Page:Harveian Oration for MDCCCXXXVIII; being a tribute of respect for the memory of the late James Hamilton, Sen. M.D (IA b30377353).pdf/5

5 very easy to shew that no writer before Harvey had any conception of any other movement of the blood than an undulating progress in the vessels, or a flux and reflux from one extremity of a vessel to the other. It is not so very wonderful that men of learned education should have been tenacious of the opinions which they derived from venerated names, at a time when dissection was little practised, and when experiments on living animals had been made to a very limited extent; but it is certainly surprising, that, even since the commencement of this century, there should have been a volume published by a medical practitioner of acknowledged ability, Mr George Kerr of Aberdeen, who undertook to disprove the Harveian doctrine, and to demonstrate the truth of system of the ancients, by a parade of veteran authorities.

It is not, however, my intention to make any further reference to the illustrious individual under whose name we are here assembled to-day, and to whose great discovery the revolution of two centuries has now given the impress of acknowledged truth. I proceed at once to introduce to your notice the subject of the present sketch, himself one of Harvey’s most distinguished admirers, and one of the earliest