Page:The Hunterian Oration 1839.djvu/24

THE HUNTERIAN ORATION. 17 same disease, as the general marks of plants run through the same plants of every kind ;” and in describing dis- ease, continues Sydenham, “ it is, as in the description of a violet, as to its colour and other properties, that this description will agree, in most particulars, with all the violets in the universe.”* It is worthy of remark that Sydenham, in framing his method of learning how to recognize and treat disease, was counselled by his friend Locke, hence the doubts which have been ex- pressed whether it is to Sydenham, or to Locke, physicians are chiefly indebted for the method which still continues to be their model in study and practice.

Although not immediately conducive to the advance of surgery, the discovery of the circulation had its good effect, as the historians of the time have recorded, in correcting the overweening confidence in the opinions of the Ancients against the evidence of observation and experiment. ‘ Wherefore,” asks the first public opponent of Harvey's views, “is the use of the circulation? To what can the new doctrine lead ? Certainly to no good in medicine, for the ancients were perfect in their knowledge of the cure of disease, and this without the knowledge of the circulation.” Such was the philosophy of the time, overcome, not so much by the conviction of the truth of the new doctrine, as by the admirable manner in which the researches to esta-


 * Preface to the Works of Sydenham.

+ The Life of John Locke, by Lord King, Vol. I. page 16. �