Page:The Harveian oration 1888.djvu/17

9 And what shall I say of our greatest Benefactor whose memory we specially commemorate to-day? When I turn to the orations delivered by my predecessors, I find that the history of Harvey's life, his surroundings, his mode of investigating nature, his early studies, classical, dialectical, and physical, his habit of inductive reasoning, the steps leading to his great discovery, the grounds for asserting his rightful claim to be the discoverer, have all been so eloquently discussed and so exhaustively displayed before you, that it would be out of place for me to dilate on any of these themes. Permit me rather to picture before you to-day some of the discoveries which have been made in modern times, in matters connected with the circulation, and more particularly as regards some of the changes in the blood which may be associated with or productive of disease, and thus to indicate some of the additions to that fabric of scientific medicine of which Harvey's great discovery is the corner stone.

Following upon the labours of Harvey, we note the discovery of the capillaries by Malpighi, about 1687, our knowledge thereof improved by Leeuwenhoek in 1729 and then by Hales, Cowper, Haller and Lieberkuhn, and perfected by Prochaska in his publication in 1812. Subsequently we learned how the rhythm of the heart may be interfered with by causes acting through the nervous system, and how the calibre of the minute arteries may be modified through the same agency. Then we have the changes connected with inflammation; and can we not picture to ourselves with what special interest such an observer as Harvey would have watched the changes which take place in the vessels and the surrounding tissues following upon irritation or inflammation; and which, by the aid of those appliances with which modern science has furnished us, have been discovered in recent