Vol. 60, 1909 - University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIOXS, 21
process of construction ou a nearby farm,
Colony buildings for one hundred men. The
you upon to-day, many subjects present
themselves to my mind, but it seems to me
agreeable employment provided in this way the question of the relation of the medical
will undoubtedly result in the mental reawakening
of many who otherwise would
be doomed to a vegetating existence on the
profession to the people along the lines of
hygiene and preventive medicine, is one of
the vital questions of the day. And cerwards.
tainly along these lines science looks to us
Ouite a number of cases occurring in
young men and women from seventeen to
twenty-five in whom the deterioration was
not so marked might be cited who stayed
for enlargement of the boundaries, by con-
quest over the domain of ignorance of the
people.
It is probably true that in no other dein
the Hospital for periods varying from a partnient of learning has education been
few months to a year or two and have gone advanced so rapidly as in medicine. Leghome.
Many have remained there; some islatures and leaders of the people everyhave
been able to take quite an active part where are more and more looking to us,
in the battle of life and some have had to the medical profession, for proper informtake
a less important part, but no matter ation in the passage of laws to guard pubhow
little the production, society has been lie health.
the better for it. Ours is the noblest of professions, there-
Xow, I do not mean to say that all cases of fore, it is our duty, as special guardians of
dementia i)raecox can be improved by any
methods whatsoever— I do not mean to say
the people, to allow no false modesty to
stand in our way to prevent us bodily and
thatany great number can be cured, for irre- righteously doing our duty to prevent in
parable damage has been done to the brain every way jxissible the spread of that which
tissue as a rule, but I do say that a vast makes the lives of the innocent miserable.
number can be made productive in the out- As we are to consider the enlightenment
side world under proper supervision, and of the people as to personal and municipal
others can be made permanently productive health and hygiene it might be well lo
and take a more or less prominent place in briefly call attention, among ourselves, to
the affairs of the world. some of the advances of the medical profession
in the past few years. The past
President's Address. thirty years have been the most active
By J. F. Iliglisinith, JI I)., l-ayeltevillu. N C. period in tlie ac(|uisition of medical knowl-
, ,. , ,. , „ ,, .^ ,
Ladiesand (.aiijemm. below Member, oj
formation frtnn the old to the new. It is
the Medical Society oJ the State oJ North
eharacterized by the most fruitful endeav-
Larolina:
^^^^ ^j,^ ,jj^, j^^^^^ brilliant achievements
To be the official head of this assembly that have >et been added to the chronicles
is an honor for which I am grateful. Here of the profession of medicine. The lime
and now 1 desire to assure you of my sin- has past when this art is associated with
cere appreciation of the honor of presiding
over this, the .S^th annual session of this
learned body. It is my heart's most earnwitchcraft
and superstition, but established
on a firmer basis—when men are spending
their lives investigating, experimenting and
est desire to maintain the excellence of this
organization and the high standard of my
giving reasons.
Even less than twenty years ago the studistinguished
predecessors. dent could be graduated in medicine after
Fellow members, once again we ha\ e two years of study. Only the crudest premet
together, for the
fair city of Asheville.
fourth time, in the
A "decade since our
fiminary education was required. Surgerx-
was narrow and limited compared with
. edge and medical art. It marks the trans-
last meeting in this tiueenly city—the what it is to-day, and consisted chiefly in
Switzerland of North Carolina —far famed ligating for aneurysm, performing tracliefor
her hospitality to the stranger that is otomy, amputation and resection; operawithin
her gates—known the world over ting for empyema, strangulated hernia,
for her beauty and her climate. stone in the bladder; reducing dislocations;
Great changes have come during these setting and dressing fractures; trei^hining
ten years. Many wlio were with us then have for head injuries; caring for wounds; refinished
their work here and have been moving foreign bodies; and extirpating tucalled
to higher service, bequeathing to us mors. A few surgeons were doing ovariexamplesof
lives nobly lived, spent in unsel- otomy. Comparatively few operations
fishs ervice for others. Their lives have not were done, and many ignorant people were
6tr« /c»^/, for as Kuskin has said: "ivvery afraid of hospitals—would go to one only
nol)le life leaves the fibre of it interwo\en in the last extremity, and then went in deadly
forever in the work of the world." terror. In 1877 the great wave of surgical
In casting about for a theme to speak to progress, which is one of the most notable