Friday Afternoon Session—April 22, 1910

No papers read except by title.

Election of officers resulted as follows:

President-Dr. E. C. Davis, Atlanta. Term expires

1911.

First Vice-President-Dr. J. C. Bloomfield, Athens. Term expires 1911.

Second Vice-President-Dr. C. H. Richardson, Montezuma. Term expires 1911.

Secretary-Treasurer-Dr. W. C. Lyle, Augusta. Term expires 1915.

Councilor Fifth District-Dr. W. S. Goldsmith, Atlanta. Term expires 1913.

Councilor Sixth District-Dr. T. E. Drewry, Griffin, Term expires 1913.

Councilor Seventh District-Dr. A. T. Calhoun, Cartersville. Term expires 1913.

Councilor Eighth District-Dr. I. H. Goss, Athens. Term expires 1913.

Delegates to American Medical Association

Dr. E. E. Murphey, Augusta; term expires 1911. Alternate-Dr. Thos. D. Coleman, Augusta.

Dr. H. F. Harris, Atlanta; term expires 1912. Alternate-Dr. Dunbar Roy, Atlanta.

The meeting adjourned to meet in Rome, Ga., the Third Wednesday in April, 1911.

PROLOGUE

"Since my younger days of passion, joy or pain,
Perhaps my heart and harp have lost a string,
And both may jar. It may be that in vain
I would essay as I have sung, to sing

Yet, though a heavy strain. To this I cling,
So that it wean me from my every dream
Of selfish grief or gladness-so it fling.
Forgetfulness around me-it shall seem

To me, though to none else, a not ungrateful theme."

Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto III.

FORTY YEARS IN THE STUDY AND PRACTICE OF MEDICINE IN GEORGIA.

V. D. Lockhart, M. D., Maysville, Ga.

GENTLEMEN:

Forty years have brought changes which would challenge the descriptive power of tongue or pen or even the rosy hues sketched upon the artistic canvas. Like the moving picture show, which tells its dramatic story by action and not in words, the whole face of nature is magically transformed; "Old things have passed away and behold all things have become new."

Like the child in swaddling clothes, or boy in the Consequential Costume of Knee Pants, we have rapidly grown to proud man's estate. Looking all the world in the face, and with malice toward none and charity for all, we proclaim with glad and happy pride that our

father's lived, and wrought and died and left their works with us here in old Georgia, the Empire State of the South.

We have lived to se Surgery and Clinical Medicine established upon a firm basis. We have something left to us from the labors of great men who lived among us. Men like Crawford W. Long, Milton Antony, Louis A. Dugas, Henry F. Campbell, Robert Batty, Willis F. Westmoreland, the Fords, the Eves, Dr. Steiner, Dr. Griggs, and many who moved among us like kings among men, men whose smile was like unto the glory of the sunrise, laboring in battlefields and among graves and smoky ruins to re-establish for themselves and for us, a new civilization.

These men lived amid times of great trial and profound discouragement, and died, with sad hearts, perhaps. Later they were unjustly deprived of honors fairly won; but there will be a time, soon coming, when men, who are lovers of the human race, from every country and from the isles of the sea, will wend their way to this marvelous state of ours, and stand, with bowed heads to read their names carved in simple words, upon the enduring granite of their native country. We have lived to see the strenuous and galling shackles of ignorance fall away from the limbs of our people. We have seen them lift up their poor hearts from the widowhood and desolation of war and turn their faces once more to the rising sun of progress. Once more their hearts are made glad by the sound of children's feet, pattering upon the pavements, as they run on their way to school. May their little tender limbs never again turn sore from fatigue in factories, or be mangled by machinery; but may every seat in every school be occupied, and may every teacher feel the call of the Lord God mightily upon them to redeem our State forever from the damning effects of ignorance and vice.

We have seen the regime of dirt and filthy germs for

ever banished from the home and hospital, and whole regions of the earth's surface, once considered too unhealthful for most of our race, made habitable and pleasant by simply screening off poisonous insects and by preventing soil and water pollution.

We have seen the soldier falling in battle rescued by kind hands and cured by simple and cleanly treatment, his life guarded by sterile equipment and placed back in the ranks or restored to home and loved ones.

We have seen women, that most lovely of God's creative power, rescured from the filthy couch and the infection of deadly organism, and freed too, from childbirth's deadly pang and danger. The transition from old to new in this department is truly marvellous. It is too great a theme to be protrayed here in a few lines.

The poor sufferer from fevers too may have great cause to rejoice on account of the simple treatment of modern times. 'Twas not so long ago that he lay, famishing with thirst, and dreaming, in his delirium, of the open air of boyhood, when he played along the cooling stream or lay down to drink from nature's healing fountain, but awaking with a start again, the poor sufferer could hardly speak for dryness of the fauces, deadly thirst or foul air. We are sometimes shocked when we see how far from nature we have lived, and how we have misjudged her simple teaching.

The scattered settlements of the early days have grown into beautiful towns and cities, with modern equipment. The licensed country doctor of the early times, mounted upon his pony and saddlebags has been succeeded by the physician of modern ideas and with college training whose noble ambition is now to prevent rather than treat diseases.

The small college at Augusta has grown from a mere academy of medicine, and expanded in power and influence until today, as the Medical Department of our splendid University system it commands the respect and pres

tige of a great institution whose graduates have gone into foreign lands. At our Capital City too, we have seen several fine colleges develop into wonderful power and influence, commanding patronage from all the South and far West, and even students from foreign countries, who come there to enjoy the clinical advantages of that far-famed city, not dreamed of forty years ago.

Indeed it may be said with pardonable pride, that Georgia's part in the evolution of modern ideas of medicine and the development of our art upon a scientific basis, has been very prominent, and it should appeal to us as a duty we owe to our profession and especially to our predecessors, to insist upon the justice of our claims, and to demand that others may not claim for themselves honors which rightfully belong to us.

Men of great learning and distinguished ability are often very modest and unassuming. They are slow to make known their inner thoughts. To unlock nature's secrets they delve, like the prospective miner, into the hills "rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun."

Such a man was Crawford W. Long, the undoubted discovered and first user of ether anesthesia. At a casual glance we may be led to wonder why he lingered in the shades of his old hometown at Jefferson, and delayed for years, to publish his wonderful experiments. The magnificent qualities of his heart, the native modesty and courtly nature of his soul, caused the delay in a measure, perhaps. Of one thing we are assured, and that is, that Dr. Long must be sure of his ground. He would rather forego all earthly honors than to play the fakir for one day.

It is not my purpose today to read you a history of Dr. Long's discovery. That task has been done by others far more worthy and the record made up; but it does seem, that either intentionally or otherwise, writers and teachers of medicine, journalists of national character, continue to misrepresent, omit, or misplace the facts in history of this great man's life.