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 Lafayette College 
 
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 Commencement Addresses 
 
 
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 Rev. John R. Davies, D. D. 
 
 Prof. W. W. Keen, M. D., LL.D. 
 
Lafayette College 
 
 Commencement Addresses 
 
 1893 
 
 
 “What Shall I Do With Jesus?” 
 BACCALAUREATE SERMON 
 
 BY REV. JOHN R. DAVIES, D.D., CLASS OF 1881, PASTOR OF THE FOURTH 
 PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, NEW YORK CITY 
 
 “Medicine as a Career for Educated Men” 
 
 ALUMNI ADDRESS 
 
 BY WILLIAM W. KEEN, M.D., LL.D., PROFESSOR OF THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 SURGERY AND OF CLINICAL SURGERY, JEFFERSON MEDI¬ 
 CAL COLLEGE, PHILADELPHIA, PA. 
 
 LAFAYETTE PRESS 
 1893' 
 
PREFATORY NOTE. 
 
 '-jpHE addresses printed herein were received with so much favor by 
 those who heard them that the trustees directed that copies should 
 be asked for publication. Dr. Davies and Professor Keen having kindly 
 consented to do so, they are now printed for distribution among the 
 alumni and friends of Lafayette College. 
 
 Midsummer, 1893. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2017 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Alternates 
 
 https://archive.org/details/lafayettecollegeOOdavi 
 
WHAT SHALL I DO WITH JESUS? 
 
 BY REV. JOHN R. DAVIES, D. D., CLASS OF 1881. 
 
 Pastor of the Fourth Presbyterian Church, New York City. 
 
 Matthew xxvii, 22.—“ Pilate saith unto them, what shall I do, 
 then, with Jesus who is called Christ? ” 
 
 T HERE are three cities which were very prominent in the 
 ancient world, and which, though in a sense dead, are still 
 coloring the life of to-day. I refer to Rome, Athens, and 
 Jerusalem. To the last of these we are now invited by our 
 text. As we approach its gates, we are surrounded by the 
 opulent beauty of an oriental spring. As we move along its 
 streets we find that it is the Passover week; and what at this 
 moment is the most impressive sight in this ancient city? Is 
 it these altars smoking with the morning sacrifice ? Is it these 
 temple pinnacles radiant with this Pascal sunshine? Is it these 
 thronging thousands who have come from all parts of the world 
 to spend this sacred week in this holy place ? No ! The most 
 impressive sight in Jerusalem—yes, in all the universe—is 
 yonder lone prisoner at Pilate’s bar. Repeatedly has the 
 Roman governor attempted to release him, but repeatedly has 
 he been frustrated, upon the one side by his own cowardice, 
 and upon the other by the unrelenting bitterness of the Jewish 
 people. At last, as though to shirk the responsibility of a 
 crime that he could easily prevent, he asks the question: 
 
 ‘ ‘ Whom shall I release unto you ? ’ ’ And immediately comes 
 the unanimous answer: “ Barabbas.” But why is Pilate so 
 much concerned about this obscure, despised, and friendless 
 prisoner? Surely in an age when life was so little regarded 
 he might have slaughtered a score without any one calling 
 him seriously to account. But, though obscure, despised, and 
 friendless, Jesus ’of Nazareth is no ordinary prisoner. This 
 Pilate realizes, and has a deep conviction that these mysterious 
 
2 
 
 BACCALAUREATE SERMON 
 
 claims to be the Christ, the King of the Jews, have a far more 
 substantial foundation than the baseless assertion of empty 
 words. And here lies the power of my text in relation to the 
 life of to-day, not in the fact that it was first spoken by a Roman 
 governor, not in the fact that it was first addressed to God’s 
 chosen people, not even in the fact that it is found upon the 
 pages of the gospel, but because this question concerns the 
 divinely appointed, the eternally ordained Redeemer of men, 
 and therefore, with the best of reasons can we say to a modern 
 audience, what then t are you going to do. with Jesus who is 
 called Christ? 
 
 Before proceeding further, let us look briefly at some of the 
 claims of Christ. Standing upon the Mount of Olives, He said: 
 ‘ ‘ I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not 
 walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” In the 
 fourteenth chapter of John, He said: “I am the way, the 
 truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by 
 me.” After the multitude had been fed with the loaves and 
 fishes, He said: “I am the bread of life: he that cometh to 
 me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall 
 never thirst.” When certain Greeks desired an audience, He 
 said: “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all 
 men unto me.” As a parting message to His disciples He said: 
 “All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth. Go ye 
 therefore, and disciple all nations, teaching them whatsoever I 
 have commanded you.” And one of the most solemn of the 
 parables which close the Master’s ministry, represents Him as 
 coming at the end of all things, surrounded by the pomp and 
 splendor of the skies, to separate the sheep from the goats, and 
 to sit in final judgment upon an assembled universe. Such are 
 a few of the many claims of Christ to be met with in the gospels. 
 You can not find their equal among the utterances of the world’s 
 great leaders. No scholar, no matter how great his learning; 
 no conqueror, no matter how numerous his conquests; no mon¬ 
 arch, no matter how world-wide his dominions, would have 
 
BACCALAUREATE sermon 
 
 3 
 
 dared for one moment to have given utterance to such claims; 
 and when we look at them through the light of the evidences 
 whereby upon every side they are surrounded, we do not wonder 
 at the testimony of Peter, endorsed by the great and good of 
 every succeeding century, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the 
 living God.” 
 
 I.—In looking at the foundations upon which these claims 
 rest, we will call j^our attention first to the teaching of Christ. 
 
 You will recall the words of Nicodemus, “Rabbi, we know 
 that thou art a teacher come from God: because no one can do 
 these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him.” 
 This significant statement has been confirmed by Jew and Gen¬ 
 tile, by all branches of the Church Catholic, by every one who 
 has sincerely and candidly studied the words of Christ. There 
 is about them a peculiar tone of authority. While the Master 
 referred to the Jewish Sanhedrim, and while He quoted from 
 Old Testament writers, yet far above the law of Moses, the 
 psalms of David, the prophecies of Isaiah, He placed His own 
 words and work. Thus we are told that He spake with authority 
 and not as the scribes, and when at last He would send forth 
 His disciples, He bade them teach whatsoever He had com¬ 
 manded them, and in the case of each believer that teaching 
 was to be sealed with a baptism, not only in the name of God 
 the Father, not only in the name of God the Spirit, but also in 
 the name of God the Son, as being upon an equal plane of 
 power and glory with the other persons of the Trinity. 
 
