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persons diseased—worn out by serious and strange affections—how and in what way the internal organs were changed in their situation, size, structure, figure, consistency, and other sensible qualities, from their natural form and appearances. And just as the inspection of healthy and well-constituted bodies contributes essentially to the advancement of philosophy and sound physiology, so does the inspection of diseased and cachectic subjects powerfully assist philosophical pathology.’[1]
Just a century later, Morgagni, in his great work, ‘De Sedibus et Causis Morborum per Anatomen indagatis,’[2] brought honour to his own name and to Harvey’s own University of Padua, by doing excellently well what Harvey had done before. Still we cannot but lament the destruction of Harvey’s finished manuscript, which might have set our art forward by a hundred years. We regret the lost treasure as we do the
‘Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearls,
Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels,
All scattered at the bottom of the sea.’
