登陆注册
5228800000124

第124章 VIII(1)

MEDICAL LIBRARIES.

[Dedicatory Address at the opening of the Medical Library in Boston, December 3, 1878.]

It is my appointed task, my honorable privilege, this evening, to speak of what has been done by others. No one can bring his tribute of words into the presence of great deeds, or try with them to embellish the memory of any inspiring achievement, without feeling and leaving with others a sense of their insufficiency. So felt Alexander when he compared even his adored Homer with the hero the poet had sung. So felt Webster when he contrasted the phrases of rhetoric with the eloquence of patriotism and of self-devotion. So felt Lincoln when on the field of Gettysburg he spoke those immortal words which Pericles could not nave bettered, which Aristotle could not have criticised. So felt he who wrote the epitaph of the builder of the dome which looks down on the crosses and weathercocks that glitter over London.

We are not met upon a battle-field, except so far as every laborious achievement means a victory over opposition, indifference, selfishness, faintheartedness, and that great property of mind as well as matter,--inertia. We are not met in a cathedral, except so far as every building whose walls are lined with the products of useful and ennobling thought is a temple of the Almighty, whose inspiration has given us understanding. But we have gathered within walls which bear testimony to the self-sacrificing, persevering efforts of a few young men, to whom we owe the origin and development of all that excites our admiration in this completed enterprise; and I might consider my task as finished if I contented myself with borrowing the last word of the architect's epitaph and only saying, Look around you!

The reports of the librarian have told or will tell you, in some detail, what has been accomplished since the 21st of December, 1874, when six gentlemen met at the house of Dr. Henry Ingersoll Bowditch to discuss different projects for a medical library. In less than four years from that time, by the liberality of associations and of individuals, this collection of nearly ten thousand volumes, of five thousand pamphlets, and of one hundred and twenty-five journals, regularly received,--all worthily sheltered beneath this lofty roof, --has come into being under our eyes. It has sprung up, as it were; in the night like a mushroom; it stands before us in full daylight as lusty as an oak, and promising to grow and flourish in the perennial freshness of an evergreen.

To whom does our profession owe this already large collection of books, exceeded in numbers only by four or five of the most extensive medical libraries in the country, and lodged in a building so well adapted to its present needs? We will not point out individually all those younger members of the profession who have accomplished what their fathers and elder brethren had attempted and partially achieved. We need not write their names on these walls, after the fashion of those civic dignitaries who immortalize themselves on tablets of marble and gates of iron. But their contemporaries know them well, and their descendants will not forget them,--the men who first met together, the men who have given their time and their money, the faithful workers, worthy associates of the strenuous agitator who gave no sleep to his eyes, no slumber to his eyelids, until he had gained his ends; the untiring, imperturbable, tenacious, irrepressible, all-subduing agitator who neither rested nor let others rest until the success of the project was assured. If, against his injunctions, I name Dr. James Read Chadwick, it is only my revenge for his having kept me awake so often and so long while he was urging on the undertaking in which he has been preeminently active and triumphantly successful.

We must not forget the various medical libraries which preceded this: that of an earlier period, when Boston contained about seventy regular practitioners, the collection afterwards transferred to the Boston Athenaeum; the two collections belonging to the University; the Treadwell Library at the Massachusetts General Hospital; the collections of the two societies, that for Medical Improvement and that for Medical Observation; and more especially the ten thousand volumes relating to medicine belonging to our noble public city library,--too many blossoms on the tree of knowledge, perhaps, for the best fruit to ripen. But the Massachusetts Medical Society now numbers nearly four hundred members in the city of Boston. The time had arrived for a new and larger movement. There was needed a place to which every respectable member of the medical profession could obtain easy access; where, under one roof, all might find the special information they were seeking; where the latest medical intelligence should be spread out daily as the shipping news is posted on the bulletins of the exchange; where men engaged in a common pursuit could meet, surrounded by the mute oracles of science and art; where the whole atmosphere should be as full of professional knowledge as the apothecary's shop is of the odor of his medicaments. This was what the old men longed for,--the prophets and kings of the profession, who "Desired it long, But died without the sight."

