Page:The Harveian oration, 1875 (IA b22314611).pdf/39

 Vesalius and Galen prescribed, but Harvey really performed. They assumed that the part beyond the tube would not pulsate, but he finds that it does; and, by way of confirmation, adduces the case of a nobleman, his “very particular friend” whose “most attentive physician” he was. From the body of this nobleman Harvey removed part of the descending aorta, about a span long, with the two crural trunks. They had been converted into bone; and yet be had often noted the pulse in the legs and feet of this patient while he lived. Here was an experiment of Nature's own making: the bony artery was the exact counterpart of the rigid tube, and yet the facts of the case distinctly contradicted The hypothesis of which Harvey was exposing the unsoundness.

The fourth error Harvey bad to combat, instead of being an unfounded assertion, is an inference based upon a fact. I will show you how Harvey refutes this fallacy, and so give you a good illustration of bis method of procedure, and bring this, my analysis, to a close.

When Harvey’s predecessors opened a dead body, they found the arteries nearly or quite empty, and the veins full; and accordingly they