Page:The Harveian oration 1866.djvu/50

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42

"my velvet gowne to my lo friend Mr Doctor Scarbrough desiring him & my lo friend Mr Doctor Ent to looke "over those scattered remnant of my poore Librarie & "what bookes, papers or rare Collections they shall "thinke fit to present to the Colledge & the rest to be "sold & with the money buy better." (Harvey's Works, edited by Willis, p. xciii.)

It is therefore certain

1. That Harvey wrote much more than has yet been published.

2. That many of his writings which are supposed to have been lost or destroyed at the plundering of Whitehall did not so perish, but were in Harvey's own possession long subsequently to that occurrence.

And it is probable

That some of his unpublished papers passed after his death into the hands of Drs Scarbrough and Ent, and from them to the College of Physicians. It is at least presumable that these papers were valuable, and it is surprising that they were never published, the more so when we consider the estimation in which Harvey was held. His dissection of Thomas Parr, the MS. of which was in private hands, was published in 1669, i. e. twelve years after his death; and some Anatomical notes attributed to him were read at a meeting of the Royal Society in 1687, and published in their proceedings. Yet of his papers bequeathed to the College of Physicians we know