INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 
3 
chair to which he succeeds under circumstances peculiarly 
trying to one almost a novice ? He is ahout to be placed in 
direct apposition with predecessors eminent for their attain- 
ments; distinguished for their intellectual endowments. Com- 
parisons are to be instituted between their professional abili- 
ties and his own; and the experience of many years will be 
brought into competition with the brief practice of a beginner. 
A successor is now about to take the place which has been 
occupied by those who have been called away to vaster fields 
of labor; whose merits and established character have been re- 
warded by those distinctions and preferments which their ser- 
vices most justly have deserved, and who are now classed 
among the worthies of our land, in the front rank of profes- 
sional eminence. Names, whose invariable association recall 
to our recollection the valued services which they have ren- 
dered to Pharmacy, and especially to this school, decorate the 
chair into which an untried occupant is this day about to take 
his seat.* Possessing the least sensibility, should he not hesi- 
tate at the threshold, ponder deeply the responsibility, and 
make the first entrance with sincere diffidence as to the result? 
Can such an occasion be then destitute of interest, or regarded 
asa mere ordinary assemblage for a public discourse? Sensibleof 
all these momentous responsibilities, and the relation in which 
he stands to the College, to you, and those who have preced- 
ed him; feeling that on all accounts he is bound to see that no 
retrograde movement shall ensue in any matter committed to 
his charge, the new incumbent assumes the chair with his 
best exertions pledged to prosecute the undertaking with 
which he has been entrusted by the partiality of the officers of 
the College. His own early professional character, identified 
in some measure with that of the College as one of her alumni ; 
his future professional rank depending upon the fidelity and 
ability with which he shall discharge his duty to you; his per- 
sonal relation with, and the high estimation in which he holds 
the reputation of his predecessors, all concur to stimulate his 
* Professor Wood, University of Pennsylvania ; Professor Bache, Jef- 
ferson Medical College. 
