Page:The Harveian oration - delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, October 18th, 1899 (IA b24975941).pdf/25

 Harvey's discovery was not a great generalisa- tion applicable to the whole visible universe, and its importance was appreciable only to a specially educated class.

Harvey's discovery was nevertheless the first of a series which have exercised enormous influence over human welfare.

Before we possessed a fair knowledge of the physics of the circulation, a proper appreciation of the symptoms of the varicd discases of the circula- tory organs, such as syncope and asphyxia, throm- bosis and embolism, was impossible. Sufferers who are now treated rationally instead of being tormented empirically have to thank those who have sought out the secrets of Nature by way of experiment.

The fact of the systemic and pulmonary circula- tions having been demonstrated, men began to

culation for ten years before Bacon that philosopher gives us no hint that he was aware of it. Harvey's treatise was not finally published until two years after Bacon's death, so that Bacon's silence about Harvey's discovery is not very astonishing. But it points to the isolation of scientific workers before the establish- ment of the Royal Society, which has served as an invaluable ex- change and mart for commodities, compared with which all the gold of the earth is "as a little sand."
 * Although Harvey had probably taught the doctrine of the cir.

Our late President once remarked to me that Shakspeare's appreciation of our profession was not very flattering. This is not to be wondered at, for the doctrine of the circulation was certainly not taught until the year of Shakspeare's death (1616), and before the establishment of this doctrine rational medicine or rational. biology was impossible.