18 THE HUNTERIAN ORATION.
blish it were conducted, and which has gained for Harvey so exalted a reputation. Let it be remembered that Harvey occupied nine years in the examina- tion of the proofs of the circulation before he ventured to publish it. He wanted not the caution enforced in the Baconian maxim.—‘ Manete paulisper, ut expediamus celerius.”*
The eighteenth century is a period to be marked in the history of anatomy, from its relation to the present state of the science, and as it brings into our view an assemblage of more distinguished men than were, at any other period, engaged in its cultivation. In the year 1725 Haller studied at Leyden, where Boerhaave, in the height of his fame, was delivering his preelections. “Tneredibili cum voluptate prelectiones audivi, ” writes Haller, in his Bibliotheca.t Albinus then delivered in the same University, the lectures on anatomy and surgery. Also at Amsterdam was Ruysch, advanced in years, yet still ardent in the cultivation of anatomy, and at the same period was Winslow in Paris, and Cheselden in London. — Men so justly eminent, all co-operating in the advance of anatomy, must, by their commanding influence, have cleared the way for the exercise of the energies of William Hunter, who in the immediately succeeding period, founded the London school, wherein were first delivered, complete
- De expediendis negotiis.
+ Bibliotheca Anatomica, Tom ii. page 195. �
