Millions have perished by
her hands in all ages and countries." Sir John Forbes, whose defence of
"Nature" in disease you all know, and to the testimonial in whose honor
four of your Presidents have contributed, has been recently greeted, on
retiring from the profession, with a wish that his retirement had been
twenty years sooner, and the opinion that no man had done so much to
destroy the confidence of the public in the medical profession.
In this Society we have had the Hippocratic and the Themisonic side
fairly represented. The treatise of one of your early Presidents on the
Mercurial Treatment is familiar to my older listeners. Others who have
held the same office have been noted for the boldness of their practice,
and even for partiality to the use of complex medication.
On the side of "Nature" we have had, first of all, that remarkable
discourse on Self-Limited Diseases, [On Self-Limited Diseases. A
Discourse delivered before the Massachusetts Medical Society, at their
Annual Meeting, May 27, 1835. By Jacob Bigelow, M. D.] which has given
the key-note to the prevailing medical tendency of this neighborhood, at
least, for the quarter of a century since it was delivered. Nor have we
forgotten the address delivered at Springfield twenty years later,
[Search out the Secrets, of Nature. By Augustus A. Gould, M. D. Read
at the Annual Meeting, June 27, 1855.
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