A year’s progress in medicine. 
201 
in matters of liglit, of heat, of ventilation, onr water supply 
purified ; onr food supply preserved unadulterated, and our ined- 
ieines as well; and the thousand other ways by which our mu¬ 
nicipal and individual health may be preserved, our life length¬ 
ened. One by one an enemy falls, and the time should come, and 
probably will, when the last one shall perish by the wayside. 
New industries, new inventions, introduce new dangers 
which physician and sanitarian must prepare to meet. We have 
each an individual duty to perform ; the proper diffusion of sci¬ 
entific knowledge is helping toward the good time coming, be¬ 
cause as the laity are educated they co-operate with the physician 
and sanitarian. Evidently there is a very definite progress each 
year in the light of municipal and personal rules of health. Our 
homes are so much better lighted, heated, ventilated, than those 
of our fathers ; our dietaries improved, our clothing more health¬ 
ful, provided that fashion will permit. 
We bathe a dozen times where our fathers bathed ouce. We 
have improved at the same time the housing and surrounding of 
our domestic animals. Cleanliness, which is so close to godli¬ 
ness, is a thousand times better observed in their case than in 
older times. 
A word to the gentlemen who graduate. I can enter some¬ 
what into your feelings of the moment, as you think of the 
transition you are making from the state of pupilage to that of 
the practitioner.' You have a future and you hope it may be a 
bright and happy one, and I hope so, too. But my own experi¬ 
ence and observation have shown me that there are two things 
you ought to make up your minds to do. One is to lead a 
straightforward, honest and manly life, despising mean and little 
things and trying to do the best you can ; good practitioners and 
good citizens, trying to improve your time and opportunity, 
commanding the respect and confidence of your fellows. The 
other is to remember, as the lamented Garfield was wont to say, 
“It is the unexpected that happens,” or as Cardinal Wolsey 
said, “ There comes a frost, a killing frost, and when he thinks, 
good easy man, full sure his greatness is a ripening, nips his 
bud and then he falls,” or that other quotation, the author of 
which I cannot at this moment recall, and whom you will prob¬ 
ably recognize as familiar to you, “ From care and trouble rest 
your thought, even when the end’s attained, for all your plans 
may come to naught when every nerve is strained.” These 
things are not said to discourage you. Life’s successes are at¬ 
tained by honesty, by vigilance, good judgment, industry, ac- 
