THE EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF NATURE. 377 



he fell mightily in his practice ; 'twas believed by the vulgar that 

 he was crack-brained, and all the physicians were against him." Har- 

 vey lived, however, to see his doctrine generally accepted. But such 

 are the vicissitudes of time, that in our day an attempt has been made 

 to deprive him of the title of discoverer of the circulation, and give it 

 to an Italian physician, Cesalpino, because it has been found that a few 

 words of what he wrote can be construed into suggesting that a con- 

 ception of the circulation existed in his mind. Most ably and success- 

 fully have my predecessors in the delivery of this oration, Sir Edward 

 Sieveking and Dr. George Johnson, combated the claim that has been 

 put forward on behalf of Cesalpino, and maintained the position of 

 Harvey. 



Science prepares the ground for the exercise of art. The one — 

 science — is concerned with knowledge as knowledge ;-tbe other, with 

 the application of it to a practical end. Our art — our raison d'etre as 

 members of the medical profession— is to apply the knowledge of 

 medical science to the prevention of, cure or mitigation of, and allevia- 

 tion of the sufferings from disease — to secure, in fact, for man as natu- 

 ral a passage through life as happens to be attainable. We can not 

 prevent death. Lord Bacon, in his essay " De Morte," said : 



" iEque enim est naturale kominibug mori, ac nasci.*' 



True, it is as natural to die as to be born ; and Nature's laws must be 

 complied with. Our aim is to avert premature death. A certain 

 power, given to us at starting upon our existence, carries us on, 

 under exposure to the proper conditions or influences for keeping this 

 power going. But, in the exercise of its action, although for a while 

 it shows no signs of a failing tendency, yet assuredly it progresses to- 

 ward exhaustion and ultimate extinction. Accompanying, and doubt- 

 less dependent on, the declining power, and assisting in leading to its 

 becoming extinguished, there is an advancing deterioration of the ma- 

 terial organism in which the power is manifested. Such is what is 

 natural ; but many circumstances contribute to avert the natural, the 

 ordinary course being run. The power given to start with may not 

 be equal to the standard, and the issue of generation may, in conse- 

 quence, present itself under a weak and ill-developed form, easily fall- 

 ing a victim to influences that there ought to be strength enough to 

 resist. There may be a taint in the power derived by generation from 

 the parents — something transmitted by inheritance, which may give 

 rise to a tendency to the development of some structural deviation 

 from the natural state, or to the performance of one or other functional 

 operation of life, in a manner that does not conform with what may be 

 said to be strictly natural. It is a law of Nature for the offspring, 

 more or less closely, to assume the likeness of the parent, and likeness 

 in the shape of what is wrong may be assumed as well as in the shape 

 of what is riffht. 



