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HARVEY, WILLIAM (1578—1657)
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See also:HARVEY, See also: In 1628, the year of the publication of the Exercitatio anatomica de motu cordis et sanguinis, he was elected treasurer of the College of Physicians, but at the end of the following year he resigned the See also:office, in See also:order, by command of See also: It was in his See also:brother See also:Daniel's See also:house at See also:Combe that Dr (afterwards See also:Sir George) Ent, a faithful friend and See also:disciple (1604-1689), visited him in 1650. " I found him," he says. " with a cheeerful and sprightly countenance investigating, like See also:Democritus, the nature of things. Asking if all were well with him—'How can that be,' he replied, 'when the See also:state is so agitated with storms and I myself am yet in the open sea? And indeed, were not my mind solaced by my studies and the recollection of the observations I have formerly made, there is nothing which should make me desirous of a longer continuance. But thus employed, this obscure See also:life and vacation from public cares which would disgust other minds is the medicine of mine.' " The See also:work on which he had been chiefly engaged at Oxford, and indeed since the publication of his treatise on the circulation in 1628, was an investigation into the recondite but deeply interesting subject of generation. Charles I. had been an enlightened See also:patron of Harvey's studies, had put the royal See also:deer parks at See also:Windsor and See also:Hampton See also:Court at his disposal, and had watched his demonstration of the growth of the chick with no less See also:interest than the movements of the living heart. Harvey had now collected a large number of observations, though he would probably have delayed their publication. But Ent succeeded in obtaining the manuscripts, with authority to See also:print them or not as he should find them. " I went from him," he says, " like another See also:Jason in See also:possession of the See also:golden fleece, and when Ignoscant mihi niveae animae, si, summarum injuriarum memor, levem gemitum effudero. Doloris mihi haec causa est: cum, inter nuperos nostros tumultus et bella plusquam civilia, serenissimum regem (idque non solum senatus permissione sed et jussu) sequor, rapaces quaedam manus non modo aedium mearum supellectilem omnem expilarunt, sed etiam, quae mihi causa gravior querimoniae, adversaria mea, multorum annorum laboribus parta, e museo men summoverunt. Quo factum est ut observationes plurimae, praesertim de generatione insectorum, cum republicae literariae (ausim dicere) detrimento, perierint."—De gen., Ex. lxviii. To this loss Cow!ey refers-- " O cursed war! who can forgive thee this? Houses and towns may rise again, And ten times easier 'tis To rebuild See also:Paul's than any work of his."I came See also:home and perused the pieces singly, I was amazed that so vast a treasure should have been so long hidden." The result was the publication of the Exercitationes de generatione (1651). This was the last of Harvey's labours. He had now reached his seventy-third year. His theory of the circulation had been opposed and defended, and was now generally accepted by the most eminent anatomists both in his own country and abroad. He was known and honoured throughout See also:Europe, and his own college (Caius) voted a statue in his See also:honour (1652) vino monumentis suis immortali. In 1654 he was elected to the highest post in his profession, that of president of the college; but the following See also:day he met the assembled See also:fellows, and, declining the honour for himself on account of the infirmities of age, recommended the re-See also:election of the See also:late president Dr Francis Prujean (1593-1666). He accepted, however, the office of consiliarius, which he again held in the two following years. He had already enriched the college with other gifts besides the honour of his name. He had raised for them " a See also:noble See also:building of See also:Roman See also:architecture (rustic work with Corinthian pilasters), comprising a great parlour or conversation See also:room below and alibrary above"; he had furnished the library with books, and filled the museum with " simples and rarities," as well as with specimens of See also:instruments used in the surgical and obstetric branches of medicine. At last he determined to give to his beloved college his paternal See also:estate at Burmarsh in See also:Kent. His wife had died some years before, his brothers were wealthy men, and he was childless, so that he was defrauding no See also:heir when, in See also:July 1656, he made the See also:transfer of this See also:property, then valued at £56 per annum, with See also:provision for a See also:salary to the college librarian and for the endowment of an See also:annual oration, which is still given on the anniversary of the day. The orator, so Harvey orders in his See also:deed of See also:gift, is to exhort the fellows of the college " to See also:search out and study the secrets of nature by way of experiment, and also for the honour of the profession to continue mutual love and See also:affection among themselves."
