Historical address : delivered before the Medical Society of the County of Albany in the state of New-York, November 11, 1856, being its semi-centennial anniversary meeting / by Sylvester D. Willard.

  • Willard, Sylvester David, 1825-1865.
Date:
1857
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Historical address : delivered before the Medical Society of the County of Albany in the state of New-York, November 11, 1856, being its semi-centennial anniversary meeting / by Sylvester D. Willard. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    ADDRESS. Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Society: It is in compliance with an invitation from the committee having in charge the arrangements for this anniversary, united with that of the President, that I address you to-day. Our meeting is characterized by more than accustomed interest. It chronicles the epoch of half a century to which our Society has just arrived, and the changes it has witnessed during this series of years that have now become a matter of history. In a retrospective glance at the period of the Revolutionary war, we find there was no special advancement in medical science. The courses of instruction in Philadelphia and New-York were suspended, and an incubus seemed to rest upon the profession. Necessity had indeed compelled an increased attention to anatomy, and did much to bring out latent talent for skilful surgery, and which was mostly employed in the army service. But surgeons were ill provided with those appliances which render their art to a great extent contributive to the wants and comforts of those who seek their aid. Untold sufferings were experienced in the army during our country's struggle for liberty, which might have been greatly mitigated or possibly altogether avoided, by the assistance of an efficient and well equipped corps of physicians and surgeons. From the close of the war until the beginning of the present century, the means of education in the medical profession were still limited, and the mass of practitioners in a state of deplor- able ignorance. The advantages were but few for obtaining the rudiments of a common education, and the young man whose ambition led him to aspire to the medical profession, usually sought the instruction of some neighboring physician. Age and gray hairs in the in-