THE y LIBRARY OMIVJERSITY OF C SAN DIEGO IA JULIA. CALIFORNIA 3 182202463 3554 The growth of Truth The Growth of Truth Illustrated in the Discovery of the Circulation of the Blood BEING THE HARVEIAN ORATION DELIVERED AT THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS, LONDON, OCTOBER 18, 1906 WILLIAM OSLER, M.D., F.R.S. REGIUS PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD LONDON HENRY FROWDE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE AMEN CORNER, E.C. 1906 OXFORD : HORACE HART RINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY THE GROWTH OF TRUTH AS ILLUSTRATED IN THE DISCOVERY OF THE CIRCULATION OF THE BLOOD I. ONLY those of us, Mr. President and Fellows, who have had the good fortune to hold the distinguished position which by your kind grace, Sir, I hold to-day, only those of us who have delivered the Harveian Oration, can appreciate the extraordinary difficulties besetting a subject, every aspect of which has been considered, very often too, by men who have brought to the task a com- bination of learning and literary skill at once the envy and the despair of their successors. But I take it, Sir, that in this Ambarvalia or commemorative festival for blessing the fruits of our great men, ordained definitely as such by him whose memory is chiefly in our minds to-day, our presence here in due order and array, confers distinction upon an occasion of which the oration is but an incident. But, honour worthy of such a theme should be associated with full knowledge of the conditions under which these great men lived and moved ; and here comes in the real difficulty, because it is rarely possible to bring the fruits of independent critical investigation into their lives and works. Par- ticularly hard is it for those of us who have had to live the life of the arena : our best efforts bear the stamp of the student, not of the scholar. In my own case, a deep 6 THE GROWTH OF TRUTH reverence for the mighty minds of old, and a keen appreciation of the importance to our profession of a study of history, may be put in the scales against defects as to the appreciation of which I have still remaining sufficient self-detachment. The lesson of the day is the lesson of their lives. But because of the ever-increasing mental strain in this age of hurry, few of us have the leisure, fewer still, I fear, the inclination, to read it thoroughly. Only with a knowledge of the persistency with which they waged the battle for Truth, and the greatness of their victory, does the memory of the illustrious dead become duly precious to us. History is simply the biography of the mind of man ; and our interest in history, and its educational value to us, is directly proportionate to the completeness of our study of the individuals through whom this mind has been manifested. To understand clearly our position in any science to-day, we must go back to its beginnings, and trace its gradual development, following certain laws, difficult to interpret and often obscured in the brilliancy of achievements laws which everywhere illustrate this biography, this human endeavour, working through the long ages ; and particularly is this the case with that history of the organized experience of the race which we call science. In the first place, like a living organism, Truth grows, and its gradual evolution may be traced from the tiny germ to the mature product. Never springing, Minerva- like, to full stature at once, Truth may suffer all the hazards incident to generation and gestation. Much of history is a record of the mishaps of truths which have struggled to the birth, only to die or else to wither in premature decay. Or the germ may be dormant for centuries, awaiting the fullness of time. THE GROWTH OF TRUTH 7 Secondly, all scientific truth is conditioned by the state of knowledge at the time of its announcement. Thus, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, the science of optics and mechanical appliances had not made possible (so far as the human mind was con- cerned) the existence of blood capillaries and blood corpuscles. Jenner could not have added to his Inquiry a discourse on immunity ; Sir William Perkin and the chemists made Koch possible ; Pasteur gave the condi- tions that produced Lister ; Davy and others furnished the preliminaries necessary for anaesthesia. Every- where we find this invariable filiation, one event follow- ing the other in orderly sequence' Mind begets mind,' as Harvey says; 'opinion is the source of opinion. Democritus with his atoms, and Eudoxus with his chief good, which he placed in pleasure, impregnated Epi- curus; the four elements of Empedocles, Aristotle; the doctrine of the ancient Thebans, Pythagoras and Plato ; geometry, Euclid ' (De Generation^). And, thirdly, to scientific truth alone may the homo mensura principle be applied, since of all mental