The wisdom of the body : the Harveian oration delivered before the Royal College of Physicians of London, on St. Luke's day, 1923 / by Ernest H. Starling.
- Starling, Ernest Henry, 1866-1927.
- Date:
- 1923
Licence: In copyright
Credit: The wisdom of the body : the Harveian oration delivered before the Royal College of Physicians of London, on St. Luke's day, 1923 / by Ernest H. Starling. Source: Wellcome Collection.
10/36 (page 8)
![would sail, and every day, by the co-operation of all branches of science, our means of conveyance are becoming more swift and sure. Only labour is required to extend almost without limit our understanding of the human body and our control of its fate. i ] I ' Harvey’s Greatest Gift to the World. Great as was the gift which Harvey gave to us in his discovery of the circulation of the blood, greater still was the method he taught us of formulating and solving the. problems which we continually encounter in our endeavours to control disease. For countless ages man¬ kind had learned slowly and painfully by experience. The more observant had from time to time noticed certain recurring sequences in the infinity of fortuitous phenomena continually presented to them, and as a result man had by slow degrees improved his lot and his powers over the forces of Nature. But how slow was the rate of progress. There is no evidence that the age-long duration of the period during which man had only sticks and stones to defend himself and to procure his food, the long delay in the discovery of the working of bronze and later of iron, are to be ascribed to any mental inferiority of those men as compared with those of the present day. What was lacking was the method. Mankind had advanced by fits and starts as the result of discoveries which were probably accidental, and these discoveries spread gradually along the lines of commerce and culture by imitation and the implicit copying of ritual. But with the realisation of the possibilities of the method of experiment, i.e. the creation and repetition of a chosen experience under controlled conditions, such as we find in its full development in Harvey’s treatise, man came](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b30800985_0010.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
