Page:The Harveian oration - delivered at the Royal College of Physicians June 24, 1882 - by George Johnson (IA b21517046).pdf/54

 first revealed by Harvey, there would have been no need to resort to such a patchwork proceeding as this, which does no credit to its author, Dr. Del Vita, or to the orator, Dr. Maggiorani, who refers to the lecture with approval. It is mani- fest that by stringing together isolated words and sentences the doctrine of the circulation might be extracted from the Pentateuchi or from any other ancient writings.

At the risk, and, I almost fear, at the cost of being tedious, I have made these numerous quotations from Cesalpino's various writings, in order to prove by his ipsissima verba what was the amount of his knowledge with regard to the systemic circulation.

I think that I have shown conclusively that great and various as were his acquirements in different departments of natural science, more especially in botany, in which science he had the merit of great originality, as regards the physiology of the circulation his information was not in advance of that possessed by his immediate predecessors and contemporaries. It will have been seen that Professor Ceradini relies mainly upon three distinct pieces of evidence to establish