treasures of the race it alone compels general acquiescence. That this general acquiescence, this aspect of certainty, is not reached per saltum, but is of slow, often of difficult, growth marked by failures and frailties, but crowned at last with an acceptance accorded to no other product of mental activity is illustrated by every important discovery from Copernicus to Darwin. The growth of Truth corresponds to the states of knowledge described by Plato in the Theaetetus acquisi- tion, latent possession, conscious possession. Scarcely a discovery can be named which does not present these phases in its evolution. Take, for example, one of the most recent : Long years of labour gave us a full know- 8 THE GROWTH OF TRUTH ledge of syphilis; centuries of acquisition added one fact to another, until we had a body of clinical and pathological knowledge of remarkable fullness. For the last quarter of a century we have had latent posses- sion of the cause of the disease, as no one could doubt the legitimate inference from discoveries in other acute infections. The conscious possession has just been given to us. After scores of investigators had struggled in vain with the problem, came Schaudinn with an instinct for truth, with a capacity to pass beyond the routine of his day, and with a vision for the whole where others had seen but in part. It is one of the tragedies of science that this brilliant investigator, with capabilities for work so phenomenal, should have been cut off at the very threshold of his career. The cancer problem, still in the stage of latent possession, awaits the advent of a man of the same type. In a hundred other less important problems, acquisition has by slow stages become latent possession ; and there needs but the final touch the crystal in the saturated solution to give us conscious possession of the truth. But when these stages are ended, there remains the final struggle for general acceptance. Locke's remark that 'Truth scarce ever yet carried it by vote anywhere at its first appearance ' is borne out by the history of all discoveries of the first rank. The times, however, are changing ; and it is interesting to compare the cordial welcome of the pallid spirochaete with the chilly reception of the tubercle bacillus. Villemin had done his great work, Cohnheim and Salmonson had finally solved the prob- lem of infectivity, when Koch published his memorable studies. Others before him had seen the bacillus, but the conscious possession of the truth only came with his marvellous technique. Think of the struggle to THE GROWTH OF TRUTH 9 secure acceptance! The seniors among us who lived through that instructive period remember well that only those who were awake when the dawn appeared assented at once to the brilliant demonstration. We are better prepared to-day ; and a great discovery like that of Schaudinn is immediately put to the test by experts in many lands, and a verdict is given in a few months. We may have become more plastic and receptive, but I doubt it ; even our generation that great generation of the last quarter of the nineteenth century, had a practical demonstration of the slowness of the accepta- tion of an obvious truth in the long fight for the aseptic treatment of wounds. There may be present some who listened, as I did in October, 1873, to an introductory lecture at one of the largest of the metropolitan schools, the burden of which was the finality of surgery. The distinguished author and teacher, dwelling on the remarkable achievements of the past, concluded that the art had all but reached its limit, little recking that within a mile from where he spoke, the truth for which he and thousands had been striving now a conscious possession in the hands of Joseph Lister would revo- lutionize it. With scores of surgeons here and there throughout the world this truth had been a latent posses- sion. Wounds had healed per primam since Machaon's day; and there were men before Joseph Lister who had striven for cleanliness in surgical technique; but not until he appeared could a great truth become so manifest that it everywhere compelled acquiescence. Yet not without a battle a long and grievous battle, as many of us well knew who had to contend in hospitals with the opposition of men who could not not who would not see the truth. Sooner or later insensibly, unconsciously the iron io THE GROWTH OF TRUTH yoke of conformity is upon our necks; and in our minds, as in our bodies, the force of habit becomes irresistible. From our teachers and associates, from our reading, from the social atmosphere about us we catch the beliefs of the day, and they become ingrained part of our nature. For most of us this happens in the haphazard process we call education, and it goes on just as long as we retain any mental receptivity. It was never better expressed than in the famous