vated position by its own labors, and by the appreciation of such labors by governmental authorities. I see by late debates in the British parliament that it is contemplated having a medical bureau, with its chief as an officer of State, to rank with the Foreign Secretary, the Comptroller of the Treasury, and other cabinet officers. The dense population of Great Britain and of continental countries, requires a health department to look after the interests of the greatest blessing which Heaven has given to man. Our own country will follow their example, and we must use every endeavor to keep out of our calling anything that can attach odium to it in the minds of an enlightened and religious people. It is for these reasons that I dwell with peculiar emphasis on the tendency of modern investigators, and although I wish to give them the full meed of praise for their laborious and masterly discoveries, as the orator of your association, I wish to warn you not to be led astray by some of their material doctrines-not to be seduced, by a parade of human learning, on to those dangerous shoals of skepticism, where some of the noblest intellects that have adorned our science, have been wrecked and lost-perhaps forever. Physical science has its proper limits, beyond which it cannot go with safety. When it invades the domain of metaphysics, or going further still, attempts to unravel the mysterious thread of life, it treads on uncertain ground, and insidiously but surely calls on us to embrace opinions contrary to our intuitions, opposed to our convictions, and at war with our most cherished faith.

If the limits of this discourse allowed me to do so, it would perhaps be amusing for me to carry you into those fanciful regions, where these dreamy philosophers, after having cut loose from legitimate logic, have carried their romantic speculations. Going far back into the depths of Time, they pass over the gulf that separated the solid from the molten condition of our earth; and not satisfied with seeing the burning mass whirling in a liquid state through space, they go even back to the nebulous period of the planet, when it floated in the heavens as a fiery mist, and in this luminous and glowing ether, they pretend that everything belonging to this world existed. That not only was the matter of our bodies there, but that the sentiments and affections of our minds were also there, revolving as part and parcel of the lurid mass. Yea, further still; our emotions and our will existed there also in the glowing matter. So that the sublime poetry that has touched the heart of the nations: the holy expression that has beamed from the pious faces of the devoted saints: the tender love of the mother for her first born, as well as the thoughts that run through her mind when she feels it as yet to be pure and sinless as the angels of Heaven; that all this, I say, and everything else beside, whether of matter or of mind, was once, in the dim distance of the past, a mist of nebulous ether, floating in the immensity of space.

In these wild regions of romance, where shall we find the ark of safety for our yearning and aspiring souls? If such be the tendency of the human mind, how fortunate indeed for us that the God whom their imaginations could not reach beyond the fiery cloud, came in to our rescue, and revealed to us a hope and a religion that the humblest can understand, and the most unpretending can cherish and adore.

Let me quote to you the wise counsel of one of the greatest among us; one who has penetrated deeply into all the branches of medicine and its collateral sciences; who has gone over the whole range of animal and vegetable nature, and made the clearest expose of the unity of design and the benevolence of the great Architect who framed the earth we live upon, as well as all other worlds that are contemporary with us, and that have preceded us. Listen to what this great physiologist, Dr. Carpenter, has to say on this subject:

"All of our science is but an investigation of the mode in which the Creator acts; its highest laws' are but the expressions of the mode in which He manifests His agency to us. And when the physiologist is inclined to dwell unduly upon his capacity for penetrat ing the secrets of nature, it may be salutary for him to reflect, that, even if he should succeed in placing his department of study upon a level with those physical sciences, in which the most complete knowledge of causation' (using the term in the sense of "unconditional sequence') has been acquired, and in which the highest generalizations have been attained, he is still as far as ever from being able to comprehend that power, which is the efficient cause alike of the simplest and most minute, and of the most complicated and most majestic phenomena of the Universe. But when man shall have passed through that embryo state, and shall have undergone that metamorphosis in which everything whose purpose was temporary shall be thrown aside, and his permanent and immortal essence shall alone remain, then we are encouraged to believe his finite mind will be brought into nearer connection with the infinite, and his highest aspirations after truth, beauty and goodness, will be gratified by the disclosure of their source, and by the increase of his power of approach towards it. The philosopher who has attained the highest summit of mortal wisdom, is he who, if he use his faculties aright, has the clearest perception of the limits of human knowledge, and the most earnest desires for the lifting of that veil which separates him from the unseen. He, then, has the strongest motives for that humility of spirit and purity of heart without which, we are assured, none shall see God."

Leaving now this field of controversy which, to my mind, is preg nant with trouble, because it has a tendency to unsettle our belief on subjects far more important than the development of physical science, let me return to our profession.

There is no department in which, within the last tew years, a great amount of new and useful matter has not been added to our previous stock of knowledge. Among other branches, that of the eye, and the morbid changes to which it is subject, has been assiduously cultivated. Instruments have been invented by the means of which we can look into its hitherto dark chambers, and see much

