Valedictory address to the graduating class of the Medical Department of the University of Maryland / by Richard McSherry.

  • McSherry, Richard, 1817-1885.
Date:
1863
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Valedictory address to the graduating class of the Medical Department of the University of Maryland / by Richard McSherry. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    acquired by the single faculty of memory, but you will soon find that this faculty is very far from being all- sufficient. And indeed, diseases though called by com- mon names, have as many shades of difference as you see in the leaves of trees, or in the human countenance,— general features in common, but special differences peculiar to each. The practical physician can distinguish points necessary to be distinguished, while the mere medical scholar, or book-worm, is lost in perplexity between things so like, and yet so unlike, the descrip- tions presented in books. Study and Practice, then, must go hand in hand to make, I will not say the perfect, but the respectable physician. You correct your readings at the bedside ; you add other experiences to your own in your library. In this manner, in a few years, you become masters in your calling. But let there be no delusions. If you knew all the sciences, and possessed all the learning of all ages, and had the vastest fund of personal experience, you would still find your science, your learning, your experience, at times thoroughly baffled. As you cannot have all of these varied advantages, you may be sure that more moderate gifts will not save you from frequent disappoint- ments. You will often be mortified and distressed at your own want of success, and you will have to bear reproach, whether justly or unjustly. Your life, I may foretell you now, will be one of many trials. If it were only a life of great labor with very moderate compensa- tion, if it only involved fatigue of mind and body, weary rides, night-watches, irregular meals, and broken rest, it