elt for
a century.

Nor would the profession forgive me if I forgot to mention the admirable
museum of pathological anatomy, created almost entirely by the hands of
Dr. John Barnard Swett Jackson, and illustrated by his own printed
descriptive catalogue, justly spoken of by a distinguished professor in
the University of Pennsylvania as the most important contribution which
had ever been made in this country to the branch to which it relates.

When we look at the literature of mental disease, as seen in hospital
reports and special treatises, we can mention the names of Wyman,
Woodward, Brigham, Bell, and Ray, all either natives of Massachusetts or
placed at the head of her institutions for the treatment of the insane.

We have a right to claim also one who is known all over the civilized
world as a philanthropist, to us as a townsman and a graduate of our own
Medical School, Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe, the guide and benefactor of a
great multitude who were born to a world of inward or of outward
darkness.

I cannot pass over in silence the part taken by our own physicians in
those sanitary movements which are assuming every year greater
importance. Two diseases especially have attracted attention, above all
others, with reference to their causes and prevention; cholera, the
"black death" of the nineteenth century, and consumption, the white
plague of the North, both of which have been faithfully studied and
reported on by physicians of our own State and city. The cultivation of
medical and surgical specialties, which is fast becoming prevalent, is
beginning to show its effects in the literature of the profession, which
is every year growing richer in original observations and investigations.

To these benefactors who have labored for us in their peaceful vocation,
we must add the noble army of surgeons, who went with the soldiers who
fought the battles of their country, sharing many of their dangers, not
rarely falling victims to fatigue, disease, or the deadly volleys to
which they often exposed themselves in the discharge of their duties.

The pleasant biographies of the venerable Dr. Thacher, and the worthy and
kind-hearted gleaner, Dr. Stephen W. Williams, who came after him, are
filled with the names of men who served their generation well, and rest
from their labors, followed by the blessing of those for whom they
endured the toils and fatigues inseparable from their calling. The
hardworking, intelligent countr