 There is also about His teaching a mingled sublimity and 
 simplicity. God and Man, Sin and Redemption, Life and 
 Death, Time and Eternity, Probation and Judgment—these 
 were a few of the majestic themes that presented themselves to 
 the Master’s attention, and were so discussed that His hearers 
 were lifted to transfiguration mounts, to celestial spheres, and 
 for a time, all too brief, conversed with the Divine and the 
 Eternal. And yet, marvelous to tell, instead of confusing His 
 listeners with scholastic subtleties, instead of concealing truth 
 
4 
 
 BACCALAUREATE SERMON 
 
 in verbal fogs, instead of strewing the pathways of knowledge 
 with perplexing enigmas, the grandest revelations that Christ 
 ever made were communicated in the first instance to the hum¬ 
 blest of mortals, in the simplest of speech, so that the commonest 
 of the people heard Him gladly. And there is, furthermore, 
 about Christ’s teaching a wondrous power which not only pene¬ 
 trates the secret recesses of the soul and brings to the lip the 
 confession of guilt, but also quickens the intellectual and spirit¬ 
 ual faculties, so that men in every walk of life coming under the 
 influence of such a teacher have been filled with newer, with 
 diviner inspirations, and from this source modern civilization 
 has received some of its grandest benefactions. There is also 
 about this teaching the power of continuance. Call the roll of 
 the ponderous volumes, the schools of thought, the numerous 
 teachers, which’ for a moment have shone in the intellectual 
 skies and then have disappeared in the darkness; while of 
 Christ as a teacher it can well be said that His kingdom is ever¬ 
 lasting, and in spite of English Deists, French Encyclopoedists, 
 and modern Agnostics, His influence, like the incoming tide, is 
 cumulative, is ever-rising, and upon its celestial crest is ever 
 lifting the minds and hearts of men more and more into loving 
 fellowship with the mind and heart of Almighty God. 
 
 II.—In the next place we will call your attention to Christ’s 
 character. 
 
 Sin is one of the great factors of the world’s history. It has 
 blackened every page, distorted every sentence, accented every 
 word, and defiled every character, no matter how high the 
 position he may have occupied, or how low he may have grov¬ 
 elled in the dirt to eke out a miserable existence. Sin is also 
 one of the great factors of the present. It surrounds you on the 
 street; it beleaguers you in your business; it confronts you in 
 the members of your body and in the faculties of your own soul. 
 Upon every side arise a thousand witnesses to prove the truth of 
 sacred Scripture that all have sinned and come short of the 
 glory of God. But amid this dark and loathsome flood of sin 
 
baccalaureate sermon 
 
 5 
 
 there rises one pre-eminent exception, Jesus of Nazareth, who 
 alone is holy, undefiled, and by impassable gulfs separated 
 from the least appearance of evil. And this purity of soul was 
 maintained, not like that attempted by St. Anthony and his 
 followers amid the solitude of the desert, amid the lonely retire¬ 
 ment of some mountain fastness. No; Jesus of Nazareth lived 
 and moved amid the heaviest burdens, the greatest perplexities, 
 the subtlest temptations, and though He was the continued 
 object of the bitterest malice, yet none of His enemies were able 
 to convict Him of the slightest sin. In further confirmation of 
 His spotless purity is the fact that while He spake most emphat¬ 
 ically concerning the wages of sin, while with an earnestness all 
 divine He called others to repentance, and while upon the cross 
 He freely gave His own life as a sacrifice for human guilt, yet 
 never by word or look did He at any time intimate that He 
 needed such warnings or feared such punishments, or required 
 such a redemption. 
 
 You speak of Pontius Pilate and you see a Roman; of Judas 
 Iscariot and you see a Jew ; of Saul of Tarsus and you see the 
 Greek influences of his birth and education. But where will 
 you place Jesus of Nazareth? Though born in a Jewish town 
 and of the purest Jewish blood, He is a member of no race, a 
 subject of no kingdom, a citizen of no republic, the exclusive 
 property of no clime nor country. Like the sun, which, ignor¬ 
 ing geographical boundaries and race distinctions, comes with a 
 necessary blessing for all, so Christ, the Eternal Son of Right¬ 
 eousness, ignoring all these limitations, brings to every soul the 
 Way, the Truth, and the Life, so that your cultured Caucasian 
 and degraded Hottentot can find in Christ the very redemption 
 for which their souls have yearned, and in this fact you may see 
 something of the cosmopolitan, the universal character of Christ, 
 the world’s redeemer. 
 
 Then there is something so original about this man, Christ 
 Jesus. You have two natures, the human and the divine, 
 without mixture or confusion, uniting in the personality of the 
 
6 
 
 BACCALAUREATE SERMON 
 
 Christ. Then look at some of the more prominent features of 
 His ministry—the temptation in the wilderness, the rejection by 
 those He came to save, the mystery of Gethsemane, the brutality 
 of the trial, the mingled shame and agony of the cross. Tell 
 me, what writer born of woman would have marked out for the 
 world’s Redeemer such a mystic personality and such a unique 
 career ? And in connection with this, consider the moral grand¬ 
 eur, the complete consecration, the utter unselfishness of soul, 
 displayed by Jesus of Nazareth as he stands amid the unbridled 
 cruelty, the unlimited selfishness, the unfathomed lust of that 
 period, like some lone star amid the darkness of earth’s blackest 
 night. Pointing to the gracious beauty, the delicate fragrance 
 of the lily, I ask who fashioned this flower with such loveliness, 
 such purity, amid the unclean waters and the filth of the lake 
 bottom, and at once you reply, the finger of God. So when 
 you come to candidly study the beginnings of the Christian era, 
 so shorn of noble endeavor, so stripped of great men, so thor¬ 
 oughly a stranger to lofty inspirations, so utterly absorbed in the 
 worship of the sensual and the skeptical, I am sure you will 
 join with me in saying the appearance amid such surroundings 
 of Christ, the Lily of the Valley, the Rose of Sharon, is the 
 greatest moral miracle of the ages, and can be attributed to none 
 but God Himself. 
 
 III.—In the next place, consider the influence of Christ. 
 
 In the city of Paris there sits an Arbitration Court to settle a 
 question which in other days would have been deemed quite 
 sufficient to have plunged nations into war, to sacrifice thou¬ 
 sands of lives and to squander millions of money. And this 
 Arbitration Court, which is neither the first nor the last, is an 
 indication of the widening, the deepening sense of the brother¬ 
 hood of man, which sooner or later must make our armies and 
 navies more needed for show than for service. Few names 
 stand higher in Roman history than those of Cicero and Seneca; 
 few men have had more influence over the world’s thought than 
 Plato and Aristotle, and yet, these men approved of that fiendish 
 
BACCALAUREATE SERMON 
 
 7 
 
 custom which thrust the babe out of the home where it was 
 born, and from the breast where it had a God-given right to be 
 nurtured, to die of exposure upon the street, or to be torn in 
 pieces upon the desert by wild beasts a thousandfold more 
 humane than man. To-day, for the friendless foundling we 
 build magnificent homes, which lack nothing except that price¬ 
 less gem, a mother’s love; while in our families we crown child¬ 
 hood with garlands of the tenderest affection, and are willing to 
 suffer any self-denial in order that they may have everything 
 necessary for their welfare and comfort. We rejoice in the civil 
 liberty which enables each citizen to exercise a direct influence 
 in the settlement of every question affecting the public weal; 
 and we appreciate still more the religious freedom which enables 
 us to worship God according to conscientious conviction, which 
 no man dare condition or fetter. But we have not always en¬ 
 joyed these privileges. Look backward along the past, and you 
 will easily find the grossest tyranny upon the throne, and in the 
 church a despotism that will stoop to any cruelty in order to ac¬ 
 complish its hell-born purposes. You remember the sanctity 
 which used to attach itself to the personality of the clerk with 
 the merest smattering of learning; you remember the imperfect 
 structures in which Baeda, Alcuin, and even Abelard gathered 
 their pupils and you will remember that during the thirteenth 
 century the greatest library in Europe was that of Glastonbury 
 Abbey, consisting of about four hundred volumes. Now, one 
 of the significant features of these modern times is the fact that 
 none who have grit and brains need enter life without a liberal 
 education, because we are surrounded in town and city by ex¬ 
 tensive libraries, by superb foundations of learning, that are say¬ 
 ing to every young person without a chance: Prove yourself to 
 be worthy of help and that help we will furnish. In early sum¬ 
 mer, when the last traces of winter’s frosts and snows are de¬ 
 parting, you say there is some subtle force responsible for this 
 revolution which causes the meadows to robe themselves in 
 green, the forests to unfurl their banners of foliage, and the 
 
