CHAPTER I.

Masters of Medicine

Title. Author.

JOHN HUNTER _Stephen Paget_

WILLIAM HARVEY _D'Arcy Power_

EDWARD JENNER _Ernest Hart_

SIR JAMES SIMPSON _H. Laing Gordon_

HERMANN VON HELMHOLTZ _John G. McKendrick_

WILLIAM STOKES _Sir William Stokes_

CLAUDE BERNARD _Michael Foster_

SIR BENJAMIN BRODIE _Timothy Holmes_

THOMAS SYDENHAM _J. F. Payne_

VESALIUS _C. Louis Taylor_

MASTERS

OF

MEDICINE

WILLIAM HARVEY

[Decoration]

[Illustration: MASTERS OF MEDICINE]

[Illustration: _Art Repro. Co.y Ph. Sc._

_Cornelius Jonson_ _Engraved by Hall._

WILLIAM HARVEY.

1578 1657]

WILLIAM HARVEY

BY

D'ARCY POWER, F.S.A.,

F.R.C.S. Eng.

SURGEON TO THE VICTORIA HOSPITAL FOR CHILDREN,

CHELSEA

_LONDON_

T. FISHER UNWIN

PATERNOSTER SQUARE

MDCCCXCVII

_Copyright by T. Fisher Unwin, 1897, for Great Britain

and Longmans Green & Co. for the

United States of America_

TO

DR. PHILIP HENRY PYE-SMITH, F.R.S.

IN RECOGNITION OF HIS PROFOUND KNOWLEDGE OF

THE PRINCIPLES ADVOCATED BY HARVEY, AND

IN GRATITUDE FOR MANY KINDNESSES

CONFERRED BY HIM UPON

THE AUTHOR

PREFACE

[Decoration]

It is not possible, nor have I attempted in this account of Harvey, to

add much that is new. My endeavour has been to give a picture of the

man and to explain in his own words, for they are always simple, racy,

and untechnical, the discovery which has placed him in the forefront of

the Masters of Medicine.

The kindness of Professor George Darwin, F.R.S., and of Professor

Villari has introduced me to Professor Carlo Ferraris, the Rector

Magnificus, and to Dr. Girardi, the Librarian of the University of

Padua. These gentlemen, at my request, have examined afresh the

records of the University, and have given me much information about

Harvey's stay there. The Cambridge Archæological Society has laid me

under an obligation by allowing me to reproduce the Stemma which

still commemorates Harvey's official connection with the great Italian

University. Dr. Norman Moore has read the proof sheets; his kindly

criticism and accurate knowledge have added greatly to the value of the

work, and he has lent me the block which illustrates the vileness of

Harvey's handwriting.

I have collected in an Appendix a short list of authorities to each

chapter that my statements may be verified, for Harvey himself would

have been the first to cry out against such a gossiping life as that

which Aubrey wrote of him.

D'ARCY POWER.

_May 20, 1897._

CONTENTS

[Decoration]

PAGE

I. HARVEY'S LINEAGE 1

II. EARLY LIFE 11

III. THE LUMLEIAN LECTURES 39

IV. THE ZENITH 70

V. THE CIVIL WAR 117

VI. HARVEY'S LATER YEARS 141

VII. HARVEY'S DEATH, BURIAL, AND EULOGY 166

VIII. HARVEY'S ANATOMICAL WORKS 188

IX. THE TREATISE ON DEVELOPMENT 238

APPENDIX 265

INDEX 271

WILLIAM HARVEY

I

HARVEY'S LINEAGE

The history of the Harvey family begins with Thomas Harvey, father of

William, the discoverer of the circulation of the blood. The careful

search of interested and competent genealogists has ended in the

barren statement that the family is apparently descended from, or is a

branch of the same stock as, Sir Walter Hervey, "pepperer," or member

of the ancient guild which afterwards became the important Company of

Grocers. Sir Walter was Mayor of London in the year reckoned from the

death of Henry III. in November, 1272. It was the noise of the citizens

assembled in Westminster Hall clamouring for Hervey's election as Mayor

that disturbed the King's deathbed.

The lineage would be a noble one if it could be established, for Hervey

was no undistinguished Mayor. He was the worthy pupil and successor

of Thomas Fitzthomas, one of the great champions in that struggle for

liberty which ended in the death of Simon de Montfort, between Evesham

and Alcester, but left the kingdom with a Parliament. Hervey's counsels

reconstituted in London the system of civic government, and established

it upon its present base; for he assumed as chief of the executive

the right to grant charters of incorporation to the craftsmen of the

guilds. For a time his efforts were successful, and they wrought him

much harm. But his idea survived, and in due season prevailed, for the

companies have entirely replaced the guilds not only in London but

throughout England.