Harvey, like his contemporary and great successor Thomas See also:Sydenham, was long afflicted with See also:gout, but he preserved his activity of mind to an advanced age. In his eightieth year, on the 3rd of June 1657, he was attacked by See also:paralysis, and though deprived of speech was able to send for his nephews and distribute his See also:watch, See also:ring, and other See also:personal trinkets among them. He died the same evening, " the palsy giving him an easy See also:passport," and was buried with great honour in his brother Eliab's vault at Hempstead in See also:Essex, annorum et famne satur. In 1883 the See also:lead See also:coffin containing his remains was enclosed in a See also:marble See also:sarcophagus and moved to the Harvey See also:chapel within the See also: First, then, the physicians of the time of Thomas See also:Linacre knew that the blood is not stagnant in the body. So did See also:Shakespeare and See also:Homer, and every augur who inspected the entrails of a victim, and every See also:village See also:barber who breathed a vein. See also:Plato even uses the expression ro alua Kara travea rd µEX vdtoipCes sreptdsEpee-See also:Oat. But no one had a conception of a continuous stream returning to its source (a circulation in the true sense of the word) either in the system or in the lungs. If they used the word circulatio, as did See also:Caesalpinus,' it was as vaguely as the See also:French policeman cries " Circulez." The movements of the blood were in fact thought to be slow and irregular in direction as well as in See also:speed, like the " circulation " of air in a house, or the circulation of a See also:crowd in the streets of a city. Secondly, they supposed that one kind of blood flowed from the liver to the right ventricle of the heart, and thence to the lungs and the See also:general system by the veins, and that another kind flowed from the See also:left ventricle to the lungs and general system by the arteries. Thirdly, they supposed that the septum of the heart was pervious and allowed blood to pass directly from the right to the left See also:side. Fourthly, they had no conception of the functions of the heart as the motor See also:power of the See also:movement of the blood. They doubted whether its substance was See also:muscular; they supposed its pulsation to be due to expansion of the spirits it contained; they believed the only dynamic effect which it had on the blood to be sucking it in during its active diastole, and they supposed the See also:chief use of its See also:constant movements to be the due mixture of blood and spirits. Of the great anatomists of the 16th century, Sylvius (In Hipp. et Gal. phys. partem anatom. isagoge) described the valves of the veins; Vesalius (De humani corporis fa/See also:mica, 1542) ascertained that the septum between the right and left ventricles is See also:complete, though he could not bring himself to deny the invisible pores which Galen's system demanded. See also:Servetus, in his Christianismi res./Untie (15J3), goes somewhat farther than his fellow-student Vesalius, and says: " Paries ille medius non est aptus ad communicationem et elaborationem illam; licet aliquid resudare possit "; and, from this anatomical fact and the large See also:size of the pulmonary arteries he concludes that there is a communication in the lungs by which blood passes from the pulmonary artery to the pulmonary vein: " Eodem artificio quo in hepate See also:fit transfusio a vena porta ad venam cavam propter sanguinem, fit etiam in pulmone transfusio a vena arteriosa ad arteriam venosam propter spirit See also:urn." The natural spirit of the left side and the vital spirit of the right side of the heart were therefore, he concluded, practically the same, and hence two instead of three distinct spiritus should be admitted. It seems doubtful whether even Servetus rightly conceived of the entire See also:mass of the blood passing through the pulmonary artery and the lungs. The transference of the spiritus naturalis to the lungs, and its return to the left ventricle as spiritus vitalis, was the See also:function which he regarded as important. Indeed a true conception of the lesser circulation as a transference of the whole blood of the right side to the left was impossible until the corresponding