298 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 
ART. LIX— INTRODUCTORY LECTURE TO THE COURSE 
OF MATERIA MED1CA IN THE UNIVERSITY OF PENN- 
SYLVANIA. By Geo. B. Wood, M. D. 
Delivered November 3, 1840. 
Allow me, gentlemen, before proceeding to the peculiar 
duties of the occasion, to greet heartily my old friends among 
you, and to those who are here for the first time to proffer 
my kindest regards, while I ask for theirs in return. It is 
always my anxious desire, when entering with the class upon 
our mutual labors for the winter, that we should go hand in 
hand together. Not only is the way thus rendered more 
agreeable both to teacher and pupil; but they are also enabled 
to advance more rapidly; as the intellect always operates with 
greater efficiency when aided by the affections. That head 
must be empty indeed which the heart cannot stimulate into 
action. The consciousness that he possesses the good will of 
his class is to the lecturer one of the most powerful incentives 
to exertion ; and instruction seldom fails to sink deeply into 
the learner, when he feels that it proceeds as much from in- 
terest in his welfare as from a sense of duty. Let us, there- 
fore, gentlemen, set out as friends upon our contemplated 
journey. You will find me disposed to do everything, during 
its course, which will contribute to Jeave us friends at the end 
of it. 
I have selected, as the subject of this Introductory Dis- 
course, the History of the Materia Medica in the United 
States. In this choice, I do not wish to be considered as ac- 
tuated by any narrow preference of the discoveries or im- 
provements made in our own country over those of foreign 
origin. Our patriotic partialities have been appealed to in 
favor of American medicine in contradistinction to that of the 
old continent. But this is folly, or something worse. Medi- 
cine is a science, and science is truth brought to light. Now 
truth is one everywhere. She is of no place or country. 
