Page:The Harveian oration, 1875 (IA b22314611).pdf/10

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them grouping themselves into two equal classes, the one devoted to Harvey and his labours, the other to some topic connected with modern discovery and research.

Among those who have chosen to discourse of Harvey, some (like my immediate predecessor Dr. West), have set him before us in “ his habit as he lived others (among whom Dr. Rolleston deserves special mention, as having made an important discovery bearing on the question of Harvey’s originality) have maintained Harvey’s claim to be considered the real discoverer of the circulation; and one (I speak of my friend and former colleague. Dr. Arthur Farre), handling a subject of which he is an acknowledged master, showed us how Harvey, in his treatise on Generation, displayed the same ability as in that great discovery with which his name is more generally associated.

It is with this class of Harveian Orators that I elect to associate myself; and the more willingly, as certain physiological questions connected with the circulation were the first of a strictly scientific character which attracted my own attention.

Harvey entered on his work of discovery with some considerable advantages. He came of a

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