ue who went
before us. Not for this, but to melt the gold out of the past, though
its dross should fly in dust to all the winds of heaven, to save all our
old treasures of knowledge and mine deeply for new, to cultivate that
mutual respect of which outward courtesy is the sign, to work together,
to feel together, to take counsel together, and to stand together
for the truth, now, always, here, everywhere; for this our fathers
instituted, and we accept, the offices and duties of this time-honored
Society.

BORDER LINES OF KNOWLEDGE IN SOME PROVINCES OF MEDICAL SCIENCE.

An Introductory Lecture delivered before the Medical Class of Harvard
University, November 6, 1861.

[This Lecture appears as it would have been delivered had the time
allowed been less strictly, limited. Passages necessarily omitted
have been restored, and points briefly touched have been more fully
considered. A few notes have been added for the benefit of that limited
class of students who care to track an author through the highways and
by-ways of his reading. I owe my thanks to several of my professional
brethren who have communicated with me on subjects with which they are
familiar; especially to Dr. John Dean, for the opportunity of profiting
by his unpublished labors, and to Dr. Hasket Derby, for information and
references to recent authorities relating to the anatomy and physiology
of the eye.]

The entrance upon a new course of Lectures is always a period of
interest to instructors and pupils. As the birth of a child to a parent,
so is the advent of a new class to a teacher. As the light of the
untried world to the infant, so is the dawning of the light resting
over the unexplored realms of science to the student. In the name of the
Faculty I welcome you, Gentlemen of the Medical Class, new-born babes of
science, or lustier nurslings, to this morning of your medical life, and
to the arms and the bosom of this ancient University. Fourteen years ago
I stood in this place for the first time to address those who occupied
these benches. As I recall these past seasons of our joint labors, I
feel that they have been on the whole prosperous, and not undeserving of
their prosperity.

For it has been my privilege to be associated with a body of true and
faithful workers; I cannot praise them freely to their faces, or I
should be proud to discourse of the harmonious diligence and the noble
spirit in which they have toiled together, not merely t