Page:The Harveian oration, delivered before the Royal College of Physicians, Wednesday, June 27th, 1877 (IA b22314623).pdf/41

 intense becomes the admiration for the great mind that achieved them; and the greater our regret that barbarous hands destroyed other products of his labour, which we are justified in inferring to have been of the greatest value. As the reputa- tion he enjoyed among his contemporaries has been confirmed by the continuous applause of his successors, we cannot doubt that his powers, brought to bear upon the investigation of disease and its treatment, the results of which were em- bodied in his (lost) "Medical Annotations," would also have largely advanced the healing art. With his help, it is not unlikely that our control of morbid processes might be greater than it is at present, and that we might already claim a greater precision in this department of our calling than our advances in diagnosis, in the chemistry of the body, and in the knowledge of drugs, can yet justify. Earnest as the work is that is being done in this field of science, it is scarcely com- mensurate with the results gained in other sections of the domain; though here, too, the Harveian spirit is abroad, and humanity is already reaping benefits which even Harvey could not have dreamt of.

But if we may not justly assert that we have as yet acquired the precision in our control over morbid processes that the general advance of medical knowledge would appear to demand, we