ADDRESS AT COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 75 



What if controversies, sometimes fierce and acrimonious, exist? They 

 are solely brought about by different interpretations of actiial results 

 which are not yet sufficiently great in number or variety to throw the 

 final decision one way or the other. It is one of the great characteristics 

 of the scientific world that it is fundamentally sceptical and that it only 

 gives unanimous acquiescence to an interpretation of facts which have 

 been proved over and over again, until no doubt exists. Modern medicine 

 is not tolerant of fiction or hypothesis : it demands exact observation, 

 and woe be to him who comes before his colleagues with any statement 

 which, with methods at command of the world at the time, he can not 

 prove or for the confirmation of which he calls upon his imagination. 

 Sooner or later someone will plow over the same ground and discover that 

 what he was led to believe was soil of unusual fertility, is only barren 

 rock and sand. 



As medicine is founded on the exact sciences, and as the latter are 

 constantly and restlessly advancing, accumulating new results and de- 

 veloping new theories, the physician can not mentally remain stationary. 

 He too must hold the pace, must follow the work of his colleagues, must 

 know the latest point of view and be able to use the latest apparatus. It 

 is this very necessity for increasing the breadth of the physician's 

 knowledge that was one of the prime factors in bringing about the almost 

 universal formation of medical societies where discussion is free and 

 where new results can be gauged at their true value ; which has caused 

 the publication of the mass of journals devoted to one or the other 

 branches of the subject; which has founded the modern clinical labor- 

 atory, and which has given the services of so many of the profession to 

 the hospitals and dispensaries. Especially the young physician, fresh 

 from his institutional studies, must beware of the danger of lethargy, of 

 believing that if he attends to such patients as he has, with such 

 knowledge as he possesses, he has done his duty. The great procession 

 will sweep by him and leave him, not only unprepared for his great task, 

 but even a menace to the community. 



To the graduating class I wish to say the following: The time to do 

 your most energetic work is when you are young, and therefore do not 

 neglect your opportunities. You have completed your academic course, 

 the hospitals are your next school ; in these institutions, with no fixed 

 course of study laid out for you by a faculty, you will have opportunity 

 to gain experience and knowledge in much greater degree than in the 

 past, to contract habits of independent thought and to learn how to 

 investigate. It is only by an earnest endeavor to continue your develop- 

 ment, it is only by hard work, and above all by endeavoring to advance 

 our knowledge of disease as it exists in the Philippine Islands tliat you 

 can do your whole duty by tlie Filipino people wlio, by their sacrifices, 

 have founded the school wliich has in part at least, given you your 

 education. 



