MINUTES OF THE TWELFTH ANNUAL MEETING OF THE AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION, HELD IN THE CITY OF LOUISVILLE, MAY 3, 1859. THE Association convened in Mozart Hall, at 11 o'clock A. M., and was called to order by the President, Dr. HARVEY LINDSLY in the chair, supported by Vice Presidents Drs. W. L. SUTTON and T. 0. EDWARDS. The other officers present were the Secretaries, Drs. A. J. SEMMES and S. M. BEMISS, and Treasurer CASPAR WISTER. The President introduced Rev. STEWART ROBINSON, of Louisville, who opened the proceedings with prayer. The chair then declared the Association duly organized, and announced as first in order of business the report of the Committee of Arrangement. Dr. R. J. BRECKINRIDGE, chairman of this committee, reported as follows: Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Association: It is my grateful office to greet you on this your twelfth anniversary, and tender you a hearty welcome to the city of Louisville. I do this, sir, in behalf of the physicians and citizens generally-citizens, second to none in their intelligent appreciation of the honor and dignity of the profession, and the worthiness and usefulness of its members; physicians, second to none in their devotion to the great work in which they are engaged. We have watched, sir, with interest the formation and progress of this Association. We have noted, with equal gratification, the catholicity of its spirit, and the greatness of its designs. We have VOL. XII.-2 seen it, in its brief existence, gather into its fold thousands of members-members from every State of the Republic, and, without possessing real legislative powers, exercise a most potent influence for good. Formed for the advancement of science and art-for the gathering, interchange, and diffusion of knowledge—for the promotion of fellowship and harmony in the profession, by drawing closer and closer its members, it has not wholly failed in the accomplishment of its aims; and we trust for it a future yet more fruitful-harvests yet more abundant. Feeling that "it is good for us to be here"-approving, thoroughly, cordially, the objects of the Association-and believing in its capacity for usefulness-we bid you God speed in your labors, while we heartily welcome you, as honored guests, to our homes. He then announced the hours of business from 9 A. M. to 1 P. M., and from 3 P. M. until such hour as the Convention should adjourn upon resolution. Dr. J. B. FLINT, chairman of a committee appointed by the State Medical Society of Kentucky to receive the American Medical Association, accompanied by Drs. W. L. SUTTON, C. H. SPILMAN, W. S. CHIPLEY, and W. C. SNEAD, came forward and addressed the Association as follows: Mr. President: At a late annual meeting of the "State Medical Society of Kentucky," the following resolution was unanimously adopted, and the gentlemen before you, all of them ex-Presidents of that Society, constituted a committee charged with carrying it into effect: Resolved, That J. B. FLINT, with such associates as he may select, be a committee to wait upon the American Medical Association, so soon as it shall have opened its session in Louisville, and in behalf of this Society bid it welcome to the medical jurisdiction of Kentucky, and assure it of the cordial interest of the profession of the State in the objects and purposes of its institution, and of the readiness of this Society to co-operate in all its endeavors to promote the honor and usefulness of our common calling. In regard to assurances of welcome, Mr. President, so far as they apply to yourself and your associates as individual guests of your Kentucky brethren, those gentlemen would hardly pardon me for adding a word to the general terms of the resolution. Already, if I mistake not, there are demonstrations of the spirit of hospitality, which render any assurance on that subject worse than superfluous. But I am happy to assure you, Mr. President, that the Association over which you preside, in its corporate capacity, with its well known purposes and ends, will find an equally cordial reception in the generous community which it has honored with its presence. The people of Kentucky, sir, are generally prepared to appreciate as it deserves every enterprise of a public-spirited or philanthropic character which presents itself to their notice, and I think I may say especially disposed to befriend the cause of medical education. They have certainly done somewhat, not a little, to their credit in evidence of their intelligent interest in medical science and the best means of its advancement. Through the munificence of the State, in one case, and of the liberal city of Louisville in the other, two medical libraries have been procured in Kentucky, each of which is superior to any and all the public collections of medical books that can be found in most of the other States of the Union. Not more than two of our sister States, so far as I can learn, can be compared with us in this interesting particular. One of those libraries, belonging to the Medical Department of the University of Louisville, at its best estate, numbering 4,000 volumes, you will doubtless visit during your sojourn among us, and, although much defaced and mutilated by the conflagration which laid that institution in ruins two years ago, you will still find it to be a large and choice collection-adequate to the requisitions of medical research, and presenting satisfactorily the course of medical literature from the time of Hippocrates to the present day. The other library to which I refer belongs to the Medical Department of Transylvania University, and contains 8,000 volumes. I hope that not a few of the members of the Association, before leaving Kentucky, will find their way into that also, in the course of a visit to the beautiful inland city in which it is located-a city distinguished throughout the land for the general intelligence and refinement of its population, as well as for the eminent public men who have signalized it as their home; but to medical men, not only of our own, but of foreign countries, especially memorable as the residence of the great lithotomist of our day and surgical patriarch of the West-BENJAMIN W. DUDLEY. Such benefactions as these to the means of medical study attest, as I have already intimated, so enlightened an interest in the improvement of our profession as to guarantee not only a welcome to the Association which represents it, but efficient co-operation in its endeavors on the part of the profession and the people of Kentucky. May your present session, Mr. President, be an agreeable one to the members of the Association, and prove eminently beneficial to the interests of American Medicine! The Secretary then called the roll, the following members answering to their names:— NEW HAMPSHIRE. Medical Department of Dartmouth } College and State Society, DIXI CROSBY. |