transference in the greater or systematic circulation was discovered. Servetus, however, was the true predecessor of Harvey in See also:physiology, and his claims to that honour are perfectly See also:authentic and universally admitted? Indeed the same word, 1repto&os taperer, occurs in the Hippocratic writings, and was held by See also:Van der See also:Linden to prove that to the See also:father of medicine himself, and not to See also:Columbus or Caesalpinus, belonged the laurels of I-Iarvey. s Realdo Columbus (De re anatomists, 1559) formally denies the muscularity of the heart, yet correctly teaches that blood and spirits pass from the right to the left ventricle, not through the septum but through the lungs, " quod nemo hactenus See also:aut animadvertit aut scriptum reliquit." The fact that Harvey quotes Columbus and not Servetus is explained by the almost entire destruction of the writings of the latter, which are now among the rarest curiosities. The great anatomist Fa bricius, Harvey's teacher at Padua, described the valves of the veins more perfectly than had Sylvius. Carlo Ruini, in his treatise on the See also:Anatomy and Diseases of the See also:Horse (1590), taught that the left ventricle sends blood and vital spirits to all parts of the body except the lungs—the ordinary Galenical See also:doctrine. Yet on the The way then to Harvey's great work had been paved by thi discovery of the valves in the veins, and by that of the lesser circulation—the former due to Sylvius and Fabricius, the latte: to Servetus—but the significance of the valves was unsuspected and the fact of even the pulmonary circulation was not generally admitted in its full meaning. In his treatise Harvey proves (1) that it is the contraction, not the See also:dilatation, of the heart which coincides with the See also:pulse, and that the ventricles as true muscular sacs squeeze the blood which they contain into the aorta and pulmonary artery; (2) that the pulse is not produced by the arteries enlarging and so filling, but by the arteries being filled with blood and so enlarging; (3) that there are no pores in the septum of the heart, so that the whole blood in the right ventricle is sent to the lungs and round by the pulmonary veins to the left ventricle, and also that the whole blood in the left ventricle is again sent into the arteries, round by the smaller veins into the venae cavae, and by them to the right ventricle again—thus making a complete " circulation" ; (4) that the blood in the arteries and that in the veins is the same blood; (5) that the See also:action of the right and left sides of the heart, auricles, ventricles and valves, is the same, the mechanism in both being for reception and propulsion of liquid and not of air, since the blood on the right side, though mixed with air, is still blood; (6) that the blood sent through the arteries to the tissues is not all used, but that most of it runs through into the veins; (q) that there is no to and fro undulation in the veins, but a constant stream from the distant parts towards the heart; (8) that the dynamical starting-point of the blood is the heart and not the liver. The method by which Harvey arrived at his complete and almost faultless See also:solution of the most fundamental and difficult problem in physiology has been often discussed, and is well worthy of See also:attention. He begins his treatise by pointing out the many inconsistencies and defects in the Galenical theory, quoting the writings of Galen himself, of Fabricius, Columbus and others, with great respect, but with unflinching See also:criticism. For, in his own noble See also:language, See also:wise men must learn anatomy, not from the decrees of philosophers, but from the fabric of nature herself, " nec ita in verba jurare antiquitatis magistrae, ut veritatem amicam in apertis relinquant, et in conspectu omnium deserant." He had, as we know, not only furnished himself with all the knowledge that books and the instructions of the best anatomists of Italy could give, but, by a long See also:series of dissections, had gained a far more complete knowledge of the See also:comparative anatomy of the heart and vessels than any contemporary—we may almost say than any successor—until the times of John See also:Hunter and J. F. Meckel. Thus equipped, he tells us that he began his investigations into the movements of the heart and blood by looking at them—i.e. by seeing their action in living animals. After a modest See also:preface, he heads his first See also:chapter strength of this phrase See also:Professor J. B. Ercolani actually put up a tablet in the veterinary school at See also:Bologna to Ruini as the discoverer of the circulation of the blood! The claims of Caesalpinus, a more plausible claimant to Harvey's laurels, are scarcely