8 
 
 BACCALAUREATE SERMON 
 
 flowers to swing their fragrant censors along the pathways of 
 men. So, when we look over the history of nearly nineteen 
 Christian centuries, and mark the vast changes represented by 
 far-reaching movements; when we come in contact with an or¬ 
 der of things ever working in the direction of righteousness; 
 when we see Sauls of Tarsus becoming apostles to the Gentiles, 
 Magdalens restored to purity, prodigals redeemed from the fool¬ 
 ishness and filth of the far country and made to be useful and 
 honored members of society; when we watch, in spite of all 
 downward tendencies, the human spirit rising in everything that 
 constitutes the truest, the holiest manhood, we are profoundly 
 convinced that for such a radical transformation there must be a 
 sufficient cause; and in search of this cause we turn to Rome 
 with her empire, to Greece with her scholarship, to Tyre with 
 her commerce, to Babylon with her glory, to the farthest Orient 
 whence have come so many mysterious messengers; but no sat¬ 
 isfaction do we find until we stand amid the gathering darkness, 
 looking upon the pallid features of the crucified Christ. Yes, 
 strange as it may seem, in this stumbling block to the Jew, in 
 this foolishness to the Greek, in this despised, obscure peasant, 
 you have the secret of the progress which has changed the face 
 of the ages, rewritten human history, and is destined to sweep 
 on in larger volume, in deeper current, until the kingdoms of 
 this world shall have become the kingdoms of our Lord and 
 His Christ. 
 
 IV.—In the last place, consider the testimony of the scriptures. 
 
 When Christ said ‘ ‘ Search the scriptures for they are they 
 which testify of me,” He never gave a more important com¬ 
 mand or spake a truer word. And if we had time this morning 
 to fully and carefully examine the sacred volume, we would 
 find its every book bearing an eloquent, peculiar and powerful 
 testimony to Him who is the Prophet, Priest and King of men. 
 But we have opportunity to consider only and briefly the 
 New Testament, and in so doing we find that it ascribes to 
 Christ Divine titles. Turning to John i, i, we read: “In the 
 
BACCALAUREATE SERMON 
 
 9 
 
 beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the 
 Word was God.” In Romans ix, 5, we read: “Whose are the 
 Father’s, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, 
 who is over all, God blessed forever.” The New Testament also 
 ascribes Divine attributes to Christ. He is immutable—the 
 same yesterday, to-day, and forevermore. He is omnipotent— 
 all power in heaven and earth is placed at His disposal. He is 
 eternal—to His enemies He said, ‘ ‘ before Abraham was I am; ’ ’ 
 and in the upper room He prayed, “and now, O Father, 
 glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I had 
 with thee before the world was.” He is omnipresent—to His dis¬ 
 ciples He gave the promise, “where two or three are gathered 
 together in my name, there am I in the midst, and lo, I am 
 with you always, even unto the end of the world.” He is omnis¬ 
 cient—He knew Nathaniel while he was yet under the fig tree. 
 He read the secret purposes of Judas before the betrayal; and 
 the truth upon this important point is well summed up in the 
 impassioned words of Peter, “Ford, thou knowest all things; 
 thou knowest that I love thee.” The New Testament, fur¬ 
 thermore, bids us render Divine honors to Christ. In John v, 
 23, we read: “That all men should honor the Son, even as 
 they honor the Father ; He that honoreth not the Son honoreth 
 not the Father that sent him.” In Philippians ii, 9, 10, 11, we 
 learn that, ‘ ‘ God hath highly exalted Christ and given him a 
 name which is above every name; that at the name of Jesus 
 every knee should bow and every tongue should confess that 
 Jesus Christ is Ford, to the glory of God the Father.” And in 
 the closing verses of the fifth chapter of Revelation, we see that 
 multitude which no man can number ascribing blessing and 
 honor unto Him that sitteth upon the Throne and unto the 
 Famb forever. Now this divine exaltation which the New 
 Testament gives to Christ is the very position that we would 
 naturally give to Him who has exercised such a vast influence 
 over the ages; while, upon the other hand, such a vast influence 
 we have a right to expect from One who sits upon the Throne 
 
IO 
 
 BACCALAUREATE SERMON 
 
 of the Universe, and Christ’s right to such a regal station is 
 strengthened by every argument that can be used for the in¬ 
 spiration of the scriptures, and by the fact that with a Divine 
 Christ, possessed of Divine attributes, the author of Divine 
 works in the sphere of nature and of grace, you can explain the 
 upward movement in human history; you can vindicate the 
 character of God from every aspersion; you can answer the 
 yearnings of every human soul, and you have a center around 
 which the past, the present and the future may group them¬ 
 selves, and when you take this Christo-centric position under¬ 
 neath and amid the chaos and the confusion, the sin and the 
 shame of to-day, you may see the glorious outlines of that City 
 of God, which for centuries has been the inspiration of the 
 Church Militant, and which will not need the ministry of sun, 
 moon, nor star, because the Lamb Himself will be the light 
 thereof. 
 
 I have given you the merest fragment of the grand argument 
 for the Divinity of Christ; and yet I think that I have said suf¬ 
 ficient to-invest with a deep, a profound solemnity the question 
 of my text, What shall I do, then, with Jesus, who is called 
 Christ ? This question, unlike many others that you meet, 
 demands an answer. You may treat Him with undisguised 
 hostility, and spend every resource at your command in attempt¬ 
 ing to soil the robe, tarnish the crown, break the scepter, under¬ 
 mine the throne of your best and truest King, but at last, like 
 Saul of Tarsus, you will find it hard to kick against the pricks, 
 and like many to-day you will realize that it is worse than mad¬ 
 ness to fight against God. You may treat Christ with indiffer¬ 
 ence ; you may become so identified with business, so absorbed 
 in study, so attracted by the deceptive forms, the alluring colors 
 in which the world presents itself upon every occasion that you 
 will not care to consider the claims of Christ; but remember, 
 such indifference is the malaria that will poison every fiber of 
 your spiritual nature, and it is also the Niagara current, at first 
 faint, but swifter and swifter it will flow, until at last you are 
 
 \ 
 
BACCALAUREATE SERMON 
 
 II 
 
 dashed into the seething abyss, a ship-wrecked life, a ruined 
 soul. But there is another attitude, and this is the one I beg 
 you to assume. It is the one taken by Mary in the Resurrection 
 Garden, when the glad cry of “ Master ! ” came from her tremb¬ 
 ling lips. Simple trust, unfaltering obedience, supreme love, 
 these are some of the elements which bound this woman to her 
 Saviour; and now, as I part with you, never again to see some 
 until we stand in eternity, I pray that God’s Holy Spirit by 
 these same golden chains of trust, obedience, and love will bind 
 you to Christ, the Eternal Son of God, and then for you will be 
 divinely answered the question of my text, What, then, shall I 
 do with Jesus, who is called Christ ? 
 
