| Summary: | Undated typescript of a commencement address delivered by Dr. Edgar P. Hogan, with corrections and marginalia. This address was given after 1901 as that date is referenced in this 4-page transcript.The digitization of this collection was funded in part by a grant from the National Library of Medicine.Delivered by E.P. Hogan
Gentlemen of the graduating class it is my pleasure to say to you on behalf of the Faculty of the Birmingham Medical College the parting words. I congratulate you most heartily upon your choice of a profession, and upon the preparation that you have made for the duties of your professions. To-night you go forth with the honors of the Birmingham Medical College. You will be numbered among the Alumni. You will be expected to take up the duties of the Medical profession. This is an event that you have been looking forward to for a number of years. It is indeed the real commencement of your active duties as trained men in the profession of medicine. Carlyle says: Know what thou canst work at and then work at it like Hercules. The members of the Medical profession who have attained distinction, success, and eminence have all been great workers and I think I cannot do better than to point to them as models for your professional careers.
Transitions in Medical Education
I. The great Hippocrites [sic], the father of medicine, proclaimed the highest standard of morals for the members of the medical profession. He it was, who separated himself from the priesthood and took upon himself the arduous duties and responsibilities of the study and practice of medicine. His independence of thought and action and his untiring zeal in the observation, study, and recording the facts of disease as well as the treatment of the same, has been an excellent example for the individual member as well as the entire medical profession. For 22 centuries the profession which has for its object, aim, and purpose the life, health and happiness of mankind could not have had a more solid foundation than the lofty code of ethics as ennunciated [sic] by Hippocrites [sic].
Education, Religion, Philosophy, Science, and Medicine have always been intermingled in the thoughts of man. Aristotle, the great Philosopher and Physician, was instrumental in the establishment of the great Alexandrian University at Alexandria in Egypt. This University had a world renowned Library and museum to which the students of Medicine resorted. So it has been in every age that the students of medicine have been apostles of education, foes of ignorance, and lovers of knowledge and truth. Their observations, experiments, discoveries, and methods have been communicated without reservations to the thinking mind for the benefit of man.
There are in the Medical profession many examples of the greatest service to man.
In 1686 Francesco Redi investigated the Metaphosis of the fly, which in the Spanish-American war was proven to be the greatest desseminator [sic] of Typhoid germs, and consequently of Typhoid Fever. Jenner’s discovery of vaccination as a preventative of small-pox in 1796 delivered man from this “pesta magna.” In 1840 Henle the great investigator, experimentor [sic] and observer announced the Gern [sic] Theory of Disease which revolutionized the study prevention and treatment of disease. In 1842 Crawford W. Long of Georgia used ether as an Anaesthetic, and in 1847 Simpson used Chloroform for the same purpose. These discoveries were of the greatest valut [sic] to Surgery, and enables the surgeon to relieve suffering humanity of untold suffering and misfortune. In 1849 Pollender discovered the Anthrax Bacillus, and in 1873 Obermeier discovered the spirallum of relapsing fever. In 1875 Sir Joseph Lister’s principles of antisepsis gave obstetrics and surgery the boom which has saved the lives of innumerable mothers and children, and made the great and grand achievements of Gynecology and Surgery possible. The discoveries of Neisser, Ebert, Koch, Pasteur, Nicolair, Pfeiffer, and Kitasito, gave to the Medical profession and to the world scientific preventative medicine. The inestimable benefits of the possible absolute eradication of Malaria are due to the observations, experiments, and untiring zeal of Laveran, King, Ross and others. – 1880 to 1885. In 1616 Harvey announced the discovery of the circulation of the blood, and in 1890 Bhering explained to the world the principles of Blood Serum Therapy which is one of the most triumphant achievements of scientific medicine. The conclusions of Reed, Carroll, Lazear, and Agramonte of the Yellow Fever Commission in 1901 are of such great importance to health, commerce and civilization as to entitle them to the everlasting gratitude of mankind.
Time would fail me to mention the names of the members of the medical profession whose work and self-sacrificing labors for the benefit of man entitles them to honorable mention and gratitude of the man. I must say, however, that they were actuated by the noblest motives and purposes to discover truth, believing that truth is the very essence of God. I must mention however, John Lock, Goldsmith, Holmes, Ephrain McDowell, and our own W.E.B. Davis.
So you go out to-night as graduates of the Birmingham Medical College to take up your work among the workers of the world, and each one may well ask himself: Who is equal to the work? The answer is: He who has a developed brain, special training, common sense, clean hands, and a pure heart, and who is willing to continue working and will be faithful unto death in the cause of man – the prevention and cure of disease. Let each one remember the old but trite saying of Longfellow:
Not enjoyment and not sorrow
Is our distined [sic] end or way
But to act that each to-morrow finds us farther than to-day
Gentlemen, it must needs be that in the vicissitudes of life that there will be disappointments and sorrow as well as success, pleasure, and joy, and we desire that you ever bear in mind that there can never be failure in any lofty undertaking, and that he who fails is the one who gives up. So whatever disappointment that may come to you in after life do not give up. Let your aim be high and your efforts persistant [sic], strong and honorable, and success is sure to crown your labors. Remember that Longfellow again says:
Let us then be up and doing
With a heart for any fate
Still achieving, still persuing [sic]
Learn to labor and to wait
There are many noble examples to encourage you, but I can take the time to mention but one – The world renound [sic] Benefactor J. Marion Sims. Sims was born in a log cabin in South Carolina. Through the loving sacrifices of devoted parents he graduated from Columbia College, studied Medicine and began a country practice in his native State, and death claiming his first two patients he moved to Alabama and began that eventful career which startled the civilized world, but he was unconscious of his own possibilities and what the future had in store for him. Even in Alabama he was not without discouragements. We find him tempted to give up his small country practice with its meager income and go into the mercantile business in Vicksburg, Miss., But thanks to a benevolent Providence his plans miscarried, and he was forced to continue the practice of Medicine. Soon after this his operation for abcess [sic] of the liver brought him prominence, distinction, and additional practice, and a short time thereafter he moved to Montgomery, Ala. and began the original experiments in Gynecology which afterwards brought him honors, fame, renown, and the gratitude of mankind. So if you are ever discouraged, be strong and remember the example of J. Marion Sims.
Gentlemen, the organized profession is the only safeguard to the honorable practice of medicine. Join your county Society, attend your State association, subscribe for, read, and contribute to the approved Medical Journals and remember Hervey’s exhortation to study and search out the secrets of nature by way of experiment, and for the honor of the profession continue in mutual love.
The Faculty of the Birmingham Medical College will ever be interested in your careers. Your successes will give us pleasure and joy, and should any misfortune befall you, you will have our sincerest sympathy. You have helped us in the work of building up the Birmingham Medical College. We appreciate this more than words can express, and, as you go forth from this institution to-night, be assured that it will ever be our purpose to maintain the highest standard and that those who follow you will be worthy brothers. As the commencement of each year approaches, we will think of you and others who have gone out from this institution and shall long for your return that we may grasp your hand and reniew [sic] the ties that bind us to the other. I am reminded in this connection of the example of a great Alabamian of our profession, John A. Wyeth. While his achievements are great and his honors many, he makes his annual pilgrimage into our State to the spot on which the school was located in which he received his peliminary [sic] education that made his achievements possible. I hope you may emulate this beautiful example.
My last word to you is to assure you of our interest, friendship, and love and to urge you in all thinks that pertain to the highest efficiency and greatest service to humanity to take as your motto “plus ultra?”
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