better founded. In his Quaestiones peripateticae (1571) he followed Servetus and Columbus in describing what we now know as the pulmonary " circulation " under that name, and this is the only See also:foundation for the assertion (first made in See also:Bayle's See also:dictionary) that Caesalpinus knew " the circulation of the blood." He is even behind Servetus, for he only allows See also:part of the blood of the right ventricle to go round by this " See also:circuit "; some, he conceives, passes through the hypothetical pores in the septum, and the See also:rest by the See also:superior cava to the See also:head and arms, by the inferior to the rest of the body: " Hanc esse venarum utilitatem ut omnes partes corporis sanguinem See also:prO nutrimento deferant. Ex dextro ventr° cordis vena cava sanguinem crassiorem, in quo calor intensus est magis, ex altero autem ventr°, sanguinem temperatissimum ac sincerissimum habente, egreditur aorta." Caesalpinus seems to have had no original views on the subject; all that he writes is copied from Galen or from Servetus except some erroneous observations df his own. His greatest merit was as a botanist; and no claim to the " discovery of the circulation " was made by him or by his contemporaries. When it was made, See also:Haller decided conclusively against it. The fact that an inscription has been placed on the bust of Caesalpinus at See also:Rome, which states that he preceded others in recognizing and demonstrating " the general circulation of the blood," is only a See also:proof of the See also:blindness of misplaced See also:national vanity. " Ex vivorum dissectione, qualis sit cordis motus." He minutely describes what he saw and handled in See also:dogs, pigs, serpents, frogs and fishes, and even in slugs, oysters, lobsters and See also:insects, in the transparent minima squilla, " quae Anglice dicitur a See also:shrimp," and lastly in the chick while still in the See also:shell. In these investigations he used a perspicillum or See also:simple See also:lens. He particularly describes his observations and experiments on the ventricles, the auricles, the arteries and the veins. He shows how the arrangement of the vessels in the foetus supports his theory. He adduces facts observed in disease as well as in See also:health to prove the rapidity of the circulation. He explains how the mechanism of the valves in the veins is adapted, not, as Fabricius believed, to moderate the flow of blood from the heart, but to favour its flow to the heart. He estimates the capacity of each ventricle, and reckons the See also:rate at which the whole mass of blood passes through it. He elaborately and clearly demonstrates the effect of obstruction of the blood-stream in arteries or in veins, by the forceps in the See also:case of a snake, by a ligature on the See also:arm of a man, and illustrates his See also:argument by figures. He then sums up his conclusion thus: " Circulari quodam motu, in circuitu, agitari in animalibus sanguinem, et esse in perpetuo motu; et hanc esse actionem sive functionem cordis quam pulsu peragit; et omnino motus et pulsus cordis causam unam esse." Lastly, in the 15th, 16th and 17th chapters, he adds certain confirmatory See also:evidence, as the effect of position on the circulation, the absorption of animal poisons and of medicines applied externally, the muscular structure of the heart and the necessary working of its valves. The whole treatise, which occupies only 67 pages of large print in the See also:quarto edition of 1766, is a See also:model of accurate observation, patient See also:accumulation of facts, ingenious experimentation, bold yet cautious See also:hypothesis and logical See also:deduction. In one point only was the demonstration of the circulation incomplete. Harvey could not discover the capillary channels by which the blood passes from the arteries to the veins. This See also:gap in the circulation was supplied several years later by the great anatomist See also:Marcello See also:Malpighi, who in 1661 saw in the lungs of a See also:frog, by the newly invented See also:microscope, how the blood passes from the one set of vessels to the other. Harvey saw all that could be seen by the unaided See also:eye in his observations on living animals; Malpighi, four years after Harvey's death, by another observation on a living animal, completed the splendid See also:chain of evidence. If this detracts from Harvey's merit it leaves Servetus no merit at all. But in fact the existence of the channels first seen by Malpighi was as clearly pointed to by Harvey's reasoning as the existence of See also:Neptune by the calculations of See also:Leverrier and of See also: Few accepted the new theory; but no one dreamt of claiming the honour of it for himself, nor for several years did