that is going on. These instruments teach us the appearance in health, and enable us thereby to see any departure from it. Our practice in some of the diseases of the eye a few years ago, was nothing more than empiricism, whereas now we have a key to the mystery, and can either prescribe with certainty, or else inform the patient that his trouble is beyond the reach of science, and thus save him much needless expense and anxiety. The nervous mass that lines the interior of the orbit often indicates the state of the brain, and it is only a few months ago that I witnessed in a northern hospital the efficacy of a treatment entirely suggested by the appearance of the optic nerve. The patient could not be made to sleep under the influence of any anodyne. A consultation on his case turned on the state of the brain, one of the physicians suggesting that there was probably a congestion. It was necessary, however, to be certain of this congested state; if not, positive harm would accrue from bleeding. The ophthalmoscope was brought into play to settle the question, and an examination into the interior of the eye, by means of this valuable instrument, revealed an active congestion of the optic nerve, which indicated the same state of the brain. The patient was freely cupped, and went quietly off into a profound and refreshing sleep. Diseases of other organs besides the brain may also be positively ascertained by means of the ophthalmoscope. Among such diseases in distant orgaus may be mentioned degeneration of the kidney. It seems strange that we are able to diagnose such a disease by looking into the interior of the eye, but it is nevertheless true that this is a means, and a very valuable one, in making out a diagnosis. Able practitioners are pushing their observations in this direction, and we may look for important suggestions in the rationale of treatment. These mechanical contrivances for looking into the interior of the body, are yearly becoming more complete, and it is at the present time quite possible to look some distance down into the windpipe, and even to photograph the appearance so as to convey it to the eyes of another. We can thus consult with an eminent physician in London or Paris, and send him by letter the exact appearance of the part we wish to submit to his more practiced eye.

In a former part of my discourse I have made allusion to the microscope. I will not occupy your time by detailing the great aud important advance which our science has derived even within the last twelve months from this little instrument. Until the public mind becomes familiarized with these explorations into the unseen

world, it would be like going into the regions of the marvellous, to detail to a mixed audience like the present, the revelations of the microscope. We may think that the eye would be satiated by looking through the telescope into the remote abyss of space and there to see stars, whose light travelling millions of miles per minute takes years to reach the earth; but that is as nothing to be compared with the world of animal and vegetable life on this earth which the naked eye has never seen. The rich array of colors presented by some of these microscopic objects under the influence of solar light, throws into the shade the most gorgeous sunset, or the sublimest conception which the artist's pencil ever transferred to canvas. Practical medicine has come in for a large share of benefit from microscopic research, and mankind at large are again the beneficiaries of medical labor employed in such investigations.

In the department of Gynecology the march of the profession has still been onward, and here, the fairest, may I say the purest and best part of our race, comes in for the largest share of the conquest. The researches into the diseases of woman have tended greatly to her physical and moral amelioration. We have been taught not only to cure many of her diseases which were before considered incurable, but in such investigations we have learned many of the peculiarities of her nervous system; we have been forced to pay the strictest attention to the sympathy that exists between distant parts of her organization, and as the consequence, can now make more allowances for her moral and mental phases than we were justified in doing before. If she has become more helpless in our eyes, she has at the same time gained upon our sympathies, softened our hearts, and compelled us to advise and instruct those on whom she is dependent, not to reason about her as they would about men, but on the contrary to bear with her apparent eccentricities, and to make every allowance for the occasional vagaries of her intellectual and moral nature. If modern medicine had done nothing else than to render more tolerable the existence of large numbers of women, it would deserve well of humanity; and it should be the constant aim of the profession to instil into the minds of men the idea, that the difference in sex makes a great difference both in thought and action. No one knows this so well as the humane and watchful physician. His experience and reflection both in the sick room and in society, have taught it to him, and it is his duty as her friend and counsellor to improve all occasions that offer to impress it on the other sex. This is the only way that men outside the profession can ever learn the true state of the case, for they must always be ignorant of that physiological knowledge which teaches the relation between body and mind, and forms the basis of our judgment in such important matters.

In taking a survey of our profession during the last twenty years, my attention is arrested at no point more vividly, than in the con

tinued advance of our Therapeutics. The late researches into the action of the nervous system, with all its sympathies both direct and remote, have modified to a very great degree, our previous opinions on the action of remedies; and I cannot help thinking with the present lights before me, that a new and important era in this line of the profession is dawning upon us. It is true that we cannot always transfer the phenomena witnessed by experiments on the lower animals, to the more finely developed nervous structure of man, and we are not to take it for granted, that because a certain effect is produced in an animal, that it will as surely be produced in man. The moral nature of man, with all his sentiments, his sympathies and his emotions, comes in as an element not shared with the lower animals, and hence a difficulty often occurs in reasoning from the one to the other. Still, it cannot be doubted that careful experiment has furnished us with some important facts. The controlling influence of the nervous system over all the vital processes, both in health and disease, is not to be ignored, and we do know that certain remedies do both depress and exalt nervous power. We can watch the transparent tissues of the living animal for instance, and see the capillaries dilate and contract by certain stimuli. We can then put this into practice on ourselves, and witness the same effect. It would be very interesting to relate some of these experiments if time permitted, and I feel quite assured as we improve in our pathology, we will make greater use of remedies more directly addressed to the nervous system. This will be much more satisfactory to the patient than to the apothecary, for it will necessarily lessen in quantity the doses that we are in the habit of giving. The great and important advantage that we daily derive from both cold and heat in our practice, is to be referred to the controlling power in the nervous centres on distant parts where disease is committing its ravages. They both act upon the capillaries through nervous influence besides having an important effect on animal heat. The experiments of Harley and others have greatly enriched our stock of knowledge on this subject, and we are witnessing the sound philosophy of their deductions. I look forward with certain hope that the day is not far distant, when our therapeutics will be much simplified, will be more in accordance with ascertained facts, and will be addressed mainly to the nervous system. Surely this part of our organization is the moving spring of all our actions, and is rapt in the profoundest mystery. It is of no use to attempt to explain what is beyond the comprehension of man to understand. Probably in some other stage of existence, some higher sphere in which we may hereafter live, we may be able to comprehend more clearly, what we now see through a glass so darkly.

Now, gentlemen, this is the science, studied fostered and matured through successive ages, that within the present century has been degraded by the score of vagaries, which play upon the credulity, and