DELIVERED BEFORE THE GRADUATING CLASS OF THE ATLANTA MEDICAL COLLEGE, WEDNESDAY EVENING, MARCH 4, 1874.

BY WM. R. BURGESS, M.D., MACON, GA.

Gentlemen: Having been honored with the high compliment of an invitation from your distinguished faculty, to deliver the valedictory address to the graduating class this evening, allow me to assure you that it is with feelings of unaffected distrust in my humble capacity to do justice either to you or to this interesting occasion, that I proceed to discharge the pleasing duty.

For so long a time, you have been listening to the voice of wise counselors and faithful teachers, now that you have reached the goal for which from your earliest pupilage you have so faithfully labored and looked forward to, with feelings mingled with fear and hope; standing at this time, as you do, the peers of your late teachers; the time having come when you are soon to say the sad farewell to instructors, friends, and beloved foster mother; it is but reasonable that you should at this closing moment expect to be entertained by a discourse teeming with beautiful rhetoric and sound philosophy. However far, gentlemen, I may fall short of this natural expectation, I shall rest in the abiding confidence that your charity will cover all.

The profession of medicine-that which you have chosen for your future labors, both mental and physical-reaching, as it does, far back into remote ages of antiquity; emanating from its VOL. XII.-No 1-47.

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shadowy, chaotic origin at a time when priest craft reigned supreme; advancing and declining by turn, century after century, through multiplied and multiform vicissitudes that befell it on every hand, yet gaining new strength and new advocates until the earliest dawn of literature, art and science; then coming forth from the cloister and monastery, with substantial merit equaling any of the kindred sciences, is a theme well worthy your most ardent zeal and profoundest regard.

You have to-day, for the first time, gentlemen, had your names enrolled, and will in future, from your own choice, take your place in the arena of this long-existing and still raging contest. How much of valor and of scientific strategy, how much you are as individuals to accomplish towards driving the enemy from the remaining strongholds now under his dominion, is very much for your own choosing. Thus far you have been in the camp of drill, or instruction, only "snuffing battle from the distance." To-day your faithful and efficient officers have brought you forth well drilled and equipped, to see how valiantly you are to contest for victory on the field of actual conflict.

When first clothed with the doctorate, it is doubtless sometimes the case that the young physician feels no longer a necessity for study; feels that the few years already spent in laborious and close application to theory, as laid down in the books, or taught in the schools, entirely qualifies him to go forth and do battle against the invasion of disease, without the necessity for further reading; or, perhaps he feels strong in the confidence reposed in the power of his native genius to elucidate, and make plain to his understanding, all the obscure, and may be, enigmatical problems, that are destined at times to claim his attention in the sick-chamber. If such a feeling is cherished, if such confident expectation is entertained, by any of those whose bright, intelligent faces it is my privilege to look upon this evening, let me warn you at the outset of this deadly "Upas." The profession you have chosen-the science which is now advancing to its grand consummation, is constantly undergoing modification and change in its onward march, and will require, nay demand of its followers, unabated zeal in tracing out the published opinions and discussions of its eminent advocates, in every continent, land and country on the face of the globe, if he has at heart the good of his patient, or a desire to stand above mediocrity in the ranks of his co-laborers. A distinguished friend, in delivering

an address before a graduating class of this college fourteen years ago, gave this excellent advice. He says: "aiming high, gentlemen, the achievement of science will require that your efforts shall be worthy of, and commensurate with, your aspirations. You must, through the powers and energies of mind and body, be the architects of whatever of fame and fortune you shall realize. Success will not result from accident, chance, or the favoring influence of external circumstances, but must be looked for in the manner in which you shape your conduct and character-in studious habits, industrious labors, energetic action, observation of the useful, self-control, honorable conduct, and generous benefactions, the highest reward of which is the rich and glowing consciousness of having done good. Your intellectual attainments and moral qualities will mark out your prominent professional position, uninfluenced to any considerable degree by the adventitious aids of fortune, family, friends, or social rank." Fixing then, the important fact in your minds that you hold your destiny in your own hands, that it will not do to trust the honor of your name and reputation to the influence of wealth, family or friends, but conscious of the power that lies within the grasp of your own intellect, "suffer not the blighting mildew of indolence, the syren voice of pleasure, an interest in other business avocations, the labors and cares of even a large practice, nor the witching smiles or allurements of the hour, to turn you from your purpose-your love of study. But procuring, in the outset of life, a small and well-selected library of standard authors, replenish it from time to time with valuable monographs as they fall from the press, and subscribe for a few good periodical journals; and, for years to come, ever arranging your hours of business and pleasure with an eye to the improvement of your mind, and the acquisition of knowledge, master and treasure up from the best authors, the rich and varied stores of existing information; evoke by your own thought from the great laboratory of nature, some of her yet hidden mysteries; and peruse the monthly and quarterly periodicals with sufficient regularity to enable you to keep pace with the progress of the science. In your reading let not the false glare of novelty with its dazzling fallacies captivate, neither let pre-conceived views or blind obedience to the dicta magistra obscure your mental vision to the importance of new light; but being cautious in adopting that which purports to be new, and still more cautious in

rejecting that which has borne the test of long experience, and yet commands the confidence of the well-informed; contrast the views of one author with those of another, and then again with what you may have yourselves observed at the bedside. Thus you will pursue the path of safety, intelligence and certainty, and accumulate a fund of solid and valuable information co-extensive and co-temporaneous with the scope and uttermost progress of your art, that will be a tower of strength-the Archimedean lever with which you will be able to prize up the valuable truths of science; the key with which you can unlock the great arcana of disease. It will be the means of giving you promptness, decision, confidence and energy, as practitioners, and commanding for you success in treating the numberless maladies in their many varying and protean forms, to which both mind and body are subject."

But, gentlemen, valuable as intellectual culture may be―yea, essential and absolutely necessary to high position in the profession-this alone will by no means secure its attainment. The effulgence of genius and learning may for a time, as the lightning's flash or meteor's glare, captivate the beholders; but this, unsupported by other virtues, will, like the meteor's flash, charm but for a moment. It cannot command for any considerable length of time, unreserved confidence, lasting success, or distinguished eminence, nor commend you to the good, the virtuous and the pure.

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To secure this there must be associated and combined with general and extensive mental acquirements, the virtues of a moral character unstained by the vices, the immoralities and dissipations that so frequently attach to and wreck the promise of genius. The physician who would establish himself firmly in the confidence and affections of the public, and plant himself on an elevated platform in a profession illustrious in all ages for its distinguished exemplars of all the cardinal virtues of the heart, even as for their great learning, must sustain a moral character free from spot or blemish. Invited and admitted into the sacred precincts of domestic life, behind the scenes that shut off the world from the weaknesses and frailties of mortality divested of its mask of diplomacy and disguise; the trusted adviser and chief hope of man in his affliction and anguish, having committed unreservedly to his keeping communications involving interests and honor the most inviolable; stories of suf