any one pretend that it could be found in the works of previous authors. The first attack on it was a feeble See also:tract by one James Primerose, a See also:pupil of See also:Jean Riolan (Exert, et animadv. in libr. Harrel. de motu See also:cord. et sang., 1630). Five years later Parisanus, an See also:Italian physician, published his Lapis Lydius de motu cord.et sang. (See also:Venice, 1635), a still more bulky and futile performance. Primerose's attacks were " imbellia pleraque " and " sine ictu "; that of Parisanus " in quamplurimis turpius," according to the See also:con-temporary See also:judgment of Johann Vessling. Their dulness has protected them from further censure. Caspar See also:Hoffmann, professor at See also:Nuremberg, while admitting the truth of the lesser circulation in the full Harveian sense, denied the rest of the new doctrine. To him the English anatomist replied in a See also:short letter, still extant, with great See also:consideration yet with modest dignity, beseeching him to convince himself by actual inspection of the truth of the facts in question. He concludes: " I accept your censure in the candid and friendly spirit in which you say you wrote it; do you also the same to me, now that I have answered you in the same spirit." This letter is dated May 1636, and in that year Harvey passed through Nuremberg with the earl of Arundel, and visited Hoffmann. But he failed to convince him; " nec tamen valuit Harveius vel .;oram," writes P. M. See also:Schlegel, who, however, afterwards succeeded in persuading the obstinate old Galenist to soften his opposition to the new doctrine, and thinks that his complete See also:conversion might have been effected if he had but lived a little longer—" nec dubito See also:quin concessisset tandem in nostra castra." While in Italy the following year Harvey visited his old university of Padua, and demonstrated his views to Professor Vessling. A few months later this excellent anatomist wrote him a courteous and sensible letter, with certain objections to the new theory. The See also:answer to this has not been preserved, but it convinced his candid opponent, who admitted the truth of the circulation in a second letter (both were published in 1640), and afterwards told a friend, " Harveium See also:nostrum si audis, agnosces coelestem sanguinis et spiritus ingressum ex arteriis per venas in dextrum cordis sinum." Meanwhile a greater convert, R. See also:Descartes, in his Discours sur la methode (1637) had announced his See also:adhesion to the new doctrine, and refers to " the English physician to whom belongs. the honour of having first shown that the course of the blood in the body is nothing less than a kind of perpetual movement in a circle." J. Walacus of See also:Leyden, H. Regius of See also:Utrecht and Schlegel of See also:Hamburg successively adopted the new physiology. Of these professors, Regius was mauled by the pertinacious See also:Prime-See also:rose and mauled him in return (Spongia qua eluuntur sordes quae Jac. Primirosius, &c., and Antidotum adv. Spongiam venenatam Henr. Regii). Descartes afterwards repeated Harvey's vivisections, and, more convinced than ever, demolished Professor V. F. Plempius of See also:Louvain, who had written on the other side. George Ent also published an. Apologia pro circulatione sanguinis in answer to Parisanus. At last Jean Riolan ventured to publish his Enchiridium anatomicum (1648), in which he attacks Harvey's theory, and proposes one of his own. Riolan had accompanied the queen See also:dowager of See also:France (Maria de' See also:Medici) on a visit to her daughter at Whitehall, and had there met Harvey and discussed his theory. He was, in the See also:opinion of the judicious Haller, " vir See also:asper et in nuperos suosque coaevos immitis ac nemini parcens, nimis avidus suarum laudum praeco, et se ipso fatente anatomicorum princeps." Harvey replied to the Enchiridium with perfectly courteous language and perfectly conclusive arguments, in two letters De circulatione sanguinis, which were published at Cambridge in 1649, and are still well See also:worth See also:reading. He speaks here of the " circuitus sanguinis a me inventus." Riolan was unconvinced, but lived to see another professor of anatomy appointed in his own university who taught Harvey's doctrines. Even in Italy, Trullius, professor of anatomy at Rome, expounded the new doctrine in 1651. But the most illustrious converts were jean Pecquet of See also:Dieppe, the discoverer of the thoracic duct, and of the true course of the lacteal vessels, and Thomas See also:Bartholinus of See also:Copenhagen, in his Anatome ex omnium veterum recenliorumque observationibus, imprimis institutionibus beati met parentis See also:Caspari Bartholini, ad circulationem Harveianam el See