Dedication of the new building and hall of the Boston Medical Library Association, 19 Boylston Place, December 3, 1878 : order of exercises, address by the President, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, report of the building committee, remarks by Dr. J.S. Billings ... [et al.].

  • Boston Medical Library Association.
Date:
1881
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dedication of the new building and hall of the Boston Medical Library Association, 19 Boylston Place, December 3, 1878 : order of exercises, address by the President, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, report of the building committee, remarks by Dr. J.S. Billings ... [et al.]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    Germany. Such a work [as the American one referred to] with us would be impossible ; it would lack the necessary support.” By all means let our library secure a good representation of the lit- erature of Homoeopathy before it leaves us its “ sorrowful regrets ” and migrates with its sugar of milk pellets, which have taken the place of the old pilulce micce panis, to Alaska, to “ Nova Zembla, or the Lord knows where.” What shall I say in this presence of the duties of a Librarian? Where have they ever been better performed than in our own public city library, where the late Mr. Jewett and the living Mr. Winsor have shown us what a librarian ought to be — the organizing head, the vig- ilant guardian, the seeker’s index, the scholar’s counsellor ? His work is not merely that of administration, manifold and laborious as its duties are. He must have a quick intelligence and a retentive memory. He is a public carrier of knowledge in its germs. His office is like that which naturalists attribute to the bumble-bee, — he lays up little honey for himself, but he conveys the fertilizing pollen from flower to flower. Our undertaking, just completed — and just begun—has come at the right time, not a day too soon. Our practitioners need a library like this, for with all their skill and devotion there is too little genuine erudition, such as a liberal profession ought to be able to claim for many of its members. In reading the recent obituary notices of the late Dr. Geddings of South Carolina, I recalled what our lamented friend Dr. Coale used to tell me of his learning and accomplishments, and I could not help reflecting how few such medical scholars we had to show in Boston or New England. We must clear up this unilluminated atmos- phere, and here, — here is the true electric light which will irradiate its darkness. The public will catch the rays reflected from the same source of light, and it needs instruction on the great subjects of health and disease, —