Page:History of the Royal Society.djvu/343

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
the Royal Society.
317

least long-liv'd Lamps, and Registers of Furnaces, and the like, for keeping a perpetual Temper, in order to various uses; as hatching of Eggs, Insects, production of Plants, Chymical Preparations, imitating Nature in producing Fossils and Minerals, keeping the Motion of Watches equal, in order to Longitudes and Astronomical uses, and infinite other advantages.

He was the first Author of the Noble Anatomical Experiment of Injecting Liquors into the Veins of Animals: An Experiment now vulgarly known; but long since exhibited to the Meetings at Oxford, and thence carried by some Germans, and publish'd abroad. By this Operation divers Creatures were immediately purg'd, vomited, intoxicated, kill'd, or reviv'd, according to the quality of the Liquor injected. Hence arose many new Experiments, and chiefly that of Transfusing Blood, which the Society has prosecuted in sundry Instances, that will probably end in extraordinary Success.

This is a short account of the Principal Discoveries which Dr. Wren has presented or suggested to this Assembly. I know very well, that some of them he did only start and design; and that they have been since carry'd on to perfection, by the industry of other hands. I purpose not to rob them of their share in the honour: Yet it is but reasonable, that the original Invention should be ascrib'd to the true Author, rather than the Finishers. Nor do I fear that this will be thought too much, which I have said concerning him: For there is a peculiar reverence due to so much excellence, cover'd with so much modesty. And it is not Flattery but Honesty, to give him his just praise; who is so far from usurping the fame of other men,

that