MEDICINE AS A CAREER FOR EDUCATED MEN. 
 
 BY W. W. KEEN, M. D., LL.D., OF PHILADELPHIA, 
 
 Professor of the Principles of Surgery and of Clinical Surgery, Jefferson Medical College. 
 
 B EAUTIFUL, for situation, the joy of the whole earth,” 
 was the description of ancient Jerusalem by its enthusi¬ 
 astic admirer. And surely any one looking on Pardee 
 Hall would be justified in applying this encomium to Lafayette 
 College. It is a genuine pleasure to me to join with you in 
 your annual festival when your tribes come up to their intel¬ 
 lectual Jerusalem, “singing their songs of degrees” as of old. 
 And although the son of another academic mother, I rejoice 
 with you in the prosperity and glories of your noble college. I 
 see around me old men, graduates of the forties, with silvered 
 heads, their paths in life chosen, their duties fulfilled, their 
 lives culminating in honored, cultivated leisure and wide influ¬ 
 ence, whose achievements are recorded in the history of the 
 world of art, science, literature, language, business and religion. 
 I see again men in middle life, graduates of the sixties and 
 seventies, alert for every opening for the best work in the world’s 
 great enterprises. They are in the fore-front of the fight against 
 ignorance, vice, and irreligion. 
 
 But it is rather to the young men, and especially to you, 
 gentlemen of the graduating class, who are now taking leave of 
 these classic shades where you have spent the four most blissful 
 and fruitful years of a man’s life, to which he ever reverts as the 
 halcyon days of youth—to you that I especially address myself. 
 The joys, the trials, the studies, the achievements of your col¬ 
 lege life are now, or soon will be, over. The world stands open 
 before you. “ What shall I do?” is the question of questions 
 to you. The decision of this question may make or mar you. 
 
ALUMNI ADDRESS 
 
 13 
 
 If you decide rightly you will achieve success, honor, happi¬ 
 ness, and the final consolation of a life well and nobly spent. 
 If wrongly, your decision may wreck, even hopelessly, a young 
 life full of brilliant promise. You and your fellows in the many 
 colleges of the land who will graduate in this leafy June have 
 on your side youth with all its potencies. You have a just and 
 laudable ambition. You are ready to work your finger nails 
 off. You have trained intellects. You are members of the true 
 aristocracy of learning, men of marshalled forces, the hope of 
 the nation, the future natural leaders of thought in public and 
 in private life. What shall you do? “ Surely,” says Carlyle 
 in his Biography of John Stirling, “the young heroic soul en¬ 
 tering on life so opulent, full of sunny hope, of noble valor, and 
 divine intention, is tragical as well as beautiful to us.” 
 
 It is of equal importance to the community as well as to you 
 that you elect wisely what path you will follow in this busy 
 world. Some of you will enter commercial life, lured possibly 
 by hopes of material reward. Some may be devoted to art 
 with its aesthetic enjoyments. Some will find in literature the 
 contentment and fame that come to the successful author. 
 Some will devote their lives to the highest human function and 
 service to their fellow men, in winning them to Christ-like lives 
 and heavenly aspirations. Some will seek the noble profession 
 of the law and will become leaders of the bar and wear the 
 ermine on the bench. Not a few, I hope, will devote yourselves 
 to a scientific career with, it is true, its ceaseless toil, but also 
 its fascinating investigations, its splendid discoveries, its benefi¬ 
 cent inventions. 
 
 It is my desire to lay before you some of the rewards, the 
 possibilities, the attractions of such a scientific life, and to win 
 you to its pursuits, since it has attractions, wonderful attrac¬ 
 tions, from many sides and for every type of man, excepting 
 always the lazy. I have selected as my topic, therefore, “ Medi¬ 
 cine as a Career for Educated Men.” 
 
 I am met at the outset by the query, “Are there not already 
 
14 
 
 ALUMNI ADDRESS 
 
 too many doctors ? ” Yes; far too many poor doctors, but far 
 too few good ones. Webster’s oft-quoted remark that “there is 
 plenty of room at the top ’ ’ is as true of medicine as of any other 
 profession. In any profession there is always a reserved seat in 
 the front row for a March, a Faraday, a Schliemann, a John 
 Hunter, a Lister, a Virchow, a Pasteur, a Gross. And although 
 no one of you may become the peer of those I have named—and 
 yet why should you not ?—still there is always room right next 
 to them for the trained intellects who will make their profession 
 an integral part of their lives and devote themselves earnestly 
 and truly to its pursuit. Never has there been such a demand 
 in medicine for men of the highest type, the deepest insight, 
 the profoundest spirit of investigation. Never have there been 
 so many questions of grave import to the human race awaiting 
 solution. The mighty problems of life and disease and death 
 crowd upon us and await the touch of a master hand to make 
 the obscure clear, to avert the dire results of accident, to stay 
 the hand of the Angel of Death and say in dominant tones, 
 “Thus far and no farther.” 
 
 Medicine is looking to just such well-equipped, thoroughly 
 trained men as you for its champions in this daily fight with 
 death. And if you wish to rise above the dull level of medi¬ 
 ocrity it will be to you college men that the renown which 
 is the proper object of a laudable ambition will surely come. 
 President Thwing in the June Forum states that Appleton’s 
 Encyclopedia of American Biography contains the names of 
 912 doctors of whom 473 were college-bred men. The Medical 
 Record , commenting upon this fact, estimates that 300,000 men 
 have started out in medicine in this country during the pre¬ 
 sent century. If so, the chance of the ordinary doctor’s becom¬ 
 ing famous is about one in 300. But if he be a college- 
 bred man it is about one in six. The profession, as I have 
 said, is filled to repletion with poor men and untrained men. 
 What we want is the men fresh from the laboratories of the best 
 colleges, men whose minds are trained in logical methods, who 
 
ALUMNI ADDRESS 
 
 15 
 
 are versed in the “humanities,” who possess refinement and 
 culture, who, having eyes and ears, have learned to use them 
 to the best advantage. In that delightful book, “The Gold- 
 Headed Cane,” Radcliffe—him of the library—visits Mead in his 
 library and says: ‘ ‘ As I have grown older, every year of my 
 life has convinced me more and more of the value of the educa¬ 
 tion of the scholar and the gentleman to the thoroughbred 
 physician. Perhaps your friend there (pointing to a volume of 
 Celsus) expresses my meaning better than I can myself when 
 he says that this discipline of the mind, ‘ quamvis non faciat 
 medicum, aptiorem tamen medicince reddit .’ ” 
 
