Valedictory Charge, 133 



allowances in reading books written and published in 

 foreign countries, for the difference which climate, 

 diet, and manners make, in the character of diseases, 

 and even in the doses of the same medicines. 



2dly. Let me recommend to you to record the his- 

 tory of the weather of every season ; of the quality of 

 those vegetable and animal substances which consti- 

 tute the food of man; and, afterwards, to mark the 

 diseases which accompany, or follow, them, with their 

 changes and combinations, and the exact order of their 

 succession to each other. You will thus acquire ha- 

 bits of attention and reflection, and be enabled to re- 

 vive and apply, at your pleasure, all the knowledge you 

 have accumulated in this way. For, however strange 

 it may sound, I believe few physicians, who have ne- 

 glected this practice, ever remember, correctly, the 

 symptoms of the diseases they have attended, beyond 

 the two or three last years of their lives. 



3dly. You owe, gentlemen, a large debt of gratitude 

 to your ancestors in medicine. This debt can be paid, 

 only, by communicating the result of your experience 

 and knowledge to your cotemporaries and posterity. 

 Let no fact, therefore, however inconsiderable it may 

 appear, that tends to lessen the mortality, or even the 

 pain, of a single disease, sleep in your common-place- 

 books, or perish in your memories. The ocean con- 

 sists of drops; and minute parts, collected and arrang- 

 ed in a certain order, are indispensably necessary to 

 constitute the comely pillars and stately dome of the 

 great fabric offucdicine. Recollect, further, that the 



