The valvular structure of the veins, anatomically and physiologically considered, with a view to exemplify ... the wisdom, power and goodness of God, as revealed ... in Holy Writ. The Warneford prize essay, for the year1838 / by Thomas Clarke Roden.

Date:
1839
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The valvular structure of the veins, anatomically and physiologically considered, with a view to exemplify ... the wisdom, power and goodness of God, as revealed ... in Holy Writ. The Warneford prize essay, for the year1838 / by Thomas Clarke Roden. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

    22/72 (page 16)
    could throw in its path. This bright and shining discovery was doomed to struggle (but still for a very short time) with the obscurity in which science was then involved. But it soon beamed forth in all its splendour, and dissipated that darkness, and so became at last the guiding star to all those blessings and benefits, which Medical and Surgical science is now able, under God’s blessing, to bestow on the sick and suffering. The wisdom When we behold this apparatus, our wonder is ness of God on}y equalled by our gratitude. We are lost in the manifested J 1 J 0 in this vai- admiration of the wisdom and goodness displayed vularappa-. . 0 JJ rams. in its formation ; we are astonished that structures apparently so frail, should year after year, without cessation, continue to fulfil their functions without derangement. Nor is their peculiar conformation less worthy of praise, than their durability; if, instead of the delicate texture of these valves, they were formed more dense and thick, they would offer as much resistance to the onward course of the blood as to its reflux. But as they are wisely con- stituted, they present no opposition to the current forwards, being closely attached to one side of the vessel; but, in the event of a retrograde movement, their loose edge is dislodged, and being stretched out by the pressure of the blood across the channel, . form barriers to its further recess. And here again, we observe the superintendence of a God of mercy and wisdom ; for, if it were possible for the weight of the column of blood to reverse or invert the valves, the whole object of this beautiful mechanism