text:
Page:Zelda Kahan - Karl Marx His Life And Teaching (1918).pdf/15

 round its neck, and with it will vanish all the misery and degradation, all the carnage, the slaughter of the innocents, which takes place daily in slum and factory, and periodically on the bloody fields of battle. Then we shall be relieved of the shame of prostituting science to the gods of Mammon and War, and shall at last allow the beauties and wonders of Nature, the wonderful achievements of science, literature and art to be the common and inelienable heritage of every human being.

On February 22nd, 1848, a few weeks after the publication of the "Communist Manifesto," revolution again broke out in Paris, and amongst other places disturbances occurred in Brussels and, although previously the Belgium Government had refused to expel Marx at the bidding of the Prussian Government, it did so now. He went to Paris, took part in the movement there for a short time, and then went back to Germany, where the revolution was calling him. He went to Cologne and there started the Neue Rheinische Zeitung. Engels, who took a very active part in the paper, says: "It was the only paper in the democratic movement of the time defending the standpoint of the proletariat." Whilst advocating energetic and decisive action against the old order and its representatives, it nevertheless showed clearly that the destruction of the reactionary Government was but the beginning, not the end of the revolutionary struggle—that it would but pave the way for the real class struggle between the proletariat and bourgeoisie. It frankly supported the Paris July insurgents of 1848, although "it thus estranged nearly all its stockholders."

After repeated attempts, the Prussian Government at last felt itself strong enough to suppress the paper (May 19th, 1848), nearly a year after its appearance, and Marx was once more exiled. He went to Paris with a mandate from the Democratic revolutionary Central Committee, an insurrection being planned by the Democratic Party both for France and Germany. But this insurrection, which was chiefly the work of the radical middle-class, and took place June 13th, 1849, failed. Marx had to leave


text: Page:The Great Didactic of John Amos Comenius (1896).pdf/188

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
Page:Zelda Kahan - Karl Marx His Life And Teaching (1918).pdf/16

 France, and he went to London with his family, where he remained for the rest of his life.

Here, after the dissolution of the Communist League, which took place in 1852, Marx at first devoted himself to journalism and to his scientific studies. In London, leading the life of a poor political refugee, constantly worried by grave bread-and-butter problems for his family, Marx nevertheless managed to get through a tremendous amount of work. To earn a living he wrote a long series of articles for the New York Tribune on political conditions in Germany and on economic subjects. A brilliant study which will ever remain valuable for the student of Continental history of the time, this work was subsequently reprinted in book form under the title of Revolution and Counter-Revolution. At about this time Marx also wrote The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, a brilliant exposition of the Coup d'Etat of December 2nd, 1851. He also wrote a remarkable series of articles on the relations of Lord Palmerston to the Russian Government. "Urquhart's writings on Russia," says Marx, "had interested but not convinced me. In order to arrive at a definite opinion, I made a minute analysis of Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, and of the Diplomatic Blue Books from 1807 to 1850." Two pamphlets—one entitled Herr Vogt, exposing the hypocrisy of France and Prussia in their war of liberation on behalf of Italy against Austria and the other The History and Life of Lord Palmerston, are written in Marx s best, characteristic, satirical style, and in their small volume are veritable treasure stores of contemporary history.

In 1859 the Critique of Political Economy was published, giving for the first time an exposition of Marx's theory of value. In the introduction, he lays down the general theory which, once reached, served as the leading thread in his studies—namely, the dependence of the general character of the social, political and spiritual processes of life on the mode of production in material life, and this indeed runs throughout this and his other economic


text: Page:The Harveian Oration,1902.djvu/67

title: Page:The Harveian Oration,1902.djvu/67


text: Page:The Great Didactic of John Amos Comenius (1896).pdf/189


text: Around the World in Eighty Days (Towle)/Introduction


text: Page:The Great Didactic of John Amos Comenius (1896).pdf/190


text: Page:The Heart of England.djvu/10

title: Page:The Heart of England.djvu/10


text: Page:The life of and character of Marcus Portius Cato Uticensis - Theobald (1713).djvu/6


text: Page:The life of and character of Marcus Portius Cato Uticensis - Theobald (1713).djvu/33


text: Page:The life of and character of Marcus Portius Cato Uticensis - Theobald (1713).djvu/34


text: Page:The life of and character of Marcus Portius Cato Uticensis - Theobald (1713).djvu/35


text: Page:The life of and character of Marcus Portius Cato Uticensis - Theobald (1713).djvu/36


text: Page:The Heart of England.djvu/11

title: Page:The Heart of England.djvu/11


text: The Great Didactic of John Amos Comenius/The Great Didactic


text:
Page:The Harveian oration - delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, October 18th, 1899 (IA b24975941).pdf/20

