Charge addressed to the graduates at the medical commencement of the Columbian College, D.C : March 11, 1829 / by James M. Staughton.

  • Staughton, James Martin, 1800-1833.
Date:
1829
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Charge addressed to the graduates at the medical commencement of the Columbian College, D.C : March 11, 1829 / by James M. Staughton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    Gentlemen, In the name of the Professors of the Medical Department, • permit me to offer you our hearty congra- tulations on the honours you have this day received, and to welcome you into the ranks of our profession with the most affectionate friendship. You have reached the goal on which your eye has been so steadily fixed during the period of your studies; and, from the elevation on which you now stand, a broader and a brighter prospect is spread before you. You rejoice in the anticipations of the future, and your teachers are prepared to offer the fervent prayer, that that future may bring you reputation, happiness, and prosperity. It is natural that you should feel lively joy at the outset of your career. Your morning is bright and cloudless. The science you have selected, and of which you have been judged so worthy, is justly rank- ed among the most elevated in its nature—the most be- neficial in its tendency. The practitioner of medicine, with which character you have just been clothed, is one whose ministry commands the respect of men—the admiration of sages. The mightiest rulers of the earth confide their lives to his care, and blindly follow his ordinances. By the continued exercise of his benevo- lent functions he becomes the benefactor of the commu- nity, and by the empire he exercises over Death, he is (with reverence be it spoken,) in some measure, the representative of Divinity upon the earth.