Temple University School of Medicine - Skull Yearbook (Philadelphia, PA)

Page 16 text:

THE SKULL The Doctor GENTl'RIES ago, Seneca said, “The first movement which gives us birth begins to take life from us. Life is the beginning of death and death is the entry into a new life.” The statement seems like a paradox, but it is only a terrifying simple truth. Every detail of the complex activities of life marks only a minor engagement into a huge warfare between the strange force that animates us and antagonistic forces and influences which ultimately destroy us. Even the highest spiritual activities, the act of worship, the creation of poetry, literature and other works of art. are performed, like the simplest muscular task, at the expense of tissue. Every expenditure of energy is a destruction of cell life. From birth to death, the body undergoes a constant insensible process of degeneration and regeneration. Life and death walk hand in hand. When the rebuilding keeps pace with the waste, we live—when it lags, we die. Man. supreme in the earthly creation, is born and lives his three-score years, when, as it docs with every living creature, death stalks upon him and ends his activities, his ambitions, his joys and sorrows and his body returns to the earth from whence it came. That mysterious principle which we call life is, and always will remain, beyond the grasp of man. We know that it is some reality, but it is incomprehensible to the limited intelligence of man. We go in a mist of mysteries and hail it a great discovery if we catch some fleeting glimpse of a hostile organism at work. But we know that life is a constant struggle against such hostile forces, and that injury, disease or the more gradual processes of senile decay, can conquer life and that no human skill can again set it in motion. Restoration of the dead to life is only possible at the hands of llim Who created man and first gave life. So goes the human life—with all its clamorings. all its turbulent activities, doomed to the silent victory of death. And in this losing fight there stands, like a solitary defender against an oncoming host, the heroic figure of the physician. All his training and education are to prepare him for his duties toward humanity. For this do men honor him, that his knowledge and skill, his energies and ambitions, his hopes, fears, triumphs and defeats are bound up in his daily intelligent struggle with death. He is dedicated to a heroic purpose, to an unfaltering tight. His call to battle is found in the air. Vet his triumphs 10

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THE SKULL The Doctor i HE famous picture which we have here inscribed was painted by Sir S. Luke Elides, an English artist, and was first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1891. its success was immediate and today it is well known and loved in botli England and America. The popularity of the picture is due to the strong appeal that it makes to the higher and finer qualities of mankind and the rcsjxmse that it evokes in every bosom. The heartbroken mother and the stem-faced, vigilant father half hidden in the shadows of the background, the stricken child on its homely pallet, and the kindly, watchful physician bent over the little sufferer—all these have their counterpart in the experience of everyone who has encountered sickness and death. There is a most careful attention to detail, too often lacking in our impressionistic modern painting. The homely furnishings of the room, almost lost in the shadow, are, nevertheless, clearly depicted, and are without exception in keeping with the spirit of the picture. Even the bird is silent in his cage, as if he. too, were imbued with the sense of waiting and dread. It will often be our lot to enter upon and be the central figure in such a scene as this. May the character which is so plainly written upon the face of “THE DOCTOR” be ours. May we embrace every opportunity to give aid to the suffering and comfort to those in sorrow. And may our human sympathy and medical skill always go hand in hand in the warfare against disease and death. 9

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THE SKULL arc but temporary and bis greatest victor) is but a delayed defeat. For all that, light on he must until he is beaten back and his last effort fails against the foe. Who is it that is so hastily summoned when the shadows of death darken the light of the living? When pain tortures the body and life hangs in the balance? He is the guardian of the well and the courage of the sick. One needs more than skill to be a good physician. There is a call for devotedness, and for generosity of character. It is the glory of the medical profession that it numbers among its members men of such gifts as well as men of scientific achievements. Its standard of success is not material or financial. The greatest physician is not he who has made the most money out of his profession, but the man who has done the most good for humanity in serving his suffering fellow-men. The physician is the servant of the i oor as well as of the rich, of those who cannot reward him—even often of those who will not reward him—as of those who recompense his services with the best return they can make him. Mis life is one of continued sacrifice and unselfishness. He exposes himself cheerfully to disease. lie sets his own health and his comfort below that of his fellowmen. He faces hardships which they often do not fully appreciate. But some day lie. too, will fall, a victim of the same destroying forces in the midst of the fight he is waging against the enemies of life. Some day, too, with failing strength and in misery of pain, into that realm—the dark borderland, from where he has drawn back so many others. But in his days lie is rich in opportunity to leave behind him a harvest of generous deeds. And here, fellow classmates, as I close and as we step out into the world with a degree of Doctor of Medicine, let us think over these few words, realize their meaning and if we are faithful to our vocation, we may look forward to a life of unblemished service to all mankind. 5 11 H. E. Bacon.