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from the air it is as if heat were rather enkindled within the fœtus, than repressed by the influence of the air. much, by the way, on the subject of Respiration; hereafter perhaps, I may treat it at greater length." That Harvey should have suspected the truth, to be revealed long afterwards, that heat was enkindled by respiration, is a most remarkable proof of his genius. For Chemistry may be said not to have been born till after the words just quoted were written. Harvey published his work on Generation in the year 1651, and at that time Robert Boyle was twenty-five years of age. Boyle has been called the Father of Modern Chemistry, and we are now on the threshold of the chemical era of medicine.

1 Harvey's Works, p. 530.

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DES CARTES.-SYLVIUS DE LA BOE.-ROBERT BOYLE. Des Cartes' birth-His exile in Holland-His death in Sweden-His Physical Philosophy-His Vortices-Futility of his Physical Speculations-Sylvius de la Boe-Guy Patin-Use and Abuse of Antimony-Dialogue on Blood-letting between Willis and Van Helmont-Sylvius' Theory of Digestion-Guy Patin's Definition of Cardinal Mazarin-Bonteke's Praise of Tobacco-Robert Boyle -His Studies-Inclination towards Medicine-Just Estimate of ChemistryObjections to Compound Prescriptions-Expectation from Specifics-Objections to Specifics answered.-The Dose of a Specific.-Boyle the Expounder of the Baconian System of Medicine.

DES CARTES was born in 1596, Sylvius in 1614, twelve years before Bacon's death; and Boyle in 1627, the year Bacon died. René Des Cartes, or Latinised, Renatus Cartesius, "was a gentleman of Brittany, a military man, possessing, in the highest degree," says his distinguished countryman, "our defects and our qualities; clear, firm, resolute, somewhat rash; thinking in his closet with the same intrepidity with which he fought under the walls of Prague." He

1 C. Van Dalen, junior, del. et sculpt.

2

2 Victor Cousin's History of Modern Philosophy.

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