 Percival Willoughby at Derby; and, during the occupation of Oxford by the King, Harvey finds time to be with Bathurst at Trinity College, and study, by the observation of eggs, the progress and way of generation. In short, Harvey's statement to Ent in 1650 that "the examination of the bodies of animals has always been my delight" is abundantly justified by the scanty facts of his personal history.

In the pursuit of natural knowledge Harvey never tired, because "the labour we delight in physics pain." He seems to have risen superior to the political violence of the time, and to have felt that the establishment of the facts of nature was of more importance than the ephemeral questions by which professional politicians seek ascendency. No man can successfully interrogate nature unless he be constitutionally honest, and it is not therefore surprising that Harvey should have earned the entire confidence of the King and Lord Arundel. It must be admitted that, considering the rancour of the times, he suffered singularly little at the hands of the Parliamentary Party. His papers appear to have been destroyed by a mob which visited Whitehall, but no harsh treatment was over meted out to Harvey by Cromwell or his subordinates. This fact is probably due, not only to the guileless simplicity of Harvey's character but to the sanity of the reformers. Cromwell could recognise a wise man when he met one, and, although he


text: The Great Didactic of John Amos Comenius/Notes


text: The Great Didactic of John Amos Comenius/The Great Didactic/Greeting to the reader


text:
Page:The Harveian oration - delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, London, on October 18, 1884 (IA b21778929).pdf/12

 This is, without doubt, true, as he said, of the "greater part," but it is not true of all; for our meeting here to-day is an assertion that there is, at least, one who has not yet found his grave in our vanishing powers of recollection; but whose life, unburied, still breathes in the lives of living, acting men.

It is not of the sorrows and "unavailing tears" that were shed, nearly two hundred and thirty years ago, over Harvey's grave, that it behoves me now to speak; but rather of the fact that nearly three centuries have passed since he became a part of this College; and yet, that only last year, on the eighteenth day of October, our College repaired to his grave in Hempstead, to do honour to his memory; and with gratitude and gladness to assert, as we do again to-day, that he still lives in his survivors;" and that, although the knells of three hundred and six years have been tolled since Harvey's life began, he, at the present hour is neither dead nor sleeping.

I. Let me ask you, for a few moments, to think over that act of last year. It is not meet to call it a ceremony" or "performance," for those words may have a doubtful meaning. It was a something done; and that with purpose. It was done with reverence and solemnity, and fitting formal circumstance. The like of it has not often been seen in this country. It was simple, but it told of much complex thought and feeling. It was grave, but it was not sad; it was official, but it was not heartless. It was unnecessary, but it was urgent; was a duty to the remains of Harvey, but it was also an honour to ourselves. Its voice could not provoke the silent dust," but its tone-not that of "flattery" to "soothe the dull, cold ear of death"-was such as could stir the now living "ear" and heart, and quicken the still acting brain. <<


text:
Page:The Harveian oration - delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, London, on October 18, 1884 (IA b21778929).pdf/13

