Page:Restorative medicine - an Harveian annual oration delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, London, on June 21, 1871 (the 210th anniversary) (IA restorativemedic00cham).pdf/13



upwards of two centuries the London College of Physicians complied with the letter of Harvey's wishes, as expressed in his Deed of Gift, by causing an annual oration to be delivered in Latin. But during the last few years there has been a growing conviction that in this pedantic adherence to the words, we were departing from the spirit, of the founder of the ceremony, the object of which is to stir up the audience to a diligent study of physiology and to professional esprit de corps. An "exhortation to mutual love and affection," as Harvey words it, was fitly enough of old couched in a language more familiar than all besides their own to the brother-hood of science in various countries. Is it too hurried an anticipation of nature to look upon English as now the most appropriate medium for circulating such exhortations among physicians in Europe? At all events, across the Atlantic and Pacific there are bands of relatives, whom we are much prouder to claim, and to exhort to mutual