The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1881-12-02

In an address before the meulcal
classes of the University of Pennsylvania,
after touching upon the chances every
student has for success III the world,
the eminent surgeon, DIR. ID. Hayes
Agnew, said Let me repeat to YOU
that the success you seek lies wholly
within the pale of the law, and if were
to lay before you what l believe to be
the conditions which regulate advance
ment or distinction in this life, / should
say first that the subject which is to COM
mand the service of your hand and mind
must be intrinsically worthy, and here
let me say that I have never known
medical man, the governing principle OF
whose life was mercenary, to reach dis
tinguished success. The purer and more
ennobling the subject which engrosses
the attention of the student the more
will his mind be elevated, his feelings
refined, and the whole man be lifted out
of the environment of his lower nature
into an unclouded atmosphere OF thought
and feeling"
"Ihere is an opinion much too pre-
valent in the world that the posts and
places in life depend largely on an
underlined and unregulated force, which
makes man the passive creature of for
tuitous play of circumstances. Wealth,
family, genius, have all been pressed
into notice as constituting important
factors in the race for distinction. How
many have fought their way to the front
and in spite of poverty have at length
filled the high seats of learning and
power. Poverty did not prevent Sam
uel Johnson rising to literary eminence,
nor Schlieman from becoming the first
paseontologist of his time. Poverty did
not prevent Linn@us becoming illus
t,ious. Heyne, of Gottingen, the son of
n weaver, Notwithstanding he was com
PEELED TO struggle for over thirty years
with extreme poverty, yet finally became
the most eminent classical scholar of his
time. Velpeau, the great figure in French
surgery was the son of a blacksmith,
Jobert the son of washerwoman. Du-
putren was so poor when he commenced
the study of medicine that 1t was said
he was obliged to use for his lamp the
fat from the dissecting table over which
he wrought Littre, the very learned
translator of the works of Hippocrates,
rose from the most abject poverty"
DR.. Agnew paused an instant, and his
next words We're interrupted by applause
from the students when the celebrated
surgeon referred for the only time to the
most distinguished patient he ever had.
Garfield" said he, she was canal
boy whose poverty did not prevent him
from rising to the first place III n nations
heart. Ancestral blood, divorced from
all else, constitutes valueless posses
sion, and some of the greatest failures iu
history have been those whom the world
recognized as men of genius, or, as Car
lyle would term them, men with pro-
digious capacity of carrying troubles.
Turning now to the medical profess
sion, does it come short of the conditions
which have been designated as essential
to life pursuit? 1t has always remained
to me an unsolvable paradox that a pro-
fession whose members do so much to
relieve humun suffering in all walks of
life and are so willing to sacrifice for the
benefit of others; a profession whose
members ordinarily devote one-fourth of
their lives to the gratuitous dispensing
of their services, and so few of whom ac-
cumulate a competency of this world S
goods sufficient to keep the wolf from the
door, or, at best, to remove the anxieties
of advancing years. say it is puzzling
to explain in the face of such a record
why SO little sympathy exists between
the physician and the public. Only let
some question of general importance
arise in which the character or pro-
fessional reputation of medical man is
involved, and, ten to one, the public will
range themselves over against the doc
tor.