about him: when he is
christened, when he is married, and when he is buried. Every one is the
chief personage, the hero, of his own baptism, his own wedding, and his
own funeral.

There are other occasions, less momentous, in which one may make more of
himself than under ordinary circumstances he would think it proper to do;
when he may talk about himself, and tell his own experiences, in fact,
indulge in a more or less egotistic monologue without fear or reproach.

I think I may claim that this is one of those occasions. I have
delivered my last anatomical lecture and heard my class recite for the
last time. They wish to hear from me again in a less scholastic mood
than that in which they have known me. Will you not indulge me in
telling you something of my own story?

This is the thirty-sixth Course of Lectures in which I have taken my
place and performed my duties as Professor of Anatomy. For more than
half of my term of office I gave instruction in Physiology, after the
fashion of my predecessors and in the manner then generally prevalent in
our schools, where the physiological laboratory was not a necessary part
of the apparatus of instruction. It was with my hearty approval that the
teaching of Physiology was constituted a separate department and made an
independent Professorship. Before my time, Dr. Warren had taught
Anatomy, Physiology, and Surgery in the same course of Lectures, lasting
only three or four months. As the boundaries of science are enlarged,
new divisions and subdivisions of its territories become necessary. In
the place of six Professors in 1847, when I first became a member of the
Faculty, I count twelve upon the Catalogue before me, and I find the
whole number engaged in the work of instruction in the Medical School
amounts to no less than fifty.

Since I began teaching in this school, the aspect of many branches of
science has undergone a very remarkable transformation. Chemistry and
Physiology are no longer what they were, as taught by the instructors of
that time. We are looking forward to the synthesis of new organic
compounds; our artificial madder is already in the market, and the
indigo-raisers are now fearing that their crop will be supplanted by the
manufactured article. In the living body we talk of fuel supplied and
work done, in movement, in heat, just as if we were dealing with a
machine of our own contrivance.

A physiological laboratory of to-day is equipped with instrument