An Address delivered to the students of the Louisville Medical Institute : in presence of the citizens of the place, at the commencement of the second session of the Institute, November 13th, 1838 / by Joshua B. Flint.

  • Flint, Joshua B. (Joshua Barker), 1801-1864.
Date:
1838
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An Address delivered to the students of the Louisville Medical Institute : in presence of the citizens of the place, at the commencement of the second session of the Institute, November 13th, 1838 / by Joshua B. Flint. 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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    who still lives' to inculcate, with singular felicity, as a teacher, the rational doctrines on this subject, which have often received the advocacy of his industrious pen. But none will be more ready than he, and those who, like him, have been brought into contact with topics of hygiene, in the course of studies undertaken with other aims, to acknowledge our deficiency in this important department of medical science, and to join me in wishes and efforts to secure for it a more general and systematic culti- vation. The preservation of the public health is taken to be a function of slate and municipal government, in all parts of the country—but, wanting the 'lights of science,' how imperfectly, capriciously, and sometimes oppressively, is it not exercised. It belongs to the Medical Schools to supply the data for a more con- sistent and rational administration. Either a special professorship should be created in these institutions for instruction in the princi- ples of Hygiene, or some one of the established chairs should be charged with the duty, so as to secure for it a good share of the ser- vices of the incumbent. The schools would then become depots of information on the subject, to which the civil functionary might resort for facts and principles, to guide him in the various emergencies which call for his interposition as guardian of the public health. In no portion of our country is this additional function of our schools so pressing a desideratum as in the West- Miasmatic disease, endemic and epidemic, is the scourge of the valley of the Mississippi; and although acute and well prepared minds have devoted themselves to its investigation, scarcely a single prophylactic principle has yet been established. In one form, it is now reckoned among the unavoid- able risques attending the first processes of cultivation in the most fertile agricultural tracts, and populous cities wait its annual visitation, in a more malignant form, as a determination of fate—an inevitable condition of their tempting but doomed local Is this consistent with the enterprising and humane, and hopeful spirit of modern science? In view of the surprising meliorations of the lot. of humanity we daily witness, due to the application of true science to its various exigencies, may we not venture to hope that we may yet conjure up some antagonizing influence—some means of aveiting or avoiding or neutralizing this subtle foe to health and life? Shall the adventurous pioneer of civilization continue to open for himself a premature grave, in the teeming soil just exposed to the fertilizing influence of the sun? Shall the resorts of commerce be periodically depopulated by pestilence which defies alike the conser-