lines that occurred to Henry Sidgwick in his sleep : We think so because all other people think so; Or because or because after all, we do think so ; Or because we were told so, and think we must think so ; Or because we once thought so, and think we still think so; Or because, having thought so, we think we will think so. In departing from any settled opinion or belief, the variation, the change, the break with custom may come gradually; and the way is usually prepared; but the final break is made, as a rule, by some one individual, the masterless man of Kipling's splendid allegory, who sees with his own eyes, and with an instinct or genius for truth, escapes from the routine in which his fellows live. But he often pays dearly for his boldness. Walter Bagehot tells us that the pain of a new idea is one of the greatest pains to human nature. ' It is, as people say, so upsetting ; it makes you think that, after all, your favourite notions may be wrong, your firmest beliefs ill-founded ; it is certain that till now there was no place allotted in your mind to the new and startling inhabitant ; and now that it has conquered an entrance, you do not at once see which of your old ideas it will not turn out, with which of them it can be reconciled, and with which it is at essential enmity.' It is on this account that the man who expresses a new idea is very THE GROWTH OF TRUTH n apt to be abused and ill-treated. All this is common among common men, but there is something much worse which has been illustrated over and over again in history. How eminent soever a man may become in science, he is very apt to carry with him errors which were in vogue when he was young errors that darken his understanding, and make him incapable of accepting even the most obvious truths. It is a great consolation to know that even Harvey came within the range of this law in the matter of the lymphatic system it is the most human touch in his career. By no single event in the history of science is the growth of truth, through the slow stages of acquisition, the briefer period of latent possession, and the for us glorious period of conscious possession, better shown than in the discovery of the circulation of the blood. You will all agree with me that a Fellow of this college must take his courage in both hands who would, in this place and before this audience, attempt to discuss any aspect of this problem. After nearly three centuries of orations the very pictures and books in this hall might be expected to cry out upon him. But I have so taken my courage, confident that in using it to illustrate certain aspects of the growth of truth I am but obeying the command of Plato, who insists that principles such as these cannot be too often or too strongly enforced. There is a younger generation, too, the members of which are never the worse for the repetition of a good story, stale though it may be in all its aspects to their elders ; and then there is that larger audience to be considered to which the season is never inappropriate to speak a word. 12 THE GROWTH OF TRUTH II. The sixteenth century, drawing to a close, had been a period of acquisition unequalled in history. Brooding over the face of the waters of mediaevalism, the spirit of the Renaissance brought forth a science of the world and of man which practically created a new heaven and a new earth, and the truths announced by Copernicus and Galileo far transcended the searching schoolmen's view And half had staggered that stout Stagyrite. Among other things, it had given to medicine a new spirit, a new anatomy, and a new chemistry. In the latter part of the fifteenth century Hippocrates and Galen came to their own again. A wave of enthusiasm for the fathers in medicine swept over the profession ; and for at least two generations the best energies of its best minds were devoted to the study of their writings. How numerous and important is that remarkable group of men, the medical humanists of the Renaissance, we may judge by a glance at Bayle's Biographic Medicate, in which the lives are arranged in chronological order. From Garbo of Bologna, surnamed the expositor, to Rabelais, more than 150 biographies and bibliographies are given, and at least one-half of these men had either translated or edited works of the Greek physicians. Of our founder, one of the most distinguished of the group, and of his influence in reviving the study of Galen and so indirectly of his influence upon Harvey, Dr. Payne's story still lingers in our memories. Leonicenus, Linacre, Gonthier, Monti, Koch, Camerarius, Caius, Fuchs, Zerbi, Cornarus, and men of their stamp not only swept away Arabian impurities from the medicine of THE GROWTH OF TRUTH 13 the day, but they revived Greek ideals and introduced scientific methods. The great practical acquisition of the century was a new anatomy. Vesalius and