518 
delivered the Lumleian lectures in which he 
is supposed to have expounded his doctrine 
of the circulation of the blood; two years later 
the first Pharmacopzia Londinensis was is- 
sued by the college. The civil wars reduced 
the college to the greatest distress. Unable to 
pay an assessment by Parliament of five 
pounds per week, and its rent to St. Paul’s, 
it was in danger of being sold by auction, 
when Dr. Baldwin Hamley came to the rescue, 
purchased house and garden himself, and with 
the utmost generosity presented them to his 
colleagues two years afterwards. Prosperity 
followed, for in 1653-4 the munificence of 
Harvey enriched the college with a museum, 
a “noble buildmg of Roman architecture,” 
stocked with valuable and curious contents, 
and a library of medical books, treatises on 
geometry, geography, astronomy, music, op- 
tics, natural history and travels. But this 
prosperity was not long continued. After 
Harvey’s death in 1657, the treasury was 
nearly empty, lectures were suspended, large 
numbers of physicians were living and prac- 
tising without a license within the liberty of 
the college, examinations were discontinued. 
The creation in 1664 by Sir Edward Alston 
of upwards of seventy honorary Fellows, both 
brought unlicensed practitioners under the 
authority of the college and replenished its 
coffers. But in 1665, during the great plague, 
most of the Fellows and officers of the college 
fled the city, and thieves broke in and stole 
the whole of the contents of the treasury chest. 
On September 5, 1666, the great fire consumed 
the whole of the college buildings; only the 
charters, annals, insignia, some instruments 
and portraits, and 140 printed books in the 
library were saved. The premises in Amen 
Corner were never rebuilt, and the college 
remained homeless until its new buildings in 
Warwick Lane, designed by Sir Christopher 
Wren, were opened without ceremony on May 
13, 1674. This commodious and stately build- 
ing occupied four sides of a quadrangle en- 
closing a large paved court, on the east side 
of which was erected at Sir John Cutler’s ex- 
pense a spacious anatomical theater. The 
SCIENCE 
[N. S. Vou, XLVIII. No. 1247 
other sides of the quadrangle contained the 
library, ccenaculum, censors’ room and other 
public apartments. At the back of the college 
were the botanical garden, and in 1684 a 
noble library building was presented by the 
Marquess of Dorchester. Here the college 
stood for 150 years; all that remains of it now 
is the beautiful Spanish oak wainscoting, the 
gift of Hamley, which lines the Censors’ 
Room in Pall Mall, and two colossal statues of 
Cutler and Charles II, which may be seen in 
the Guildhall Museum. At the end of 150 
years the college buildings had become dilapi- 
dated, Warwick Lane was a slum, the popula- 
tion and fashion had moved westwards, and a 
more convenient situation for the Royal Col- 
lege of Physicians was a necessity. Mainly 
through the influence of Sir Henry Halford, a 
grant of land was obtained from the Crown at 
a cost of £6,000 in Pall Mall East, and on it 
the present college building, designed by Sir 
Robert Smirke, was erected and opened with 
great ceremony on June 25, 1825. The prem- 
ises in Warwick Lane were sold for £9,000. 
One may regret their disappearance, and that 
it is no longer possible to people them with» 
the shades of those who have made the history 
of medicine and of this famous college during 
150 years of its life. The names of such are 
Mayerne, Glisson and Sydenham, exponents 
of clinical medicine, followed by Radcliffe, 
Garth, Arbuthnot,Freind, Sloane and Meade, 
and last but not least, William Heberden. All 
of these have made their mark in the history 
of medicine, and directly or indirectly have 
been associated with the history of the college. 
The quartercentenary of the Royal College of 
Physicians of London reminds us that, in 
spite of modern progress, we can not afford 
to neglect the learning of past ages. 
SPECIAL ARTICLES 
SUGGESTIONS REGARDING THE CAUSES OF 
BIOELECTRIC PHENOMENA 
BrorLectRic phenomena constitute a group 
of facts for which adequate and satisfactory 
explanations have hitherto been lacking. It is 
my purpose in this paper to point out certain 
