MODERI^ DEVELOPMENTS OF HARVEY'S WORK IN THE 

 TREATMENT OF DISEASES OF THE HEART AND CIRCU- 

 LATION.i 



By Dr. T. Lauder Brunton, F. R. S. 



This annual meeting in memory of Harvey is usually associated with 

 feelings of pleasure and. happiness, for it was intended by its immortal 

 founder to commemorate the benefactors of the college and to encourage 

 good fellowship among us. 



Such commemoration of those who have benefited the college in the 

 past, although it necessarily recalls many who have passed away, is, 

 notwithstanding, on ordinary occasions, ])leasant instead of painful, 

 because the feeliug of loss through then- death is completely over- 

 powered by the lecollection of the good they have done m their lifetime. 

 To-day the case is very different, for the first thought that nuist needs 

 occur to everyone present here is that on this occasion last year our 

 late jjresident showed for the first time what seemed to be imperfect 

 fulfillment of his duty to the college by being late in his attendance at 

 the meeting. Perhaps nothing else could have shown more clearly his 

 deep concern for the welfare of the college and his thorough devotion 

 of every faculty of mind and body to its interests than the fact that 

 no duty, no pleasure, and no press of occupation could tempt him to 

 leave one iota of his work in the college undone. The only thing that 

 did keep him back was the hand of death, which, although at the last 

 meeting he and we knew it not, was already laid upon him. Tliough 

 his death was less hapi)y than that of the great Harvey, inasmuch as 

 he lingered on for days instead of hours after he was first struck down, 

 yet their deaths were alike in this respect that, up to the time of the 

 fatal attack, each was in the full possession of his faculties, each was 

 in the enjoyment of his life. Like Radclifte and Mead, like Ilalford 

 and Baillie, and like many other distinguished fellows of this college, 

 the greatness of Clark is to be estimated not by the i)ublished works 

 which he has left behind but by the infiuence he exerted on his con- 



'Tbe Harveian oration, delivered at the Royal C'ollei;e of Physicians on October 

 18, 1894, hy Dr. T. Lander Bruntou, F. R. S. Printed in Natnre, No. 1304, ^\)l. L, 

 October 25, 1894. 



■j9 



