knowledge which you now possess; you must read, especially the medical journals, or you will be left behind in this day of rapid progress. You must know not only your own language, but must be familiar, at least by a reading knowledge, with French and German, and if possible with other tongues. He who knows two languages is twice the man he was when he knew but one.

You must not only be skillful, but careful. I have made not a few mistakes in my own professional life, and in reviewing them I can see that for every one made by reason of lack of knowledge and skill, two at least have been committed by haste or want of care. With all our varied instruments of precision, useful as they are, nothing can replace the watchful eye, the alert ear, the tactful finger, and the logical mind which correlates the facts obtained through all these avenues of information and so reaches an exact diagnosis, institutes a correct treatment, and is rewarded by a happy result.

Be careful in your relations to your patients to deal with them conscientiously. In no other calling is the amount of service to be paid for committed absolutely to the judgment and conscience of the person who is to be paid for his services. Whether you shall make few or many visits is left to your discretion and honest judgment. Sordid motives may occasionally lead to the giving of unnecessary attention. But again it is a glory of our guild that very few physicians betray this trust, and those who do quickly lose their professional standing. Watch yourselves jealously in this respect, and never let the greed of gain dull the fine edge of professional honesty.

You will be the father confessor to many a penitent. Family skeletons will be unveiled to you alone. The conscientious duty of professional secrecy is given, I am proud to say, into not unworthy hands. True, physicians are sometimes too lax in the repetition of petty gossip, but the pro

fession as a whole is worthy of the confidences so freely given. Be careful, even to reticence, of any betrayal of this trust. Better suffer misconception and unmerited blame yourselves than betray your patients.

Be brave men. Your fathers were brave men. When pestilence stalks in the streets and contagion lurks in every chamber of illness, where have the doctors been found? Fleeing from danger with the frighted multitude? Nay, verily. If you wish to find them you must seek in the crowded tenements, in the hospitals, and in the charnel-houses. There you will find them cheerfully tending the sick, facing disease in the midst of its victims, and seeking, even in the bodies of the dead, the knowledge that will make them masters of the plague. Witness Rush in the yellow fever of 1797, Gross in the cholera of 1832, and Haffkine in the bubonic plague of the present time. War has given us many fine examples of personal bravery, but pestilence has bred its quiet heroes who have gone about their daily duty, simply, fearlessly, devotedly. No granite shaft, no enduring brass may mark their last resting-place, but the Recording Angel has dropped a tear, blotting out their faults, and writ their names high in the roll of fame.

In your professional relations, never forget to be charitable. The best patients you will ever have will be the thankful poor, and your hearts will often find a sincere and grateful glance better payment than any gold. In your relations with other physicians, you will find many opportunities for that same brotherly kindness which is so beautiful a characteristic of our guild. Always extend to other physicians and their immediate families the courtesy of faithful attendance without pecuniary return. Avoid the petty jealousies, which, I am sorry to say, not seldom estrange physicians from each other. Always believe the best motive unless you know the worst is present. Never say an unkind word of a brother-doctor

when you can utter a kindly one. Try to be just, even to those who are unjust to you.

Public Life.-In most communities, especially in minor towns and villages, the doctor is one of a small circle of educated men. His scientific studies make him familiar with many public problems, especially those concerning sanitation, the water-supply, the prevention of epidemics, the preservation of the public health, the problems of school life, the fostering of a proper athletic indulgence, the management of prisons, the care of the feeble-minded, the insane, the poor. On all of these questions you must make your voices heard in the communities in which you live or else you give them over to others less qualified and only mischief can follow.

No one, perhaps, is more of a leader than the physician in the various philanthropic enterprises of the day. These are closely allied in many respects to the topics just mentioned, and you will be on boards of directors and managers and trustees where you must bring your influence to bear for a wise outlay of charitable gifts and civic appropriations and for harmonizing the antagonistic elements which too often produce discord and confusion. If you combine the qualities which I have sketched for the ideal doctor, you will find that men will easily recognize you as wise leaders whom they will be glad to follow.

My best wish for you is that you may realize in your own lives these characteristics of the ideal physician. It will matter little then whether your life be long or short, for the proper measure of a life is not how long, but how it has been lived, and if you attain to old age, when the hairs whiten and the crow's feet begin to show, when your natural forces are abated, you will then not be alone in the world, but will have honor, love, obedience, troops of friends, and one Friend above all others, the Great Physician. And when you pass from this life into the next, then shall you be greeted not only by this one great Friend, but by many from whose pathway you have plucked the thorns and briars of this earthly life; many

whom, through the devious paths of convalescence, you have led back to perfect health, to home, husband, father, mother, children; and even if you have not been able to stay the hands of the grim reaper, those too will greet you whose last hours you have soothed amid the pangs of death and have helped through the new birth into the heavenly Jerusalem.

ADDRESS AT THE

ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS OF ENGLAND AT THE CONFERRING OF HONORARY DEGREES AT THE CENTENARY CELEBRATION OF THE GRANTING OF ITS PRESENT CHARTER.*

N behalf of my American colleagues and myself it gives me great pleasure to return our very hearty thanks for the honor just conferred upon us. We regard it as the highest surgical honor we could receive, for "Praise from Sir Hubert is praise indeed."

Though the Royal College of Surgeons of England has attained a venerable age, it is far from decrepitude. No better evidence of this can be found than the many Members and Fellows who at the call of duty so cheerfully went to the front in South Africa. Foremost among them was your distinguished President, who, though he has reached an age when most men seek repose and slippered ease, responded to his country's call with his customary energy and alacrity. Happily the war is now nearing its end. Apart from any political results in South Africa, it has had two results in which we may well rejoice. It has bound together Great Britain. and her colonies in one solid empire; and through the wise statesmanship of the Most Noble the Marquis of Salisbury and His Excellency the American Ambassador has joined Great Britain and America in a firm moral union in which Her Majesty, if not monarch of our persons, is surely Queen of our Hearts.

* Reprinted from the British Medical Journal, August 4, 1900.