It would be truly interesting if the first great discoverer in

physiology could be shown to be a descendant of this original thinker

on municipal government. The statement depends for the present on

the fact that both bore for arms "argent, two bars nebulée sable, on

a chief of the last three crosses pattée fitchée; with the crest, a

dexter hand appaumée proper, over it a crescent inverted argent," but

arms were as often assumed in the reign of Elizabeth as they are in the

Victorian era.

Thomas Harvey, the father of William, was born in 1549, and was one of

a family of two brothers and three sisters, all of whom left children.

Thomas married about 1575 Juliana, the eldest daughter of William

Jenkin. His wife died in the following year, probably in childbed, for

she left him a daughter, Julian or Gillian, who married Thomas Cullen,

of Dover, and died about 1639.

Thomas Harvey married again on the 21st of January, 1576-1577, his

second wife being Joane, the daughter of Thomas Halke, or Hawke, who

was perhaps a relative of his first wife on her mother's side. She

lived at Hastingleigh, a village about six miles from Ashford in Kent,

and to this couple William was born on the 1st of April, 1578, his

father being then twenty-nine and his mother twenty-three.

William proved to be the eldest of "a week of sons," as Fuller quaintly

expresses it, "whereof this William was bred to learning, his other

brethren being bound apprentices in London, and all at last ended in

effect in merchants." This statement is not strictly true, as only

five of the sons became Turkey merchants and there were besides two

daughters.

Thomas Harvey was a jurat, or alderman, of Folkestone, where he served

the office of mayor in 1600. He lived in a fair stone house, which

afterwards became the posthouse. Its site, however, is no longer known,

though it is the opinion of those best qualified to judge that it stood

at the junction of Church Street with Rendezvous Street.

Thomas Harvey seems to have been a man of more than ordinary

intelligence and judgment, for "his sons, who revered, consulted,

and implicitly trusted him, made their father the treasurer of their

wealth when they got great estates, who, being as skilful to purchase

land," says Fuller, "as they to gain money kept, employed and improved

their gainings to their great advantage, so that he survived to see

the meanest of them of far greater estate than himself." To this end

he came to London after the death of his wife in 1605, and lived for

some time at Hackney, where he died and was buried in June, 1623. His

portrait is still to be seen in the central panel in one end wall of

the dining-room at Rolls Park, Chigwell, in Essex, which was one of the

first estates acquired by his son Eliab. "It is certainly," says Dr.

Willis, "of the time when he lived, and it bears a certain resemblance

to some of the likenesses we have of his most distinguished son."

All that is known of Joan Harvey is on a brass tablet, which still

exists to her memory in the parish church at Folkestone. It bears the

following record of her virtues, written either by her husband or by

William Harvey, her son:--

"A.D. 1605 Nov. 8th died in the 50th. yeare of her age

Joan Wife of Tho. Harvey. Mother of 7 sones & 2 Daughters.

A Godly harmles Woman: A chaste loveinge Wife:

A Charitable qviet Neighbour: A c[~o]fortable frendly Matron:

A provident diligent Hvswyfe: A carefvll t[-e]der-harted Mother.

Deere to her Hvsband: Reverensed of her Children:

Beloved of her Neighbovrs: Elected of God.

Whose Soule rest in Heaven, her body in this Grave:

To her a Happy Advantage: to Hers an Unhappy Loss."

The children of Thomas and Joan Harvey were--

(1) William, born at Folkestone on the 1st of April, 1578; died at

Roehampton, in Surrey, on the 3rd of June, 1657; buried in the "outer

vault" of the Harvey Chapel at Hempstead, in Essex.

(2) Sarah, born at Folkestone on the 5th of May, 1580, and died there

on the 18th of June, 1591.

(3) John, born at Folkestone on the 12th of November, 1582;

servant-in-ordinary, or footman, to James I.--"a post," says Sir James

Paget, "which does not certainly imply that he was in a much lower rank

than his brothers. It may have been such a place at Court as is now

called by a synonym of more seeming dignity; or, if not, yet he may

have received a good salary for the office whilst he discharged its

duties by deputy." Thus Burke in his famous speech on Economical Reform

mentions that the king's _turnspit_ was a member of Parliament.

He received a pension of fifty pounds a year when he resigned his place

to Toby Johnson on the 6th of July, 1620. He was a member of Gray's

Inn, and filled several offices of importance, for he was "Castleman"

at Sandgate, in Kent, and King's Receiver for Lincolnshire jointly with

his brother Daniel. He sat in Parliament as a member for Hythe, and

died unmarried on the 20th of July, 1645.

