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beginning with those forms of vitality, which display the greatest simplicity of organization, and concluding with others, in the contrivances of whose structure complexity and perfection unite.
But if John Hunter were happy in the novelty and success of his physiological researches, he was quite as much so in the investigation of disease, his views of which were characterized by a degree of truth, boldness, and originality, certainly never surpassed, and possibly never equalled, in the labours of any other individual. Such, indeed, was the influence of the facts brought to light by his genius and industry, that the scientific parts of surgery were probably more improved by what he did, than by the discovery of the circulation itself.
Our countryman, William Harvey, immortalized himself principally by the dispersion of the dense mists of error and prejudice, which concealed from the penetration of other men the true course of the blood, and the respective uses of the heart, veins, and arteries.
