Page:Introductory lecture delivered in the Adelaide Hospital, Dublin, at the commencement of the clinical course, October 31, 1864 (IA b21916433).pdf/4

4 fluctuating source of income, it is true, but the value of which is attested by the fact that upwards of,£18,000 had been raised within the first six years of its existence, terminating on the 31st of last December. It is a matter of congratulation to the supporters of the institution, that this year, notwithstanding the depressed state of the country, the ordinary income has been more than maintained, while considerable additions have been made to the Endowment Fund from unexpected quarters; giving the promise in a few years, when it becomes better known, of such a foundation to rest on as will secure it against the casualties to which it is at present exposed.

As to our pupils, we already count them by scores; and we can point with some degree of pardonable pride, not only to the numbers who have passed the usual Collegiate Examinations to qualify them for practice, but still more to the high places that many of them have taken at the Competitive Examinations, where rival institutions, represented in the persons of their alumni, are brought into collision, and the merits of each, as a school of medicine, put to the only test appreciated by the public. Of the hospital staff I will only say this, that we are ready to the utmost of our power to discharge the duties we have undertaken. The success of the past will make us exert ourselves the more strenuously for the future; and now that the difficulties inherent in the early history of all such undertakings have been overcome, we hope that the time has arrived when we may fairly calculate on freedom from future anxieties.

The first topic I shall allude to is the change which has taken place in the constitution of the hospital staff" since we last met here by the untimely death of our esteemed colleague, the late Dr. Mayne. I think it would be a culpable omission, if in this place, the scene of his labours and his usefulness, and if on this occasion, the first that has occurred since his removal, no notice were to be taken of the sad event which has deprived this institution of his services, and society at large of one of its most useful members. Dr. Mayne was no ordinary man. The extent of his practice, his reputation as