s 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.] full of good sense and useful
suggestions, to one of which suggestions we owe the learned, impartial,
judicious, well-written Prize Essay of Dr. Worthington Hooker. [Rational
Therapeutics. A Prize Essay. By Worthington Hooker, M. D., of New Haven.
Boston. 1857.] We should not omit from the list the important address of
another of our colleagues, [On the Treatment of Compound and Complicated
Fractures. By William J. Walker, M. D. Read at the Annual Meeting, May
29, 1845.] showing by numerous cases the power of Nature in
healing compound fractures to be much greater than is frequently
supposed,--affording, indeed, more striking illustrations than can be
obtained from the history of visceral disease, of the supreme wisdom,
forethought, and adaptive dexterity of that divine Architect, as shown
in repairing the shattered columns which support the living temple of
the body.

We who are on the side of "Nature" please ourselves with the idea that
we are in the great current in which the true intelligence of the time
is moving. We believe that some who oppose, or fear, or deno