Page:The Harveian oration, 1873.djvu/54

Harvey that he never happened to perform it. For considering that, like Haller, he knew nothing of the contractility of arteries; considering that Hunter had not performed his now well-known experiments with the umbilical arteries; considering, Sir, that in that excellent work on Physiology by Johannes Müller, the translation of which in 1838, by our late and never sufficiently to be lamented friend Dr. Baly, we owe to your suggestion, I find several pages (vol. i, pp. 202-206, 214-219, ed. 1840) devoted to disproving the muscular contractility of arteries; considering, that it was not till three years later, in 1841, that Henle's work, already referred to, appeared with its still unsuperseded figures, Plate III, figures 8, 9, and 10 of the arteries with their circular muscular coat, and with its excellent summary in letterpress of the whole subject, pp. 518-526, and especially pp. 524, 525; when I consider that nothing of all this had been done, to leave unmentioned other advances connected with names of men yet living to speak for themselves and for us—I say it may have been well