William Harvey

Ttiic greater the man the greater are his potentialities for good or for evil, and in many instances for both good and evil. The influence of many great men lias been during their lifttime almost entirely good, yet much harm has been done in their names through the unreasoning hero-worship of posterity. For fifteen hundred years, commencing from the second century of the Christian era, the teachings of Galen had the most remarkable influence on the practice of medicine. This influence, which extended from Asia Minor and Egypt, throughout Europe and even as far east as India, was for the most part a benign influence, but in the lMvi and 16th centuries there was probably no one factor which held up the advance of medical science more than the blind adherence of the leading physicians and teachers of those times to the Galenical principles. The modern tendency is perhaps not to honour the past sufficiently but to us nothing seems more stupid than this unintelligent following of ancient dogma. Weie it possible for Galen to come to life again, although he would be at first bewildered, we fee.