The Harve Ian Oration

THE HARVEIAN ORATI ON DELIVERED B EFORE THE RO"AL COLLEGE OF PH"SICIANS OF LONDON N 1 1 0 O OCTOBER 3, 9 1 M D N M M . OR AN OORE , F E OW OF THE CO EG E A SSISTA NT P H"SICIA N A ND ECTURE R LL LL , L ON THE P R INCIP LE S A ND P RA CTICE OF MEDICINE ’ TO ST B A RTHO OMEW S HOSP ITA . L L L O ND O N J HN MU R R A " A B E MA R E ST RE E T O , L L X 1 90 1 SIR WI IAM SE B" CHURCH B LL L , ART. PRESIDENT OF THE RO"AL COLLE GE OF PH"SICIANS OF LONDON AND TO THE FELLOWS OF THE COLLEGE THIS ORATION DELIVERED BEFORE THEM IS RESPE CTFULL" DEDICATED B" NORMAN MOORE MR . P F W OF THE C G RESID ENT , ELL O S OLLE E , A ND G ENTLE MEN HONOU RING US B " "OU R P C TO - DA " RESEN E . I T has long been the custom in the several ancient colleges of our universities to commemorate the founder and the benefactors on some particular . of l day The members the Col ege are assembled , the history of the Foundation is related with due solemnity, and the names of the benefactors are mentioned with honour and gratitude . Dr. l e Wi liam Harvey , the illustrious man by whos We - i i r injunction are assembled to day , was fam l a w for ith this custom , it was enj oined by the founder of his College at Cambridge, Dr . John Caius , a physician who not only possessed learn ing, but venerated it , and had considered those ceremonies and decorations which are as appro riate fine p to learned societies as the paper, well formed type , and beautiful bindings , in which great scholars and great readers such as Aldus and Grolier and Thuanus and Bentley It was delighted to see good literature clothed . T H E H A RV E I AN O RA T I O N Caius who gave us the silver rod which our President carries at every meeting of the College . He desired that we should be ruled with the mildness and clemency which a silver sceptre typifies , while the four serpents which ornament the sceptre are to remind the President that wisdom is to govern his conduct . w Dr Caius , when in London , lived ithin the ’ e nclosure of St . Bartholomew s Hospital , and 1 5 56 the first College feast was held there in , exactly a hundred years before the delivery of the first Harveian Oration . There Dr . Caius d 1 5 3 ied in 7 , a benefactor of the study of medi cine in which he was the first Englishman to write ‘ a n original description of a diseasefi to learning in general by the foundation of his College at Cambridge , to the poor of London by a gift to ’ St . Bartholomew s Hospital , and to this College I n in several ways . his annals of Caius College a 6 resolution is recorded under the date October , 1 53 1 , Turging the duty of gratitude and of the remembrance and record of benefactors . Thus it was early in life , at Caius , that Harvey learned the value of such acts of public gratitude B l A oke, or Counsell against the disease commonly cal ed The Swea te S wea t n Sickn esse Ihon or y g ; made by Caius, docto ur Phisi k 1 5 2 in c e . 5 . i . J V Information kindly given by Dr . enn of Caius C ollege . T H E H A RV E I A N O RA T I O N - a s his . that which , on institution , we keep to day G f Sir eorge Paget, a ormer Fellow of Caius and l of this Col ege , Regius Professor of Physic in the University of Cambridge, and an example there all of that a physician should be , has shown that it was probably the teaching of anatomy , insti tuted l in his Col ege by Caius , which led Harvey to those studies in which his fame is immortal . There , too , he was imbued with the spirit of good fellowship in learning which was then n prevalent in the University , and has ever Si ce pervaded its atmosphere . Caius had fostered i in this Sp rit the College he founded , which , robed in the architectural garb of the Renaissance , a ppropriately comes into the view of a visitor to Cambridge immediately after the foundation of n . Ki g Henry VI , refulgent with the last glorious ae rays of medi val learning . The poets who knew Cambridge have told in verse what every man , worthy of a liberal educa ’ tion , has felt . Milton of Christ s , disposed as he ff i was to resist the natural e ect of relig ous art, was nevertheless profoundly affected by great architecture , and has left the world the better by the impression which he received as an under graduate from the Chapel of King’ s But let my due feet never fail To C walk the studious loisters pale, 9 T H E H A RV E I AN O RA T I O N And love the high embowed roof, With antic pillars massy proof, A nd storied windows richly dight, Casting a dim religious light . ’ Wordsworth of St . John s , trying to study the depths of his own mind , found himself deeply affected by his surroundings I could not print Ground where the grass had yielded to the steps O f u generations of ill strious men, Unmoved . I could not always lightly pass h Through the same gateways, sleep where t ey had slept, Wake where they waked , range that enclosure old, n That garden of great i tellects, undisturbed . Cowley of Trinity, a lesser poet than these , seems by the power with which he expressed another of the feelings of University life almost ’ to justify Clarendon s remark that in his time he had in poesy “ made a flight beyond all ” men . "e fi elds of Cambridge, our dear Cambridge, say Have ye not seen us walking every day, Was there a tree about which did not know The love betwixt us two . The introduction into the family of great minds , the permanent association with a vener of able collegiate home and its usages , the ties 1 0 T H E H A R V E I AN O RA T I O N friendship : by all these Harvey had been influenced during his residence at Cambridge 9 3 1 9 from 1 5 to 5 8 . When he migrated to this of College in the midst a busy world , Fumum et O stre itum ue ae pes p q Rom , yet devoted to one of the highest branches of dl . learning, he was kin y received Two physicians deserve commemoration for their early kindness : to him one was Dr . Ralph Wilkinson of Trinity College , Cambridge , in relation to whom he ’ occupied at St . Bartholomew s the position now which , Mr . President , I have the honour with infinite advantage and satisfaction to myself to occupy towards you . The other was Dr . Lancelot Browne of Pembroke College , Cam of bridge, who had been one the proctors in 1 5 3 7 , the year in which Edmund Spenser of that College took his degree . Perhaps Browne was one o f the learned wits of whom the poet was thinking when he celebrated the Cam in the F airie Queen My mother Cambridge whom as with a crown, He doth adorne and is adorned of it, With many a gentle muse, and many a learned wit . ’ " It was Dr . Browne s daughter Elizabeth 1 6 4 whom Harvey married in 0 . We B - on know little about her, but her portrait at urley 1 1 T H E H ARV E I A N O RAT I O N His life in our College was one of con tinued friendship and learned conversation . He was welcomed in his youth , applauded in W his discoveries , venerated in his age . hen his life ended in 1 6 57 his body was accom panied beyond the walls of the city by the President and the whole College on its way to its last resting - place at Hempstead in Essex . Our College was of about one - tenth its present e size when Harvey was admitt d , but it was nevertheless a society in which a great variety of learning was to be found , and where a man d could spend his ays with advantage . His entrance into it was gradual , for those were “ the days , as Clarendon says , when men were seen some time before they were known , and well ’ known before they were preferred . Harvey s relations with this College began in the first year . 2 1 1 603 of King James At a meeting April , , the Fellows had discussed whether they should go out to meet the King at his entry into London and salute him solemni oratione At 4 1 6 03 the next meeting on May , , Mr. Harvie , doctor of medicine in the University of Padua , attended and presented himself for examination , - of the Hill shows her to have been tall, a dark complexion and somewhat severe aspect . 1 2 T H E H A RVE I AN O RA T I O N and when examined answered to all questions ” ff sufficiently well .

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