SEP 1 Southern Historical Society Papers. Vol. XVII. Richmond, Va., January-December. 66 Progress of Medicine in the South.” 1889. Address of the President before the Southern Surgical and Gynecological Association, at the Meeting held in Nashville, Tenn., November 13, 1889. BY HUNTER MCGUIRE, M. D., LL.D., Late Medical Director "Stonewall" Jackson (2d) Corps, Army of Northern Virginia, C. S. A. Mr. President and Fellows of the Southern Surgical and Gynecological Association, Ladies and Gentlemen : It is with unassumed diffidence that I appear before you to-night as the presiding officer of this body, and I approach with great hesitation the task of delivering the annual address, in compliance with the established usage of all assemblies of this kind in America. I feel confident that there are many present who would fill the office with more ability, and that it would have been better for our Society if another had been chosen in my stead. I desire, in the commencement of my remarks, to return my thanks to my fellow members for the honor they have conferred upon me by calling me to preside over the deliberations of this, our Southern Association. It has been suggested that there was no need for the existence of this Society; that the State, national and international medical associations were sufficient for all that was required for the progress and development of medical science. This was a mistake, as I hope I may be able to show. There is need, throughout the whole South, for county and State associations, and a special need for the existence and perpetuation of this organization. It goes without saying that union and co-operation have become as indispensable to scientific bodies as in the material walks of life. In all human enterprises, every advance accomplished is by co-operative work. In this way laws are perfected; agriculture improved; philosophical investigations consummated; political and philanthropic reforms attained; by it railroads and canals are built; just and equitable laws enacted; civilization extended; tyranny and oppression overthrown; the gospel preached, and civil and religious liberty secured. By union and co-operation alone can the science of medicine be advanced. Isolated, individual men who, in the pride of self-reliance and self-sufficiency, reject the aid and sympathy of their contemporaries, are failures. They may have great ability, they may be faithful and enthusiastic workers in the departments to which they have devoted themselves, but in the end they are disappointed, because they have over-estimated their individual strength, and have not sought the companionship and concurrence of others. No class of men appreciate the value of co-operation more than the medical men throughout the world. Germany, Austria, France, and England have for years shown how co-operation can bring about medical progress, through the deliberations of the respective assemblies that are annually held in these countries. The people of this country, also, in their State and general societies, have added much to the development of medical learning. So highly is co-operative work appreciated by the medical world, that the necessity for an international congress a few years since became imperative. I need not tell this audience what it has already accomplished. At its last meeting, held in Washington, the nature and extent of its labors can only be understood by the examination of the five volumes that contain the contributions of its members; the work is a medical library in itself. America, ever alert, energetic and industrious, always anxious to obtain and practically apply that which is best, has been no laggard in her endeavors to promote the advancement of medical science. Through the American Medical Association how much has been accomplished? In its grand meetings are brought together some of the ablest men of the land. Historic figures many of them have become, and the fruit of their labors will hand them down through ages as among the foremost of their day and generation. Her sister society, the American Surgical Association, although younger, has just cause to be proud of her work. Her field is necessarily restricted to one of the great divisions of medicine—a division of the highest importance. That the field has been well worked, that the harvest has been rich and abundant, and that it has been gathered into our store-houses, I take it for granted none will deny. So I might refer to other associations, and to the congress of these associations, did time permit. may It be said with truth that, until of late, the South has not kept pace with the North in medical progress and development. This has arisen from a variety of causes. Prior to the late war slavery was antagonistic to the development of dense populations; fertile areas were monopolized by the large planter, and he generally occupied more space than his agricultural needs required. He believed in what he called "plenty of elbow room." He was opposed to outside intruders, and desired neither the development of towns nor the growth of cities in his vicinity. Criticise this policy as you may, condemn it if you will, I am not engaged in defending it, but am merely stating patent facts, in order to account for the manner in which it retarded the development of medicine. While this was true, yet this state of society produced splendid men and women, probably the grandest on this continent. Culture, grace, elegance, self-reliance, were its legitimate offshoots. Orators, poets, statesmen, soldiers, scientists, lawyers, ministers and physicians, the first and greatest in the whole land, came out of it. What orator have we like Henry or Yancey, what poet like Poe, what scientist like Matthew. F. Maury, what statesman like Jefferson, what jurist like Benjamin, what divine like Hoge, what soldier like Stonewall Jackson, what surgeon like Sims? And the women-how can I describe them! They were as cultured as they were refined; they were as beautiful as they were queenly, the loveliest of sweethearts, the noblest of matrons. Let us look for a moment and see from whence these people of the South came, and what they have done. The colonial settlers of the southern portion of North America were kindred by ties of blood, by association, and by the laws of common inheritance. They came to this country deeply imbued with the idea of civil liberty. In many instances they were descended from a superior element of the English people. The blood of the cavalier coursed through their veins; they were prepared to organize a government, to undertake the herculean task of creating a country out of chaos. And they accomplished it. To these settlers were soon afterwards added another stream of emigrants, who came into the South through Maryland and Virginia, and through the seaports of the Carolinas and Georgia. These were the God-loving, tyranny-hating Scotch-Irish, who have left their distinguishing characteristics, to this day, upon the people of every State in the South, from Maryland to the Rio Grande. When the struggle came for the defense of their rights against the mother-country, how quickly her sons took up arms in defense of the common cause, and how nobly they performed their part it is useless to say, for is not the history of the time filled with accounts of their patriotism and achievements? At the council board, on the platform, and in the field, they stood pre-eminent. The enunciation of principle, the declaration of rights, sprung from the fertile brain of a Southerner, and to-day the readers of American history recognize in Jefferson the foremost thinker of his age. Well has a New Englander, in speaking of Washington and the Southern soldiers of 1776, recently said: "We must go back to Athens to find another instance of a society, so small in numbers, and yet capable of such an outburst of ability and force." Without the men of the South, the Revolution of 1776 would have gone down into history as the rebellion of that period. How wonderful it is, that in the comparative seclusion and solitude of an agricultural country, the men should have been reared whose writings on Constitutional government embodied the wisdom and the experience of the patriots of all ages, and whose State papers actually formed the mould in which the constitution of the United Colonies was shaped; and that then, after Southern statemen had formed the most perfect government the world ever saw, that Southern soldiers should have made it an accomplished fact by their skill, valor and endurance. Edmund Burke, in his speech before the British Parliament March 22, 1775, on the conciliation of the American Colonies, spoke thus of our people: "There is, however, a circumstance attending these Southern Colonies which, in my opinion, * * * * makes the spirit of liberty still more high and haughty than in those of the northward. It is that in Virginia and the Carolinas they have a vast multitude of slaves. * * * * And these people of the South are much more strongly and with a higher and more stubborn spirit attached to liberty than those in the northward. Such were all the ancient Com monwealths; such were our Gothic ancestors; and such, in our day, the Poles; and such will be all masters who are not slaves themselves. In such a people the haughtiness of domination combines with the spirit of freedom, fortifies it and renders it invincible." Men of Southern birth and Southern rearing were the successful generals in the war of 1812, and the central figures in 1846. The acquisition of territory was made during the administration of Southern men. Louisiana, Florida, Texas, and California were acquired during their terms of office. Upon the Supreme Court bench of the United States they are to be conspicuously found. The Chief Justiceship was held continuously for sixty-three years by Southern men. I need not speak of the orators and statesmen produced in every State in the South-they are household names. |