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/33

RESTORATIVE MEDICINE. 19 which, with less labor, he might have heaped up wealth. I especially introduce his name here, be- cause the sphygmograph, which he has tried to make popular among us,* is the embodied acting up to a principle of great importance in Harvey's eyes, the ocular demonstration of scientific truth. I need go no farther than this room for an instance. Those brown boards over our heads,† in spite of time and neglect, exhibit the complete arterial systems of two bodies, dissected out and dried in situ. It is a work of months, if not of years, and I doubt not but that some will denounce as sinful waste the employment of Harvey's fingers in such mechanical handicraft. He thought differently, and held no labor thrown away if spent in pro- ducing a lively mental impression, such as we gain from those preparations. Herein lies the great merit of the sphygmograph. The obscure feel- ings of the finger-tips are brought under the cog- nizance of the sense that most directly affects the mind, oculis subjecta fidelibus," so as not only to be shown, but "delivered in number and

"Handbook of the Sphygmograph." The Tabule Harveiane in the gallery.
 * In the Lent Lectures of 1869 at the College, and in his