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 VALEDICTORY ADDRESS 
 
 ■i^ 
 
 TO 
 
 THE GRADUATES IN MEDICINE 
 
 OF THE 
 
 llnibemtg of UtiSill CoKfje, 
 
 MONTREAL, 
 
 Delivered at the Annual Convocation, 5th May, 186 3, 
 
 BV 
 
 ROBERT CRAIK, M. D., 
 
 PROFESSOR OF CLINICAL SURGERY. 
 
 MONTREAL: 
 PRINTED BY M. L0X6MaaE£-fe-£UL?AZETTE STEAM PRESS. 
 
 <!?^ 
 
 S^ 
 
 JCTL CAl FACHLTL 
 
 ^A 
 
VALEDICTORY ADDRESS 
 
 TO 
 
 THE GRADUATES IN MEDICINE 
 
 OF TUB 
 
 Inttesitg of Ptiill College, 
 
 MONTREAL, 
 
 Delivered mt the Annual Convocation, 6th Maj. 1863. 
 
 BT 
 
 ROBERT CRAIK, M. D., 
 
 PROFESSOR OF CLINICAL SURGERY. 
 
 ■Sv^?^ 
 
 
 PRINTED BY M. Lj&N^|ia&Rfe'&-^CO^/'<S,^as^TE STEAM PRESS. 
 
 
 MEDICAL"fAC!i!TY. ] 
 
 
: 
 
ADDRESS. 
 
 {jentlcmen : 
 
 The ceremony through which you have just passed is one 
 ■which is well calculated to make a deep and lasting impression upon 
 your minds, for it not only marks an important period of your lives, 
 but it possesses a signiticance which, I trust, you fully comprehend 
 and appreciate. 
 
 The University has this day conferred upou you the honour for 
 which you have been striving during tlie last four years,— ai; honour 
 which consists not uioi-ely in an empty title, but which implies your 
 fitness for a position of influence and responsibility. You have com- 
 pleted the prescribed course of stu<ly, and your teachers, after a careful 
 and searching exumini^ition, have declared you to be " learned in tho 
 Science of Medicine and Masters of the Art of .-^urgery ". But it 
 <;annot be pretended that entering this stately Hall as students only, 
 you are to leave it rs accomplished practical physicians. The ceremo- 
 nial of to-day possesses no such magic influence,— it merely marks the 
 point at which one part of your studies ends and another and more 
 important part begins. It is with reference to this latter part of jour 
 studies that, in taking leave of you, I offer a few words of parting 
 
 <;ounsel. 
 
 Gentlemen, I trust that you are fully conscious of the importance 
 of the duties on which you are now entering. You are assuming a 
 vast responsibility. You have equipped yourselves like a band of 
 warriors to ward off the attacks and to stop the ravages of the most 
 insidious and the most insatiable of enemies ; and you must S-emember 
 that yours is a very peculiar position. You are not to go forth as a 
 united band, where a steady discipline will maintain you in your 
 ranks, and where you will be cheered by the presence and support of 
 your comrades. Each of you has to march forth alone, and must be 
 prepared to act unsupported in any emergency which may arise. Not 
 in the glare of day and before admiring spectators are your laurels to 
 be won. In darkness and in solitude must your struggles be main- 
 tained. 
 
 Each of you who in after life shall practise his profession, will 
 doubtless find himself in circumstances where, humanly speaking, life 
 
or death ih in liin hniulH. He may bo out of tlio reach of all additional 
 aHsiHtanco, or tlui danj^er may b(! ho urpuit that the time in liiH hands 
 may be counted by secondH. A (h'cision aH to his line of practice muHt 
 be conu! to on the Hpot, There iw no time for consultinj^ others, no 
 opportunity for referring to books ; and now if he bo fouiul wanting, 
 how terrible is the result? Losses of almost every other kind may be 
 made good, mistakes as to any other subj((ct may btf rectified ; but the 
 vital spark once fled, — no sacrifice, no etf(U*t, can restore it. 
 
