Page:The Harveian oration 1906.djvu/31

Rh —a long and formidable procedure, as the whole anatomy of the thoracic organs was discussed. I dare say there was a prolonged break between the morning and the afternoon lecture ‘for a fine dinner’, such as Pepys described, when, on February 27, 1663, he went with Harvey’s pupil, Scarborough, to Chirurgeons’ Hall and was used with 1 extraordinary great respect’. Towards the close, after discussing, in novel and modern terms, the structure and action of the heart, Harvey summed up in a few sentences the conclusion of the matter. They stand as follows in the Praelectiones (published by the College in 1886):


 * W. H. constat per fabricam cordis sanguinem
 * per pulmones in Aortam perpetuo
 * transferri, as by two clacks of a
 * water bellows to rayse water
 * constat per ligaturam transitum sanguinis
 * ab arteriis ad venas
 * unde perpetuum sanguinis motum
 * in circulo fieri pulsu cordis.

Probably few in the lecture hall appreciated the full meaning of these words, which to some must have seemed a blot on the whole performance ; while others, perhaps, all with the feelings of the fishes after St. Anthony’s well-known sermon,


 * Much delighted were they,
 * But preferred the old way,

returned to their homes wondering what he would say on the morrow when the ‘divine banquet of the brain' was to be spread before them.

One thing was certain—the lecture gave evidence of a skilled anatomist of remarkably wide experience and well versed in literature from Aristotle to Fabricius. While Harvey could agree with John Hunter, who