 The signs of the times point to a closer affiliation of colleges 
 and medical schools, which will be equally advantageous to 
 both. Five years ago nearly all the medical schools in this 
 country were two-year schools. Now nearly all have the three- 
 year courses and a few four, and the new Pennsylvania law 
 requires - four years of study, of which three shall be in a medi¬ 
 cal school. This movement in the direction of a more thorough 
 education means that the medical schools desire to offer a 
 curriculum worthy to attract the best educated men. Moreover, 
 the medical schools are endeavoring to adjust their courses so 
 that they will be the natural continuation of the college courses. 
 Without sacrificing the symmetry and completeness of the col¬ 
 lege curriculum or abridging the studies for the medical degree, 
 their aim is so to adjust the two that they shall be linked 
 together as one complete whole. Thus many of the medical 
 schools are considering what means can be adopted to draw into 
 affiliation with them the colleges and college men in preference 
 to others. The larger development of the Jefferson Medical 
 College, of the medical departments of Harvard University, of 
 the University of Michigan, of the University of Pennsylvania, 
 and of Johns Hopkins, are evidences of the same wish to win 
 the college men to a medical career. The union of the College 
 of Physicians and Surgeons with Columbia College as its medi¬ 
 cal department, and the projected absorption of one or more of 
 
6 
 
 ALUMNI ADDRESS 
 
 the Chicago medical schools into the University of Chicago show 
 the same tendency. Moreover, the colleges are looking equally 
 toward the medical schools, as I have pointed out, by the estab¬ 
 lishment of courses which will naturally lead up to medicine. 
 In Brown University the same movement is actively taking 
 shape through the Brown University Medical Association, and 
 in several universities with medical departments similar steps 
 have already been taken. It is a movement full of promise. 
 
 If any of you look forward to medicine as a career you should 
 view it from three different standpoints. First on its economic 
 side. This is a matter of no little importance, for every man in 
 this world must earn his living and also naturally looks forward 
 to the support, not only of himself, but of his wife and children 
 in the future. No one should expect in medicine to make a 
 fortune. A few doctors do so, but they are the exception. But 
 every man who enters medicine, if he will be faithful and honest 
 in his work, and a fortiori the more intellectual college man, can 
 be sure of a competence, nay more, can be sure that he will 
 enjoy not only the reasonable reward of toil, but be able to lay 
 up sufficient for his own old age and for his family. 
 
 Secondly, a much more elevating and attractive side is the 
 philanthropic or humanitarian. The medicine of the future will 
 be chiefly in the direction of that most philanthropic object, the 
 prevention rather than the cure of disease. Hygiene or Prevent¬ 
 ive Medicine has only arisen within the last forty years. It has 
 already done much, but it promises far more. If it is necessary 
 to show that the knowledge of hygiene is still limited, look at 
 the recent reports on the sources of the water supply of New 
 York. Nay, you need only go into the slums of your own city; 
 or if you live in the more God-blessed country you may find a 
 startling ignorance of the laws of health in almost every farm 
 house. Nay more, you need only cross-question a half dozen of 
 your intimate friends as to their modes of life to discover that the 
 laws of hygiene are “more honored in the breach than the 
 observance.” 
 
ALUMNI ADDRESS 
 
 17 
 
 That there is ample room for missionary work in the matter of 
 personal cleanliness alone will be evident from two recent inci¬ 
 dents in my clinics at St. Agnes and the Orthopedic Hospitals. 
 At the former, as I uncovered the feet of a woman to examine 
 them in consequence of an accident, I was startled at their condi¬ 
 tion and asked her when she had had a bath. “And phwat’s 
 that?” was the innocent reply. At the latter, last winter, after 
 examining the spine of a young lady of sixteen, the daughter of 
 a respectable farmer, I said to the parents with a bluntness born 
 of indignant surprise, “It must be a long time since your daugh¬ 
 ter has had a bath?” “Why yes,” said her father, “ I don’t believe 
 she has been in a tub in a year.” To which his indignant wife 
 replied, “ Why of course she has, John. Don’t you remember 
 that bath she took last summer?” They probably agree with a 
 witty medical friend who seriously avers that ‘ ‘ everybody ought 
 to take a bath once a year whether he needs it or not.” 
 
 A recent census of a portion of the Chicago slum district also 
 has disclosed the fact that in a population of 16,000 there were 
 but four bath tubs and two of these were disconnected from the 
 water supply! The entire community suffers from such inde¬ 
 cency, uncleanness and necessary ill health of a part. 
 
 What a fruitful field there is in hygiene both for scientific 
 and benevolent teaching as to plumbing, drainage, ventilation, 
 clothing, food, drink, city architecture, city streets and sewage, 
 city water supply and the eradication of all the evil influences 
 which confront us, both in country, and especially in city life. 
 Many diseases are now recognized as preventable, if the commu¬ 
 nity were only alive to the necessity and the possibility of their 
 prevention. “For every case of typhoid fever,” it has been said 
 “somebody ought to be hung”—a rough and epigrammatic 
 way of stating what is undoubtedly true, that in a perfectly 
 regulated community there would be no typhoid fever. 
 
 But besides such public benevolent service, there is a personal 
 philanthropic side of medical life, to which I gladly advert. Pic- 
 ure to yourself the daily life of the doctor. It has undoubtedly 
 
i8 
 
 ALUMNI ADDRESS 
 
 its trials, many and great. The humdrum recital of ancient 
 aches and pains sometimes becomes irksome by repetition. The 
 doctor has patients upon whom he has bestowed unremitting 
 care and his very best mental and physical powers, who have 
 proved ungrateful and have even become his foes. He does an 
 immense amount of unrequited service. His nights are disturbed, 
 his days are not his own, of his family and friends he sees but 
 little. But then, what calling does not have its trials? In what 
 life is there not friction, which, as in mechanics, should be 
 allowed for, and not permitted to become a source of irritation 
 and annoyance? But in spite of all these trials, the doctor’s life 
 is so rich in its personal rewards, in its humane service, that it 
 ought to be to him a daily joy. 
 
 There is to him a daily personal growth in knowledge. Every 
 sickroom is a schoolroom, and every case a lesson, from which 
 he comes a larger man. There is a daily personal growth in 
 character, so that he should lie down each night a better man. 
 There is a daily personal growth in his power to do good, which 
 should be at once a reward of past work, and a stimulus to 
 better. , There is a daily personal growth in the friendships and 
 esteems of life, which constitute one of the most delightful rewards 
 of the doctor. What greater joy can there be in life than to go 
 about among one’s fellow men carrying with him, as the doctor 
 does, an atmosphere of comfort, of hope, of courage, of health. 
 
 There come to him, constantly, cases in which disease chal¬ 
 lenges him to combat. It says to him, as it were, “Catch me if 
 you can, in all my devious wanderings and unexpected dis¬ 
 guises ; ’ ’ and there is a mental exhilaration in following every 
 turn in the trail and running to earth the fleeing goblin, which 
 is captivating to every inquiring mind. 
 