his followers gave for the first time an accurate account of the structure of the human body, and while thus enlarging and correct- ing the work of Galen, contributed to weaken the almost divine authority with which he dominated the schools. Nearly another century passed before chemistry, in the hands of Boyle and others, reached its modern phase, but the work of Paracelsus, based on that of the ' pious Spagyrist ', Basil Valentine, by show- ing its possibilities, had directed men's minds strongly to the new science. Of the three, the new spirit alone was essential, since it established the intellectual and moral freedom by which the fetters of dogma, authority, and scholasticism were for ever loosened from the minds of men. Into this world, we may say, stepped a young Folke- stone lad, when, on the last day of May, 1593, he matriculated at Cambridge. Harvey's education may be traced without difficulty, because the influences which shaped his studies were those which had for a century prevailed in the profession of this country. We do not know the reason for selection of Caius College, which, so far as I can gather, had no special connexion with the Canterbury school. Perhaps it was chosen because of the advice of the family physician, or of a friend, or of his rector ; or else his father may have known Caius; or the foundation may already have become famous as a resort for those about to ' enter on the physic line '. Or, quite as likely, as we so often find in our experience, some trivial incident may have turned his thoughts towards medicine. When he came i 4 THE GROWTH OF TRUTH up in 1593, there were those of middle age who could tell racy stories of Caius, the co-founder of the college, against whose iron rule they had rebelled. 'Charged not only with a show of a perverse stomach to the professors of the Gospel, but with Atheism/ the last days of Caius's noble life were embittered by strife and misunderstanding. Doubtless the generous souls among them had long since learned to realize the greatness of his character, and were content to leave ' the heat of his faith to God's sole judgement, and the light of his good works to men's imitation ', with which words, half a century later, the inimitable Fuller concludes a short sketch of his life. I like to think that, perhaps, one of these very rebels, noting the studious and inquisitive nature of Harvey, had put into the lad's hand the little tractate, De libris propriis, from which to glean a know- ledge of the life and works of their great benefactor. The contemplation of such a career as that of Caius could not but inspire with enthusiasm any young man. No one in the profession in England had before that time reached a position which I may describe as European. An enthusiastic student and the friend of all the great scholars of the day ; a learned commentator on the works of the Fathers ; the first English student in clinical medicine; a successful teacher and practi- tioner ; a keen naturalist ; a liberal patron of learning and letters ; a tender and sympathetic friend Johannes Caius is one of the great figures in our history. Nor need I dwell, before this audience, on his devotion to our interests, other than to say that the memory of no Fellow on our roll should be more precious to us. Four years hence, on October 6, will occur the quater- centenary of his birth. As well in love as in gratitude, we could celebrate it in no more appropriate manner, THE GROWTH OF TRUTH 15 and in none that would touch his spirit more closely, than by the issue of a fine edition of his principal works (including the MS. annals of the College). For the preparation of this there are those among us well fitted, not less by veneration for his memory than by the possession of that critical scholarship which he valued so highly. When Harvey set out on the grand tour, Italy was still the mater gloriosa studiorum ; to which one hundred years earlier, so tradition says, Linacre on leaving had erected an altar. The glamour of the ideals of the Re- naissance had faded somewhat since the days when John Free, an Oxford man, had made the ancient learn- ing his own ; and had so far bettered the instruction of his masters that he was welcomed as a teacher in Padua, Ferrara, and Florence. In a measure, too, the national glory had departed, dimmed amid the strife and warfare which had cost the old republics their indepen- dence. Many years earlier Fracastorius, one of our medical poets, had sung of her decadence : To what estate, O wretched Italy, Has civil strife reduc'd and moulder'd Thee ! Where now are all thy ancient glories hurl'd ? Where is thy boasted Empire of the world ? What nook in Thee from barbarous Rage is freed And has not seen thy captive children bleed? 