also:vasa lymphatica renovata (See also:Leiden, 1651). At last Plempius also retracted all his objections; for, as he candidly stated, " having opened the bodies of a few living dogs, I find that all Harvey's statements are perfectly true." See also:Hobbes of See also:Malmesbury could thus say in the preface to his Elementa philosophiae that his friend Harvey, " solus quod sciam, doctrinam novam superata invidia vivens stabilivit." It has been made a reproach to Harvey that he failed to appreciate the importance of the discoveries of the lacteal and lymphatic vessels by G. See also:Aselli, J. Pecquet and C. Bartholinus. In three letters on the subject, one to Dr R. See also:Morison of See also:Paris (1652)' and two to Dr See also:Horst of See also:Darmstadt (1655), a correspondent of Bartholin's, he discusses these observations, and shows himself unconvinced of their accuracy. He writes, however, with great moderation and reasonableness, and excuses himself from investigating the subject further on the See also:score of the infirmities of age; he was then above seventy-four. The following See also:quotation shows the spirit of these letters: " Lando equidem summopere Pecqueti aliorumque in indaganda veritate industriam singularem, nec dubito quin multa adhuc in Democriti puteo abscondita sint, a venturi saeculi indefatigabili diligentia expromenda." Bartholin, though reasonably disappointed in not having Harvey's concurrence, speaks of him with the utmost respect, and generously says that the See also:glory of discovering the movements of the heart and of the blood was enough for one man.
Harvey's Work on Generation.—We have seen how Dr. Ent persuaded his friend to publish this book in 1651. It is between five and six times as long as the Exerc. de See also:motet cord. et sang., and is followed by excursus De partu, De uteri membranis, De conceptione; but, though the See also:fruit of as patient and extensive observations, its value is far inferior. The subject was far more abstruse, and in fact inaccessible to proper investigation without the aid of the microscope. And the See also: Aristotle had believed that the male See also:parent furnished the body of the future embryo, while the See also:female only nourished and formed the See also:seed; this is in fact the theory on which, in the See also:Eumenides of See also:Aeschylus, See also:Apollo obtains the acquittal of See also:Orestes. Galen taught almost as erroneously that each parent contributes seeds, the See also:union of which produced the young animal. Harvey, after speaking with due honour of Aristotle and Fabricius; begins rightly " ab ovo "; for, as he remarks, " eggs cost little and are always and everywhere to be had," and moreover " almost all animals, even these which bring forth their young alive, and man himself, are produced from •eggs ' (" omnia omnino animalia, etiam vivipara, atque hominem adeo ipsum, ex ovoprogigni "). This dictum, usually quoted as omne vivum ex ovo; would alone See also:stamp this work as worthy of the discoverer of the circulation of the blood, but it was a prevision of See also:genius, and was not proved to be a fact until K. E. von See also:Baer discovered the mammaliah ovum in 1827. Harvey proceeds with a careful anatomical description of the ovary and oviduct of the hen, describes the new-laid See also:egg, and then gives an account of the See also:appearance seen on the successive days of See also:incubation, from the 1st to the 6th, the loth and the 14th, and lastly describes the See also:process of hatching. He then comments upon and corrects the opinions of Aristotle and Fabricius, declares against spontaneous generation (though in one passage he seems to admit the current doctrine of See also:production of See also:worms by putrefaction as an exception), proves that there is no semen foemineum, that the chalazae of the hen's eggs are not the semen galli, and that both parents contribute to the formation of the egg. He describes accurately the first appearance of the ovarian ova as See also:mere specks, their See also:assumption of yelk and after-wards of albumen. In chapter xlv. he describes two methods of production of the embryo from the ovum: one is See also:metamorphosis, or the See also:direct transformation of pre-existing material, as a See also:worm from an egg, or a butterfly from an See also:aurelia (chrysalis); the other is epigenesis, or development with addition of parts; the true generation observed in all higher animals. Chapters xlvi.