Excerpt from History of American Medical Literature: From 1776 to the Present Time IN opening the fifty-first course of lectures in this school, I desire to spend the hour allotted to me for this purpose 'in the discussion of a subject which, it seems to me, is eminently appropriate to the occasion. Half a century has passed since this school came into existence, and we are on the eve of the anniversary of our national independence. In a few months more the clock of Time will strike the hour of twelve, and usher in the birth of a new century for forty millions of freemen, living in peace and happiness, literally their own governors and their own legislators. We, a portion of this immense hive of human beings, representing almost every nationality on the habitable globe, are assembled here this evening to see what the century, now rapidly passing away, has done for our great profession, and what, in turn, the incoming one has a right to expect from you. Of your speaker, and of others like him, little more is to be expected; they are but links between the past and the present; and any light which they may have emitted will soon be obscured, if not lost, in the dim future. What magic horoscope shall pierce its womb? About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.