The heart and nervous system : being the Harveian oration, delivered before the Royal College of Physicians of London on October 18, 1902 / by David Ferrier.

  • Ferrier, David, 1843-1928.
Date:
1902
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The heart and nervous system : being the Harveian oration, delivered before the Royal College of Physicians of London on October 18, 1902 / by David Ferrier. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    mechanics of the circulation, and in this he practically reached finality. But he naturally pondered over many cognate problems which have continued to exercise physiologists and psychologists to the latest times. It was evidently his intention to deal with these in a separate treatise, for, among other things, in his second letter to Riolan, he says :— We also observe the signal influence of the affections of the mind when a timid person is bled and happens to faint. Immediately the flow of blood is arrested, a deadly pallor over- spreads the surface, the limbs stiffen, the ears sing, the eyes are dazzled or blinded. . . And what indeed is more deserving of attention than the fact that in almost every affection, appetite, hope or fear, our body suffers, the countenance changes, and the blood appears to course hither and thither. . . . But here I come upon a field where I might roam freely and give myself up to speculation. And indeed such a flood of light and truth breaks in upon me, occasion offers of explaining so many pro- blems, of resolving so many doubts. . . . that the subject seems almost to demand a separate treatise. And it will be my business in my Medical Observations to lay before my