The annual address to the candidates for degrees and licenses, in the Medical Institution of Yale College, January 20, 1847 / [Rufus Blakeman].

  • Blakeman, Rufus
Date:
1847
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The annual address to the candidates for degrees and licenses, in the Medical Institution of Yale College, January 20, 1847 / [Rufus Blakeman]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    trol his prescriptions, as the chemist to define the physical agencies which regulate the affinities of inorganic matter. It is not however contended, that the same uniformity of re¬ sults can probably be obtained from the operation of the vital, as the physical laws, in consequence of the complica¬ ted nature of organic structure, and the combined influen¬ ces which these laws exert upon it. But in view of a field so manifestly susceptible of improvement, it becomes the duty of all, whose qualifications fit them for the task, to withhold no efforts which may lead to new and valuable dis¬ coveries in this science. Your advancement to membership in the profession evin¬ ces that you are esteemed adequate to the assumption of its duties, and that you are adjudged competent counselors to your fellow men, in matters pertaining to life and health. Your professed avocation will hereafter be to labor for the preservation of the vital machine, when assailed by the perils of disease to which it is made subject. These trusts and responsibilities you cannot possibly discharge, nor can you even escape the charge of criminal delinquency, with¬ out incessantly laboring to acquire, and make available, all the means which science has furnished for the attainment of this important object. It is a lamentable fact, that suc¬ cess in the medical profession is not always proportionate to the qualification of its professors. But notwithstanding, I will venture to affirm, that no conscientious member, pos¬ sessed of an ordinary knowledge of the vital fabric, with its complicated structure, can with confidence hold himself out to the public as a practitioner, without being furnished with the ordinary means, which modern science affords, for the correc¬ tion of its derangements. It may be, and doubtless is true, that a public unenlightened in medical science, may not be able to detect the deficiences of the physician; that it may exonerate him in cases of evil inflicted by his misjudg- ments, or even applaud where censure would be justice. But let it be borne in mind by you, that while the intelligent
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