 A. One thing that this College did last year was to show regard for the bodily remains of Harvey. There was a some- thing of him-that neither painting nor busteould be which it still wished to cherish. It would try to hold together, yet longer, the last remnants of what was once the medium through which he saw Nature, and by which he read many of her scerets, and revealed them. This wish is natural; and old because it is so. If some Eastern nations, in their great rever- enec for the Soul, have taken means to display their contempt for the Body which it has left, sueh peoples have been the ex- eeption. The Pyramids, the Abbeys, the great burial-grounds in town and country, and the world's great surface, seattered over with its complex or simple tombs, all tell the same story of regard for the dust and ashes of those who are gone. Even if the body has been burned, the Urn has been found to hold together the ashes that the flames have not had power to kill. We may know, and admit " to what base uses we may return;" but still, we resent or reeoil from the degradation. There is a widely spread human struggle against allowing the bodies of those we have known, and reverenced, and loved, to merge into the common carth. We set up our barriers against it; we entomb, and we embalm; we carry on a fight, as strong in feeling as it may be futile in effect, but still, a real fight, against physical disintegration. This may be all very foolish and unseientific; but yet, we will, if we ean, keep together something of the individual, so long as time and outside forces are not too strong for us; and we utter a parable, as we do so, of our regard not only for the bodies, but for the lives of those individual men, as we tell of, or come to know them, in the thousand biographies, that surround us, caeh one of which is, in its very essenee, "a feeble struggle with death."

The notion that some spark or germ of life might lie hidden in the ashes that were buried or inurned ("lateat


text:
Page:The Harveian oration - delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, London, on October 18, 1884 (IA b21778929).pdf/14

 scintillula forsan") may have had much to do with the careful keeping of the ashes, in the past; but that is not all. Even if Science could quite put out this faint "scintilla," the human Instinct would remain; and would show itself beside almost every open grave, and sometimes display itself in suchi solemn and remarkable event as that which took place last year at the tomb of Harvey.

It was a graceful and an honourable act of this College to take upon itself the work of "Old Mortality;" and to travel away from its ordinary home that it might chisel afresh the marbles that held the remains of its greatest son; -but, much more than this was accomplished at that time, for therein was shown a profound and still living affection, reverence, and gratitude for Harvey's life.

B. We, again to-day, would do homage to the life of Harvey; looking at it in its threefold aspect of moral, mental, and active energy. We commemorate his character; his rare combination of faculties; and his work achieved. In him there was that due proportion between all his powers which a great thinker of this generation has regarded as the root-fact of what we call " genius."

i. We like to picture to ourselves what lie, now dead in body, resembled when he lived; how he thought; and about what he thought; how and what he did; in what light he regarded his own work; its relation to the work of others; to his ancestors in science, to his immediate predecessors, his associates, his antagonists; and to those who must come after him.

This is as natural as is the regard for the bodily remains; but it is on a higher level. Ancient "songs" handed down, in earlier days, the noble deeds, thoughts, words, and characters, of those whom it was a religion to venerate, and whose Our short memory it was a bounden duty to prolong.


text:
Page:The Harveian oration - delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, London, on October 18, 1884 (IA b21778929).pdf/15

 biographies in epitaphs, our longer biographies in books bear witness to our dislike to the cremation of ideas and of individual life. There is, doubtless, much disintegration and cremation, of a very healthy sort, always going on among the works of the living as well as of the dead; and very small Urns might hold all that is worth keeping of the life-work of many. Still, even on these, we should like to engrave the names. Perhaps, in most lives, there are many things that those who lived them might gladly see burned away; but (as Sir Thomas Browne says) "we cannot hire oblivion," and even if "a wise oblivion be a greater good than a strong memory," we still like to preserve the individuality of the really great ones of the earth, and that, with all their faults; and we resent as we do with quite small people-either a flattering, or disparaging, or a one-sided picture.

Reading Harvey's own writings, his theses, their introduc- tions, their dedications, his disquisitions, exercises, letters and "obiter dicta," we find him writing, all unconsciously, his own biography; and this confers an unspeakable charm upon his works. He does not tell us of his birthplace, or parent- age, or where he was taught, or how he lived-which, thanks to many who have written of these things, from Aubrey and Ent to Willis, we know fairly well-but he reveals his very soul and life, his method of work, and his mode of thinking about it all; as he spent those long years of research, experiment, discovery and disputation, together with all the toils of a teacher, and the cares of a busy practitioner of medicine.

Thoughts, discoveries, and lives are quickly disintegrated in this fast-moving, restless age, the rate of whose movement shows acceleration every year; and so there is much indi- vidual work that must soon pass into, and be lost in the sun of common knowledge, and become only the ground- work upon which many a superstructure may be raised; but


text:
Page:The Harveian oration - delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, London, on October 18, 1884 (IA b21778929).pdf/16

 the personality of Harvey can never be lost sight of, so long as this College stands, and so long as there are men who care to "read between the lines" of his great works, and find in them the portrait of himself.

