insane and the defective, and supported admirable hospitals for the sick and injured, partly at the public charge. All these beneficent things it has done under the guidance and at the instigation of wise physicians, and accordingly this community pays to your profession the homage of its admiration and its gratitude.

I welcome you as members of a profession which relies for success and progress on careful observation, limited inference, and exact recording-three scientific methods which are of universal application and utmost promise in human affairs. I welcome you as men who must have all their knowledge and

skill available on the instant and at their fingers' ends. That is the best kind of knowledge and skill. I welcome you as men who, knowing human nature intimately, have good hope of serving and improving it. I welcome you as habitual bringers of comfort and help, both physical and moral, to men and women in personal peril or distress, and as prophets and missionaries who warn and defend the people against the most frightful perils of earlier times against such pests as smallpox, cholera, yellow fever, tuberculosis and the bubonic plague, thus not only saving human life, but making the life of all mankind brighter and happier.

I welcome you to this historic town and Commonwealth which have always stood for freedom of thought and speech, public order, universal education, reverence towards the past and hopefulness towards the future. May you enjoy to the full their beautiful June scenery, their associations with American history and literature, their many institutions of intelligent beneficence, and the cordial hospitality with which their citizens will try to convince you of their respect and good-will towards the medical profession.

DR. CABOT'S GREETING.

Mr. Richard T. Cabot, who next was introduced, brought the greetings of the Massachusetts Medical Society, of which he is President. He also gave special welcome to the foreign guests, many of whom, he said, were not strangers. "We are honored in having you here," he continued, "and we appreciate what the American Medical Association is doing. Never was there a time when such faith existed in the possibilities of the medical profession. Knowledge brings power, and also responsibility, and we should see to it that our constantly increasing store of knowledge is used for the public good. We of Massachusetts accept our responsibility."

Dr. Cabot then mentioned some of the evils which the local physicians are trying to eradicate, among them tuberculosis in this state, to do which effectively it is necessary to enlist the co-operation of every doctor in the Commonwealth. The various district societies are doing much through the medium of committees, which in turn are studying local condi

tions and thus help to keep alive interest in the good work; and they are proving of great assistance to local boards of health in the latter's efforts in safeguarding the public against the great white plague, as it is called.

He hoped there would be a constantly stimulated interest, and that each physician would see that no patient communicates the disease to another. He suggested that preventive work might be done on a large scale by the Association, whose meetings here he was sure would be productive of a decided forward step in medical work.

MAYOR FITZGERALD'S ADDRESS OF WELCOME.

Gentlemen-Once more, after an interval of forty-one years, your association holds its convention in Boston, and I, as mayor, am privileged to throw open to you the gates of our official hospitality. It is indeed a rare privilege to greet the distinguished representatives of a profession which renders such universal service and has personal claims upon the good will of almost every man. Dealing with life itself and the mysteries of birth and death which envelop it, you develop in your calling the finest virtues of our nature. When we read of your physicians in Cuba and New Orleans giving up their lives in experiments designed to trace the source of infection in yellow fever, and when we remember that such instances of heroic sacrifice are the commonplace of medical history, we understand why the title of doctor should be everywhere one of dignity and affection.

You come from many states and foreign countries, singleminded in your devotion to one great central idea. I trust that, during your stay in Boston, you will observe that the government of this city is not uninfluenced by the same idea, but feels its due share of responsibility for the health of the people. We provide sanitary living conditions, a pure water supply, inspection of milk and vinegar, registration and quarantine of all contagious or infectious diseases, hygienic instruction in the public schools, and public parks, gymnasia, playgrounds and baths. Any inspection of our efforts in field of hygiene which should ignore the last-named agencies would be

sadly incomplete, for, as you all know, prevention in this matter is a thousand times better than cure.

Yet prevention is not always possible, in spite of all our pains. There has always been practice enough for physicians and surgeons in Boston, and I believe we have had our share of the great names of your profession. One chair alone, the Parkman professorship of anatomy at Harvard, has had four such distinguished occupants as John Warren, J. Collins Warren, Oliver Wendell Holmes and Thomas Dwight, my associate in this reception and an honored member of the Board of Library Trustees. Indeed, the faculty of the Harvard Medical School has never been without names of national and international eminence; and the other monument of the Public Garden, erected in honor of Dr. W. T. G. Morton of Boston, certainly commemorates one of the greatest discoveries ever made in the history of medicine.

Most of you, I presume, will visit our various medical colleges while you are here, and some of our well-equipped hospitals, as the Massachusetts General Hospital, of which Boston is no less proud than of its Public Library, its schools, its park system, and its water works. The land and buildings of this institution represent an investment of over $3.000.000, and its various departments contain nearly a thousand beds. Its administration, which is in the hands of a Board of Trustees who give their time and services without pay, is of the highest order; while the progressive spirit of its medical staff may be judged from the fact that the Boston City Hospital was among the first to introduce pathological study in clinical work and to use anti-toxins for diphtheria and the X-ray in diagnosis.

Other hospitals may be mentioned as deserving credit for success in special fields-such as the Carney Hospital, which for a long time was alone in receiving consumptive patients, and the Children's Hospital, which has done such noble work in correcting deformities and in preserving precious young lives. But there is one hospital which is still to arise and one monument not yet erected. The people of Boston have in tuberculosis a foe as insidious and implacable as the typhoid fever which scourges Philadelphia and Pittsburg. We have

recently organized our defensive forces and laid the foundations of what I prophesy will be a great institution; and I here and now promise a monument, built by popular subscription, on any site he may select, to the member of your profession who shall forge the weapon by which we may effectively check the ravages of the great white plague.

Long addresses are not to your taste, gentlemen. Let me, then, briefly, but heartily, bid you welcome to Boston. I trust that your deliberations may be fruitful in good results for suffering humanity, and that you may succeed in your efforts to raise the standard of membership in your honorable profession.

Dr. Herbert L. Burrell, Chairman of the Committee on, Arrangements, reported for that committee, saying:

"I was able to secure in the work the co-operation of gentlemen in medical and allied sciences to serve as associates on the committee. With these gentlemen have been associated more than 700 gentlemen. There were actively engaged in making arrangements for this meeting between 1,200 and 1,400 men and women in New England. Not the least are we indebted to the wives of physicians, to representative women and to the young ladies of Boston, who have generously contributed their services. The necessary funds have been generously contributed by the medical profession and by many public citizens. Harvard University and the Massachusetts Medical Society have cordially assisted in the preparation for the meeting.

"We are deeply indebted to Tufts College, to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and to many private societies and associations in this city. To me personally the arrangements have been a pleasure, owing to the helping hands that have been so generously extended."

The retiring President, McMurty, introduced the new President, Dr. William J. Mayo, whose address was listened to with wrapped attention by the vast assemblage.

AMERICAN MEDICAL EDITORS' ASSOCIATION.

The American Medical Editors' Association met Monday, June 4, 1906, in the Association's quarters at the Copley Square Hotel. The regular session opened with an address by Presi