which you had risked fortune and life was irretrievably lostthe dreadful days when you, questioning the wisdom of your generals, and even the justice of God himself, were left, far from your homes, naked to your enemies? In those desperate days you thought you had sounded the utmost depths of agony and despair, unconscious of the many years before you of reconstruction, when the criminal effort was made to defy nature's law of the survival of the fittest, to stamp into the mire the white man's brain by the heel of the negro, in order that "treason might be made odious." Yet here still stand patriotic freeman who, if ever rebels and traitors, claim that they, by their confidence in the justice of their cause and by their valor, made the word "traitor" and "rebel" as much titles of honor as did that immortal traitor and rebel who became the "Father of his Country." Recall the awful years of reconstruction, when the sole comrades you envied were those dead on the field of battle, when to live was a far more grievous fate than to have died for Dixie. When, by outrageous taxation, you were robbed of the scanty products of your toilsome poverty. When your rights as pardoned prisoners of war with restoration to citizenship were desecrated. When you, the descendants of a long line of freemen, you who had, during four of the bloodiest years in history, proved that the sons of your forefathers had not degenerated; you who had given such daring to the Army of the Confederacy, that even its victors had trembled at its tread; you, even you, were made subservient to your own black slaves, led by those hyenas of the North, called carpetbaggers, and by those buzzards of the South, called scalawags. Would to God we could forget that behind these villains and their ignorant, venal followers stood the victorious soldiers of the United States, and that over them all flaunted the flag that could never have existed but for the valor of our sires, the flag crimsoned with their blood shed for liberty, independence and a fraternal union! In those woeful days it seemed to Confederate patriots that hell had disgorged all its fiends to devastate the South, and that Satan had at last vanquished God. Then the torturing iron of humiliation seared your souls, and then the "Solid South was born that still survives. But slowly, very slowly, you begin to realize that all men of the North were not animated by hatred, malice and revenge, that there were some who loved justice, loved the South, and were incensed at the outrages inflicted by the victors on the vanquished. It is a source of just pride to recall that the first manifestation, by any prominent class of men of the justice and mercy of God and of the charity of Christ, issued from those whose lives are dedicated to the service of humanity, the men of the medical profession. In 1869 there assembled in New Orleans the American Medical Association, bringing with it from Northern homes proffers of sympathy, encouragement, influence, and aid; led by him who was the worthy leader of our profession. For, he was the nation's greatest surgeon and a man unsurpassed for nobility of character and for a patriotism broad enough to clasp in loving arms the patriots of the Confederacy. This great and good man was Samuel D. Gross, of Pennsylvania, whose memory should be cherished by every son of the South. Another ray of hope came in 1872, to New Orleans and the South. For, it proved that the unconquerable spirit that sus tained the Confederacy still lived; that surviving Confederates and their sons could still strike a deadly blow for their right as freemen to openly purchase and to wear arms for their own defense. On the bank of the Mississippi, at the foot of the street you are seated by, stands Liberty Place, where a scanty number of patriots promptly drove the armed mercenaries of the carpetbaggers into the nearby Custom-house, where under the folds of the Stars and Stripes, they cowered for protection. Sixteen patriots were killed in giving this needed lesson to the United States. The lesson thus taught was that the reconstruction governments, based on carpetbaggers, renegades, and ex-slaves were flimsy houses of cards that the crook of the fingers of a few patriots would topple to the ground, but for the support of the Army. Therefore, that these governments were not the strong civil governments hoped for by a revengeful Congress; but the very worst of all military governments, one executed by selfish scoundrels, sustained by millions of semi-barbarians, who cared for license, nothing for liberty, and who knew naught of the patriotism that passionately faces death to secure the rights of freemen. And so, at last, justice, sound policy, and some fear that the Lion of the Confederacy, exhausted by starvation amd bleeding wounds, was regaining strength, and might in desperation, renew his dreaded roar of battle, regained our ancestral rights as freemen. For, in this State in 1876, a Confederate veteran, grievously mutilated and permanently disabled in battle, General Francis T. Nicholls, now Chief Justice became the Governor of Louisiana. Then hope, confidence and progress all revived, after fifteen of the most trying years any patriots ever endured. Out of the fortitude of the Old South there then issued the New South that all now praise; the New South that still seeks its leaders of every occupation and profession among the Confederate Veterans of the Old South; veterans who exemplify the breed of men the Old South reared, and who have fathered the younger leaders of the