Page:The Harveian oration, delivered before the Royal College of Physicians, Wednesday, June 27th, 1877 (IA b22314623).pdf/37

 the partisan of truth alonc," questioning Nature with all the perseverance of the earnest student, and not content with anything but the most rigid examination of the replies she vouchsafed to his inquiries. Among the numerous works of Harvey, the loss of which we have to deplore,* "by certain rapacious bands, which, not only with the permis- sion but by the command of Parliament, stripped his house of all its furniture, but abstracted the fruits of many years of toil," we have to reckon a Medical Anatomy. One of the various works by which our friend Dr. Sibson has established a name, which will endure while this College lasts, is a Medical Anatomy, in which he gives evidence of many of the admirable qualities which charac- terised Harvey. Like Harvey, too, he did not hurry into a publication of his researches, but thoroughly matured his work before bringing his fruit into the great market of literature. To both we may suitably apply the praise bestowed upon Goldsmith, in a somewhat different sense, in the well-known words: "Nihil tetigit quod non orna- vit." Sibson's work in connexion with respira- tion, with the nomenclature of disease, with

+ Ibid., p. 89. We hope to be pardoned for taking a slight liberty with John- son's epitaph on Goldsmith, the commencement of which runs thns : "Olivarii Goldsmith, poeta, physici, historici, qui nullum feri scribendi genus non tetigit, nullum quod tetigit non ornavit, sive risus essent movendi, sive lachrymæ, affectuum potens et lenis dominator, etc."
 * The Works of Harvey, Sydenham Society's edition, p. 481.