TRUTH, PATHOLOGY, AND PUBLIC. 141 
treatment of disease; and I do not doubt that you 
have all learned a great number of details of treat- 
ment which you will use to the advantage of 
patients yet unborn, as well as others, it is to be 
hoped. But remember that the changes which 
take place in treatment are perpetual, and that 
there is nothing reliable in any treatment which 
is not based on science. 
The jeers of Le Sage and Moliére, and many a 
sneer of later date, have been only too well founded ; 
and if there be truth, as truth there is, in the 
vaunted progress of medicine and surgery in recent 
years, that progress is entirely owing to two closely 
connected causes, namely—first, the enormous ad- 
vances that have been made in chemistry, natural 
history, anatomy, and physiology ; and, secondly, 
that the practitioner, prepared by the study of 
these sciences, has applied their methods in his 
own special studies, has founded a science of path- 
ology, and learned what accuracy of observation 
means in clinical research. It is then the methods 
learned in your scientific studies which those of you 
who aim at reaching the first rank in our profession 
will find the most useful part of your education, as 
you woo Nature for her hidden treasures all your 
lives. This lotion and that operation, O young 
surgeons; this plaister and that panacea, most 