New South. May they inherit the valor, fortitude and patriotism of their sires, standing ever ready to maintain their right to live as freemen, and to bequeath this right to their children! By the healing hand of time, the Confederate veteran has been delivered from the passion and prejudice of youth; by familiarity with adversity he has been guided to sympathy for the misfortunes and for the mistakes of all others; by experience of his own errors and frailties he has been trained to tolerate those of others; and by the restoration of his rights as freeman and by the regain of hope and prosperity he has been rescued from wrath and restored to magnanimity. Hence, it is the Confederate Veteran who teaches the New South the divine lesson, "malice toward none, charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives you to see the right." And it is the Confederate Veteran, with patriotism in his soul and in his every fighting muscle, who hopes to unite with all his former foes in the refrain: "Fold up the banners! smelt the guns! Peace rules. Her gentle purpose runs, As a citizen of New Orleans I cordially welcome you to this city, sanctified by its unsurpassed sufferings for and by its sacred memories of our lost cause. Here, from 1862 to 1876, military or carpetbag dictators stamped into the mire the rights of its citizens. Here, for a year, the brutal Butler misruled. He, who never faced a Confederate Army, save to retreat, yet found, in this defenseless city the audacity of a dastard to lash with foul insult the beloved women of New Orleans; a city captured by the Navy and then bound in chains by an army commanded by a bully and a blackguard. Until he died and carpetbaggers and scalawags were driven to the rear I never could say: "With malice toward none, with charity for all." In this city stand both the Confederate Memorial Hall and the Soldiers' Home, where unfortunate veterans find a welcome shelter. At one end of this very street stands the monument at Liberty Place, to commemorate the sixteen patriots who died to defend our rights openly to bear arms; and at the other end is to be found one monument to Confederate dead and another in memory of that princely gentleman, accomplished soldier and great commander, Albert Sydney Johnston. Here lived for a time those noble patriots and able leaders, Generals Braxton Bragg, Leonidas Polk and Joseph Wheeler, and here died those unsurpassable patriots, Hood, Beauregard and our revered Jefferson Davis. Towering over all other monuments stands erect the statute of that peerless type of the Confederate soldier, "on whom the Lord God Almighty laid the sword of his imperishable knighthood," that beau ideal of a nation's commander, Robert E. Lee. Every one of these monuments is an answer by the men of New Orleans to the ignoble souls, steeped in malice and revenge, who hoped to "make treason odious;" men too mean and petty to fathom the nobility of spirit that has gloriously resulted in the fact that the more Davis, Lee and our other famous patriots have been belied and reviled, the more they have been beloved and revered throughout the South. To denounce such men and their followers as traitors glorified treason and converted the foul word into a badge of honor. As a member of your profession and as the representative of the Tulane Medical Faculty, a majority of whose members is still composed of Confederate Veterans, I bid you twice welcome, welcome to our city, welcome to this building, a princely gift, for the good of the medical profession and of the public, from the generous hearts and hands of Prof. T. G. Richardson, a Confederate Surgeon, and of his noble wife, as staunch a Southern patriot as her husband. Having served first as a private, then as a surgeon in the field and afterwards in hospital, then as a captive and a pardoned rebel, and finally as a free citizen, I have shared the same duties and the same joy, grief, despair and hope that you have experienced; and I therefore tender you many, many welcomes, streaming from the depths of a comrade's heart, a comrade who, because an eye-witness, profoundly honors your unsurpassed devotion to principle and to duty. May you live long and prosper, you and all your families, live long to foster the progress and welfare of the New Southand live still longer to exemplify the manhood and the worth of the Old South. PRINCIPLES OF MEDICAL ETHICS. The American Medical Association in lieu of the Code of Ethics adopted the following: CHAPTER I.-THE DUTIES OF PHYSICIANS TO THEIR PATIENTS. SECTION 1.-Physicians should not only be ever ready to obey the calls of the sick and the injured, but should be mindful of the high character of their mission and of the responsibilities. they must incur in the discharge of momentous duties. In their ministrations they should never forget that the comfort, the health and the lives of those entrusted to their care depend on skill, attention and fidelity. In deportment they should unite tenderness, cheerfulness and firmness, and thus inspire all sufferers with gratitude, respect and confidence. These observances are the more sacred because, generally, the only tribunal to adjudge penalties for unkindness, carelessness or neglect is their own conscience. SEC. 2.-Every patient commited to the charge of a physician should be treated with attention and humanity, and reasonable indulgence should be granted to the caprices of the sick. Secrecy and delicacy should be strictly observed; and the familiar and confidential intercourse to which physicians are admited, |