Page:The Harveian oration 1905.djvu/51

 While thus duly recognising those who have benefited this College in a substantial manner, we must not forget that we owe a debt of gratitude, which it is not easy to estimate, to many who have not been in a position to help it in a similar way, but who by their professional or scientific attainments and achievements, as well as by their high personal character and charm, general culture and scholarship, and intellectual and moral qualities, have shed unfading renown and lustre upon the College of Physicians. To attempt to enumerate individually all those coming under this category on the present occasion is out of the question; but I may mention such prominent personalities as Sydenham, Heberden, Fothergill, Lettsom, Prout, Bright, Addison, Gull, Todd, Kirkes, Charles Locock, Sieveking, Chambers, Marshall Hall, and Bence Jones.

Before concluding this part of my subject I must not omit to remind you as well as myself of Harvey's exhortation to imitate those benefactors and to follow their example. There was a time, and not so very long ago, when this College was anything but flourishing from a financial point of view, but our excellent Treasurer gave us recently to understand that our position is now fairly satisfactory. Nevertheless, I presume he would still endorse the appeal he made in his Harveian Oration in 1898 for endowments to enable us to maintain