Page:The Harveian oration, delivered before the Royal College of Physicians, Wednesday, June 27th, 1877 (IA b22314623).pdf/43

 ruling spirit constitutes a memorial, which will remain an honour to himself and his colleagues, as it is to the time and people for which he laboured. It was with grief that the medical profession heard of Mr. Simon's resignation, and the pain was in- tensified by the report that his office was to be abolished. In the Supplementary Reports, which Mr. Simon has brought out since quitting his post, we are promised that some of the investigations, commenced under his supervision, shall be con- tinued; may we hope with the same zeal, earnest- ness, and success as before. It would be difficult to express adequately the sense the profession entertain of the value and significance of all that has been achieved by the Medical Department of the Privy Council; but I am sure that we all endorse the sentiments that are so well conveyed in the following passage, which I take from Mr. Simon's last Report*:"As for the general value and promise of that kind of work in its bearing on the progress of medicine, I entertain the strongest conviction that, in regard of all an- tagonism to disease, whether with preventive or curative measures, and whether by official or private hands, medicine's best prospects of increasc and success are inseparable from such studies of exact science; and that, in proportion as the

Reports of the Medical Officer of the Privy Council, new series, No. viii. p. 7.