Charge addressed to the graduates in medicine at the commencement of the Medical Department of the Columbian College, D.C : March 10, 1830 / by Thomas P. Jones.

  • Jones, Thomas P., 1774-1848.
Date:
1830
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Charge addressed to the graduates in medicine at the commencement of the Medical Department of the Columbian College, D.C : March 10, 1830 / by Thomas P. Jones. 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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    to tlicii* aid at any requited moment, those remedial applica- tions which would have been effectual, if promptly used. Al- low me to hope—nay, you have allowed me to do more than hope prove well founded, then, the confidence you have estab- lished, that from among you, not one will be added to the list of drones in our profession ; of those who, instead of its orna- ments, become its opprobria, affording specious arguments to the contemners of the medical art. It is not merely to the perfecting yourselves in the prac- tice of Medicine and Surgery, that your attention should be hereafter devoted. You are now admitted members of one of the liberal professions, and one in which you can never ac- quire and sustain a high reputation, without a general know- ledge of the circle of the sciences. The distinguished Physi- cian must be a man of literature; it is not enough, that, in the every day business of life, he proves that he can converse with intelligence, and write his own language with correctness and purity; he must be the associate of the literary and the scien- tific of his district, and, in most departments, he ought to take the lead. Shrink not, gentlemen, at the idea of the labour, which a determination to sustain such a character will impose on you. Labor ipse voluptas. You are unworthy of the ho- nours you have now received, and will never become fitted for the station which you ought to occupy, if your highest and most intimate enjoyments are not intellectual. There is, in nearly every instance, from the very nature of the profession you have chosen, a long season of probationary leisure, be- fore its active duties will draw largely upon your time; in this season of leisure, you may complete the superstructure of your education, and open new avenues to honour, and to usefulness ; let this time,then, be precious to you; instead of considering it as an evil, prize it as a valuable gift; regard it as an inheritance in which those fields that have been already cultivated, may be more highly improved, whilst new grounds may be cleared, and new harvests reaped, yielding a rich reward for the labor bestowed.