THE HARVEIAN ORATION

1873. JMk. President and Fellows of the College of Physicians: — A man whose lot it is to live away from London may well feel some diffidence in accepting an invitation to lec- ture before a metropolitan audience; and, Sir, when you honoured me by requesting me to deliver this year's Harveian Oration, I felt and expressed this natural hesitation. I wish to record that you pointed out to me that my function in Oxford was to pursue and lecture publicly upon the very subjects with which Harvey occupied him- self; and I suggested to myself that what could with any propriety form the substance of a course of lectures in the one place, could, mutatis mutandis, furnish materials for an address in the other. I felt besides, that, as the President of the College of Physicians is by virtue of his office one of the five electors