Page:The Harveian oration, 1873.djvu/54

 48 Harvey that he never happened to per- form it. For considering that, like Hal- ler, he knew nothing of the contractility of arteries ; considering that Hunter had not performed his now well-known experiments with the umbilical arteries ; considering, Sir, that in that excellent work on Physio- logy Dv Johannes Muller, the translation of which in 1838, by our late and never suffi- ciently to be lamented friend Dr. Baly, we owe to your suggestion, I find several pages (vol. i, pp. 202-206, 214-219, ed. 1840) devoted to disproving the muscular con- tractility of arteries; considering, that it was not till three years later, in 1841, that Henle's work, already referred to, ap- peared with its still unsuperseded figures, Plate III, figures 8, 9, and 10 of the arteries with their circular muscular coat, and with its excellent summary in letterpress of the whole subject, pp. 518-526, and especially pp. 524, 525; when I consider that nothing of all this had been done, to leave unmen- tioned other advances connected with names of men yet living to speak for themselves and for us — I say it may have been well