I felicitate you, students of medicine, on the plane of the profession being higher than that of forty years ago, when I was in your place. The profession then, was not registered; now there are listed over 100,000 persons practicing medicine in the United States; some state the number to be 162,500. Then, medical students were attending some schools in bodies of 500 or so at a time. Now, their catalogues show between 800 and 900 in attendance in a single institution, and about 17,000 in the United States in 100 or more medical schools. This is a large number to be increased by the veterinarian, the dental and pharmacal students, but it is to be observed that the labors of medical men are so severe that but 17 per cent. will hardly cover the annual death rate.
Then, the medical organizations were few. The Massachusetts Medical Society with some