The Americans and the Tenth International Congress / by A. Jacobi.

  • Jacobi, A. (Abraham), 1830-1919.
Date:
1890
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Americans and the Tenth International Congress / by A. Jacobi. 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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    have flattered the national pride of everyone of us who was present. This hearty welcome was more than I had mustered the courage to expect. For, indeed, Americans visiting Europe on such occasions as this labor under certain difficulties. Europeans do not quite understand our country, its political and social configuration or its scien- tific attainments. If that be so even in Great Britain, both race and language being identical and mutual intercourse more frequent, how much less can we expect it to be known on the Continent. Besides, it is not always the best polit- ical, social, and scientific class of our fellow-citizens who travel extensively, and though it be not the crowd of the “ profanum vulgus ” that ought to tell in the estimation of the best spirit of their country, it does so tell. Now, the majority of medical Americans they know in Europe, and particularly in Germany, belong to one of two classes: either they are bona fide students, whom, being mere foreigners, they consent to matriculate even without the preliminary education rigorously insisted upon in their own young countrymen, or they are our young doctors who pass a few months or a year in European laboratories and clinics for the sake of special studies. It is these latter that are also the occasional participants in their national associations, where, nobody else being present, they are naturally considered the representatives of American medicine. Our best men travel little and talk less. In- deed, some of those who were most fit to represent us in the Congress kept in the rear, modest and retiring. Besides, the great opportunity America might have had to present to the view of the world whatever there is great and pro- gressive in American medicine appears lost. For in the very number of the German Medical Weekly which was published in the week of the Congress you could, in the history of previous congresses, read the statement that the Washington Congress was unfortunately a failure,. for which all of us, being Americans, are held responsible. Moreover, though English is read by a great many of