(4) Thomas was born at Folkestone on the 17th of January, 1584-1585.

He married first Elizabeth Exton, about 1613; and, secondly, Elizabeth

Parkhurst, on the 10th of May, 1621, and he had children by both

marriages. His only surviving son sat as M.P. for Hythe in 1621; he

also acted as King's Receiver for Lincolnshire. Thomas Harvey was a

Turkey merchant in St. Laurence Pountney, at the foot of London Bridge.

He was perhaps a member of the Grocers' Company. He died on the 2nd of

February, 1622-1623, and was buried in St. Peter-le-Poor.

(5) Daniel, also of Laurence Pountney Hill, a Turkey merchant and

member of the Grocers' Company, was born at Folkestone on the 31st of

May, 1587. He was King's Receiver for Lincolnshire jointly with his

brother John. He married Elizabeth Kynnersley about 1619, paid a fine

rather than serve the office of Sheriff of London at some time before

1640, and died on the 10th of September, 1649. He was a churchwarden

of St. Laurence Pountney in 1624-1625, and was buried there; but

his later days were spent on his estate at Combe, near Croydon, in

Surrey. His fourth son became Sir Daniel Harvey, and was ambassador at

Constantinople, where he died in 1672. His daughter Elizabeth married

Heneage Finch, the first Earl of Nottingham, and from this marriage are

descended the Earls of Winchelsea and Aylesford.

(6) Eliab, also of Laurence Pountney Hill, a Turkey merchant and

member of the Grocers' Company, was born at Folkestone on the 26th

of February, 1589-1590. He was the most successful of the merchant

brothers, and to his watchful care William owed much of his material

wealth; for Aubrey says that "William Harvey took no manner of care

about his worldly concerns, but his brother Eliab, who was a very wise

and prudent manager, ordered all not only faithfully but better than

he could have done for himself." Eliab had estates at Roehampton, in

Surrey, and at Chigwell, in Essex. He built the "Harvey Mortuary

Chapel with the outer vault below it" in Hempstead Church, near Saffron

Walden. Here he buried his brother William in 1657, and here he was

himself buried in 1661. He married Mary West on the 15th of February,

1624-1625, and by her had several children, of whom the eldest at the

Restoration became Sir Eliab Harvey.

Walpole writes to Mann about one of his descendants. "Feb. 6, 1780.

Within this week there has been a cast at hazard at the Cocoa Tree,

the difference of which amounted to an hundred and fourscore thousand

pounds. Mr. O'Birne, an Irish gamester, had won £100,000 of a young Mr.

Harvey of Chigwell, just started for a midshipman into an estate by his

elder brother's death. O'Birne said, 'You can never pay me.' 'I can,'

said the youth; 'my estate will sell for the debt.' 'No,' said O'B., 'I

will win ten thousand--you shall throw for the odd ninety.' They did,

and Harvey won." This midshipman afterwards became Sir Eliab Harvey,

G.C.B., in command of the _Téméraire_ at the battle of Trafalgar, and

Admiral of the Blue. He sat in the House of Commons for the town of

Maldon from 1780 to 1784, and for the county of Essex from 1802 until

his death in 1830. With him the male line of the family of Harvey

became extinct.

(7) Michael, the twin brother of Matthew, was born at Folkestone on the

25th of September, 1593. He lived in St. Laurence Pountney, and St.

Helen's, Bishopsgate. Like his other brothers he was a Turkey merchant,

and perhaps a member of the Grocers' Company. He married Mary Baker on

the 29th of April, 1630, and after her death Mary Millish, about 1635.

He had three children by his second wife, and one of his sons died at

Bridport in 1685 from wounds received in the service of King James II.

Michael Harvey died on the 22nd of January, 1642-1643, and is buried in

the church of Great St. Helen's, Bishopsgate.

(8) Matthew, the twin brother of Michael, and like him a Turkey

merchant and perhaps a member of the Grocers' Company, was born at

Folkestone on the 25th of September, 1593. He married Mary Hatley on

the 15th of December, 1628, and dying on the 21st of December, 1642,

was buried at Croydon. His only child died in her infancy.

(9) Amye, the youngest daughter and last child of Thomas and Joan

Harvey, was born at Folkestone on the 26th of December, 1596. She

married George Fowke in 1615, and died, leaving issue, at some time

after 1645.

