8 THE HUNTERIAN ORATION.
cine, as might be supposed, the dry annals of olden times, the naked chronicle of events and dates ; they are full of instruction and amusement, shedding an agreeable light on the subjects of our present occupa- tion in making us, as it were, to live with some of the greatest of intellects, and the best of men of former ages. The works of Portal* and of Sprengel} are complete in their object of recording the successive efforts of centuries in rearing the noble edifice of medicine ; and go elaborately has this been done, that upon eyery stone in the building has been inscribed the name of the individual by whom it was placed there. —With respect then to the history of Anatomy and Surgery, to mark, and comment upon some of the epochs of their advance, is the simple object to which I shall confine myself.
The art of Surgery, so closely interwoven with the necessities of a people, once established, would, we might suppose, be permanent. But it has been other- wise with the ancient Hindoos; for, among this re- markable people, as we learn from the recent translations of their original classic language, surgery was in ages past, practised in its highest departments, yet it has subsequently disappeared, at a period, and from the operation of circumstances, which the historian has not
%* Histoire de lAnatomie et de la Chirurgie, vii. tom, 12mo. + Histoire de la Médécine depuis son origine jusqu’au dix- neuviéme sicle, Trad. par A.J. L, Jourdan, ix. tom. 8vo. �
