RELATIONS TO OTHER SCIENCES 463 



fraternity periodically lose their heads over the latest sensational 

 development, destined in the opinion of its creator and its disciples 

 to bring about in our own times the millennium, by the remem- 

 brance of Ben Akiba's immortal dictum: 



Alles schon dagewesen (nothing new under the sun), 



and by the reflection that in all probability in a very few years the 

 same faithful ones will bow down and worship another golden calf. 

 The man who has learned to think logically will not, when he writes 

 a paper, be caught, in glaring self-contradictions, and will carry, 

 when following a chain of thoughts, that chain to its only possible 

 conclusion. The author who does not confine his literary studies 

 to the reading of exclusively medical productions, who has been 

 brought up with a knowledge of all that is good in the literary pro- 

 ductions of former as well as of our own times, and who has a warm 

 heart for poetical and literary beauties in the literature of all na- 

 tions, will make his own work attractive to readers, and will know 

 how to give clear expression even to abstruse scientific questions. 

 And, in conclusion, the laryngologist and otologist, who knows 

 something of history in general and of the history of the develop- 

 ment of his own specialty in particular, will have an infinitely 

 higher standard of comparison of the achievements of the present 

 day with those of our predecessors than the man for whom all that 

 has been published ten years ago is merely "ancient history" not 

 worth reading. Above all, he will have learned from the lessons of 

 the past the one great truth that, however important a discovery 

 he may imagine he has made, it behoves him to be modest in the 

 face of what has been done before him. 



It is extremely tempting to illustrate what I have just said by 

 reference to the writings of some of our confreres, whose scientific 

 productions are distinguished by literary charm, by limpidness 

 of expression, by inexorable logic of thought, and by profound 

 knowledge of the history and literature of other subjects, but apart 

 from the question of the length of this address, which hangs over 

 me like the sword of Damocles, the task, although enticing, would 

 be somewhat invidious. Still I hope that nobody will grudge it 

 if, before leaving this part of my task, I refer with admiration to 

 the work done by two American specialists, and illustrating the 

 truth of what I have just said, namely, the excellent historical and 

 literary researches of Dr. John Mackenzie of Baltimore, which 

 give quite a special cachet to several of his papers, and the recent 

 magnificent medical history of laryngology and rhinology by Dr. 

 Jonathan Wright, which, owing to a most unusual combination 

 of all the philosophical, literary, and historical qualities of which I 

 have spoken will, I feel sure, ever remain a classic in the literature 

 of our specialties. 