Mr. W. Fleming, the assistant librarian, tells me that nine autotype

reproductions of the portraits of the Harvey family at Rolls Park (page

4) are now suspended on the left-hand side wall of the hall of the

Royal College of Physicians in Pall Mall. They represent (1) Thomas

Harvey and his seven sons. (2) William Harvey, probably an enlarged

portrait of that in the preceding group. (3) A family group in the

dress of the Queen Anne period. (4) Portrait of a lady in the dress

of the reign of Queen Elizabeth; in the corner of the picture appears

"obiit 25 Maii 1622." (5), (6) and (7) Portraits of ladies in the dress

of the eighteenth century. (8) Portrait of a gentleman in the dress of

Charles II.'s time. (9) Portrait of a gentleman in the dress of Queen

Anne's reign.

II

EARLY LIFE

Very little is known of the early life of William Harvey. His

preliminary education was probably carried on in Folkestone, where he

learnt the rudiments of knowledge, gaining his first acquaintance with

Latin. One of his earliest distinct recollections must have been in

the memorable days in July, 1588, when all was bustle and commotion

in his native town. The duty of resisting the Spanish Armada in Kent

and Sussex fell upon the "Broderield," or confederation of the Cinque

Ports, a body which consisted of the Mayor, two elected Jurats, and

two elected Commoners from Hastings, Sandwich, Dover, Romney, Hythe,

Winchelsea, and Rye. And as Folkestone for all purposes of defence was

intimately allied with Dover, it is not at all unlikely that Thomas

Harvey, one of its Jurats, was of its number, or that he was a member

of the "Guestling," which, affiliated with the Broderield, had to fix

the number, species, and tonnage of the shipping to be found by each

port, a somewhat difficult task, as each port's share was a movable

quantity requiring constant rearrangement. But even with the machinery

of the Broderield and the Guestling, it must have needed much activity

to raise the £43,000 which the Cinque Ports contributed to set out the

handy little squadron of thirteen sail which did its duty under the

orders of Lord Henry Seymour in dispersing the remains of the great

Spanish fleet. Harvey must have had some remembrance of the turmoil

of the period, though it may have been partially effaced by his new

experiences at the King's School, Canterbury, where he was entered for

the first time in the same year.

He remained at the King's School for five years, no doubt coming home

for the holidays, some of which must have been spent in watching

the constant transport of troops to Spain and Portugal which was so

noticeable a feature in the history of the Cinque Ports during the

later years of the life of Elizabeth.

His schooling ended, Harvey entered at once as a pensioner, or ordinary

student, at Caius College, Cambridge, his surety being George Estey.

The record of his entry still exists in the books of the College. It

runs: "Gul. Harvey, Filius Thomae Harvey, Yeoman Cantianus, ex oppido

Folkeston, educatus in Ludo Literario Cantuar. natus annos 16, admissus

pensionarius minor in commeatum scholarium, ultimo die Mai 1593."

(William Harvey, the son of Thomas Harvey, a yeoman of Kent, of the

town of Folkestone, educated at the Canterbury Grammar School, aged 16

years, was admitted a lesser pensioner at the scholars' table on the

last day of May, 1593.)

The choice of the college seems to show that Harvey was already

destined by his father to follow the medical profession. His habits

of minute observation, his fondness for dissection and his love of

comparative anatomy had probably shown the bias of his mind from his

earliest years. Thirty-six years before Harvey's entry, Gonville Hall

had been refounded as Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, by Dr.

Caius, who was long its master. Caius, in addition to his knowledge of

Greek, may be said to have introduced the study of practical anatomy

into England. His influence obtained for the college the grant of a

charter in the sixth year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, a charter by

which the Master and Fellows were allowed to take annually the bodies

of two criminals condemned to death and executed in Cambridge or its

Castle free of all charges, to be used for the purposes of dissection,

with a view to the increase of the knowledge of medicine and to benefit

the health of her Majesty's lieges, without interference on the part of

any of her officials. Unfortunately no record has been kept as to the

use which the college made of this privilege, nor are there any means

of ascertaining whether Harvey did more than follow the ordinary course

pursued by students until he graduated as a Bachelor of Arts in 1597.

His education, in all probability, had been wholly general thus far,

consisting of a sound knowledge of Greek, a very thorough acquaintance

with Latin, and some learning in dialectics and physics. He was now to

begin his more strictly professional studies, and the year after he had

taken his Arts degree at Cambridge found him travelling through France

and Germany towards Italy, where he was to study the sciences more

nearly akin to medicine, as well as medicine itself.

