Page:The rise of physiology in England - the Harveian oration delivered before the Royal College of Physicians, October 18th, 1895 (IA b24974778).pdf/24

 Harvey, by a chain of close and acute reasoning, drawn from direct experiments, and from ob- servations on the pulsation in aneurysms and in vessels distal to aneurysmal dilatations and to portions of rigid and calcified arteries, demon- strated once for all that the motion and con- traction of the heart was the main, though not the only cause of the pulse. (i)

Leaving, then, the Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis, I wish to consider that which Harvey's discovery rendered pos- sible, the rise of physiology, more especially in Englaud, and the part which Harvey himself took in founding it.

It must be always borne in mind that but a portion of Harvey's work has come down to us. We gather from his extant writings that he had collected materials for, if not composed and completed, the following treatises :-Observa- tiones de Usu Tienis; Observationes de Motu Locali; Tractatus Physiologicus de Amore Libidine el Coitu Animalium. We do not know how far advanced his Medical Observations, to which he makes frequent references; his dis- quisitions on the Cause, Uses, and Organs of Respiration; his Medical Anatomy, or Anatomy