Page:The Harveian oration, delivered before the Royal College of Physicians, Wednesday, June 27th, 1877 (IA b22314623).pdf/23

 organ, and especially in determining which was systole and which diastole. He evidently took his audience into his counsel, and displayed before them the living heart, for he sayst: "I have watched the process for entire hours, and was unable to determine the question for myself, either by sight or by touch; therefore, I shall ask you to look for yourselves, and give me your opinion." However, he arrives at this conclusion, that, whether the erection of the heart is to regarded as the act of systole or diastole, the heart, by its erection, projects the blood and causes the pulse.

One more extract, and I will detain you no longer with the notes; hoping, however, that I have not taken up your time unprofitably with a subject that appears to me to justify our liveliest interest, and to merit a more complete and per- manent record than my present opportunity permits.

The passage that I am about to quote forms the peroration to the first Lumleian Lectures on the heart, and comprises a summary of the doc- dilatari et constringi, et qualis sit systole qualis diastole. + Ego per integras horas animadvertendo non facile potui dis- cernere neque visu neque tactu, quare vobis cernendum et indican- dùm proponam.
 * Videtur quod arduum et difficile discernere aut visu aut tactu,

+ Erectione protendit sanguinem et facit pulsus, pro eresi (an heretical notion) et contra Galenum-"as in a glove," he adds in English, and concludes: Hinc pulsus arteriarum, non ex innata lacultate sed protendente corde.