Valedictory address to the graduating class at the fifty-second commencement of Castleton Medical College / by S. G. Perkins.

  • Perkins, S. G. (Selah Gridley), 1829-1862.
Date:
1855
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Valedictory address to the graduating class at the fifty-second commencement of Castleton Medical College / by S. G. Perkins. 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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    on the shore of the Ocean of Truth; and though science since his time, lias, by creeping on with steady pace, made great advances, we are yet in the infancy of her life. The Proteus of disease still needs at every step a Herculean intel- lect to bind, and make it yield an answer to our seekings.— Through every element have we chased it, and by the aid of the microscope have tracked it to its remotest dens and narrow- est recesses, but we know not yet the oracle which we seek.— Fevers yet burn ;—Agues yet chill ; and Cholera and the Vom- ito walk unchecked over our land. We know not of the mystery of these diseases, in what recess of the frame they lurk, and by what means they work their potent spells. The cacexia, that like a Nemesis dogs the steps of civilization,— whence comes it and how can its progress he stayed? < >r if inevitable in its surety, it only waits its destined hum- : what is the lease it has granted ns, and on what terms ? These are a few of the many questions yet remaining unsolved : questions to solve cither one of which were worth a lite-time of patient thought and silent work : questions of which our age demands a solution from us, as from the stewards of its health. If no solution can yet be given ; if the true answers are yet buried too deep in the infinite depths of science for us to reach in our life-time ; the age demands at least an earnest effort to- wards such solution ;—a show of progress ; and our own sense. duty and worthiness will not let us rest, without having done what in us lies to forward such a consummation, and leave to our successors the rich legacy we have inherited, increased in value. Nor should our scholarship he confined to the narrow limits (if what is of immediate practical utility in our peculiar profes- sion : for thus, not only would our pure professional knowledge -row narrow and thin, and become like a long column extend- ed forth with unprotected thinks amid hostile elements, and lia- ble to he broken and disconnected at any point, hut we our- selves, as individuals, would lack much that universality of cul- ture, which perfected manhood requires. We must have the means of making all the phenomena of life suggestive ami