On inheritance of mental characters : the Harveian oration for 1910 delivered before the Royal College of Physicians of London on October 18 / by H.B. Donkin.

  • Donkin, Horatio Bryan, Sir, 1845-1927.
Date:
1910
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: On inheritance of mental characters : the Harveian oration for 1910 delivered before the Royal College of Physicians of London on October 18 / by H.B. Donkin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    his intentions. Harvey's motives were determined by the conditions of his time. Very prominent in this deed of gift is his intense desire to promote concord among the College members. The deed virtually begins and ends with insistent and particular warn- ings against discord, delicately though these warnings are expressed in terms of earnest call to professional harmony. Even the time-honoured order “ to exhort the Fellows to search and study out the secrets of Nature by way of experiment, brief as it is in com- parison with his other and more emphatic injunctions, seems to echo his regret for the prevalent dogmatism and intellectual apathy of the physicians of his day. Doubtless Harvey enjoyed the high appreciation of many colleagues to whom he imparted his great discovery before giving it to the world. He was President Elect of this College. But it may be sug- gested, in view of his manifest superiority of intellec- tual grasp, that his commands were largely inspired by his sense of the defects of his medical contemporaries. Medical England was not ready for Harvey, albeit the spirit of science was abroad in the land, richly informing1 other branches of knowledge. This college, until long after his time, achieved little to foster even such a cpiest after a scientific basis for medical art as had been followed with insight by the great Greeks of old. Instead of encouraging scientific work by various honours and awards, as it does in