INTRODUCTORY LECTURE.
Gentlemen,—I appear before you to-day, taking my regular turn for the second time as one of the medical staff of this hospital, for the purpose of delivering the usual Introductory Lecture to the Course of Clinical Instruction now about to commence. Six years have elapsed since this institution first opened its doors for the reception of patients, undertaking at the same time the arduous duty of receiving a class of medical students for the purposes of professional instruction and entering into competition with the other hospitals of this city, which had long been engaged in the same honourable pursuit, and which had earned for the medical school of Dublin a reputation second to none throughout the world. What was at that time a doubtful experiment is now, we are happy to say, an established success. The feelings of anxiety with which we looked forward to the contingencies of the future have given place to an assured conviction on our part of permanent stability and increasing usefulness. We can appeal to the Report of the Government Inspector of the Board of Health for the year 1863, which has just been published, a copy of which I hold in my hands, to show that in all material respects;—sanitary condition; appliances for the relief of the sick; class of diseases admitted; number of patients and results of treatment—our hospital will bear to be compared with any other of its size in the United Kingdom. This is the more gratifying when we remember that it is supported solely by the contributions of its friends
