Presidential address at the Epidemiological Society, delivered on November 5th, 1879 / by Joseph Fayrer.

  • Fayrer, Joseph, Sir, 1824-1907.
Date:
[1879]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Presidential address at the Epidemiological Society, delivered on November 5th, 1879 / by Joseph Fayrer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Stress AT THE EPIDEMIOLOGICAL SOCIETY, Delivered on November 5th, 1879, By Sir JOSEPH FAYRER, K.C.S.I., LLD, M.D., F.R.S. ♦- Gentlemen,—My first duty is to thank you for placing me in the honourable and responsible position I now occupy as President of this So- ciety. I must suppose, whatever may be my own misgivings on the subject, that you recognise in me some personal or official fitness for the post, and it therefore only remains for me to endeavour to justify the selection you have made, though I confess I anticipate some difficulty in so doing. The duties of a Society with such aims as those of the one over which you have called on me to preside are of a very important nature; the questions it proposes to investigate are often of surpassing interest, and the influence it ought to exercise for the public good should be largely exerted and widely felt. To guide the affairs of such an institution seems to me to demand, in the person who holds the office of president, a combination of qualifications that I can lay no claim to : nevertheless, as you have been pleased to place me here, it will be my duty and my anxious desire to devote to your service such knowledge as I may have acquired during a long residence in India, where epidemic disease prevails ; and for the rest, I can only crave your indulgence for such shortcomings as must occur in the case of one whose experience has been rather that of a practical physician than of a scientific epidemiologist; assuring you, at the same time, that no effort shall be wanting to promote the welfare of the Society. On assuming this seat, I know it is my duty to inaugurate the session by a brief address on some subject cognate to the work before the So- ciety, and I must therefore observe the usual routine ; but I admit I approach it with some hesitation, for there is so much that might be said that I hardly know what to select as most appropriate to the occasion. I trust, however, that I shall not greatly err in selecting a subject con- nected with the Progress of Epidemiology in that great country which contributes to the British Empire 250,000,000 inhabitants, composed of many races; and territory as large as all Europe, excluding Russia— including every climate from that of the arctic to the torrid zone; and that is regarded by many as the birthplace and permanent home of the most terrible epidemic disease to which the human race is liable. We are now entering on our thirtieth session, and, I trust, with reason to believe that our progress is satisfactory, and our work such as to prove that the Society is fulfilling the main object for which it was founded. Though not one of the largest, it is certainly not one of the least active or important among the medical societies of the metropolis, whilst the cosmopolitan range of subjects embraced within the scope of its inquiry renders its proceedings of far more than mere local interest.