Valedictory, delivered at the commencement of the Medical Department of Georgetown College : March 3, 1862 / by Montgomery Johns.

  • Johns, Montgomery, -1871.
Date:
1862
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Valedictory, delivered at the commencement of the Medical Department of Georgetown College : March 3, 1862 / by Montgomery Johns. 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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    you notice the improvement of your powers, and the comparative ease with which you now pursue the acquisition of new branches of Medical knowledge; so in practice (regarded as a business only) you will recognize a zymotic influence, by which each incre- ment to your business and skill will make it easier to add other names to your patient roll, easier to approach each new case with a modest and manly self-confidence, easier to create and sustain and enlarge that social recognition of your position, as educated and competent young physicians, upon which your professional reputation will be based. Now gentlemen (and I can say it with all sincerity) even in the hearing of these my seniors in this faculty, we will act more wisely in constantly remembering that we are young physicians, that in even for one hour forgetting this undeniable truth. To forget this, or to act as if we had forgotten it, will be to place us in a false position, often in an equivocal one, sometimes in an awkward one, and always in one of uncomfortableness. But, if the statement does not seem in its very occasion self-con- tradictory, you do not need more than a word of caution on this point, for young physicians really masters of the elements of Medical learning, are seldom wanting ii proper modesty and ristfit appreciation of that superior skill and tact which we are taught is only to be gained by long experience. He that values the written experience of a Sydenham, can hardly undervalue the living, though unwritten experience of cotemporaries many years disciplined by daily observation of the relations between disease and remedy. Boerhaave tells us without his own experience, no man is a real disciple in any branch of natural knowledge, and, gentle- men, how especially is this true of Medical experience! If in Chemistry, or Anatomy, in Pathology or Physiology, you are equal to many of your seniors, or even superior to some in these auxilia artis medendi, still we must confess our inferiority in ex- perience to those who reckon experience by years, where we can hardly reckon by months. It is often said in late years, Medical science has made great advances. Now, admitting (to avoid the trouble of controverting a by no means self-evident dictum) the truth of this statement, we may very profitably ask what is the present position of medicine, both as a science and as an art; in what way does Medical biography teach us it may be most pro- fitably studied; when tested by the exact method of statistical enumeration, what has been undeniably established as the rela- tion which the application of remedies bears to disease? Has Medicine as a science attained to the exactitude of mathe- matics? I incline to say it has not. Perhaps such perfectness is impossible in the very nature of things. If the results of Medical experiments are not capable of the same demonstrative