Fifteenth annual commencement of the Medical Department of Georgetown College : valedictory address / by Silas L. Loomis ... ; March 2, 1865.

  • Loomis, Silas L. (Silas Lawrence), 1822-1896.
Date:
1865
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Fifteenth annual commencement of the Medical Department of Georgetown College : valedictory address / by Silas L. Loomis ... ; March 2, 1865. 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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    its vital functions ; you are authorized, with anesthesia, and probe, and scalpel, to expose and examine the most vital parts of vigorous manhood ; and you are required to nurse the flickering flame of life as it burns low in its worn socket. ' Let gentleness, tenderness, and all the delicacy of your nature be exhibited when called to the bedside in the former case ; let courage, fortitude, energy, decision, and will control, while the knife, bathed in life's warm current, is severing the living fibre ; and let kind words, sympathy, and conso- lation be freely given to those who, having passed a long journey of trouble, and care, and perplexity, are gradually losing their hold on life, and drawing near to the hour which shall release them from their bed of suffering. Nothing after spiritual aid and support can so illumine the dark and shadowy valley of death as the kindly care of a physician, who, though he knows all his efforts are una- vailing, still perseveres till the inexorable conqueror claims its victim. Homines ad deos nulla re proprius accedunt quam salutem homnibus dando. Men in no way resemble the gods more closely than in giving health to their fellow-men. But let us examine more particularly the position which the Medical Profession of this age occupy. With the past we have little to do. Such have been the advances in the analytical and experimental sciences, such the increase of knowledge concerning the human constitu- tion and the nature of remedial action, that whatever may have been the practice of medicine in earlier times, or even down to the beginning of the present century, has lost its primal value and become of no essential interest to us. The processes of investigation followed by the ancient philosophers, being based on false premises, necessarily gave erroneous results. The general constitution of matter in its grossest condition, to say nothing of its more occult forms, properties, and forces, were then wholly unknown. Matter, when it disappears to the vision, was thought to be destroyed, and growth was creation. The gods had charge of things terrestrial as well as celestial, and all phenomena not readily explained by some theory were referred to the