334 ADDRESS DELIVERED TO THE 



depends ^pn social dereliction and neglect of duty — in all 

 these relations of disease, you, as physicians, are only indirectly 

 interested. It would be a great mistake, however, were you 

 to assume that you have fulfilled all the duties of your calling 

 when you have treated the cases which come under your 

 observation. Your science can alone supply information 

 regarding the primary causes of prevailing disease, necessary 

 for the selection of the proper public measures for its preven- 

 tion. I need here only remind you how much has already 

 been done, and is now doing, in this direction, and express 

 my belief, that as the greatest boon which your profession has 

 hitherto conferred on the community has been the prevention 

 of disease, her future services in the same direction will not 

 be less valuable. 



Throughout this address I have insisted much on the inti- 

 mate relation which, exists between the conscious principle in 

 man and his liability to disease ; and I may therefore here 

 remind you how much the comfort of the patient, and the 

 satisfactory progress of his cure, are dependent on the cha- 

 racter and demeanour of the physician. If the psychical 

 condition of your patient undoubtedly influences his cor- 

 poreal state, it becomes an essential part of your duty to 

 secure for yourselves that respect and confidence which are 

 so readily accorded to your profession, and which tend so 

 essentially to the welfare of those entrusted to its care. This 

 character and this demeanour will be best secured by looking 

 on your profession, not as a mere science, with its formal 

 application, but as an extended series of duties, the nature 

 and scope of which are indicated in the very nature of the 

 profession itself. 



In conclusion, permit me to say, that if a tendency pro- 

 duced by my own studies, and if what I hold to be the 

 fundamental principles of the special science which I profess, 

 have given a peculiar colouring to this address, or have 



