Page:The Hunterian Oration 1839.djvu/20

 THE HUNTERIAN ORATION. 13

became the Founders of Human Anatomy in the seve- ral countries of Europe—and we must not forget it was in the Italian Schools, under one of their celebrated professors, Fabricius,—our Harvey,—justly styled the Father of English Anatomy, received the chief part of his education.

If we love the science of anatomy for the elevating views it presents; if we are grateful to it as affording the means of successfully cultivating the difficult art of surgery, how deeply must we venerate the Great Men of former ages who did, with enthusiasm, study ana- tomy in spite of every obstacle that could be thrown in their way by the Laws, Customs, and Prejudices of the people of every country ; for true it is, as asserted by Vicq d’Azyr, that anatomy, which of all the sciences, has had its good to mankind most loudly proclaimed, has had the least effort of any science made for its advance by the public Voice and Action. It is a mat- ter of history not to be doubted, that Galen travelled from Rome to Alexandria to study a human skeleton— that he was compelled to rely on, what he denominated Fortuitous Anatomy “ Avarou xara reprtwom,” the examination of bones he might by chance find in a tomb, the contemplation of a body washed out of a sepulchre built on the brink of a stream, with its flesh, he says, rotten, but with the bones still adhering toge- ther. Yet from such scanty and precarious sources of study did Galen draw his descriptions of the human �