Page:The Harveian oration, delivered before the Royal College of Physicians, Wednesday, June 27th, 1877 (IA b22314623).pdf/5

 and there writers, jealous of Harvey's fame, brought forward Servetus, Sarpa, Cæsalpinus, and others still less worthy of being named, as possessing prior claims to the position assigned to Harvey, the great body of scientific men of that and all future days have subscribed to the opinion that we owe the modern doctrine of the circulation of the blood and of the moving power of the heart to him.

After the many disquisitions on the priority of Harvey's claims that have been offered to the Fellows of this College, from the oration of Friend to that of the exhaustive address by the learned Linacre Professor, Dr. Rolleston, four years ago, it would scarcely have been befitting in me to bring up this crambe iterum repetita on the present occa- sion, had not a recent event appeared to make it a matter of duty to inquire again into the claims of one of the three names just mentioned.

English physicians were startled last year* by the announcement that on October 30th a monu- ment of Andrea Cesalpino was unveiled at Rome, on the ground of his being the first discoverer of the circulation of the blood. Dr. Giulio Ceradini, Professor of Physiology at Genoa, appears to have been the chief orator on the occasion, and to have asserted, after stating that Cesalpino pro-


 * Lancet, November 4th, 1876.