Address delivered at the opening of the new Medical College in North Grove Street, Boston, November 6, 1846 / by Edward Everett ; introductory lecture by George Hayward.

Edward Everett

Date:: 1846

Credit: Address delivered at the opening of the new Medical College in North Grove Street, Boston, November 6, 1846 / by Edward Everett ; introductory lecture by George Hayward. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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$power of a conscientious physician to mingle with profes- sional advice such information, counsel, and warning as may prove the safeguard not merely of health but of morals and character, when all are trembling together in a doubtful bal- ance. He will teach them, that they are in danger of drinking a worse poison than hemlock from the tempting wine-cup, and that the deadliest contagion which can send rottenness into the bones is that which besets the paths of sin- ful indulgence. Nothing remains gentlemen, at the present time, but that I should tender you, on behalf of the academic authorities, our best wishes for your success, whether as teachers or learn- ers ; and if any exhortation were needed to the strenuous exertion of your powers, let it consist in reminding you, in the words of your great master, one of the oldest and wisest of heathen antiquity, that “ Life is short, and art is long, and occasion sudden, and experiment doubtful, and judgment difficult.” * NOTE S. A. (Page 11.) I AM not sure that since these remarks were delivered, a discovery has not been announced, which fully realizes the predictions of the text; — I allude to the discovery of a method of producing a stale of temporary insensibility to pain, by the inhalation of a prepared vapor. A full ac- count of this discovery is given in a paper, by Dr. Henry J. Bigelow, in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, for 18th of November, 1846. Dr. Bigelow ascribes its first suggestion to Dr. Charles T. Jackson, and its application under his advice, for the purpose of mitigating pain, to Dr. W. T. G. Morton, dentist, both of Boston. I witnessed a very successful instance of the application of the pre- pared vapor, on the 18lh November; and was informed at that time by * 'O jS/of xq/oiS /uiiTti'i. I, Si Tf/rri fiaxQli,u Si xui{)og iigvg, S/ Si nei(Ja aipaXtQt^, Si Hippocratis Aphorismi. § 1.$