 Look for a moment at the methods of the careful, intelligent 
 doctor, as he investigates such a case. First, he inquires with 
 care into the family history for lurking influences of evil heredity. 
 Next, into the personal history, not only the physical history of 
 the patient from his birth, but the influences of his environment, 
 
AlyUMNI ADDRESS 
 
 19 
 
 his habits, his hours of rest, his methods of labor, his physical 
 and mental virtues and vices. Then follows the history of his 
 present illness, including all his symptoms, the examination of 
 his secretions and excretions, the shrewd judgment which elimi¬ 
 nates the unessential and often the inaccurate or imaginative 
 statements from those which are real and essential. Then too, 
 he must not forget the influence of mental states; of worry, of 
 family trouble, of personal trials. Next he passes to the physi¬ 
 cal examination of his patient, when his eye must be as keen as 
 that of an eagle, his touch deft and delicate in estimating size, 
 consistency, elasticity, and other physical conditions. He must 
 then co-ordinate all the so far disjointed facts with a mental acumen 
 and logical method which, at first laborious, becomes afterward 
 comparatively easy if he has been faithful and thorough in his 
 earlier investigations. By these means he reaches a diagnosis 
 and settles definitely upon the medical or surgical treatment. 
 Each case is then a study in physics, anatomy, physiology, 
 pathology, psychology, chemistry, therapeutics. In the vast 
 majority of cases he is rewarded by seeing returning health. 
 Sir Spencer Wells as the net result of his first 1,000 ovariotomies 
 added 20,000 years to human life, and so far has modern surgery 
 surpassed this result that every thousand similar operations 
 to-day add not less than 30,000 years to human life! Think 
 what one of these lives means, as the pale cheek regains its color, 
 the feeble pulse its force, strength succeeds weakness, each day 
 records a gain, and finally health is re-established. The tender 
 father returns to his usual pursuits; the adored mother once more 
 becomes the center of loving care of her family; the beloved 
 child is restored to the family circle with ruddy health, rescued 
 from the valley of the shadow of death itself. The hushed 
 voices, the soft tread of the sick room have given place to the 
 laughter of health, the mists of sorrow are driven away, the 
 anxious alarms of disease have vanished. What, think you, 
 can equal the joy of the physician, as he views this happy trans¬ 
 formation? Who is a dearer, more cherished, more welcome 
 
20 
 
 ALUMNI ADDRESS 
 
 friend than he? Who finds a warmer place by the fireside 
 and in the very hearts of his patients? No one can adequately 
 appreciate his profound joy, his daily delight, his deep gratitude 
 to the “ Giver of every good and perfect gift.” Oh, my friends, 
 it is a blessed profession, a divine calling, with a heavenly 
 recompense on earth. 
 
 But sometimes death must come. Even here, however, the 
 kind and sympathetic physician finds his place. Who can so 
 tenderly guide the poor sufferer to his long rest, so gently 
 assuage the pain of the dying? Who so endears himself to 
 broken hearts in the hour of their bitter extremity as the strong 
 yet tender Christian physician? Often, even death makes for 
 us our dearest, most loving friends, who would pass through 
 fire and water for us. 
 
 Even its dangers are an attraction akin to those which draw 
 the hardy mountaineer toward the dizzy heights of the Matter¬ 
 horn. And when to these dangers is added, in times of pesti¬ 
 lence, the clarion call of duty to his fellow man, where has there 
 been a recreant doctor? Point out the renegade if you can ! 
 The gallant Six Hundred who rode into the Valley of Death were 
 no braver than the unsung heroes of Norfolk or of Hamburg. I 
 glory in my profession that in such hours of peril it has known 
 no cowards; the meanest soldier in its ranks has been a brave, 
 unselfish, devoted hero, and oftentimes a faithful, gentle martyr 
 dying at his post of duty. 
 
 But besides the economic and the philanthropic side, medicine 
 has thirdly its splendid scientific aspect which fuses with both of 
 the others, and yet may be regarded separately from them. Eet 
 me point out some of the best achievements and present problems 
 of medicine. The present century has seen vast strides in every 
 department of medicine. I will not weary you by mentioning 
 the immense improvements made in many minor details which 
 would be more suited to a technical audience, but it is proper 
 that I should allude to three brilliant discoveries which stand 
 out prominently as of the first magnitude. 
 
AlyUMNI ADDRESS 
 
 21 
 
 First, the discovery of anesthetics. The beneficent results 
 from this discovery are so well known that I need only call 
 attention to them and also note in passing that the three princi¬ 
 pal anesthetics, ether, chloroform, and nitrous oxide, are Ameri¬ 
 can either by discovery, or by introduction into general use. 
 
 The second great achievement is the antiseptic method by one 
 of our cousins across the sea, the justly immortal Sir Joseph 
 Lister. While anesthetics have been an immense boon, espe¬ 
 cially in the domain of surgery, antiseptics have saved count¬ 
 less lives and untold suffering. The method is so recent that I 
 have seen both its birth and its development. In our late war 
 and for ten years after its close every wound and every opera¬ 
 tion was followed as a matter of course by fever and more or 
 less suppuration, or the formation of “matter,” which in a 
 multitude of cases resulted in blood-poisoning, erysipelas, hos¬ 
 pital gangrene, lock-jaw, and a hundred other kindred evils 
 from this Pandora’s box. Now, however, we are enabled to 
 perform any one of the ordinary operations, such as amputa¬ 
 tions, ligations of the great blood-vessels, the extirpation of 
 tumors and the like with almost absolute safety, and this 
 surgical safety has emboldened us to perform many operations 
 undreamed of even by an Astley Cooper, a Nelaton, or a Pan¬ 
 coast. The great cavities of the body, the head, the abdomen, 
 the pelvis, and even the chest are invaded with a sense of 
 security and an almost absolute certainty of recovery which 
 would have astounded our fathers. Amputations which were 
 formerly attended with a mortality of nearly fifty per cent, are 
 now so free from danger that we always expect our patients to 
 recover and are chagrined if they do not. Compound fractures, 
 which twenty years ago often had a mortality of over sixty per 
 cent., now scarcely occasion any anxiety, and ovariotomy, 
 formerly a most dangerous operation, the rise of which I can 
 well remember, has now a mortality of only ten, five, and even 
 three per cent. 
 
 The third great discovery of the century is the new science of 
 
22 
 
 ALUMNI ADDRESS 
 
 Bacteriology, a child as yet in its teens. It arose when many of 
 my younger auditors were discarding their knickerbockers for 
 trousers. That minute organisms or germs were the cause of 
 very many diseases had long been suspected, but until twelve 
 years ago we were not at all certain that the process of inflam¬ 
 mation and the formation of matter or pus, or that many well 
 known diseases were the result of such germs. Now we know 
 not only that they are the cause of all inflammation, but scien¬ 
 tific investigation has shown us that all suppuration, pneumonia, 
 lock-jaw, diphtheria, erysipelas, leprosy, tuberculosis, and a 
 host of other diseases are due to these minute vegetable germs. 
 You can easily understand that only the first elementary facts 
 have been ascertained and by no means all of these. Here is a 
 whole new science awaiting patient investigation and brilliant 
 discovery. Who that has ambition and enthusiasm is not 
 aroused by such a prospect ? 
 
 How is it that these minute germs produce their malign in¬ 
 fluences? We know that they secrete or in some way produce 
 certain deleterious poisons in the human body, but how these or 
 the bacteria act we do not know. When we learn just how they 
 act, in all probability we shall be able soon to discover the 
 means of counteracting their harmful effects. The problem 
 how to destroy the bacteria without destroying the patient is 
 one which we have not yet solved. We know that they produce 
 infection. We know fairly well how to prevent their entrance 
 into the body in surgical cases by the careful antiseptic cleans¬ 
 ing of the person of the patient, of the instruments, sponges, 
 dressings, hands, everything which comes in contact with the 
 wound. But in many instances cases are brought to us already 
 infected. A man who has met with any accident has an infected 
 wound, and if any time has elapsed his system has become in¬ 
 fected. We are as yet groping for methods by which we can 
 surely overcome such a previously established infection. Here, 
 you see, is another field for scientific activity and the most 
 beneficent results. 
 
