"'Young men, young men, devote yourselves to those sure {321} and powerful methods, of which we as yet know only the first secrets. And I say to all of you, whatever may be your career, never permit yourselves to be overcome by degrading and unfruitful skepticism. Neither permit the hours of sadness which come upon a nation to discourage you. Live in the serene peace of your laboratories and your libraries. First, ask yourselves, What have I done for my education? Then, as you advance in life, What have I done for my country? So that some day that supreme happiness may come to you, the consciousness of having contributed in some manner to the progress and welfare of humanity. But, whether our efforts in life meet with success or failure, let us be able to say, when we near the great goal, 'I have done what I could.'" {322} {323} JOSEPH O'DWYER, THE INVENTOR OF INTUBATION {324} I have hope and wish that the nobler sort of physicians will advance their thoughts, and not employ their time wholly in the sordidness of cures; neither be honored for necessity only; but that they will become coadjutors and instruments in prolonging and renewing the life of man. --Bacon {325} JOSEPH O'DWYER, THE INVENTOR OF INTUBATION. At the beginning of the nineteenth century a young medical practitioner, working faithfully in the wards of his hospital in Paris, pitying especially the patients who suffered from pulmonary disease, and realizing how hopeless was their treatment, since medical science knew so little of the real nature of the ailment from which they suffered, invented the stethoscope and established the principles on which modern physical diagnosis is based in a method so complete that after the lapse of three-quarters of a century very little has been added to what was then discovered. This genius was the famed Laennec, of whom we have written in a preceding chapter, who was wont to spend his days walking the wards of the Necker Hospital in Paris, caring more for his poor patients than for the nobility and members of the wealthy classes, who willingly would have taken advantage of his clinical knowledge so conscientiously gained. Laennec made possible progress in medicine that places him among the five or six greatest medical men of all times.