"If we examine the great eras in civilization, Medicine will be found to have progressed as rapidly as the physical sciences generally. The discoveries of Columbus and successive navigators, were not earlier nor more important in geography, than those of Mondini, Beranger, Vesalius, and Sylvius, in anatomy. Copernicus did not earlier conceive the errors of the Ptolemaic astronomy, than Servetus, R. Columbus, and Cesalpine the errors of Galenic physiology; and Galileo, who demonstrated the movements of the earth and planets around the sun, was a cotemporary with Harvey, who demonstrated the circulation of the blood. The universal law of Newton for the solar system, was not greatly in advance of that of Haller of the laws and special forces of life. If the great philosopher established that the force manifested in the fall of an apple to earth, is the same as that which keeps the planets in their orbits, so the pathologist has shown that the laws of inflammation in the deep-seated and vital organs are identical with those that are seen in the smallest inflammatory point on the skin. And how much might be added on the application of physical laws in diagnosis, the prevention of small pox, the easy cure of autumnal fever, etc., to show that in point of progress Medicine marches hand in hand with kindred sciences."