It is important, in our attempt to realize this portrait, that we should look-in order to appreciate its value-at the background of the time in which the great artist sketched it.

a. Harvey's work of discovery, like that of all great dis- coveries-into whatever reach of knowledge and of thought they may have broken-was not unprepared. Men were, in his time, cagerly looking for a light that they felt sure was coming; and there were streaks of dawn in the Eastern sky, that led them to find the Man, and the Truth, for which they had been seeking; so that what before had been myste- rious, was now clear; what had been dark, was now illumined; what they had sought for, now they found.

The contents of the "shell," on the like of which Harvey afterwards wrote so much, were teeming with a growing life that showed but vague signs upon its smooth, unbroken surface; but Harvey broke the shell, and there burst forth at once, into a seen life, a form and meaning for which all the growing processes within that shell were made. There was a new thing, a new thought, a new generalization. There was the solution of the problem of yesterday, the answered riddle, the platform for to-morrow's work.

All honour to those who, toiling slowly in the night, or in the dawn, with its mist and mystery, have yet made some headway forward and upward, and prepared the path for one among them, who has shared their labour, their weariness, their disappointments, and their woes; but, who suddenly makes, as it were, a leap to a wider range or to a higher level; and, thence, holds out the hand of strength and fellowship to place them by his side. We honour the


text:
Page:The Harveian oration - delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, London, on October 18, 1884 (IA b21778929).pdf/17

 worker, wherever he may be, so long as his labour is honest, and is his best; but we have only scant words to express the regard in which we hold the man whose discerning thought and practised skill has lifted all work- men higher; opened to them new ranges for their toil; given them new methods to follow, and left behind him footprints in which some of them may tread, as he goes before them, and passes out of sight.

The peoples in this world have been always fighting, from the days of Cain and Abel until now; but yet there is a book, written not so very long ago, with the title of "The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World," and perhaps time is yet too young for any one to say that a sixteenth has been fought. But, in the great conflicts of schools of science, of thought, and of discovery with regard to human life, can we put our finger upon even so many as "fifteen" who have made such marks in history that their works have followed them "decisive battles " gained? If there be, let us gladly thank all the great heroes who led these fights; but, if we look among them, there is no one, whom the gathered-up roll of leaders in the world of thought can show, who stands on a higher plane than does our own immortal Harvey. as

b. If we would appreciate the value of his work, we must read the writings and become familiar with the beliefs current at his time. We may find their echoes in his replies to his opponents, and see quite plainly that the notions he had to contend with were not even " guesses at truth," but often merely pompous assertions of meaningless nothings-" traditions vainly received,"-but yet held with the cramp-like grasp of drowning men who clutch at straws, and yet uttered with the confidence of those, who might be supposed, from the loudness of their cry, to be standing firmly and steadily on solid ground.

Those who held them were quite incapable of perceiving


text:
Page:The Harveian oration - delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, London, on October 18, 1884 (IA b21778929).pdf/18

 that they were empty dogmata, without one particle of substance in their constitution, or one square inch of fact upon which to plant themselves. They seem so nonsensical now, that it is almost impossible for us to imagine Harvey caring to reply to them. But, in his day, they were very real, very vexatious, and very hard to bear. To us, they are less than distorted dwarfs, but to him, they were giants whom he had to fight, and with whom he did wrestle hard. As in the glory of an acknowledged triumph, and in the brilliancy of its reward, we may lose sight of the hard fighting, the heavy blows, the waiting, the misrepresentation by enemies, and the desertion by his friends, through which the Hero passed, as he fought and won; and, as he himself-when he can say with thankfulness and truth "I have fought a good fight " may forget, amidst the acclaim of acknowledged victory, the horrors of the battle-field-although the fighting had been very real, and the blows were very hard ;-so, Harvey, in the Iull of opposition seems to have been sometimes at rest, and in full enjoyment of the results of his fierce struggle; but while his own conception of the truth was developing day by day and month by month, he struggled hard with the prejudices, the open attacks of jealous competitors, and the scandal of men, too dull to originate, too small to think, too dishonest to appreciate, and too weak to yield. When his great discovery saw the day, his soul rejoiced that a new Truth was born, and, it may be, that he forgot the travail of its birth. But, for all that, the pain had been very real, and it must have needed all his confidence, all his perseverance, all his energy, and all his patience to have borne the trial without once wincing at the pain.

Having said these few things with regard to the preparation made for Harvey by those who had preceded him; and having glanced at the conditions surrounding his active life;


text: The Heart of England

title: The Heart of England


text:
Page:The Harveian oration - delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, London, on October 18, 1884 (IA b21778929).pdf/19

 let me call your attention to his forethought, and instructive prevision of some of the results obtained by the labours of those who followed him.

c. Great men have always foreseen much; or, at all events, have said or seen things of which they perhaps did not, and could not fully appreciate the meaning. They have scattered gerins of thought around them, as they passed, through the varying fields of life, to the point, or end that their determination impelled them to attain; and some of these seeds of future discovery have "fallen on good ground, and brought forth fruit." There is here some instance of the process of "Evolution" in regard to scientific discovery. Harvey reaped much that he had not sown; but he sowed much more which others, after him, might reap.

The evolution of scientific discovery-which is a matter of simple fact-suggests questions, which cannot be discussed on this occasion, but which we may do well to consider.

Is there any "spontaneous generation" of ideas?

Can man ever do anything outside the lines in which his forefathers thought and reasoned ?

Can he originate anything, as by a "sport;" or, must all that he can think or know, be but the outgrowth of the germ-thoughts of others; or, the mere learning of details quite far away from what we mean by discovery?

There is ancient authority for believing that "There is no new thing under the sun;" but has there been no new thought? If creative energy be limited in matter; is it also limited in mind? If there has, ever, been an act of "creation," may not such an act be repeated ?

May I not further ask, if, in the words of the really great Men, there are so many fertile seeds, which alone are the germs of all that is to come, we may not, instead of adopting hastily, as we sometimes do, the most charming generalizations of the last few years, and saying, along these lines


text: Page:The Heart of England.djvu/266

title: Page:The Heart of England.djvu/266


text:
Page:The Harveian oration - delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, London, on October 18, 1884 (IA b21778929).pdf/20

 all thoughts must run, rather adopt the mood of the great scientific poet of Nature, and feel that "seeing of a thousand seeds, she scarcely brings but one to bear," we should join him in his doubt, and "tremble where we firmly stood"?

If it be that Harvey was right-which modern scientific observation has shown that he was not, when he suggested that the force which converted sterility into fertility was one that pervaded the whole body,' and might last almost indefinitely; then, upon analogy, we might argue that the thought of the great discoverers of all past time may have fertilized the whole race of the thinkers that followed them, and of the thinkers yet unborn; and so " discovery" and "originality" are " surds;" for they could have had no beginning. To this it may be replied-The modern appliances of scientific research have shown that, in some points, Harvey had no means of correcting the dicta of his forerunners by his favourite appeal to Nature. Is it not possible then that we are as yet unsupplied with all the apparatus criticus for determining whether or no there is such a possibility as an "original thought?"

i. As a means of estimating the largeness of Harvey's mind, and the wide range of his vision, and how much there was that he "saw" but scarcely can be said to have "looked at," let me recall to your notice some of the more interesting of his previsions, as forming part of the work of the individual whose memory we meet to-day to cherish. We find him saying, "In general the first processes of Nature lie hid, as it were, in the depths of night, and by reason of their subtlety escape the keenest reason no less than the most piercing eye." In another paper, "All living things. . . . derive their origin from a certain primary some-

1 Thesis on Conception, p. 576, in edition of the works of Harvey, by Dr. Rt. Willis, for the Sydenham Society. 2 Anatomical Exercises on the Generation of Animals, p. 225.


