Page:The Harveian oration 1903.djvu/39

 would have been sooner grasped if the collection of records of post-mortem inspections which Harvey had made over many years had escaped the destruction which befell many of his papers when his house in London was ransacked during his absence at Oxford with King Charles.

From this necessarily brief sketch of the development of Physiology in relation to gross anatomy, it is apparent that any approach to an accurate understanding of the working of the several functions was only possible when the facts of structure were ascertained and appreciated; and that when these facts were scanty, fanciful and erroneous views were entertained as to the mode in which the corresponding functions were performed. With the prosecution of anatomical investigation beyond the range of the unaided vision, the knowledge of the living organism and its working was by so much extended. The impetus given to the study of microscopic structure by the labours of Malpighi and his followers resulted in establishing Histology—a term first used by Carl Meyer in 1820—as a specific branch of anatomical enquiry which has been pursued with ever growing success to the present day, coincidently as the realm of gross anatomy became more and more restricted,