Page:The Harveian oration 1905.djvu/97

 blood-letting, affirming that daily experience satisfies us that it has a most salutary influence in many diseases, and is indeed the foremost among the more general remedial measures. He also employed cupping and dry-cupping. Further, Harvey was aware of the effects of agents applied endermically and afterwards absorbed; and was in the habit of employing cold water affusions and applications in treatment. The first immediate result claimed for Harvey's discovery of the circulation is the invention of the tourniquet half a century later; and the second John Hunter's operation for the cure of aneurysm, by tying the artery between the sac and the heart. I have also seen it stated that this discovery led to the revival or adoption of the practice of transfusion, but on this point there is much uncertainty.

Without attempting to trace the progress of knowledge in relation to the therapeutics of the circulatory system since Harvey's time, I propose now to offer a brief summary of the principles and methods which govern modern treatment directed to this system, as exemplifying the more conspicuous and prominent lines upon which advances have been made. It may be confidently affirmed, in passing, that we have at the present day a fairly definite idea as to what effects can be produced upon the heart and vessels, and upon the circulation, from a physiological and therapeutic point of view, as well as a reliable knowledge of a considerable number