-l. are devoted to the abstruse question of the efficient cause of generation, which; after much discussion of the opinions of Aristotle and of Sennertius; Harvey refers to the action of both parents as the efficient instruments of the first great cause.' He then goes on to describe the order in which the several parts appear in the chick. He states that the punctum saliens or foetal heart is the first See also:organ to be seen, and explains that the See also:nutrition of the chick is not only effected by yelk conveyed directly into the midgut, as Aristotle taught, but also by absorption from yelk and white by the umbilical (omphalomeseraic) veins; on the See also:fourth day of incubation appear two masses (which he oddly names vermiculus), one of which develops into three vesicles, to form the cerebrum, cerebellum and eyes, the other into the breastbone and See also:thorax; on the See also:sixth or seventh day come the viscera, and lastly, the feathers and other See also:external parts. Harvey points out how nearly this order of development in the chick agrees with what he had observed in mammalian and particularly in human embryos. He notet the bifid See also:apex of the foetal heart in man and the equal thickness of the ventricles, the soft cartilages which represent the future bones, the large amount of liquor amnii and See also:absence of See also:placenta which characterize the foetus in the third See also:month ; in the fourth the position of the testes in the See also:abdomen, and the titerus with its Fallopian tubes resembling the uterus bicornis of the See also:sheep; the large thymus; the caecum, small. as in the adult, not forming a ' So in Exerc. liv,: "Superior itaque et divinior opif ex, quam est limo, videtur hominem fabricate et conservare, et See also:nobilior artifex, quam See also:gallus, pullum ex ovo producere. Nempe agnoscimus Deem, creatorem summum atque omnipotentem, in cunctorum animalium fabrica uhique praesentem esse, etIn.operibus suis quasi digito monstrari: cujus in procreatione pulli instrumenta sint gallus et gallina. Nec cuiquam sane haec attributa convenient nisi omnipotenti rerum Principle, quocunque demum nomine idipsum Tppellarelibuerit: sive Mentem divinam cum Aristotele, sive cum atone Animam Mundi, aut cum aliis Naturam naturantem, vel cum ethnicis Saturnum aut Iovem; vel potius (ut nos decet) Creatorem ac Patrem omnium quae in coelis et terris, a quo animalia eorumque origins dependent, cujusque nutu sive effatu fiunt et generantur omnia. WILLIAM second See also:stomach as in the See also:pig, the horse and the See also:hare; the lobulated kidneys, like those of the See also:seal (" vitulo," sc. See also:marino)and See also:porpoise, and the large suprarenal veins, not much smaller than those of the kidneys (li.-lvi). He failed, however, to trace the connexion of the urachus with the See also:bladder. In the following chapters (lxiii.-lxxii.) he describes the process of generation in the See also:fallow deer or the See also:roe. After again insisting that all animals arise from ova, that a " conception' is an See also:internal egg and an egg an extruded conception, he goes on to describe the uterus of the doe, the process of impregnation, and the subsequent development of the foetus and its membranes, the punctum saliens, the cotyledons of the placenta, and the " uterine See also:milk," to which Sir William See also:Turner recalled attention in later years. The treatise concludes with detached notes on the placenta, parturition and allied subjects. Harvey's other Writings and Medical Practice.—The remaining writings of Harvey which are extant are unimportant. A complete See also:list of them will be found below, together with the titles of those which. we know to be lost. Of these the most important were probably that on respiration, and the records of post-mortem See also:examinations. From the following passage (De partu, p. 550) it seems that he had 'a notion of respiration being connected rather with the production of animal See also:heat than, as then generally supposed, with the cooling, of the blood. Haec qui diligenter perpenderit, naturamque,aeris diligenter introspexerit, facile opinor fatebitur eundem nec refrigerationis gratia nec in pabulum animalibus concedi. Haec autem obiter duntaxat de
respiratione diximus, proprio loco de eadem forsitan copiosius disceptaturi."