1 And matters had not improved but had grown worse. In the sixteenth century Italian influence had sunk deeply into the social, professional, and commercial life of England, more deeply, indeed, than we appreciate ; - and it was not for a generation or two later that the candlesticks were removed from the Cisalpine towns to 1 Syphilis. Englished by N. Tate, 1686. 2 Italian Renaissance in England, Einstein. Macmillan, 1902. 16 THE GROWTH OF TRUTH Montpellier, Paris, and Leyden. In 1593 a well-to-do young Englishman who wished to study medicine thoroughly went to North Italy, and most naturally to Padua ' fair Padua, nursery of the arts ' whose close affiliations with us may be gathered from the fact that, of universities next to Oxford and Cambridge, she has given us more Presidents than any other. In the years that had passed since Vesalius had retired in disgust, the fame of its anatomical school had been well maintained by Fallopius, Columbus, and Fabricius, worthy succes- sors of the great master. Of each may be said what Douglas says of the first named : ' In docendo maxime methodicits, in medendo felicissimus, in secando expertissi- mus.' While the story of Harvey's student life can never be told as we could wish, we know enough to enable us to understand the influences which moulded his career. In Fabricius he found a man to make his life-model. To the enthusiastic teacher and investigator were added those other qualities so attractive to the youthful mind, generous sympathies and a keen sense of the wider responsibilities of his position, as shown in building, at his own expense, a new anatomical theatre for the University. Wide as was the range of his master's studies, embracing not alone anatomy but medicine and surgery, the contributions by which he is most distinguished are upon subjects in which Harvey himself subsequently made an undying reputation. The activity of his literary life did not begin until he had been teaching nearly forty years, and it is a fact of the highest significance that, corresponding to the very period of Harvey's stay in Padua, Fabricius must have been deep in the study of embryology and of the anatomy of the vascular system. His great work on generation was the model on which Harvey based his THE GROWTH OF TRUTH 17 own, in some ways, more accurate studies studies in which, as my colleague Professor Brooks of the Johns Hopkins University has pointed out, he has forestalled Wolf and von Baer. The work of Fabricius which really concerns us here is the de Venarum Ostiolis. Others before him had seen and described the valves of the veins, Carolus one of the great Stephani, Sylvius and Paul Sarpi. But an abler hand in this work has dealt with the subject, and has left us a monograph which for completeness and for accuracy and beauty of illustration has scarcely its equal in anatomical literature. Compare Plate VII, for ex- ample, with the illustrations of the same structures in the Bidloo or the Cowper Anatomy, published nearly one hundred years later; and we can appreciate the advantages which Harvey must have enjoyed in working with such a master. Indeed, it is not too far-fetched to imagine him, scalpel in hand, making some of the very dissections from which these wonderful drawings were taken. But here comes in the mystery. How Fabricius, a man who did such work how a teacher of such wide learning and such remarkable powers of observation, could have been so blinded as to overlook the truth which was tumbling out, so to speak, at his feet, is to us incomprehensible. But his eyes were sealed, and to him, as to his greater predecessors in the chair, clear vision was denied. The dead hand of the great Per- gamite lay heavy on all thought, and Descartes had not yet changed the beginning of philosophy from wonder to doubt. Not without a feeling of pity do we read of the hopeless struggle of these great men to escape from slavish submission to authority. But it is not for us in these light days to gauge the depth of the sacred venera- tion with which they regarded the Fathers. Their B i8 THE GROWTH OF TRUTH mental attitude is expressed in a well-known poem of Browning's : those divine men of old time Have reached, thou sayest well, each at one point The outside verge that rounds our faculty, And where they reached who can do more than reach ? Willing to correct observations or to extend anatomy by careful dissection, it was too much to expect from them either a new interpretation of the old facts or a knowledge of the new method by which those facts could be correctly interpreted. The ingenious explanation which Fabricius gave of the use of the valves of the veins to serve as dams or checks to the flow of the blood, so that it would not irrigate too rapidly and overflow the peripheral vessels to the deprivation of the upper parts of the limbs shows how the old physiology dominated the most distinguished teacher of the time in the most distin- guished school of Europe. This may have been the very suggestion to his pupil of the more excellent way. Was it while listening to this ingenious explanation of his master that, in a moment of abstraction dimly dreaming, perhaps, of an English home far away and long forsaken that there came to Harvey a heaven-sent moment, a sudden inspiration, a passing doubt nursed for long in silence, which ultimately grew into the great truth of I6I6? 