Page:The Harveian oration (electronic resource) - Royal College of Physicians, 1881 (IA b20411911).pdf/8

 back to previous orations. A pot-pourri of the thoughts of others is not what I want to produce in this assembly; and I am sure you will forgive me if, on the one hand, I repeat what has already been said so well by others, or if, on the other, I depart from the lines laid down by precedent as those on which this oration should be framed.

Though so far removed from the Harvey of the past, we may surely learn something from observing the way in which the great master worked. It is only by treading in his footprints that any one can hope to gain entrance into that temple of enduring fame in which he will ever hold so high a place. It was, indeed, no mind of ordinary stamp which animated the discoverer of the circulation. It does not appear that he had prepared himself by any special training for the work of his life; indeed, it is quite remarkable that no record of devotion to science in his earlier days is anywhere to be found. It is true that when he entered the University of Cambridge he enrolled his name among the pensioners of Gonville and Caius College; and among the MSS. preserved in its library is the original grant by Queen Elizabeth to the Master and Fellows of the bodies of two criminals annually, condemned to death and executed in Cambridge or its Castle, free of all charges, to be used for the purpose of dissection, with a view to the increase of the knowledge of medicine, and the