 You will often Iiear it renuirked of a timid or oV an indolent physi- 
 cian or surgeon that, if ho can do no good, he will at least do no 
 harm ; but a moment's reflection will show the utter fallacy of such a 
 conclusion ; for a doctor's sins of omission are quite as fatal as his 
 bins of commission ; and he who stands impotently by, or runs afi^righted 
 away, when a fellow-creature's life is in mortal peril and might bo 
 waved by prompt and skilful interference, is no more free fr(»m blood- 
 guiltiness, than he who ulays his victim by ignorant presumption or 
 reckless officiousness. 
 
 To fit yourselves for the propter discharge of your responsible duties 
 you must continue to be diligent students. Medicine is essentially a 
 progressive science. The improvements of one year are constantly 
 being superseded by discoveries in the next, and your duty to your 
 patients requires you to furnish yourselves with every available means 
 of resisting disease and death. 
 
 Gentlemen, the life which you have chosen is no mere pastime. 
 Yor need not expect to dream away your time on beds of roses. Your 
 life must be one of labour, for in every part of your career you will 
 meet with difiiculties to be surmounted, trials to be endured, and 
 arduous duties to be performed. 
 
 In the earlier years of your practice, however qualified you may be, 
 most of you will have to contend against neglect, distrust and prejudice 
 ere you can convince the public that you deserve their confidence ; and 
 it will require all your fortitude to reconcile you to the slow process 
 by which you are to win professional success, while your youthful 
 ardour prompts you to carry the citadel of public confidence by storm. 
 
 You will also have to contend against what seem to be the prevail- 
 ing weaknesses, if not the vices, of this age. I allude to scepticism and 
 credulity. You will be jostled in your work by quacks and charlatans. 
 You will find men writing books and delivering lectures to prove that 
 all the science of medicine, — that is of regular medicine, — is mere guess- 
 work or worse, and that all the labours of all the physicians since the 
 earliest timea have taught us absolutely nothing. These writers and 
 

 lecturcrH, however, never fail to add that thy have somehow acquired 
 the grutid Hcurct, and that </i. '/ can readily cure all the iIIh that flesh 
 is heir to, and cHpccially such is arc usually considered incurable. 
 
 But the wonder is not so n.uoh that ignorant and unscrupulous men 
 should thus write and speak, but that so many believe their wholesale 
 assertions ; and it is not merely among the less educated classes that 
 this fallacy prevails, for any one who observes what goes on around 
 hirn, will soon see that even the best educated classes are largely in- 
 fected with it. 
 
 Now, that this tendency to adopt the bold assertions of the quack 
 doctors and to regard medicine as utterly devoid of a scientific founda- 
 tion is a fallacy, it is impossible for any one to doubt who considers the 
 subject with attention. The object of medicine being the cure of 
 disease or the alleviation of suffering, it is plain that he who would 
 succeed in it must make himself acquainted with the natural stnicture 
 and functions of the human body, with the manner in which these 
 arc altered and affected by disease, with the natural characters of 
 diseases themselves, with the nature and effects of remedies, and with 
 the experience of past ages. Now in all this the student of mcdicitie 
 is merely doing for his subject, what" every man does for whatever he 
 may undertake. He is studying the" facts and laws of nature as they 
 concern his profession, and he brings to his aid that which the ex- 
 perience and sagacity of others have added to the common stock of 
 knowledge. 
 
 Surely there can be no better conceivable method by which medicinu 
 ought to be learnt. He who is best acquainted with the objects of his 
 profession, with the means at his disposal, and with the knowledge 
 transmitted from past times, is certainly far more likely to prove a 
 successful practitioner than he who despises study, and who, because in 
 the treatment of the diseases affecting the wonderfully complex frame 
 of man, absolute certainty has not been attained, at once asserts that 
 medicine is unworthy the name of a science. 
 
 The common sense of the community in every-day matters contrasts 
 favorably with their judgment in this respect. If a man's watch 
 go seriously wrong, he does not trust it in the hands of one who has 
 never studied the mechanism of watches. If a merchant's business be 
 in disorder and bankruptcy stare him in the face, he does not seek the 
 advice of those who have no knowledge of the laws which regulate 
 commerce and finance ; and yet these same men in matters where their 
 own lives and the lives of their families are concerned, will trust blindly 
 to him whose chief recommendation is, that he unsparingly abuses all 
 
 % 
 3 
 
medioine except his own punacea and ull m<Mlicitl iiion oxoopt liiiiist'lf. 
 
 You luuHt bu pruparud to tiiid iiiuiiy uxainplcs of tlie fulluc/ 1 itlliulu 
 to, but you muHt iiovor lose Hi|^'lit of tliu true; priiioiplt!; thut Ik> who 
 most oarofully uud oonHcioutiously .studioH u Hubjcut, mu8t iiifullihly, 
 other thingN being cquid, become the best quitliticd in rcgurd to it, 
 and that hiH fellow citizunsi will Hooiier or lutcr find tluH out. 
 
 But the profusHion itnolf is not entirely iiuioccnt in this matter ; 
 oareleNHncHH or routine may bring tiiu practice of medicine into disre- 
 pute, or the mistakeH of one age may prepare the way for quackery iu 
 the next. Had it not been for the abutte of drugs during the lust century, 
 the doctrine of intinitesimul doHcs would have been impoN.sible in the 
 present. But even within the profesHion itself there is much ((uackery, 
 and it is this which is most dangerous, because more insidious and 
 more difficult to bo guarded against. Traitors in the cump uro more 
 to bo drended than foes in the open field. The worst enemies ol' legiti- 
 mate medicine are often its professed friend?', 
 
 From all such crooked paths let me most emphatically warn you. 
 Let it be your object never to commit an action or to say a word you 
 -could afterwards be ashamed of. By never making professions which 
 you do n">t conscientiously feel that you can fully curry out, by never 
 seeking to advance your own interests at the expense of another's, you 
 will prcdervo your own self-respect, and you are sure to merit and to 
 obtain the approbation of others. 
 
 But, gentlemen, supposing that you have surmounted all the diffi- 
 •culties incident to the earlier part of your career, and have established 
 yourselves in ample practice, your troubles are by no means at an end. 
 The public can have no conception, and you yourselves but a faint one, 
 ■of all the stern reiUities of a doctor's life. How few will give him 
 credit for his quiet endurance, his anxious watchings, his baffled hopes, 
 his untiring self-sacrifice? See him in the full tide of his professional 
 •career ; what a life of anxious troubled unrest, what exorbitant exac- 
 tions are made upon his resources, what unthinking demands upon his 
 time and his vital energies ? By day and by night, in sunshine and in 
 storm, on work-day and on the day of rest, for rich and for poo**, with or 
 •without recompense, he must ever obey the call of suffering humanity. 
 
 And again, he must be ever ready to encounter accidents, disease, 
 ■and death, in all their most appalling forms ; when friends are paralyzed 
 •with fear, when contagion carries panic to the stoutest hearts, he must 
 be there calm and unmoved. Life may be ebbing fjist through the 
 bleeding artery the shattered limb, the victim of cholera may pre- 
 iient the most hideous features of death whilst yet writhing in vital 
 
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 agony, delinum or convulNiond may conipresa the energies of a lifo In 
 a few, bric^, rucking, t':itul liuuru, and Htill he niuut bo there, battling 
 nninrnlly, ujid it may boinipdtt'ntiy, with busy death. 
 
 Hut, it inny be ahlcc.'d, what \h it that induccH you voluntarily to 
 undergo Huch difiicnltlos and fiialn as I have attempted to deHcribe? 
 I reply. Your chief incentive niuHt bo an ardciit love for your pro- 
 fcHsioii. If you have not this love you had better turnback at onco, 
 for n-isuredly without it you will never be a credit to yourselves nor to 
 the profession whoso name you bear. But the profcusion of medicine 
 IH one well fjualified to enlist our warmest feelings. It consists of tho 
 constant and eager pursuit of truth, and tho application of that truth 
 to the relief of suffering and tho promotion of human happiness. It 
 embraces the most comprehensive study of nature and endeavours to 
 utili/.c knowledge in every department of science. 
 