text: Page:The Heart of England.djvu/267

title: Page:The Heart of England.djvu/267


text:
Page:The Harveian oration - delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, London, on October 18, 1884 (IA b21778929).pdf/21

 thing or primordium which contains within itself both the 'matter' and the efficient cause;' and so is, in fact, the matter out of which, and that by which, whatsoever is produced is made.' Again, "It appears advisable to me to look back from the perfect animal, and to inquire by what process it has arisen, and grown to maturity, to retrace our steps from the goal to the starting-place; . . . . so that we shall perceive from what primary matter and from what efficient principles, and in what way from these this plastic form proceeds. Further on, in the same paper, we find him saying, "Man comes into the world naked and unarmed as if Nature had desired that he should be guided by reason rather than be driven by force; therefore did she endow him with understanding, and furnish him with hands that he might himself construct what was necessary to his clothing and protection. To those animals to which Nature has given vast strength, she has also presented weapons in har- mony with their powers; to those that are not thus vigorous she has given ingenuity, cunning, and singular dexterity in avoiding injury." In connection with this, he proceeds to mention the ornaments . . . . offensive weapons, teeth, horns, spurs, and other implements employed in combat the subject of dispute being, no empty or vainglorious matter, but the perpetuation of the stock in this line or in that; as if Nature intended that he who could best defend himself and his, should be preferred to others for the con- tinuance of the kind,"

In the passages just read, we have, as it appears to me, very much the same ideas as are now conveyed by the terms "protoplasm; " " the relation of man and animals to their environments;" and the doctrine of "the survival of the fittest,"

a Thesis on the Uterine Membranes and Humours, p. 554. 4 Introduction to Excreises on the Generation of Animals, p. 163. 5 Ibid. p. 425. Ibid. p. 426.


text:
Page:The Harveian oration - delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, London, on October 18, 1884 (IA b21778929).pdf/22

 With reference to the significance of the primordium, the protoplasın, as seen by Harvey, let me read another passage from his writings. Speaking of the lowest forms of life known to him, he says, "these have no heart, as not re- quiring any impeller of nourishment into the extreme parts; for they have bodies which are connate and homogeneous, and without limbs; so that by contraction and relaxation of the whole body they assume and expel, move and remove the aliment. . . . . The whole is used as a heart, or the whole animal is a heart."7 Further on, "All local motion proceeds from and has its original in the contraction of some part." ""S

Here we have, as it seems to me, an account of the simplest form of life; his counterpart of the "Amoba," as we may find it described in the most modern and, to my mind, one of the most able text-books of physiology of our day." In anger

ii. Another interesting forecast of Harvey's is found in his pointing to the local variations in blood-supply, as being dependent upon the vessels. He describes the extremities as becoming cold, "the nose and cheeks and hands looking blue;"¹ 10 the fact that in almost every affection, appetite, hope, or fear, our body suffers, the countenance changes, and the blood appears to course hither and thither. the eyes are fiery and the pupils contracted; in modesty the checks are suffused with blushes; in fear, and under a sense of infamy, and of shame, the face is pale, but the ears burn as if for the evil they heard or were to hear."" blood," he continues, "varies greatly (in its rate of force and movement) according to age, sex, temperament, habit of body, and other contingent circumstances, external as well "The

7 An Anatomical Disquisition on the Motion of Heart and Blood, p. 76. 8 Ibid. p. 81. 9 Introduction to Michael Foster's Text-book. 10 On the Motion of Heart and Blood, p. 69. 11 Disquisitions on the Circulation of the Blood, addressed to John Riolau, p. 129.


text:
Page:The Harveian oration - delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, London, on October 18, 1884 (IA b21778929).pdf/23

 as internal, natural or non-natural."¹2 In another place he "We allow to the arteries the same motions which we says, concede to the heart-viz., a diastole and a systole, or return from the distended to the natural state; this much we be- lieve to be effected by a power inherent in the coats them- selves." 13

The direct object of Harvey in this passage is to show that the heart distends the arteries, and that they collapse by their own contractility; but, taken in conjunction with the other passages that have been quoted, it gives a fore- cast of what is now of such immense advantage to us- viz., a knowledge of "vaso-motor change."

He perceived the altered calibre of vessels; he saw this in both contraction and dilatation; he referred this to a power inherent in the coats themselves; he pointed out the relation between these changes and external conditions ; also between them and emotional excitement or depression, and yet again, to contingent internal circumstances.