The great North Italian Universities of Bologna, Padua, Pisa,

and Pavia, were then at the height of their renown as centres of

mathematics, law, and medicine. Harvey chose to attach himself to

Padua, and many reasons probably influenced him in his choice. The

University was specially renowned for its anatomical school, rendered

famous by the labours of Vesalius, the first and greatest of modern

anatomists, and by the work of his successor, Fabricius, born at

Aquapendente in 1537. Caius had lectured on Greek in Padua, and some

connection between his college at Cambridge and his old University

may still have been maintained, though it was now nearly a quarter of

a century since his death. The fame of Fabricius and his school was

no doubt the chief reason which led Harvey to Padua, but there was an

additional reason which led his friends to concur cheerfully in his

resolve. Padua was the University town of Venice, and the tolerance

which it enjoyed under the protection of the great commercial republic

rendered it a much safer place of residence for a Protestant than any

of the German Universities, or even than its fellows in Italy. The

matriculation registers which have recently been published show how

large a number of its medical and law students were drawn from England

and the other Protestant countries of Europe, and the English and

Scotch "nation" existed in Padua as late as 1738, when the days of

mediæval cosmopolitanism were elsewhere rapidly passing away.

The Universities of Europe have always been of two types, the one

Magistral, like that of Paris, with which we are best acquainted,

for Oxford and Cambridge are modelled on Paris, and the Masters of

Arts form the ruling body; the other, the Student Universities, under

the control of the undergraduates, of which Bologna was the mother.

Hitherto Harvey had been a member of a Magistral University, now he

became attached to a University of Students, for Padua was an offshoot

of Bologna. Hitherto he had received a general education mainly

directed by the Church, now he was to follow a special course of

instruction mainly directed by the students themselves, for they had

the power of electing their own teachers, and in these points lies the

great difference between a University of Masters and a University of

Students.

In 1592 there were at Padua two Universities, that of the jurists, and

that of the humanists--the Universitas juristarum and the Universitas

artistarum. The jurists' University was the most important, both in

numbers and in the rank of its students; the artistarum Universitas

consisted of the faculties of divinity, medicine, and philosophy.

It was the poorer, and in some points it was actually under the

control of the jurists. In each university the students were

enrolled according to their nationality into a series of "nations."

Each nation had the power of electing one, and in some cases two,

representatives--conciliarii--who formed with the Rectors the executive

of the University. The conciliarii, with the consent of one Rector, had

the power of convening the congregation or supreme governing body of

the University, which consisted of all the students except those poor

men who lived "at other's expense."

Harvey went to Padua in 1598, but it appears to be impossible to

recover any documentary evidence of his matriculation, though it would

be interesting to do so, as up to the end of the sixteenth century

each entry in the register is accompanied by a note of some physical

peculiarity as a means of identifying the student. Thus:--

"D. Henricus Screopeus, Anglus, cum naevo in manu sinistrâ, die nonâ

Junii, 1593." [Mr. Henry Scrope, an Englishman, with a birthmark on his

left hand (matriculated), 9 June, 1593.]

"Johannes Cookaeus, anglus, cum cicatrice in articullo medii digiti

die dicta." [John Cook, an Englishman, with a scar over the joint of

his middle finger (matriculated) on the same day (9 June, 1593).] And

at another time, "Josephus Listirus, anglus, cum parva cicatrice in

palpebra dextera." [Joseph Lister, an Englishman, with a little scar

on his right eyebrow (matriculated on the 21st of November, 1598).]

Notwithstanding Harvey entered at Padua in 1598 no record of him has

been found before the year 1600, although Professor Carlo Ferraris,

the present Rector Magnificus and Dr. Girardi, the Librarian of the

University, have, at my request, made a very thorough examination of

the archives.

Dr. Andrich published in 1892 a very interesting account of the English

and Scotch "nation" at Padua with a list of the various persons

belonging to it. This register contains the entry, "D. Gulielmus

Ameius, Anglus," the first in the list of the English students in

the Jurist University of Padua for the new century as it heads the

year 1600-1601, and a similar entry occurs in 1601-1602. There are

also entries about this person which show that at the usual time of

election, that is to say, on the 1st of August in the years 1600, 1601,

and 1602, he was elected a member of the council (conciliarius) of the

English nation in the Jurist University of Padua. His predecessors,

colleagues, and successors in the council usually held office for two

years. He was therefore either elected earlier into the council, or

he was resident in the university for a somewhat longer time than the

majority of the students.

Prof. Ferraris and Dr. Girardi have carefully examined this entry for

me, and they assure me that there is no doubt that in the original the

word is Arveius and not Ameius and that it refers to William Harvey.

