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Mr. President,
I purpose to devote the time, which your indulgencehas placed at my disposal this evening, to laying beforeyou the results of some inquiries into the origin andhistory of medicine and of the medical profession;regarding the subject rather from a social than froma scientific point of view.
My scheme will introduce you to some of your oldacquaintances; not for instruction, but to remind youof those passages in their lives which may have beenpressed out of your memories by the sterner realities of