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SCIENCE 



[N.S. Vol. XXVI. No. 660 



real work, the work which in the end is 

 going to count for you, for your institu- 

 tion, for your profession as a whole and 

 for mankind at large, that work, as far as 

 it may be placed in your hands, is just 

 about to begin. And in that work the 

 same methods that you have followed in 

 your undergraduate course, of accurate 

 observation and record, of close examina- 

 tion by sight and touch, of correct analysis 

 and sound comprehensive synthesis, of re- 

 liable memory and logical deduction from 

 established facts — these are the elements 

 which will produce real results. The era 

 of empiricism in medicine has passed for 

 good and all, and to-day the practitioner 

 of medical science must be a scientist in 

 the true sense of the word and work by 

 scientific methods. 



Because of this fact I ask you to recog- 

 nize the value of the training you have 

 received and to realize that in no other 

 way could the mental and physical apti- 

 tude for your work have been developed. 



Again, let me point out to you what the 

 acquisition on your part of sound methods 

 of biological study means to you, as active 

 participants in the steady advance of the 

 future. As you look back over the earlier 

 developmental stages of medicine your 

 mind reverts to certain great landmarks, 

 mile-stones in the natural progress of the 

 science. You will think of asepsis, sur- 

 gical anesthesia, serum therapy and other 

 great achievements in special fields. But 

 consider the vast amount of infinite care 

 and patience and keen reasoning which led 

 up to these epoch-making advances, think 

 how much close observation and correct 

 erperiment bridged the intervals between 

 them. 



Nothing in the biological sciences is so 

 minute that it may be safely overlooked, 

 nothing apparently so unimportant that it 

 may be safely disregarded. A few years 



ago the parabrauchial bodies were scarcely 

 noticed or known. Contrast this with the 

 modern parathyroid therapy of tetanus. 

 And so I say to you again that, as you look 

 back over your undergraduate course, the 

 work you have accomplished should mean 

 to you the preparatory training for the 

 work now before you, and in whatever line 

 you find that work, as your professional 

 lives shape themselves, there you wiU use 

 and further develop the methods of obser- 

 vation which you have acquired in this 

 school. 



A few days ago I received an abstract 

 of a report covering the work of your de- 

 partment of general anatomy for the aca- 

 demic year just closing. To all who have 

 the sound development of scientific medi- 

 cal education close at heart it is a most 

 inspiriting document, both in the perform- 

 ance of achieved advance and in promise 

 for the future. I venture to extend to this 

 institution the cordial congratulations and 

 full appreciation of a sister university for 

 this material evidence of high standards 

 and purposes. For we are all, individuals 

 as well as schools, working for the common 

 end, and the more complete our mutual 

 faith and confidence is, the closer we stand 

 shoulder to shoulder, the steadier and 

 surer will be the advance of medical educa- 

 tion and the resultant progress of the 

 medical profession. 



I can not do better than close my re- 

 marks to you with a quotation from the 

 document referred to, in which your pro- 

 fessor of general anatomy states: 



In this, the constructive period of the present 

 anatomic course, the department recognizes that 

 charts, drawings and models, however valuable 

 they may be as aids to teaching, fail in replacing 

 the actual structure for purposes of study and 

 instruction. It is a cardinal principle of anatomic 

 teaching that the student learns his anatomy 

 chiefly in the dissecting room and in the section 

 teaching. But the student can be assisted advan- 