1 The works of Vesalius, of Fallopius, and of Fabricius effected a revolution in anatomy, but there was not at the close of the sixteenth century a new physiology. Though he had lost an anatomical throne, Galen ruled 1 Boyle states that in the only conversation he ever had with him, Harvey acknowledged that a study of the valves of the veins had led him to the discovery of the circulation of the blood. THE GROWTH OF TRUTH 19 absolutely in all conceptions of the functions of the body, and in no department more serenely than in that relating to the heart, the blood and its movements. Upon his views I need not dwell further than to remind you that he regarded the liver as the source of the blood, of which there were two kinds, the one in the veins, the other in the arteries, both kinds in ceaseless ebb and flow, the only communication between these closed systems being through pores in the ventricular septum. He knew the lesser circulation, but thought it only for the nutrition of the lungs. The heart was a lamp which is furnished with oil by the blood and with air from the lungs. Practically until the middle of the seventeenth century Galen's physiology ruled the schools, and yet for years the profession had been in latent possession of a knowledge of the circulation. Indeed, a good case has been made out for Hippocrates, in whose works occur some remarkably suggestive sen- tences. 1 In the sixteenth century the lesser circulation was described with admirable fullness by Servetus and by Columbus, and both Sarpi and Caesalpinus had Hippocratic glimmerings of the greater circulation. These men, with others doubtless, were in latent posses- sion of the truth. But every one of them saw darkly through Galenical glasses, and theirs was the hard but the common lot never to reach such conscious posses- sion as everywhere to make men acquiesce. One must have the disinterestedness of the dead to deal with a problem about which controversy has raged, and in which national issues have been allowed to blur the brightness of an image which would be clear as day to those with eyes to see. Nor would I refer to a matter long since settled by those best competent to judge, had 1 Willis's Harvey, pp. 21-2. B a 20 THE GROWTH OF TRUTH not the well-known work of Luciani, the distinguished Professor of Physiology at Rome, appeared recently in German dress, edited by Professor Verworn, and spread broadcast views to which, with a chauvinism unworthy of their history, our Italian brethren still adhere. It has been well said 'that he alone discovers who proves', and in the matter of the circulation of the blood, this was reserved for the pupil of Fabricius. Skipping many arduous years we next meet him as Lumleian Lecturer to the College. III. The really notable years in the annals of medicine are not very numerous. We have a calendar filled with glorious names, but among the saints of science, if we know an era it is as much as can be expected perhaps because such men are less identified with achievements than representative of the times in which they lived. With many of our greatest names we cannot associate any fixed dates. The Grecians who made Hippocrates possible, live in memory with some theory, or a small point in anatomy, or in regard to the place of their birth; while the 'floruit' cannot always be fixed with accuracy. Hippocrates himself, Erasistratus, Galen, and Araetius have no days in our calendar. We keep no festival in their honour as the churches do those of St. Jerome and St. Chrysostom. It is not until after the Renaissance that certain years (anni mirabiles) stand out in bold relief as connected with memorable discoveries, or with the publication of revolutionary works. Nevertheless, only a few in each century ; even the sixteenth, so rich in discoveries, has not more than five or six such years, and not one of them is connected with work done in THE GROWTH OF TRUTH 21 this country. As to the seventeenth century, it is hard to name four made memorable by the announcement of great discoveries or the publication of famous works ; in the eighteenth century not three, while in the century just completed, though it is replete with extraordinary discoveries, one is hard pressed to name half a dozen years which flash into memory as made ever memorable by great achievements. Of the three most important, anaesthesia, sanitation, and antiseptic surgery, only of the first can the date be fixed, 1846, and