Celebration of the centennial anniversary of the institution of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia : commemorative address / by S. Weir Mitchell.

  • Silas Weir Mitchell
Date:
1887
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Celebration of the centennial anniversary of the institution of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia : commemorative address / by S. Weir Mitchell. 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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    yours while I live. There must be more of these genial letters. In their pages flowers seem to bloom, and humming-birds to flutter as the great naturalist, with gentle envy, pictures the wealth of plant and animal life awaiting his pupil's study in distant Penn- syl vania. The daily needs of life may have rendered the pursuit of science difficult to Kuhn. He lectured in 1768, one year, on botany, then on materia medica twenty-one years, and in 1789 became professor of theory and practice in the University, was our third president in 1808, and died in 1817. He left scarce a trace behind him, but no one can read his manuscript lectui'es, now in our library, without a full sense that the world lost something by the indifference, or want of ambition of this learned physician. With reverent doubt of my powers to do justice to the greatest physician this country has produced, I ap- proach the task of briefly recalling to your memories the vivid and emphatic personality of Benjamm Rush. His life invites a less hasty biographei-, and is full of such seeming contradictions as can only be explained by the behef that the earnest, decisive, and mutinous nature of a man, proud, rather than conceited, got the better of the principles by which he honestly sti'ove to guide his conduct. That he won at last in this contest, was shown by the grief with which a nation mourned his death, when the poor in crowds besought a sight of his face, or, at least, to touch his coffin. Look at his portrait by vSully in our hall. It has the scholar's hands, the largely modelled head, the contemplative blue eyes of the observer, the nose and chin strong, firmness m the mouth, and a trace of too critical tendencies in the droop of the lines of the lips, withal a general expres-
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