Address delivered in 1840, at the laying of the corner stone of the edifice of the Medical Department of Kemper College, now of the University of the State of Missouri / by Joseph N. McDowell. And the Valedictory charge to the class of graduates of 1854 / by John Barnes.

  • McDowell, Joseph N. (Joseph Nash), 1805-1868.
Date:
1854
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Address delivered in 1840, at the laying of the corner stone of the edifice of the Medical Department of Kemper College, now of the University of the State of Missouri / by Joseph N. McDowell. And the Valedictory charge to the class of graduates of 1854 / by John Barnes. 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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    shall have mouldered into ruins. What change of policy or revolu* tions in nations could have affected the names of Hippocrates, Galen, and Celsus, of the Ancients? Nothing. Still they are admired for their towering genius, and the people that gave them birth for the fos- tering hand that developed them. They have floated down to us, on the wrecks of nations and empires, as a casket of precious jewels, whose brilliancy could never be effaced, and time could not corrode. What revolution can destroy the transcendant distinction of Cuivier and Bishat ? France in all her glory may be swept from the face of the earth, her language be destroyed, and her records perish, still these great names will live standing on a mountain, amid the nations, and their lustre increase with the increase of years, as long as man is civilized, or the earth is inhabited. Shall our rich and almost boundless territory go unexplored, ex- cept by men from distant lands, or shall we educate our sons for the task? Shall our beautiful prairies waste their sweets in a desert air, or forever go untrodden by our educated children ? Shall our min- eral resources, the richest on the globe, go unexplored, and left to sleep on in silence, undisturbed by the energies of our people ? There are just around us, as all nature and experience testifies, truths of vast importance which remain undiscovered, truths which have never risen on the horizon of the human understanding; there are regions of trutn, through which as yet no path has led, bright spots which have not been perceived by the eagle eye of science ; truths of greater magnitude than those with which we are familiar, and will hand down the names of those who discovered them to the nations, written in the brightest and most enduring characters. These were the opin- ions of Newton and LaPlace, who have unfolded so much that was hidden, and reflected so much honor on human nature. Let us then encourage our sons, and as their tastes or inclination leads them, lend them our fostering care. Let us bid them go search here in all the wilderness of Nature's meadows, with their shrubs and flowers, and test by knowledge, the fruits of their researches. Already the glori- ous work has begun in the academy of natural sciences, by the en- ergy of some of our physicians, and it will be prosecuted. Let us search faithfully and with care—perhaps some plant may grow, some balsam trickle, some gum exude, unheeded in the solitude, which will afford relief to maladies, as yet beyond the reach of the profession. Go test the millions of springs on the mountain side and on the plain; on the meandering borders of our endles3 rivers; perhaps some rivu- let or stream, in silence since the world began, has wasted on the