that for its practical application. For the other two discoveries, who will settle upon the year in which the greatest advance was made, or one which could be selected for an anniversary in our calendar ? There is one dies mirabilis in the history of the College in the history, indeed, of the medical profes- sion of this country, and the circumstances which made it memorable are well known to us. At ten o'clock on a bright spring morning, April 17, 1616, an unusually large company was attracted to the New Anatomical Theatre of the Physicians' College, Amen Street. The second Lumleian Lecture of the annual course, given that year by a new man, had drawn a larger gathering than usual, due in part to the brilliancy of the demon- stration on the previous day, but also it may be because rumours had spread abroad about strange views to be propounded by the lecturer. I do not know if at the College the same stringent rules as to compulsory attendance prevailed as at the Barber Surgeons' Hall. Doubtless not, 1 but the President, and Censors, and Fellows would be there in due array ; and with the help 1 Mr. William Fleming, the College Bedell, calls my attention to the Statutes of that period. Under penalty of a fine all Fellows and candidates were commanded to attend for at least five years. 22 THE GROWTH OF TRUTH of the picture of ' The Anatomy Lecture by Bannister ', which is in the Hunterian collection, Glasgow, and a photograph of which Dr. Payne has recently put in our library, we can bring to mind this memorable occasion. We see the 'Anatomy', one of the six an- nually handed over to the College, on the table, the prosector standing by the skeleton near at hand, and very probably on the wall the very Tabulae of dissection of the arteries, veins, and nerves that hang above us to-day. But the centre of attention is the lecturer a small dark man, wand in hand, with black piercing eyes, a quick vivacious manner, and with an ease and grace in demonstrating, which bespeaks the mastery of a subject studied for twenty years with a devotion that we can describe as Hunterian. A Fellow of nine years' standing, there was still the salt of youth in William Harvey when, not as we may suppose, without some trepidation, he faced his auditors on this second day a not uncritical audience, including many men well versed in the knowledge of the time and many who had heard all the best lecturers of Europe. The President, Henry Atkins, after whose name in our Register stands the mysterious word ' Corb ', had already had his full share of official lectures, less burdensome three hundred years ago than now. Let us hope the lecture of the previous day had whetted his somewhat jaded appetite. The Censors of the year formed an interesting group : John Argent, a Cambridge man, a ' great prop of the college ', and often President, of whom but little seems known ; Richard Palmer, also of Cambridge, and remembered now only for his connexion with Prince Henry's typhoid fever, as Dr. Norman Moore has told us; Mathew Gwinne of Oxford, first Professor of Physic at Gresham College and a play- THE GROWTH OF TRUTH 23 wright of some note in his day ; and Theodore Goulston of Merton College, one of our great benefactors, and for 267 years past and gone purveyor-in-chief of reputa- tion to the younger Fellows of the College. Mayerne would be there, not yet a Fellow, but happy in his escape from the Paris Faculty; still dusty with conflict, he would scent the battle afar in the revolutionary state- ments which he heard. Meverell, fresh from incorpora- tion at Cambridge, also not yet a Fellow ; Moundeford, often President, whose little book Vir Bonus sets forth his life. Paddy, a noteworthy benefactor, a keen stu- dent, still gratefully remembered at Oxford, would have strolled in with his old friend Gwinne ; Baldwin Hamey the elder, also a benefactor, would be there, and perhaps he had brought his more interesting son, then preparing to enter Leyden, whose memory should be ever green among us. Let us hope Thomas Winston, probably an old fellow-student at Padua, and later appointed Pro- fessor of Physic at Gresham College, was absent, as we can then be more charitable towards the sins of omission in his work on Anatomy, published after his death, which, so far as I can read, contrary to the statement of Munk (Roll of the College), contains no word of the new doctrine. As an old Paduan, and fresh from its ana- tomical school, the younger Craige would not be absent. Fludd, the Rosicrucian, of course, was present; attracted, perhaps, by rumours of anti-Galenical doctrines which had served to keep him out of the College ; nor would he be likely to be absent at the festival of one whom he calls his ' physicall and theosophicall patron '. And certainly on such an occasion that able Aberdonian, Alexander Reid, would be there, whose 2o>/iaroypa