H 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XIV. No. 335 



makes the patient unconscious of his state. To this alleviation we 

 are so wonted, that we accept it as the air we breathe. But if you 

 would learn how man secured this boon, how many efforts of 

 scientific and of practical men were combined before the results 

 were reached, recur to the history of four modern agencies, — ni- 

 trous o.xide, ether, chloroform, and cocaine, — which are like " the 

 gentle dew from heaven, which blesseth him that gives and him 

 that takes." It is a chapter more wonderful than any romance of 

 the Arabian Nights. 



Let any one present who is sceptical in respect to the usefulness 

 of science to the healing art keep this record in his mind. Let him 

 reflect on the apprehensions that have been removed not only from 

 the patient, but from his attendant friends ; let him see how much 

 easier, and therefore how much more certain, the task of the sur- 

 geon has been made ; and, above all, let him think of the hours of 

 pain that have been absolutely annulled ; and then let him divide 

 the honors, if he can, which belong to science, from those which 

 belong to philanthropy. Let him balance half a century of scien- 

 tific relief with the previous practice of many thousand years : then 

 let him tell us which is better. 



From the past let us turn to the future. All the signs of the 

 times point to a new era in the history of mankind. All the sciences 

 are leading up to a better understanding of the laws of life, to a true 

 anthropology, and the consequent improvement of the physical, 

 mental, and moral powers of man. 



There are four or five directions toward which we ma)' turn an 

 expectant gaze, as in days gone by the merchants watched upon 

 the house-tops for the return of the ships they had sent out to dis- 

 tant ports. 



Preventive medicine promises to do more and more for man- 

 kind. As the germs of many specific disorders have been discov- 

 ered, so the means of their destruction have been found out. If 

 legislation and civil administration keep up with science, if knowl- 

 edge is controlled by virtue and followed by temperance, the com- 

 munity will be freed from many of the foes which in former gener- 

 ations have slain their tens of thousands. 



From the chemical laboratory new remedies, as well as simpler 

 forms of old remedies, are to be constantly looked for. The syn- 

 thetical processes which now receive so much attention have lately 

 made important contributions to the pharmacopoeia. It would sur- 

 prise any one whose attention has not been directed to this point to 

 know how many claimants are awaiting judgment. Scores of sub- 

 stances, till lately unknown, as I have heard my colleague Pro- 

 fessor Remsen say, are awaiting the study of competent_therapeu- 

 tists. Nobody can foretell what will come from their new contri- 

 butions to materia medica ; but one who watches the processes of 

 discovery must feel certain that secrets hid from the beginning are 

 ere long to be revealed, and that many of the substances already 

 discovered have properties of the most serviceable character. 



No one can say what will result from the attention that has been 

 recently given to the study of psychical phenomena by the exact 

 methods of science, but the outlook is hopeful. If we are as far as 

 ever from elucidating the mysterious inter-relationship of the mind 

 and the body, progress has certainly been made in a knowledge of 

 the laws by which they act upon each other. The knowledge that 

 has been required in respect to the functions of the brain and 

 nervous system has already led to the treatment of many disorders, 

 and the relief of many diseases, which a short time ago were be- 

 yond the reach of remedy. We are not without hope that in the 

 physiological and psycho-physical laboratories already established 

 here, important contributions will be made to science which will 

 ultimately prove to be of value to medicine, and to the conduct of 

 the body in health and disease. 



IVtedical appliances and surgical instruments are greatly to be 

 improved. A surgeon who has just returned from Europe, after 

 visiting in the interest of this hospital the most celebrated instru- 

 ment-makers, has informed me that the processes of manufacture 

 even now are behind the devices and requirements of surgical 

 science. The hands of the artisan have not kept up with the 

 brains of the chirurgeon. It is not possible to buy ready made 

 the instruments required by this hospital. 



