Page:The Harveian oration, delivered before the Royal College of Physicians, Wednesday, June 27th, 1877 (IA b22314623).pdf/24

 trines on the movement of the heart and the circulation as taught by Harvey at the beginning of his carecr. I shall give the passage verbatim, prefacing it only with the remark that it is initialled W. H.

"Constat per fabricam cordis, sanguinem per pulmones in aortam perpetuo transferri; as by 2 clacks of a water-bellow to raysc water. Constat per ligaturam transitus sanguinis ab arteriis ad venas. (( "Unde A (demonstratur) perpetuum sanguinis motum fieri pulsu cordis.

"An (?) hoc gratia nutritionis, an magis conservationis sanguinis et membrorum per infusionem calidam, vicissimque sanguis calefaciens membra, frigifactus, a corde calefit." Most of this is taught more explicitly in Harvey's work of 1628; but he then, as shown in his letter to Riolan, abandoned the theory that the heart was the source of heat. I owe you, Sir, and Fellows of the College, an apology for having occupied so much of the brief time at my disposal by the inquiry into the merits of Cesalpino;* but it appears to me one of the

subject matter of the oration; but I venture to direet the reader's attention to them, as they are often extremely amusing, and may assist in forming some opinion of the writer's eharacter and frame of mind. As a whet to their appetites, I extract the following illus- tration from the Dæmonum Investigatio (ehap ix. p. 154), of the views that prevailed even among the educated classes in the sixteenth
 * Cesalpino's inquiries into demonology have no bearing upon the