A hundred and eighteen years after Harvey published his treatise on the Circulation, Robert Whytt, the President of the Royal College of Physicians, in the sister City of Edinburgh, wrote these words: "Some grow pale upon anger; which effect may be owing to a spasm, or con- tinued contraction of the small arteries of the face, by which the motion of the blood will be retarded;" and again, further on, "In blushing, the increased motion of the fluids through the vessels of the face is accompanied with a glow. . . .;" and yet again, "The sense of cold and shivering is owing to a spasmodic contraction of these vessels, in con- sequence of that irritation which the nervous system suffers from the febrile stimulus or the beginning inflammation."¹4

Disquisitions on the Circulation of the Blood, addressed to John Riolan, p. 128. 13 Page 113. 14 On the Nature, Causes and Cure of Nervous, Hypochondriac and Hys- terical Disorders, pp. 64, 221.


text:
Page:The Harveian oration - delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, London, on October 18, 1884 (IA b21778929).pdf/24

 Whytt does not discuss the circulation of the blood as described by Harvey, he assumes it as an established dogma; he makes no allusion to any anterior suggestion of change in the calibre of vesscls; but he seems, chronologically, to hand down the light of Harvey's torch to these more recent days, in which Claude Bernard, Lister, Brown-Séquard, and others have shown, by their researches, the importance of the knowledge that we now possess of the vaso-motor systemi of nerves, and its effects upon the function and structure of organs; as well as its relation to the doctrine, diagnosis, and treatment of disease.

iii. Another illustration of Harvey's speculation, and forecasting of ideas, comparatively new to us, but occurring to him as the result of his observations on the mysteries of generation, will have special interest now. "Let physicians cease to wonder [he says] at the manner in which cpidemic, contagious and pestilential diseases scatter their seeds and are propagated to a distance through the air, or by some fomes,' producing diseases like themselves, in bodies of a different nature, and in a hidden fashion, silently multiply- ing themselves by a kind of generation, until they become so fatal, and, with the permission of the Deity spread destruc- tion far and wide among man and beast; since they will find far greater wonders than these taking place daily in the generation of animals." 15

We seem to hear in this sentence the thoughts suggested by the works of Pasteur, Koch, and many others; and while feeling with them, with Seneca (whom Harvey quotes), and with himself that there is truth in saying "agents greater in number and of more efficiency are required in the construc- tion and preservation of an animal than for its destruc- tion . . . .;" yet, following Harvey, as he followed Sencca in seeing the analogy between the origins of disease and the

15 On Generation, p. 322.


text:
Page:The Harveian oration - delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, London, on October 18, 1884 (IA b21778929).pdf/25

 processes of generation, wonder with him, as he exclaims, "How long a time is conception to be carried out to parturi- tion with what labour and tenderness is an infant reared but by what a nothing is it destroyed! It takes an Such age to establish cities, an hour to destroy them." 16 thoughts may lead us to ask ourselves-in face of the recent calamities in Marseilles, Naples, and Toulon-do these visitations give sanction to the law of the "survival of the strongest," which was the idea of the generalization of Harvey, or "survival of the fittest," which was that of Darwin? Man dies, nations become extinct, but the Microbe lives on. His earnest cultivators provide him with change of scene, of temperature, of food, and all possible surrounding conditions; and we may almost fancy that we hear the well-tended, and well-cultivated tyrant siuging, to some ghastly accompaniment,-

"Men may come, and men may go; But I go on for ever."

iv. It is difficult to refrain from giving yet another illustra- tion of the mode and degree to which Harvey had forestalled or prepared the way for one of the greatest discoveries since his own time-viz., that of the "reflex action" of the spinal cord. In a letter to Horst, written in 1654-5, he says, looking forward to the work of those who were to follow him, and speaking of himself as "not only far stricken in years, but afflicted with more and more in- different health. . . . I do not doubt but that many things still lie hidden in Democritus's well that are destined to be drawn up into the light by the indefatigable diligence of coming ages."" Following up this thought we find him saying, in his Exercises on Generation, after dis- tinguishing between the action of the organs of sense, 18 On Generation, p. 322. 17 Letters, to Horst and others, p. 613.