同类推荐
  • 僖公

    僖公

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 命禄篇

    命禄篇

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 古尊宿语要目录

    古尊宿语要目录

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 四念处

    四念处

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 灌畦暇语

    灌畦暇语

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
热门推荐
  • 爱上大英土豪

    爱上大英土豪

    如果在你出国旅游时遇到一个又帅又有钱的土豪,你会怎么样?阮琼她……可是在这之后,她很没骨气的拍拍屁股落荒而逃……青尧说:“阮阮,我是爱你的。我们离婚吧。”如彦说:“你不来,我在这里,你来,我去接你。”许多年后,当阮琼回忆起来,她只是说:“一旦有人让我依赖,便会有所期待……”
  • 深情史

    深情史

    《深情史》一书收录了七十余篇短小精致的故事,题材丰富,尤以爱情为主。这些故事发生在不同的年代,不同的地点,但个中的缠绵悱恻、恩怨纠葛都是一致的,所引发的哀戚感伤、唏嘘感叹也是一以贯之的。同时,这也是一本阅读之书或重写之书——这些故事都来自阅读,皆为化典新编,每篇题后均标明了故事来源。作者身兼古典文学博士、新生小说家、诗人的三重身份,博古通今,涉笔成趣,具有极强的化古为今的能力,其以简洁、细腻的语言对它们进行了重写。
  • 改变你的不良习惯

    改变你的不良习惯

    一个人的成就,取决于习惯的好坏,好习惯能将你带入天堂,坏习惯也能将你送入地狱。既然习惯对于我们的人生来说是如此的重要,那么养成良好的习惯,摒弃不利于个人前途的习惯就变得愈益重要。然而,好习惯的养成和坏习惯的消除并非朝夕之功,也不是随随便便就能达成的事,所以就需要在专家的指导下,慢慢地来改变自己的习惯,从而改变自己的人生。《改变你的不良习惯》从仪表、心态、处世、生活等方面分门别类地给出了一些建议,以帮助读者改变自己的行为,养成良好的习惯,达到重塑性格、改变人生、取得成功的目的。
  • 马尔菲公爵夫人

    马尔菲公爵夫人

    悲剧作家约翰·韦伯斯特所作的《马尔菲公爵夫人》恐怖而令人心碎。该剧的故事充满了血腥。寡居的公爵夫人,因与管家秘密结婚,惹怒了她的兄弟斐迪南德公爵及主教。他们让公爵夫人受尽精神和肉体折磨后将她杀死,并掐死了她的两个儿子。最后,公爵发疯,一位曾经参与折磨公爵夫人的仆人幡然悔悟杀死了主教。
  • 快穿女配之神秘BOSS

    快穿女配之神秘BOSS

    【1v1甜宠】每个世界,都有一个比男主强大百倍的神秘boss,他们被称为气运之子,而路瑶的任务,就是去攻略这些气运之子。专执冷漠的总裁,冷血痴情的帝王……路瑶穿越万千位面,最后却发现,这些竟然都是一个人…“从前,路遥车慢,一生只够爱一人,路瑶,我爱你……”他深情的低声许诺。
  • 漫威之超级卡牌系统

    漫威之超级卡牌系统

    赵武带着卡牌系统穿越到漫威,抽取卡牌推演武学,征服世界。“叮!抽中武学卡——金刚不坏神功!”“叮,抽中武学卡——风神腿!”“叮,抽中兵器卡——如意金箍棒!”
  • 回乡北漂小贝

    回乡北漂小贝

    小贝满族家住北方大城市郊区屯子里,长辈说我们原是北京人。先祖随清军进北京因京旗回籍被流放到这里成为农民。长辈们希望他能回家乡北京落户,当公务员不到两年辞职回乡成为北漂。在一家公司画动漫业余时间作画拿出去卖。家里希望他找个有北京户口满族女孩但不那么顺利。公司里几位老师给他很大帮助,终于在五环外贷款买房。居住证出台后积分落户似乎让回乡落户有了希望,然而能实现吗?
  • 多动症患者

    多动症患者

    本书是一部综合性的作品集,其中既可以看到心理学方面的研究,也能看到人与自然界之间的哲理,动物与人,都是有灵性的生命。同时也是一部让人能够更深入了解孩子内心世界的作品。
  • 末日之丧尸侵袭

    末日之丧尸侵袭

    贺豪,一名死刑犯人。在押赴刑场的途中遭遇末日的陨石浩劫,意外失去右臂的他获得了名为渡鸦的机械手臂。且看他如何利用科技的力量封为末世王侯——“胜利的喜悦,令我咆哮不已!”
  • 说文解艺

    说文解艺

    杜书瀛兄嘱序于我,我先看目录,很大一部分竟是我没有读过的,于是把书稿看了一遍,有些学理性强的文章还没消化,或还似懂非懂,但我觉得应该来写这篇小序。 书序可以有种种写法,有些著名的序言体文字,是就所序这一本书的中心内容或某一论点加以补充,生发开去,甚或是借题发挥,本身就形成一篇论文,限于学力,这是我做不到的。而人们近年常常批评一些人之写序,说有的是“友情出场”,有的是为了“促销”,有的通篇不过是些“感想”……总之应该列为写序之大忌的,——我现在要写的正不出这个范围。