ALUMNI ADDRESS 
 
 23 
 
 We are learning how to prevent typhoid fever, tuberculosis, 
 and other medical diseases, but have not even yet begun to 
 learn how to prevent the entrance into the system of the bacteria 
 of pneumonia, influenza, and other similar diseases. 
 
 Again, there are certain half-discovered facts which already 
 give us glimpses of unsuspected triumphs. Within the last few 
 years it has been found by experiments on animals that the 
 germs of certain diseases when inoculated, for instance in a 
 rabbit, from that to a second, a third, and so on, become in¬ 
 tensified in their action; whereas if similarly inoculated in 
 one monkey after another they become diluted and weakened in 
 their action. How or why does the virus or germ become 
 stronger by transmission through a series of rabbits and weaker 
 in its transmission through monkeys ? How can we utilize this 
 for the benefit of humanity ? Here is another problem awaiting 
 its Newton or its Morse. 
 
 Again, we know that there are animals in which we cannot 
 produce certain diseases. For instance, the attempt has been 
 made scores of times to inoculate cancer into the lower animals 
 without success. They do not suffer from measles or scarlet 
 fever, whooping cough or mumps. There are also diseases 
 peculiar to certain animals which man does not take. We 
 know very well that there are some human diseases from which 
 certain persons are exempt. For instance, people have grown 
 up from childhood, been exposed to scarlet fever, or measles, 
 or small-pox, and yet have not taken it. These animals or 
 people have what we call a ‘ ‘ natural immunity ’ ’ to these dis¬ 
 eases. Thus far preventive medicine has only attacked one 
 disease in the way of producing an artificial or “acquired im¬ 
 munity.” This is vaccination by which immunity against 
 small-pox is produced; or, in other words, a vaccinated person 
 can be exposed repeatedly even in epidemics of small-pox with¬ 
 out contracting the disease. With such a striking example 
 before us for over a century, how strange it is that it did not 
 suggest experiments in the same direction in other diseases. 
 
24 
 
 ALUMNI ADDRESS 
 
 But at last this hint has been taken and it promises much in 
 the future. For instance, it has been discovered that if we 
 inoculate an animal with the germ of lock-jaw, the most virulent 
 of all bacteria, and then take the watery part of the animal’s 
 blood—the blood serum—and inoculate another animal with it, 
 the second animal may then be inoculated with the germ of 
 lock-jaw without becoming the victim of the disease; in other 
 words, in the second animal there has been produced an acquired 
 ‘ ‘ immunity ’ ’ against the disease. Even if the lock-j aw had already 
 attacked the second animal, this blood-serum, it was found, 
 would vanquish the disease. Here we come to one of the most 
 striking recent results of scientific investigation. Once that it 
 had been tried sufficiently often to determine that this mode of 
 conferring immunity or of arresting the disease was not delete¬ 
 rious to the animal, it was deemed right that the same attempt 
 should be made in man to cure this dreadful disease, and within 
 the last three or four years there have been recorded nearly a 
 score of cases in which patients suffering from violent attacks 
 of lock-jaw have been cured by inoculation with the blood-serum 
 from such an animal. This immunity or cure is supposed to 
 come from some antidote, or, as it is called, “antitoxin,” pro¬ 
 duced in the first inoculated animal and introduced into the 
 body of the second animal or of man with the blood-serum. 
 Think you that it will be no great service to humanity, no great 
 scientific feat, which will fill one’s mind with a wondering, 
 never-ending satisfaction, and crown his life with fame, when 
 this problem is fully solved? What extraordinary results it 
 may lead to we can as yet only guess at, but its possibilities 
 seem magnificent. At this very moment Dr. Haffkine is in 
 India inoculating people with the antitoxin of cholera and bids 
 fair to succeed in his efforts to limit or prevent this fearlul 
 plague. 
 
 You have all heard, of course, of Koch’s tuberculin. This 
 consists of a modification of the ptomaines or poisons produced 
 by the little bacillus or germ which causes tuberculosis or con- 
 
ALUMNI ADDRESS 
 
 25 
 
 sumption. You know how the discovery was prematurely an¬ 
 nounced and heralded by the newspapers and then fell into 
 disuse, and has been the object both of obloquy and ridicule. 
 As a matter of fact, it is still being used in other modified forms 
 by physicians and surgeons, and it is not too much to say that 
 we have gone a long way towards finding the means by which 
 we shall probably within the next few years cure consumption 
 and all the other baleful effects which follow from tuberculosis. 
 And when I tell you that there is not an organ in the body which 
 is not affected by tuberculosis, and that it is the cause of far more 
 suffering and more deaths than any other disease, you will 
 appreciate the immense boon its cure will be. 
 
 And please note that these instances which I have given of 
 lock-jaw and of cholera and of consumption are but types of a 
 series of investigations in the antitoxins or natural antidotes. 
 This opens the door to a wholly new class of remedies furnished 
 by our very foes, on which a large number of experiments are 
 being constantly made. 
 
 The fearful ravages of cancer are familiar to all. Its cause is 
 unknown, its cure compassed only by its early extirpation, and 
 even then, I must regretfully confess, but rarely. But within the 
 last year research has seemed to show that we are on the verge 
 of the discovery of its cause, and if so, time will give us its cure. 
 Who of you would not rather make such a discovery than be 
 the father of the Atlantic cable or the successful general of a 
 great war? Who would be so blessed by future millions of 
 mankind as the discoverer of such a boon to the whole race ? 
 
 Within the last two years also another class of remedies has 
 been introduced, especially in connection with a disease with 
 which you are probably not familiar, known as myxoedema. 
 You all doubtless are aware what goitre is. Until lately it was 
 scarcely deemed amenable to operation, but modern surgical 
 methods have so improved that several hundreds of cases have 
 been reported in which the goitre has been removed, and the 
 patients have nearly all recovered. But after these operations a 
 
26 
 
 AlyUMNI ADDRESS 
 
 curious and unexpected result was found. Goitre consists in 
 the enlargement of a certain gland in the neck called the 
 thyroid gland. If the whole of this gland either in health or 
 disease is removed, a considerable proportion of such patients 
 undergo a sort of elephantine growth all over the body. The 
 features become thick and clumsy, the fingers and toes swell 
 to twice or thrice their ordinary size. The mental condition 
 also degenerates into a form of cretinism. This misfortune 
 attending the complete removal of the gland led, first to a modi¬ 
 fication of the operation, viz., the partial instead of the total 
 removal of the gland; even a little of the gland if left, it was 
 found, would prevent such a bad result. But it has done more 
 than this. Victor Horsley, in England, suggested that in cases 
 in which, as sometimes occurs, this disease myxcedema, arose 
 spontaneously, the thyroid gland itself might be used as its best 
 remedy. Accordingly first it was used surgically. The thyroid 
 gland was removed from a sheep and transplanted under the 
 skin or into the abdominal cavity of the patient. It grew there 
 and so long as it remained the patient was bettered; but experi¬ 
 ence showed that the gland soon disappeared and the betterment 
 vanished with it. Then an extract was prepared from the gland 
 and used hypodermatically. This gave still better results, but 
 it was suggested again that if the patient were simply fed on the 
 gland itself (it is one of the sweetbreads of the body) cure 
 might follow; and within the past year a large number of cases 
 have been reported which have been cured by this wholly new 
 method of treatment. See then here another fruitful field of 
 research in the administration of various remedies derived from 
 particular glands or other structures in the animal body. 
 Already such an extract from the brain has been used in 
 epilepsy, but it is too early as yet to say whether the result will 
 prove to be good or not. Within a month, Vaughn of Ann 
 Arbor has also called attention to the fact that the extract of the 
 thyroid and other glands is fatal to bacteria. This new discovery 
 may lead to the most beneficial results. 
 
