274 A HISTORY OF NATIONAL TUBERCULOSIS ASSOCIATION 



yesterday were living monuments to the faithful care of the village 

 doctor, he continued as follows: 



"He, too, alleviated suffering and saved human life. We know that it was 

 not given to him to see the bright lights that now mark the path of medicine 

 and surgery, but you cannot convince us that he groped entirely in the dark. 

 We remember with abhorrence his ever ready lancet, and the scars of his blood- 

 letting found in every household. We endure with complacency the recollec- 

 tion of his awful medicine case, containing bottles, powders, and pills, which, 

 whatever might be thought of them now, seemed then to be sufficient for all 

 emergencies, to say nothing of the tooth-pulling tools and other shiver-breed- 

 ing instruments sometimes exposed to view. If he was ignorant of many of the 

 remedies and appliances now in use, he in a large measure supplied the de- 

 ficiency by hard-headed judgment, well-observed experience, and careful 

 nursing. Besides, it was in his favor that he did not have to bother his head 

 with many of the newly invented and refined diseases that afflict mankind 

 to-day. He had no allotted hours for his patients, but was always on duty, 

 and we knew the sound of his gig as he rattled past in the night. 



"Your ways are better than his; but we desire you to regard this admission 

 as all the more valuable because it is carved out of our loyalty to our old village 

 doctor, who brought us through the diseases of childhood without relapse, who 

 saved from death our parents and our brothers and our sisters in many a hard 

 combat with illness, and who, when vanquished and forced to surrender, was 

 present in the last scene to close the eyes of his dying patient and sympathize 

 with those who wept." 



The concluding words of this remarkable address, warning us 

 against neglect of civic duties, are as applicable to conditions of 

 to-day as they were twenty-three years ago : 



"We cannot accuse you of utter neglect of your duty to the country; and 

 yet we cannot keep out of mind the suspicion that if your professional work 

 in exposing evils was more thoroughly supplemented by labor in the field of 

 citizenship, these evils would be more speedily corrected. If laws are needed 

 to abolish abuses which your professional investigations have unearthed, your 

 fraternity should not be strangers to the agencies which make the laws. If 

 enactments already in force are neglected or badly executed, you should not 

 forget that it is your privilege and duty to insist upon their vigorous and honest 

 enforcement. Let me also remind you of the application to your case of the 

 truth embodied in the homely injunction, 'If you want a job well done, do it 

 yourself.' If members of your profession were oftener found in our national 

 and State legislative assemblies, ready to advocate the reformatory measure 

 you have demonstrated to be necessary, and to defend your brotherhood 

 against flippant and sneering charges of impracticability, the prospect of your 

 bestowal upon your fellow-men of the ripened results of your professional 

 labor would be brighter and nearer." 



