Page:The Hunterian Oration 1839.djvu/40

 THE HUNTERIAN ORATION. 33

the writings of Francis Glisson, who was cotemporary with Leeuwenhoeck, and a distinguished man in his time, as he was President of the College of Physicians, and held for forty years the office of Professor of Physic in the University of Cambridge.* Even with respect to some of the “ new lights of our time” in the practical department of surgery, it must be a matter of curious reflection, and should teach us humility, to find ourselves but reverting to the doctrines and to the practice of the ancients. Thus, at the present moment, certain proceedings in the management of fractures, new to us, and of great value, are in the course of in- troduction, and in the progress of an investigation to whom the merit of originality should here be accorded, a discovery is unfortunately made, that similar proceed- ings were in use, centuries ago, among the nations of the East.; But more than this may be gleaned from

pauculis Irritabilitatis differentiis. Exempla Irritationis per consen- sum inter fibras puré naturales frequenter quoque occurrunt. Fi- bre enim neryos & communi origine petentes nonnunquam simul commoyentur. Siquidem ramus nervi in fibras primo motas inserti, ejusque motus continuatur communi alterius aut plurium nervorum origini, indéque per eas reflectitur ad fibras secundd motas, in quibus, ad imitationem motds primi, consimilem per consensum concitat.
 * Tractatus de Ventriculo et Intestinis, 1677, cap. ix.— De

+ The plan of treating fractures, here alluded to, consists in apply- ing, shortly after the occurrence of the injury, an apparatus which, by its firmness and close adaptation to the limb, will allow its move- ments in any direction without disturbing the ends of the broken bone. It would appear that ages ago, an apparatus for this purpose was employed, consisting chiefly of mastic. At the present moment,

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