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of a gun, fighting gallantly throughout the engagement, his services as surgeon not being called upon until the wounded prisoners were brought on board. Like the mother of the Gracchi, we may proudly point to such and say, "these are our jewels."

But while gallantry in action justly merits our highest admiration, there is a quiet, unostentatious bravery in the midst of pestilence which is no less heroic, though less dramatic.

"In 1832, that most dreaded of all scourges, Asiatic cholera, for the first time broke out all over this country with the greatest virulence. Easton was only eighty miles from New York, and the citizens, in terror lest the dread disease would reach their own town, appointed a young, intrepid surgeon to visit New York and learn what he could for their benefit. When others were fleeing in frightened thousands from the pestilence, Gross bravely went directly into the very midst of it, reaching New York when the epidemic was at its very height. In that then small and half-depopulated town 385 persons died on the very day of his arrival -and he stayed there a week in a hot July, visiting only its hospitals and its charnel-houses. What call you that but the highest type of bravery? -a bravery which Norfolk and Mobile and Memphis have since seen repeated by scores of courageous physicians ready to sacrifice their lives for their fellow-men, with no blare of trumpets, no roar of cannon, no cheer of troops, no plaudits of the press! No battlefield ever saw greater heroes; no country braver men!" (Page 241.)

And Gross was not alone in this bravery. Amid Arctic snows and surrounded with desolation, Kane and Hayes have shown what steady courage could do in Arctic exploration; while the revered Livingstone, in the midst of the wilds of Africa, surrounded by savage beasts and still more savage men, exposed to the dangers of fever and miasm on every hand, showed what the doctor could do amid torrid heats in the performance of his duty in exploring an unknown continent and in exterminating the traffic in human life. At this moment in India, Burma, China, Africa, two hundred and sixty-eight brave medical missionaries, of whom sixty-four

are no less brave women, are endeavoring to bring the blessings of modern medicine and of Christianity to the natives benighted lands. "We can imagine," says the "Lancet," "no career more lofty or honorable than that of a well-informed, capable, and courageous medical missionary." Their efforts especially in bringing health to the down-trodden women of heathen lands, in their efforts to abolish child-marriage with all of its attendant horrors, and in their ministrations to the sick of body and of soul have been fruitful of the highest good to millions of the human race.

XVI. Generosity of the Profession. Moreover, there is no profession which gives so freely for the good of the human race. Where is the doctor whose ear is deaf to the cry of suffering humanity in cases of accident, or during the pangs of maternity, who will not deprive himself of well-earned sleep and needed recreation, to minister to his suffering fellowcreatures without ever a thought of any pecuniary benefit to himself?

I am sure that the public does not appreciate the amount of time and the value of the services given to the poor by the rank and file of the profession. Take a single example with which I am familiar. In the Jefferson Medical College Hospital the last report shows 129 medical men on the staff of the hospital. As nearly as I can estimate, they give every year about 60,000 hours of their time to the poor, which, at 8 hours per diem, amounts to 20 years of labor of one man year after year; and their services, were they paid for at a very moderate rate, make an annual gift to the poor of over $500,000. This, mark you, is from a single hospital in a single city. Were we to take account of all the hospitals in every city and town in this country, you can easily see how many millions of dollars' worth of gratuitous services and how many decades of time are given to humanity every year by the medical profession. It is only by such vast aggregates

that we can appreciate how much there is of generous giving on the part of the profession which we do well to love and honor.

How shall the public pay this great debt? "Freely ye have received, freely give." We do not ask dollar for dollar, but may we not expect a Scriptural tenth? Not for our own pockets, but for our hospitals; not to minister to our own ease and enjoyment, but to equip our libraries and laboratories for larger and more fruitful work; not for our own homes, but for our colleges to furnish us the means for better teaching; in a word, not for ourselves, but for humanity, to whose service our lives are dedicated.

In Mr. John Wanamaker's gallery is one of the most striking pictures I have ever seen. On a large canvas by Fritel, in the center of the picture, advancing directly toward the spectator, is a large cavalcade of warriors arrayed in corselet and casque. Their stately march at once arrests the eye. The leader is Julius Cæsar. He is flanked by Napoleon and Alexander the Great and followed by Attila, Semiramis, and a lengthening host of those whom the world counts among its greatest "Conquerors." They advance between two long rows of rigid, ghastly corpses all stretched at right angles to their line of march. Spectral mountains in the distance hedge in a desolate plain given over to the vulture, the bat, and silence. I would that some artist might paint a companion picture of the "conquerors in medicine," instead of the "conquerors in war." Instead of spectral hills and a barren waste, the scene should be laid in a happy, smiling valley, bounded by the Delectable Mountains and kissed by a fertile sun. The stately procession should be led by Edward Jenner. He should be flanked by Joseph Lister and John C. Warren, and followed by Simpson, Billroth, Livingstone, Ambroise Paré, Virchow, John Hunter, and many a modest, but unknown hero who has yielded up his spirit in the performance of his

duty. Instead of treading their way between lines of corpses, they should march between lines of grateful men and women and a host of God's little children who, on bended knee and with clasped hands, would reverently invoke Heaven's richest benediction upon their deliverers.

Thus should humanity recognize its debt to the medical profession.

THE ENDOWMENT OF MEDICAL COLLEGES.*

WO duties seem to me to devolve on the President of

TWO duties seem to devolve, on the President of

the American Medical Association in his annual address. First, to consider the condition of the Association with any suggestions that may be made for improvement, and, secondly to take up some subject of professional interest which may be properly considered before the chief representative medical body of the United States.

[I omit those paragraphs dealing with the affairs of the Association.]

Turning, now, from the affairs of the Association, I wish to say a few words in reference to a subject of paramount importance which I am sure will appeal to the sympathies of all present, namely, the need for endowments for medical schools.

The tide of charity in the United States has reached a remarkable height. The Chicago "Tribune" publishes an annual list showing that in 1894 the charitable gifts and bequests in the United States amounted in round numbers to $20,000,000; in 1895, to $29,000,000; in 1896, to $34,000,000; in 1897, to $34,000,000; in 1898, to $24,000,000; and in 1899, to the enormous sum of nearly $80,000,000.

But a small portion of this charity, however, has been bestowed upon medical schools. It is mostly to colleges, theological schools, hospitals, museums, and libraries that the principal amounts have been given. The cause for this, I

*Presidential Address, Fifty-first Annual Meeting, American Medical Association, Atlantic City, June 5-8, 1900. Reprinted from the Journal of the American Medical Association June 9, 1900.

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