 It is this ardent love for His profession which explains much in tho 
 conduct of the practitioner of medicine that is incomprehensible to tho 
 public or that is misconstrued. Herein lies tho secret of that singular 
 characteristic of our profession — tho eagerness to work for nothing. 
 This is why we soo young men contest with a vigour and often at a 
 pecuniary cost equal to those expended for a seat in parliamont, tho 
 privilege of working gratuitously in our hospitals and dispensaries. 
 Governors and tho general public are mostly unable to recognize any 
 but the sordid motive of worldly advantage. They see the earnest 
 applications, the voluminous circulars and testimonials, the active 
 canvass from door to door, and they not unnaturally conclude that 
 what is solicited at so great a cost of time, trouble, and even of 
 personal dignity, must possess a commensurate pecuniary value. Tho 
 simple fact is, that medicine and everything connected with it is pro- 
 gressive. It is progressive as an abstract branch of knowledge, and it 
 is progressive as regards every individual who follows it as a profes- 
 sion. Tho medical man is always and above all a student. Deprive 
 him of the means of observing disease and you render him miserable. 
 Not because he is enamoured of disease, still less because the sight of 
 human agony has any attraction ; not because tho employment is pro- 
 fitable in a pecuniary sense, but beiause he feels that without tho 
 opportunity of observation the knowledge he possesses will decay, tho 
 faculties which are strengthened by exercise will grow torpid, and tho 
 skill that is acquired by practice will be lost. 
 
 Actuated as you are, gentlemen, by love for your profession, you 
 must pursue it with earnestness of purpose. What was it that in- 
 spired the courage and foreshadowed the successes of an Alexander, a 
 
8 
 
 II 
 
 li 
 
 Hannibal, a Csesar, and a Napoleon ? What embalmed the memories 
 of Newton, of Milton, and of Herschell ? What was it that enabled 
 Arkwright and Wrtt and Stephenson to revolutionize the physical 
 world ? What was it in our own profession that has rendered the 
 names of Sydenham, and Harvey, and Hunter, and Jenner, '•' familiar 
 in the mouth as household words'' ? It was, — take it as the most 
 solemn truth which the history of these men proclaims, — that they 
 possessed earnestness of purpose. To them life was no plaything, time 
 was no bauble. So it should be with you, so with all, in every calling 
 in life, who desire to achieve success. Earnestness of purpose will 
 overcome defects of early education, it will compensate for the lack 
 of genius, and it will give pledges of success which will prove the true 
 harbingers of greatness. 
 
 And now, gentlemen, in conclusion, what is to reward you for your 
 toils and struggles ? Not wealth, — for in«io other profession are large 
 fortunes so rarely amassed. Not heraldic honours, — for no coronet has 
 ever graced the brow of a physician. Had such been your ambition 
 you should have plunged among the "gLiious uncertainties of the 
 law" to " perplex and dash maturest counsels," have marched amid the 
 " pump and circumstance of glorious war," or mixed in the noisy turmoil 
 of party politics. No, gentlemen, your reward must be sought in the 
 consciousness of having contributed to the welfare and happiness of 
 your race, in the respect and esteem of your fellow-men, and in the 
 knowledge that you are humbly following in the footsteps of the Great 
 Physician who went about continually doing good. 
 
 Go, then, gentlemen, on your mission of mercy. Do battle honestly 
 and manfully in the cause of humanity ; and when at last — worn out or 
 stricken down — you fall with the harness on ; though for you may not 
 resound the boom of cannon or the blast of trumpets, yet your memory 
 shall not lack the more touching tribute of the grateful sigh and the 
 silent tear. 
 
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