You may be assured that when an ill-conditioned neighbor is always complaining of a bad taste in his mouth and an evil atmosphere about him, there is something wrong about his own secretions.  In such cases there is an alterative regimen of remarkable efficacy:  it is a starvation-diet of letting alone.  The great majority of the profession are peacefully inclined.  Their pursuits are eminently humanizing, and they look with disgust on the personalities which intrude themselves into the placid domain of an art whose province it is to heal and not to wound.

The intercourse of teacher and student in a large school is necessarily limited, but it should be, and, so far as my experience goes, it is, eminently cordial and kindly.  You will leave with regret, and hold in tender remembrance, those who have taken you by the hand at your entrance on your chosen path, and led you patiently and faithfully, until the great gates at its end have swung upon their hinges, and the world lies open before you.  That venerable oath to which I have before referred bound the student to regard his instructor in the light of a parent, to treat his children like brothers, to succor him in his day of need.  I trust the spirit of the oath of Hippocrates is not dead in the hearts of the students of to-day.  They will remember with gratitude every earnest effort, every encouraging word, which has helped them in their difficult and laborious career of study.  The names they read on their diplomas will recall faces that are like family-portraits in their memory, and the echo of voices they have listened to so long will linger in their memories far into the still evening of their lives.

One voice will be heard no more which has been familiar to many among you.  It is not for me, a stranger to these scenes, to speak his eulogy.  I have no right to sadden this hour by dwelling on the deep regrets of friendship, or to bid the bitter tears of sorrow flow afresh.  Yet I cannot help remembering what a void the death of such a practitioner as your late instructor must leave in the wide circle of those who leaned upon his counsel and assistance in their hour of need, in a community where he was so widely known and esteemed, in a school where he bore so important a part.  There is no exemption from the common doom for him who holds the shield to protect others.  The student is called from his bench, the professor from his chair, the practitioner in his busiest period hears a knock more peremptory than any patient’s midnight summons, and goes on that unreturning visit which admits of no excuse, and suffers no delay.  The call of such a man away from us is the bereavement of a great family.  Nor can we help regretting the loss for him of a bright and cheerful earthly future; for the old age of a physician is one of the happiest periods of his life.  He is loved and cherished for what he has been, and even in the decline of his faculties there are occasions when his experience is still appealed to, and his trembling hands are looked to with renewing hope and trust, as being yet able to stay the arm of the destroyer.