INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS. 
6G0 
With reference to chemistry, it may be here asked, what did 
we know of the nature or treatment of tympanitis, as was for¬ 
cibly shown by my respected colleague, Professor Morton, in his 
introductory address of last year, until this instructive, enno¬ 
bling, and beautiful science came to our aid? It developed to 
us the important fact, that the gases eliminated in this disease 
differed according to its duration. That in the earlv stages 
carbonic acid was present, while in the latter carburetted and 
sulphuretted hydrogen existed. And it did even more than 
this, because it pointed to a ready, safe, and efficacious means 
of neutralizing and decomposing these destructive agents; 
so that now the practitioner is enabled successfully to combat 
this hitherto fatal malady. He puts in operation, in either 
case, a well-known chemical law, by exhibiting the com¬ 
pounds of ammonia in the early stages, and those of chlorine 
in the latter. That there are established laws in chemistry, 
the results probably of certain not well-understood forces, is 
so generally known at the present day, that it is almost a 
work of supererogation to mention them; and I do so chiefly 
to impress on the mind of the pupil the necessity of becom¬ 
ing, by attendance on the lectures and deep study, well 
acquainted with these laws. Furnished with knowledge of 
this kind, he will go forth into practice armed with a power 
which is almost irresistible, and would, perhaps, be completely 
so in the treatment of many diseases, were not these laws 
controlled by those termed vital. 
I pass to another, and also a novel method, by which we 
are made familiar with the changes wrought by disease in 
the animal organism, by first becoming acquainted, through 
it, with the intimate arrangement of the several parts when in 
a state of health. I allude to the modern achromatic micro¬ 
scope, an instrument which some anatomists and also patho¬ 
logists profess to condemn, and which, I fear, arises from 
that love of ease and self-satisfaction, which more or less 
belongs to every man—the common lot of our fallen human 
nature. By this instrument we possess, as it were, another 
sense, for the sense of seeing becomes so vastly increased 
and extended, that our minds are opened for the reception of 
facts of which previously we had scarcely a conception. It 
reveals to us a hidden, because otherwise an invisible world 
of wonders, so that it is almost impossible to calculate the 
advantages which the arts, as well as the sciences, will ulti¬ 
mately derive from its use. Its value to medical science is in- 
contestibly shown by the circumstances, that not a school or 
hospital can be found in this vast metropolis w here it is not 
employed for investigations, both of an anatomical and patho¬ 
logical nature. Some also of the elite of the medical profes- 
