Chicago School of Medicine and Surgery - Medicos Yearbook (Chicago, IL)

Page 109 text:

SENIORS To you, friends and relatives, interested in some' member of the class, be assured that they will, in every instance, endeavor to live up to the lofty ideals you may have set for them. May you say of them, that they have been in truth one more stielpfping stone toward that golden era of humanity and the universal monarchy o an. Fellow classmates, our college days are at an end. Here our friendships have grown into mutualaffection. We drank from the same fountain, have had the same brave thoughts, and high aspirations for the future. But, as I have said- there is an end. ' A It behooves us well to step cautiously as we cross the threshold and emerge into the dazzling sunlight, the deafening dim and the tumultuous whirl of the busy world. We have been instructed in our art, we have looked upon work as it should be done in our profession. Now it rests with us how well we have mastered it. Father Time will answer the question for us all. We would fain linger here but the words we might utter are too sacred. The solemn thought that this may be the last time the class shall meet unbroken, chills and awes every heart. Forgetting as we do the heart rends of class rivalry, let us bear away from this place the precious casket of true and lasting friendship. Comradesl Farewell!-God be with each and every one of us and if our next meeting place be in the Great Hereafter, may an unclouded path of glorious labor, toil and triumph, lead back and back, amid and beyond, the scenes of life to this time and this place where we now .say- Farewell GEORGE JOHNSTON Why gloat on all your yesterdays, Today is what you are The self upon which now you gaze 'Will give you future s par H Page IO5

Page 108 text:

SENIORS Ealehiszturp Zlhhress M 12 P1'e.fident, Fellow Claffmatw, Relczzfiwf and F1'iend5.' The honor has been conferred upon me of addressing you at this, the final meeting of the class. It brings with it commingled feelings of joy and sadness- joy because we have attained the goal, so long sought-sadness, because of the severing of long and intimate friendships. Yet to all things there comes an end. To the shortest path and to the longest trail 'there comes an end. In the varied tongues of earth, we find a word with a common meaning-a word that draws the curtain on the brightest scenes of earthly life-that word to give utterance to which we have assembled here, that sad, sweet word farewell. , lt is with pride, fellow classmates, that we can look back upon the past few years. Pride because of the present realization of our ambition-and of our con- nections with this institution. And who shall challenge the right of this class to thrill with pride, that it holds the credentials of this great institution? and who may deem it strange that they take pride in this hour when theyjoin the hundreds who are holding aloft its standards in various parts of the country-their lives pledged to the loyal and loving service of humanity. It is to the older men in the profession at whose feet we have studied to whom we look to point out the good, and from there lives of service to mould ours-copy- ing thus the tendencies of men of all generations. lt is related by the silver tongued historian of ancient Greece that Pericles when harassed by foes from without and traitors from within was accustomed to retire to the Temple of Minerva and gazing upon the battered trophies of Leuctra and Thermopylae which hung upon its, walls-mute but eloquent reminders of the glories of Grecian arms and the triumph of Grecian statesmanship. By this we have relied upon your wisdom and your guidance. Here we have sought council and assistance from you, who have been so able and willing to bestow it. Now we launch our little craft-away from the shipyard-off the stocks-away from the master builder's hands. We go to battle with the waves where there shall be few to assist. Our own eyes must watch the compass and scan the chart. Our own hands must hold the rudder. If ever hours of dark defeat and failure come, bitterly will we rue the neglect we have paid your monitions, and when the banner waves high, with a glad shout of triumph, we will think of you, and say that to your wisdom and instruction we owe it all, and may we in after years look back with pleasure upon those men who taught us that A mighty science is the one that deals With man, the crowning masterpiece of life That Great machine of power in human strife Except its Primal mastery reveals the whole And can do all but create Anew or break the spell of death and may Indeed, Great human suffering allay Until it almost seems to baffle fate. Page I04 if I

Page 110 text:

SENIORS Growth uf ilheals Every life follows its ideal, is colored by it, takes on its character, becomes like it. Our heart longings, our soul aspirations, are forerunners of things which might become realities. They are measures of our possibilities. .They indicate the height of our aim, the range of our efficiency. Each passing generation leaves as its richest heritage some bit of wisdom some lofty principle to point out the path of progress to all posterity. Such wisdom, however ancient it may be, will never and can never grow old. - In the time of antiquity when peculiar things were more apt to happen than now, the supernatural idea of the cause of disease was the adopted theory. ' People believed that they were doomed to suffer due to the action of some angry god whom they had offended. Centuries passed on without a satisfactory explanation. Even a noted physiologist held the fanciful notion that human diseases were reversions to normal stages of lower animals--scrofula a reversion to the insect, rickets to the molusc, epilepsy to the oscillaria. When these fanciful stories were still in existence by some, and the cause of infectious diseases could not be fully proven, there lived in northern Europe a physician whose name was Koch. The story goes that this physician was seen to pace back and forth in his room night after night. His friends in alarm asked him the cause of this strange conduct. Turning upon them he answered, The noble beginnings of the masters will not let me rest. He saw here the opportunity that promised a realization of his burning ambitions. Gathering together all the available data, and performing numerous skilful experiments, Koch was the man who perfected the postulates or rules which showed the definite relationship between bacteria and disease. He is directly responsible for the discovery of several bacteria and formed the stepping stone for many subsequent discoveries. The revolutionary effect was great, the conceptions of the etiology underwent no less a transformation than disease itself. The mystical stories faded away like dew before the rising sun on account of the perfection of the work of one lone man by that one restless thought which echoed and re-echoed through the innermost recesses of his soul, The noble beginnings of the masters will not let me restf' ln our practical day philosophy may be defined as the search for happiness. Every age has tried to answer in its own peculiar way the eternal question, What is life w'orth livingn? The popular notion of true happiness is a utopia of satisfied desires, of rest and calm, a fairy land of babbling brooks and shady dells and sighing zephyrs. The soul of happiness should be contentment. Man should be contented with his lot. He should not yearn for the things beyond his reach. It is far better they say to sleep in peace on the complacent isles than to be tossed back and forth on ambition's restless sea. Such is the philosophy of contentment, a beautiful but empty dream. Growth and improvement cannot exist without orderly change, and content- ment never fosters any change. Discontent created the first genius. We will never know how many centuries our primeval ancestors were content to fight off the beasts of the forest with no weapon save their bare hands. But there was one man in all that savage group who was not satisfied. As his companions gorged Page 106 ff-1 -- s zz- .,-rf--:eff -r-fi-v -1-H+ - . .vm-e-we-1 - :-- -' - :rv 1 fs- Y' .---:Y v-ff r-1-+1---1fvvvr:mm1n-rzu-:za r