Page:The Harveian oration 1866.djvu/20

 and experience much real information respecting the symptoms and course of diseases, and the use of remedies, though their notions as to the movements of the blood and all other physiology were almost wholly erroneous. They had observed and utilized phenomena, though they were ignorant, or in error, as to their causes. Centuries before Harvey made known the real cause of the pulse, its states and varieties had been studied with the most minute attention, and made to serve as indications of treatment; from the time of Pare the arrest of arterial hsemorrhage by ligature of the vessel had been practised as it is now.

Thus practical rules, immediately deducible from the scientific facts estabhshed by Harvey, had been anticipated by observers who were ignorant of the causes of the phenomena which they took for their guidance. So it happens not unfrequently: practical experience runs ahead of scientific knowledge.

The connexion of gout with the calculous diathesis was known long before Wollaston discovered uric acid in the concretions of gouty joints.

For two centuries physicians have been curing