In the near future we are to look for progress in the applications 

 of electricity and magnetism to the treatment of disease as well as 



to its diagnosis. Chemistry, by its synthetic methods, is producing 

 new remedies, which experimental therapeutics proceeds to test, 

 and pharmacy then appropriates. The laws of light, heat, elec- 

 tricity, and magnetism, are found in close relationship to the prob- 

 lems of relief and cure. The laws of temperature and climate 

 have their services to render. Even the influence of barometrical 

 pressure upon surgical operations begins to be noticed. The study 

 of the nervous system is sure at no distant day to make important 

 contributions to the welfare of man. Psychology is waiting for 

 the results. Experimental physiology is doing its part. Pathol- 

 ogy, a term as old as Hippocrates, has become a new science 

 within the last few years. The laws of descent have but just be- 

 gun to assume a scientific form. Preventive medicine is almost a 

 new conception, The morality of personal hygiene is a new de- 

 partment of ethics. Biology, after having met with the same 

 critical reception with which anatomy, astronomy, geology, and 

 chronology were greeted, may yet be honored as leading to the 

 highest and noblest conceptions of humanity. Anthropology, and 

 the knowledge of man in his relations to the universe in which he 

 is placed, may sum up finite knowledge. 



So all along the line, in the laboratories of the university and in 

 the wards of the hospital, knowledge is contributing to the welfare 

 of man. The days of the coming man may not always reach the 

 full allotment to which Chevreul has just attained ; but perhaps to 

 die at seventy will be to die in youth, and to reach the age of eighty 

 or ninety in health and vigor will be the rule, and not the excep- 

 tion. Nor is length of days our only hope. The disappearance of 

 epidemics ; fewer days of confinement in sickness ; fewer " minor 

 ailments ; " a decrease of infantile mortality ; greater powers of 

 resistance to the evils of certain occupations, and comparative im- 

 munity from many infirmities which are now common ; artificial 

 re-enforcements and replacements of bodily defects ; simpler and 

 surer means of diagnosis ; the detection of the nature, origin, and 

 history of specific affections ; and finally the assurance of eutha- 

 nasia, — these, as it seems to a layman, are reasonable expectations 

 which the nineteenth century holds out to the twentieth. Can any 

 outlay be too great if humanity is thus benefited .' 



To the attainment of these noble aims — " the relief of suffering 

 and the advancement of knowledge" — the foundations of Johns 

 Hopkins are forever set apart. On the one hand stands the 

 university, where education in the liberal arts and sciences is pro- 

 vided, and where research is liberally encouraged ; on the other 

 hand stands the hospital, where all that art and science can con- 

 tribute to the relief of sickness and pain is bountifully provided. 

 Is there any thing wanting ? Yes, there is still a great want to -be 

 supplied, an arch to rest upon these pillars. An institute of medi- 

 cine and surgery, a college of physicians and surgeons, a medical 

 school the office of which shall be to promote the training of young 

 physicians and the encouragement of medical science, is impera- 

 tively needed. Is it too much to say that there is not such an op-' 

 portunity on the face of the globe for another Peabody or another 

 Hopkins to benefit his fellowmen .' 



The university needs all it has, and more, to carry on the non- 

 professional courses to which its funds are appropriated. The 

 hospital, with all its readiness to co-operate in the advancement of 

 knowledge, will, after all, remain — as I have said before, and can- 

 not say with too much emphasis — the home of the sick, the 

 feeble, the injured, and the dying. It is the house of mercy, not 

 the hall of philosophy. But in close alliance with both these foun- 

 dations there is a place for a school of medicine, which may bear 

 its founder's name, and may render services as significant and 

 memorable as those of Salerno and Bologna, at the beginning of 

 the modern era ; as those of Leyden and Edinburgh, where the 

 earliest American physicians received their education ; or as those 

 of Berlin and Vienna, to which so many students of this decade 

 resort. 



This grateful city should no longer delay placing upon one of 

 the squares near the monument of Washington the figure of Johns- 

 Hopkins, with such designs as an artist, and an artist only, could 

 devise, to typify the great ideas which underlie his gifts, — " the 

 advancement of knowledge and the relief of suffering." Then 

 might some friend of this hospital place beneath this dome a copy 

 of Thorwaldsen's " Christus Consolator," with the outstretched 



