President's address before South Carolina Medical Association, meeting held in Columbia, April, 1872 : Yellow Fever in Charleston, 1871, with remarks upon its treatment / by Francis Peyre Porcher.

  • Francis Peyre Porcher
Date:
1872
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: President's address before South Carolina Medical Association, meeting held in Columbia, April, 1872 : Yellow Fever in Charleston, 1871, with remarks upon its treatment / by Francis Peyre Porcher. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    in the secluded glens among the mountains, where the dews of morning glisten upon the delicate leaves of the mosses which clothe the rocks and where flowers of unrivaled hue bloom amidst the snows—you can explore the secrets of nature, and trace out, interpret and admire her marvelous works—equally impressive whether exhibited on their minut- est, or most stupendous scale. You can look forth, for example, with awe and wonder to observe a magnificent panorama where circling mountains stretch beyond the hori- zon’s utmost verge; their vast and ponderous forms, “ on sun- less pillars deep in earth uplifted,—and, like Pelion piled on Ossa, towering sublime into the middle heavens; or when the sun illumines with roseate hues their snow-clad summits, or the full-orbed moon, rising in cloudless majesty, floods the pale landscape with her sacred light. Precipitous, black, jagged rocks Forever shattered and the same forever— save what the fretting hoar-frosts wear. In igneous fusion melted, after the reign of “ Chaos and old Night,” they had been upheaved from depths Plutonic, and rent asunder by some mighty convulsion, they stand as giant sentinels—■ scarred by time and hoary with age—ever to keep perpetual watch and ward upon the land. Yet not inutile, or conducive to no end besides,—but rich in ores and minerals, with trees innumerable crowning their shaggy steeps, swept by winds and gathering a retinue of storms about their brows—through which the lightnings pierce and flash incessant—they con- dense from humid air abundant rains: wherewith to fill the rivers, streams and fountains, and to replenish and refresh the fair and fruitful world. Or if along the borders of the sea- washed shore, where the wild waves play, you gather a tiny shell upon the beach, you may admire its beauty, and scruti- nize the ’form and proportions of a creature—which took from its abode in the briny ocean wherewithal to build the solid foundation of the continents!—but everywhere some- thing will be found to gratify your curiosity for knowledge, yet increase the thirst for more. To any one of you, if he will cease from his labors occasionally, to observe and reflect upon what he sees, or hears, or reads, may be applied with truth, I trust, the simple and beautiful lines of Wordsworth: The outward shows of sky and earth Of hill and valley he has viewed; And impulses of deeper birth Have come to him in solitude.
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