Of Harvey as a practising physician we know very little. Aubrey tells us that " he paid his visits on horseback with a See also:foot-See also:cloth, his man following on foot, as the See also:fashion then was." He adds—" Though all of his profession would. allow him to. be an excellent anatomist, I never heard any that, admired his therapeutic way. I knew. several practitioners that would not have given threepence for one of his bills " (the apothecaries used to collect physicians', prescriptions and sell or publish them to their own profit), " and that a man could hardly tell by his See also:bill what he did aim at." However this may have been,--and rational See also:therapeutics was impossible when the foundation See also: Exerc. xix.). • The following is believed to be a complete list of all the known writings of Harvey, published and unpublished: Exercitatio anatomica de matu cordis et sanguinis, 4to (Frankforton-the-See also:Main, 1628); Exercitationes duae anatomicae de circulation sanguinis, ad Johannem Riolanum, ;!ilium, Parisiensem (Cambridge, 1649) ; Exercitationes de generatione animalium, quibus accedunt quaedam de partu, de membranis ac humoribus uteri, et de conceptione, 4to (London, 1651); Anatomia Thomae Parr, first published in the treatise of Dr John Betts, De ortu et natura sanguinis, 8vo (London, 1669). Letters: (i) to Caspar Hoffmann of Nuremberg, May 1636; (2) to Schlegel of Hamburg, April 1651; (3) three to Giovanni See also:Nardi of See also:Florence, July 1651, Dec. 1653 and Nov. 1655; (4) two to Dr Morison of Paris, May 1652; (5) two to Dr Horst of Darmstadt, Feb. 1654–1655 and July 1655; (6) to Dr Vlackveld of See also:Haarlem, May 1657. His letters to Hoffmann and Schlegel are on the circulation; those to Morison, Horst and Vlackveld refer to the discovery of the lacteals; the two to Nardi are short letters of friendship. All these letters were published by Sir George Ent in his collected works (Leiden, 1687). Of two MS. letters, one on See also:official business to the secretary See also:Dorchester was printed by Dr Aveling, with a facsimile of the crabbed See also:handwriting (Memorials of Harvey, 1875), and the other, about a patient, appears in Dr See also:Robert See also:Willis's Life of Harvey (1878). Praelectiones anatomiae universalis per me Gul. Harveium medicum Londinensem, anat. et chir. professorem, an. dom. (1616), aetat. 37,—MS. notes of his Lumleian lectures in Latin,—are in the See also:British Museum library; an autotype See also:reproduction was issued by the College of Physicians in 1886. An account of a second MS. in the British Museum, entitled Gulielmus Harveius de musculis, motu locali, &c., was published by Sir G. E. See also:Paget (See also:Notice of an unpublished MS. of Harvey, London, 1850). The following See also:treatises, or notes towards them, were lost either in the pillaging of Harvey's house, or perhaps in the fire of London, which destroyed the old College of Physicians: A Treatise on Respiration, promised and probably at least in part completed (pp. 82, 550, ed. 1766) ; Observationes de usu Lienis; Observationes de motu locali, perhaps identical with the above-mentioned See also:manuscript; Tractatum physiologicum; Anatomia medicalis (apparently notes of morbid anatomy) ; De generatione insectorum. The fine 4to edition of Harvey's Works, published by the Royal College of Physicians in 1766, was super-Intended by Dr See also:Mark See also:Akenside; it contains the two treatises, the account of the post-mortem examination of old Parr, and the six letters enumerated above. A See also:translation of this See also:volume by Dr Willis, with Harvey's will, was published by the Sydenham Society, 8vo (London, 1849). The following are the See also:principal See also:biographies of Harvey: in Aubrey's Letters of Eminent Persons, &c., vol. ii. (London, 1813), first published in 1685, the only contemporary account; in Bayle's Dictionnaire historique et critique (1698 and 1720; Eng. ed., 1738) ; in the Biographia Britannica, and in Aitken's See also:Biographical See also:Memoirs; the Latin Life by Dr Thomas See also:Lawrence, prefixed to the college edition of Harvey's Works in 1766; memoir in Lives of British Physicians (London, 1830) ; a Life by Dr Robert Willis, founded on that by Lawrence, and prefixed to his English edition of Harvey in 1847; the much enlarged Life by the same author, published in 1878; the See also:biography by Dr William Munk in the See also:Roll of the College of Physicians, vol. i. (2nd ed., 1879). The literature which has arisen on the great discovery of Harvey, on his methods and his merits, would fill a library. The most important contemporary writings have been mentioned above. The following list gives some of the most remarkable in modern times: the See also:article in Bayle's dictionary quoted above; Anatomical Lectures, by Wm. Hunter, M.D. (1784); Sprengell, Geschichte der Arzneikunde (See also:Halle, 1800), vol. iv.; See also:Flourens, Histoire de la circulation (1854) ; See also:Lewes, Physiology of See also:Common Life (1859), vol. I. pp. 291-345; Ceradini, La Scoperta della circolazione del sangue (See also:Milan, 1876) ; Tollin, See also:Die Entdeckung See also:des Blutkreislaufs durch See also:Michael Servet (See also:Jena, 1876); Kirchner, Die Entdeckung des Blutkreislaufs (See also:Berlin, 1878); Willis, in his Life of Harvey; See also:Wharton See also: Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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