They are confirmed in this idea by the discovery of his "Stemma" as

a councillor of the English nation for the year 1600. Stemmata are

certain tablets erected in the university cloisters and in the hall or

"Aula Magna" (which is on the first floor) to commemorate the residence

in Padua of many doctors, professors, and students. They are sometimes

armorial and sometimes symbolical. In 1892 Professor George Darwin

carried an address from the University of Cambridge to that of Padua

on the occasion of the tercentenary celebration of the appointment

of Galileo to a Professorship in Padua. Professor Darwin then made

a careful examination of these monuments so far as they related to

Cambridge men, but he was unable to find any memorial of Harvey.

Professor Ferraris continued the search, and on the 20th of March,

1893, he wrote to Professor Darwin: "We have succeeded in our search

for the arms of Harvey. We have discovered two in the courtyard in the

lower cloister. The first is a good deal decayed and the inscription

has disappeared; but the second is very well preserved and we have

also discovered the inscription under a thin coating of whitewash which

it was easy to remove." The monuments, which are symbolical, though

Harvey was a gentleman of coat armour, are situated over the capitals

of the columns in the concavity of the roof, one being in the left

cloister, the other in the cloister opposite to the great gate of the

court of the palace.

[Illustration:

[_To face page 20._

]

The kindness of Professor George Darwin has enabled me to reproduce

this "stemma" from a photograph made for the Cambridge Antiquarian

Society's publications. The memorial consists of an oval shield with a

florid indented border having a head carved at each end of the oval.

The shield shows a right arm which issues from the sinister side of the

oval and holds a lighted candle round which two serpents are twined.

Traces of the original colouring (a red ground, a white sleeved arm,

and green serpents) remained on one of the monuments, and both have

now been accurately restored by the Master and Fellows of Gonville and

Caius College, Cambridge. A coloured drawing of the tablet has also

been made at the expense of the Royal College of Physicians of London,

and is now in their possession. A replica of this drawing was

presented by the University Senate of Padua to Gonville and Caius

College on the occasion of the dinner given in their hall in June,

1893, to commemorate the admission of Harvey to the college on the 31st

of May, 1593.

It appears, therefore, that Harvey was a member of the more

aristocratic Universitas Juristarum at Padua, which admitted a

few medical and divinity students into its ranks, and that he

early attained to the position of conciliarius of his nation. As a

conciliarius Harvey must have taken part more than once in one of the

most magnificent ceremonials which the university could show--the

installation of a new Rector. The office of Rector was biennial, the

electors being the past rectors, the councillors, and a great body of

special delegates. The voting was by ballot, a Dominican priest acting

as the returning officer. The ceremony took place in the Cathedral

in the presence of the whole university. Here the Rector elect was

solemnly invested with the rectorial hood by one of the doctors, and

he was then escorted home in triumph by the whole body of students,

who expected to be regaled with a banquet, or at the least with wine

and spices. Originally a tilt or tournament was held, at which the new

rector was required to provide two hundred spears and two hundred

pairs of gloves; but this practice had been discontinued for some

time before Harvey came into residence. A remarkable custom, however,

remained, which allowed the students to tear the clothes from the back

of the newly elected rector, who was then called upon to redeem the

pieces at an exorbitant rate. So much license attended the ceremony

that a statute was passed in 1552 to restrain "the too horrid and

petulant mirth of these occasions," but it did not venture to abolish

the time-honoured custom of the "vestium laceratio."

To make up for the magnificence of these scenes the Paduan student

underwent great hardships. Food was scanty and bad, forms were rough,

the windows were mere sheets of linen, which the landlord was bound to

renew as occasion required; but to this Harvey was accustomed, for as

late as 1598 the rooms of some of the junior fellows at King's College,

Cambridge, were still unprovided with glass. Artificial light was

ruinously expensive, and there was an entire absence of any kind of

amusement.

The medical session began on St. Luke's Day in each year, when there

was an oration in praise of medicine followed by High Mass and the

Litany of the Holy Ghost. The session lasted until the Feast of the

Assumption, on August 15th, and in this time the whole human body was

twice dissected in public by the professor of Anatomy. The greater part

of the work in the university was done between six and eight o'clock in

the morning, and some of the lectures were given at daybreak, though

Fabricius lectured at the more reasonable hour (horà tres de mane)

which corresponded with nine o'clock before noon.

Hieronymus Fabricius was at once a surgeon, an anatomist, and the

historian of medicine; and as he was one of the most learned so he was

one of the most honoured teachers of his day. Amongst the privileges

which the Venetian Senate conferred upon the rector of the University

of Padua was the right to wear a robe of purple and gold, whilst upon

the resignation of his office he was granted the title for life of

Doctor, and was presented with the golden collar of the Order of St.

