is the matter with that
Hub, the diagnosis must be made not only by an able physician, but by an
able spokesman. [Laughter and applause.] I have great pleasure in
introducing to you one who combines both, and a hundred other qualities,
Dr. OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. [Applause.]

SPEECH OF DR. OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

You will not ask for rhetoric or eloquence in the few remarks upon a
vital subject to be offered you by a member of the silent profession.
What could be so eloquent as the hollow voice which announces the Boston
annual death-rate as being 26.18 against 23.7, that of the great paved
nation of London; against 19.3, that of Philadelphia; and approaching
that of our two unhealthiest cities, New York and New Orleans? This high
death-rate has been shown to be largely due to the excessive mortality
among infants and children under five years of age. The most fatal of
the diseases which assail them is that destruction which wasteth at
noonday, to which our American practitioners give the name of
cholera-infantum. And this disease prevails chiefly, almost entirely,
from June to October, the season when all out-of-door influences are
most tempting and most needed. The weekly record of August and September
is that of a pestilence. The destroying angel carries off the firstborn,
and, oftener still, the last-born, out of almost every household in
certain districts, as in the heaviest curse laid on Egypt. Thousands
have fled the city, as they deserted London in the season of the
plague; but thousands are left to follow in the funeral procession of
those who were the hope of their households.

A considerable part of this mortality, it may be feared, is unavoidable.
Our climatic influences are permanent factors, and must always count in
the bills of mortality. But there are certain agencies which we can, to
a great extent, control. We can and do submit the dwellings of our
citizens to inspection and sanitary regulation; we can and shall provide
our city with proper drainage; we can and do inspect the food in our
market, and condemn it if unfit for use; we can and must secure for our
citizens the influences of unroofed and unwalled Nature,--air, light,
space for exercise and recreation, the natural birthright of mankind.

Of the uses of these larger breathing-spaces, which we call parks,--for
the relief of the imprisoned dwellers in crowded streets, for the
recreation of poor and rich alike, for the health of mind and b