Page:The Harveian oration, delivered before the Royal College of Physicians, Wednesday, June 27th, 1877 (IA b22314623).pdf/4

 was triumphantly met by the clear and practical exposition of Professor Schlegel of Hamburg. Other men, no less distinguished in their age and country, appeared to establish Harvey as the real founder of the doctrine of the circulation, to which we ascribe the origin of modern scientific medicine. Professor Walæus* in Leyden in 1640, Joannes Trullius in Rome in 1651, supported the new doctrine. Plempius in Louvain, in 1652, volunta- rily and publicly professed himself an adherent of Harvey. Previously to the appearance of Schlegel's admirable work in 1650, his friend and compatriot Werner Rolfink, ‡ reputed one of the best German anatomists of the time, had in 1630 given his adhesion to Harvey's views. Nor is it without significance that Descartes, in his Dis- cours de la Méthode pour bien conduire sa Raison ct chercher la Vérité dans les Sciences, in 1637, spoke of the English physician as the man to whom the world owed the knowledge of a con- tinuous circulation of the blood. Although here

See Versuch einer pragmatischen Geschichte der Arzneikunde, von Kurt Sprengel. Halle, 1800-1803, 5 vols. Svo, vol. iv. p. 43. This book may be generally consulted with advantage on all questions connected with the history of medicine, from the earliest times to the end of the eighteenth century. + Werner Rolfink was born at Hamburg in 1599, and, like Schlegel, filled the post of Professor of Medicine, Botany, Anatomy, and Chemistry at Jena. His chief work was entitled Dissert. Anal., lib. vi. (see lib. v. c. 12, p. 845, and lib. vi. c. 14, p. 1089). He died in 1677. Discours de la Méthode par Descartes, avec une notice biographique, par Ad. Hatzfeldt. Paris, 1872, p. 71, et seqq.
 * Born in 1604 at Koudekerke, in Zeeland; died in 1649.