crime that I had dared to depart from the precepts and opinions of all anatomists; others desired further explanations of the novelties, which they said were both worthy of consideration, and might, perchance, be found of signal use.

Then he says, to allay the envy of uncandid minds, and of the minds who ignorantly "have traduced me publicly": "I have been moved to commit these things to the press, in order that all may be enabled to form an opinion, both of me and my labors."

Harvey, it is believed, was the first to be persecuted by the profession for making discoveries at variance with the drift of public thought and opinion. But he was not the last. Persecution for opinion's sake is the inevitable consequence of the recognition of oracles in the pursuit of truth. The philosopher has no guide in that pursuit, but the truth itself; no authority in the spoken word; no "Thus saith the Lord," to put an end to further research; no Paul, no Pope, Origen, Eusebius, nor Tertullian; no Hippocrates, Aristotle, or Galen; nothing but the truth will answer for him, and to that end he must see for himself, as Harvey did, as all the great masters of thought and diction did before him and shall forever do. Harvey was a type of the truly scientific man, of which the last century was so full; men who questioned nature, and waited answers with patience and no haste.

Harvey's attitude to science and discovery was

more like the Father of Medicine than any man before his time. His modesty, his reserve, his laborious attention to details, the absence of pretension or desire to vaunt himself, which characterized this sage, were only excelled by Hippocrates. Dr. Willis, the translator of Harvey's books, says:

Harvey, besides being physician to the King (Charles I.) and household, held the same responsible situation to the families of the most distinguished among the nobles and men of eminence of his time, among others, to the Lord Chancellor Bacon, whom, Aubrey informs us, "he esteemed much for his wit and style, but would not allow to be a great philosopher. So he said to me: 'he writes philosophy like a Chancellor,' speaking in derision."

We think the very modest criticism of Bacon by Harvey was just, and that time will fully justify its wisdom, if indeed, it has not already done so.

Harvey's penetration never failed him [Willis goes on to say]; the philosopher of fact cared nothing for the philosopher of prescription; he who was dealing with things, and through his own inherent powers exhibiting the rule, thought little of him who was at work upon abstractions, and who only inculcated the rule from the uses he saw others making of it. Bacon has many admirers, but there are not wanting some in these present times who hold with his illustrious contemporary, that "he writes philosophy like a Chancellor."

The writer of that sentiment, be it observed, was a physician who by his anatomical discoveries left a permanent impression on the history of medicine.

To the same period with Harvey belongs the celebrated French surgeon, Henri François Le Dran. Le Dran was born in Paris in 1685, and died in 1770. He wrote a treatise on Lithotomy, and was the first to perform the lateral operation for that malady. He also wrote "Observations on Surgery," and another work on "Gunshot Wounds." His skill as a surgeon had not been excelled. His operative procedures were preeminently conservative and original. In surgical dressing Le Dran made use of oil and deodorants, seeking by such means union of wounds by first intention. It was his wont constantly to admonish his pupils to trust more to Nature—the All-Heal of the Master-to assist, not to thwart her. Le Dran was a contemporary of the celebrated Hunter, but not his equal as an anatomist. No man of that period could claim to be that. The Royal Society of London made Le Dran a Fellow.

An English contemporary of Le Dran was William Cheselden, who deserves more than a brief mention. William Cheselden was one of the most celebrated surgeons of his time. He was born in Leicestershire in 1688, and died in 1752. Cheselden was a pupil of the eminent surgeon Cooper, and in turn became a preceptor of John