The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1904-05-06
|. ]. Picot, M. D., Speaks
at Chapel Hill.
ADVICE TO GRADUATES
An Intensely Practical Speech, Point
ing Out to Followers of a Noble
Profession the Steps Mount
ing to the Plane of High
est Usefulness.
Especial to News and Observer

(Speclll 10 news and Observer
Chapel Hill, n. c., May 5.-The
event of the evening here was the ad-
dress of DR.. L. j. Picot to the gradual
ing class of the University Medical
school. A more practical, helpful ad-
dress has never been delivered here
The speaker was followed with deep
attention by the profoundly interested
audience, and it is safe to say that the
impression produced by his words will
not soon be effaced
The second annual graduating exer-
cises of the Medical department was
held i'll Gerard hall. The number of
candidates for diplomas were four, the
same number that graduated last year
in this department. The candidates:
Messrs. j. IL. Stanley, M. G. Guthrie, f..
l.. Sharp, and A. p. Willis also several
members of the medical faculty came
up from Raleigh this afternoon.
At 8 o'clock DR.. Venable, followed
by the other members of the faculty,
marched up the aisle in front of the
graduating class Just behind the grad
uating class was the second year medi-
cal students marching in double file,
followed by the first year medical stu
dents.
The young men received their di-
plomas. Then, as stated, followed the
address of DR.. Picot. In substance he
said:
You are Just about to enter the
threshold of your profession, and may
you be impressed early with the con-
viction that there is none more honor
able or useful. Surely there is no
higher or nobler calling than to spend
your lives in the constant effort to re-
lieve the pain and SufferingS of your
foil ,le- III L., Il.
history of the lives of all our great
masters in medicine. l should remind
you that the high places held by them
were won not by inherited wealth, So
clal distinction, or political prefer
ment, but by years of toll, study, self
sacrifice, and following the plain, but
hard paths of duty. Nothing but the
possession OF actual knowledge will
count in the final round up. But for this
bar most effectual, many medical men
could with little effort secure appoint
mentS as professors and teachers in
medical colleges and hospitals. No
critic is more accurate, and at times
more justly severe than the medical
student and the totally incompetent
teacher would be in very short time
severely set aside. In this practical
and unitarian age it is exactly as it
should be--impossible to make the
gold-headed cane, the jim-sWinger
coat, anu The OWL eyes pass current
knowledge. In our time even have we
seen their thin armors the chief stock
in trade of some doctors. Happily the
followers of the school of Theophratus
Bombastes can no longer survive.
Mark Twain's definition, let us rejoice
to say, will not apply to the modern,
up-todate medical man, willing and
anxious to grasp everything in science,
art or nature that will help him in his
work of successfully treating disease.
He rides no hobbies follows no fadS,
knows no pathies, iSmS or Ologies. You
have come into the profession in the
most suspicious time in all it's history.
Old dogmas and untenable theories
have been discarded and justly rele-
gated to the past. In their place
scientific facts have been clearly es-
tablished You should rejoice in the
fact that you have been carefully and
conscientiously taught the principles
of modern medicine stripped of all
irrelevant and eXtraneouS material.
The chaff has been winnowed out for
YOU. You have had better opportuni-
ties to learn the principles of medicine
than were afforded even to your teach
ers quarter of a century ago. While
the teaching of anatomy alone by di-
rect demonstration upon the human
body has been practically, except by
chart and diagram, unchanged for a
long period, all of the other branches
of medicine have been wonderfully
changed and wonderfully improved
upon.
Methods of diagnosis have been
simplified, made clear and exact. Our
colleges have been equipped with lab
oratories for the accurate and easy
teaching of physiology, chemistry and
pathology. In these branches of med
icine you should be better prepared
now than were the physicians of many
years experience in former times. Bac-
teriology is altogether a new science,
and q most inviting field f0r study and
investigation. The study and dag
nosis of many diseases is made by the
microscope alone, and that instrument
at which the medical student was
formerly allowed to peep with silent
wonder and admiration is now as COM
monty used as test tube. Blood
counts and other tests are commonly
recited along with the histories of
cases. Opinions that are made by
elesSeS will not stand for much in this
time They are too much of the order
of Capt. Cuttle's friend. Jack Bunsby.
1t should be of more than passing in
terest to you to have some idea what
a young doctor should do--in other
words how he should pass his time
while he waits for not Over-confiding
public to pass judgement, upon his fit
ness to be trusted with the keeping
of health and lives. Having some enc
to call you out of church, or to so
time yourself as to drive rapidly out
of town just as a congregation has
been dismissed is a poor old ruse, and
deceives no one as much as the poor
fellow who resorts to such practice.
The period of probation is serious
time in the life of a young doctor and
deserves serious consideration. Much
of his future usefulness and success
depends upon how he shall spend it,
Every doctor should know the classics
of medicine, and the histories of the
great masters. The names and deeds
of Vesalius, BerZelius, of Harvey, Jen-
ner. and good old Ambrose Pare
should be familiar to us all. Since the
birth of civilization every age has
furnished it's share of great medical
men, and they have left the impress of
their lives and characters among the
peoples with whom they lived and
worked for the good OF mankind.