Mark. Fabricius, like the Rector, was honoured with these tokens of

regard. He was granted precedence of all the other professors, and

in his old age the State awarded him an annual pension of a thousand

crowns as a reward for his services. The theatre in which he lectured

still exists. It is now an ancient building with circular seats

rising almost perpendicularly one above another. The seats are nearly

black with age, and they give a most venerable appearance to the small

apartment, which is wainscoted with curiously carved oak. The lectures

must have been given by candlelight, for the building is so constructed

that no daylight can be admitted. But when Harvey was at Padua the

theatre was new, and the Government had placed an inscription over

the entrance to commemorate the liberality as well as the genius of

Fabricius, who had built the former theatre at his own expense. Here

Harvey sat assiduously during his stay in Padua, learning charity,

perhaps, as well as anatomy from his master; for Fabricius had at home

a cabinet set apart for the presents which he had received instead

of fees, and over it he had placed the inscription, "Lucri neglecti

lucrum."

Fabricius was more than a teacher to Harvey, for a fast friendship

seems to have sprung up between master and pupil. Fabricius--then a man

of sixty-one he lived to be eighty-two--was engaged during Harvey's

residence in Padua in perfecting his knowledge of the valves of the

veins. The valves had been known and described by Sylvius of Louvilly

(1478-1555), that old miser, but prince of lecturers, who warmed

himself in the depth of a Parisian winter by playing ball against the

wall of his room rather than be at the expense of a fire, and who

threatened to close the doors of his class-room until two defaulting

students either paid their fees or were expelled by their fellows. But

the work of Sylvius had fallen into oblivion and Fabricius rediscovered

the valves in 1574. His observations were not published until 1603,

when they appeared as a small treatise "de venarum ostiolis." There

is no doubt that he demonstrated their existence to his class, and

Harvey knew of the treatise, though it was published a year after

he had returned to England. Indeed, when we look at Harvey's work,

much of it appears to be a continuation and an amplification of that

done by Fabricius. Both were intensely interested in the phenomena of

development; both wrote upon the structure and functions of the skin;

both studied the anatomy of the heart, lungs, and blood vessels; both

wrote a treatise "de motu locali." Harvey's youth, his comparative

freedom from the trammels of authority, and his more logical mind,

enabled him to outstrip his master and to avoid the errors into which

he had fallen. This advance is particularly well seen in connection

with the valves of the veins. Fabricius taught that their purpose was

to prevent over-distension of the vessels when the blood passed from

the larger into the smaller veins (a double error) whilst they were not

needed in the arteries because the blood was always in a state of ebb

and flow. It was left for Harvey to point out their true use and to

indicate their importance as an anatomical proof of the circulation of

the blood.

Harvey graduated as Doctor of Medicine at Padua in 1602 in the

presence, it is said, of Fortescue, Willoughby, Lister, Mounsell, Fox

[disguised in the Records as Vulperinus], and Darcy, some of whom

remained his friends throughout life. The eulogistic terms in which his

diploma is couched leave no doubt that his abilities had made a deep

impression upon the mind of his teachers. By some means it came into

the hands of Dr. Osmond Beauvoir, head master of the King's School,

Canterbury, by whom it was presented to the College of Physicians of

London on September 30, 1766. The diploma is dated April 25, 1602,

and it confers on Harvey the degree of Doctor of Physic, with leave

to practise and to teach arts and medicine in every land and seat

of learning. It further recites that "he had conducted himself so

wonderfully well in the examination, and had shown such skill, memory,

and learning that he had far surpassed even the great hopes which

his examiners had formed of him. They decided therefore that he was

skilful, expert, and most efficiently qualified both in arts and

medicine, and to this they put their hands, unanimously, willingly,

with complete agreement, and unhesitatingly."

Armed with so splendid a testimonial Harvey must have returned at once

to England, for he obtained the degree of Doctor of Medicine from the

University of Cambridge in the same year. The University records of

Padua seemed to show that he maintained a somewhat close relationship

with his Italian friends for some years afterwards as the following

entries appear:--

"1608-9 xxi. julii d. Gulielmus Herui, anglus.

ix-xxx d. Gulielmus Heruy.