AlyUMNI ADDRESS 
 
 2 7 
 
 But what we do not know in bacteriology is far, far greater 
 than what we do know. The bacteria of scarlet fever, of 
 measles, of small pox, of whooping cough, of typhus fever, 
 rabies, and many other diseases are as yet unknown and await¬ 
 ing your touch, your investigation. If you miss your chance, 
 others will seize it. 
 
 If I were to ask any one of you whether Anatomy, Physiology, 
 and Chemistry are comparatively complete sciences, I suppose 
 you would answer unhesitatingly, yes. On the contrary, they 
 are most incomplete. We know to a fair extent the gross 
 anatomy of the human body, although even here there is an 
 immense deal to be learned; but the minute anatomy is not 
 well known, and there is scarcely an organ in the body whose 
 physiology has been half studied. Kven so common a substance 
 as the white of an egg has defied the chemists, and the analy¬ 
 sis of ninety-five per cent, of the solids of the body is imperfect. 
 Yet this is fundamental Physiological Chemistry. 
 
 When I first taught anatomy, the great divisions of the brain 
 into two hemispheres, the cerebrum, the cerebellum, etc., were 
 of course known, but the various convolutions of the brain sur¬ 
 face were deemed to be simply fortuitous by the anatomist, the 
 physiologist, the physician, or the surgeon, and that one con¬ 
 volution had no more value than another. Investigations in the 
 last twenty years have definitely mapped out the brain, showing 
 that the convolutions and fissures are not arranged hap-hazard, 
 but on a definite plan. A portion of the brain at the back of 
 the head and a little at the side of the head are fairly well 
 known, well enough indeed for the successful performance of 
 extraordinary operations in diseases and injuries of the brain. 
 But all the rest of the brain is as yet almost a terra incognita — 
 an Africa standing expectant for its Stanley. Here again is 
 another problem seeking solution, a problem which is enough 
 to arouse the scientific ambition of any enthusiastic mind. 
 
 Again, it is only within the last five years that an accurate 
 knowledge of the relation of diseases of the ear to diseases of 
 
28 
 
 ALUMNI ADDRESS 
 
 the brain has been recognized, and their scientific surgical treat¬ 
 ment begun. The splendid results already achieved give prom¬ 
 ise that within a few years we shall know not only how to cure 
 brain disease the result of disease of the ear, but what is far 
 better, how to prevent it. 
 
 The anatomy of the nerves has been known for many years in 
 its gross outlines, but the problems which present themselves 
 here are many and varied. Cut a certain nerve, the ulnar, 
 which supplies the inner part of the hand, and the results are 
 not the same in all patients. You may abolish touch and yet 
 pain will remain. You may even, as I have seen within the 
 last few weeks in several cases, cut out one to three inches of 
 the sensitive nerve of the face, and it will be reproduced, and 
 with this the frightful pain of tic douloureux, for which the nerve 
 was removed, will return. On the other hand, by a wound or 
 an operation from one to three inches of a nerve may be re¬ 
 moved, and you want the nerve to be reproduced and so re¬ 
 establish sensation in the skin supplied by it and motion in the 
 muscles to which it goes, and the nerve steadily refuses to 
 reproduce itself. Why in the one case it will and why in the 
 other case it will not reproduce itself we do not know. In fact, 
 what we do not know about nerves alone would make a good- . 
 sized book. 
 
 Thirty years ago when we looked at an eye all we knew was 
 what we could see on the outside. The trouble was that 
 nothing could be seen inside of the eye, although there was 
 such an inviting window in front of it by which we could look 
 in, because the interior was totally dark. But it occurred to 
 Helmholz that if by a little bit of looking-glass he reflected light 
 into the eye and then scratched a little hole in the quicksilver, 
 he could look through the hole into the illuminated interior of 
 the eye and see all there was inside of it. From this simple 
 idea has arisen the ophthalmoscope, by which the whole medicine 
 and surgery of the eye have been revolutionized, and great light 
 has been also thrown on the diseases of the brain. 
 
ALUMNI ADDRESS 
 
 29 
 
 Again, when the mouth was opened, we could see certain 
 parts, but the whole interior of the larynx and windpipe was 
 beyond our sight and therefore beyond our knowledge. But 
 soon after the ophthalmoscope was discovered Czermak and 
 Tiirck found that if a little mirror were held in the back of the 
 throat at an angle of about forty-five degrees and a ray of light 
 were thrown upon it from a small perforated bit of looking-glass, 
 the interior of the throat like the interior of the eye would be 
 illuminated, and we could look through the little hole in the 
 looking-glass and see the reflected image of the vocal chords 
 and the whole of the larynx in the mirror. 
 
 Similar inventions await the ingenious investigator of the 
 future for the examination of other cavities and organs of the 
 body, and the day is not far distant when we shall be able, I 
 hope, to see and therefore to know the interior of the stomach 
 as well as we do the exterior of the body. That this will illumi¬ 
 nate our own minds as well as the stomachs of our patients is 
 certain. 
 
 And so I might go on in one department of medicine after 
 another, presenting to you similar problems, some of them so 
 technical that they would not be suited to a non-professional 
 audience, and in each show you the vast need there is for bright 
 minds. Has the last word been said in surgery, in medicine, 
 in the diseases of any of the special organs of the body ? Nay, 
 verily we are but at the alphabet of investigation and of cure. 
 Great as has been the progress in the last fifty years, greater I 
 venture to say than in all previous time, I believe that the next 
 fifty years will far eclipse the discoveries of the past fifty. Who 
 could have predicted the rise of Bacteriology a score of years 
 ago ? And who will venture to say that in the next twenty 
 years another science equally far-reaching, equally beneficent, 
 equally brilliant in its achievements, may not arise ? Even the 
 present is a splendid time, 
 
 “ An age on ages telling 
 To be living is sublime.” 
 
30 
 
 AlyUMNI ADDRESS 
 
 But the twentieth century in which you will live will be the 
 most glorious time of all the ages. But you may take part in 
 this grand march of progress, not only in the rank and file, but 
 as a leader if you will but write. Or it may be, if you have the 
 gift of imparting knowledge, you may be one of the teachers of 
 medical science, an enviable post of honor and responsibility but 
 also of unequalled enjoyment. 
 
 Have I not put before you enough to arouse the ambition, 
 the energy, the benevolence, the enthusiasm, of any young man 
 about to choose his career ? Can there be in any other depart¬ 
 ment of human knowledge so fine a field for research, for dis¬ 
 covery, for fame, and what is far better, for serving the human 
 race ? If, in consequence of what I have said to you, some of 
 you will select Medicine as your chosen pursuit, rest assured 
 that if you will faithfully perform your duty, at the close of life 
 you will have the pleasure of surveying a career which has been 
 advantageous to yourselves, has been a means of doing good to 
 your fellow men, and I verily believe has approximated as near 
 as possible to the Divine Life as is given to any man to do.