30 D. Gulielmus Heruy anglus die xx aug. cons. anglicae electus."

The entries are given as they stand in Dr. Andrich's book, "De natione

Anglica." They need further elucidation, for they either refer to some

other person of the name of Harvey, or they point to visits made by

Harvey in some of his numerous continental journeys. It is somewhat

remarkable that all the records are found in the annals of the jurist

university when Harvey should have belonged to the humanists. Perhaps

the prestige of the dominant University more than compensated for the

separation from his colleagues who were studying medicine. Indeed

the separation may have been only nominal, for the students of the

humanist and jurist universities might have sat side by side in the

lecture theatre and in the dissecting room, just as members of the

different colleges still do in Oxford. But party distinctions ran high

at the time, and there was probably no more social intercourse between

the members of the two universities than there is now between the

individuals of different corps in a German university.

Soon after his return to England Harvey seems to have taken a house in

London, in the parish of St. Martin's, extra Ludgate, and he lost no

time in attaching himself to the College of Physicians. This body had

the sole right of licensing physicians to practise in London and within

seven miles of the City. Admission to the College was practically

confined to graduates in medicine of the English Universities, but

those who held a diploma from a foreign university were allowed to

enrol themselves if they produced letters testimonial of admission _ad

eundem_ at Oxford or Cambridge, and perhaps it was for this reason

that Harvey proceeded to qualify himself by taking his M.D. degree at

Cambridge. He was admitted a Candidate of the College of Physicians on

October 5, 1604, in the stone house, once Linacre's, in Knightrider

Street, the candidates being the members or commonalty of the College

from whom its Fellows were chosen.

Harvey married a few weeks after his admission to the College of

Physicians. The Registers of St. Sepulchre's Church are wanting at this

time, but the allegation for his marriage licence is still extant. It

was issued by the Bishop of London and runs:--

"1604 Nov. 24. William Harvey, Dr. of Physic, Bachelor, 26, of

St. Martin's, Ludgate, and Elizabeth Browne, Maiden, 24, of St.

Sepulchre's, daughter of Lancelot Browne of same, Dr. of Physic

who consents; consent also of Thomas Harvey, one of the Jurats of

the town of Folston in Kent, father of the said William; at St.

Sepulchre's Newgate."

Dr. Browne was physician to Queen Elizabeth and to James I. He died the

year following the marriage of his daughter.

Harvey's union was childless, and we know nothing of Mrs. Harvey except

that she died before her husband, though she was alive in 1645, when

John Harvey died and left her a hundred pounds. She is incidentally

mentioned by her husband in the following account of an accomplished

parrot, who was Mrs. Harvey's pet. Through a long life the parrot

maintained the masculine character until in one unguarded moment she

lost both life and reputation.

"A parrot, a handsome bird and a famous talker, had long been a pet of

my wife's. It was so tame that it wandered freely through the house,

called for its mistress when she was abroad, greeted her cheerfully

when it found her, answered her call, flew to her, and aiding himself

with beak and claws, climbed up her dress to her shoulder, whence it

walked down her arm and often settled upon her hand. When ordered to

sing or talk, it did as it was bidden even at night and in the dark.

Playful and impudent, it would often seat itself in my wife's lap to

have its head scratched and its back stroked, whilst a gentle movement

of its wings and a soft murmur witnessed to the pleasure of its soul.

I believed all this to proceed from its usual familiarity and love

of being noticed, for I always looked upon the creature as a male on

account of its skill in talking and singing (for amongst birds the

females rarely sing or challenge one another by their notes, and the

males alone solace their mates by their tuneful warblings) ... until

... not long after the caressings mentioned, the parrot, which had

lived for so many years in health, fell sick, and by and by being

seized with repeated attacks of convulsions, died, to our great sorrow,

in its mistress's lap, where it had so often loved to lie. On making

a post-mortem examination to discover the cause of death I found an

almost complete egg in its oviduct, but it was addled."

There are no means of knowing how Harvey spent the first few years of

his married life in London, though it is certain that he was not idle.

He was probably occupied in making those observations on the heart and

blood vessels which have since rendered his name famous. Indeed his

lectures show an intimate acquaintance with the anatomy of more than

sixty kinds of animals, as well as a very thorough knowledge of the

structure of the human body, and such knowledge must have cost him

years of patient study. At the same time he practised his profession,

and won for himself the good opinion of his seniors.

He was elected a Fellow of the College of Physicians, June 5, 1607,

and thereupon he sought almost immediately to attach himself to St.

Bartholomew's Hospital.

The offices in the hospital at that time were usually granted in

reversion--that is to say, a successor was appointed whilst the

occupant was still in possession. Following this custom the hospital

minutes record that--

"At a Court [of Governors] held on Sunday, the 25th

day of February, Anno Domini 1608-9,

"In presence of Sir John Spencer, Knight, President

(and others).

"Mr.[1] Dr. HARVEY

"This day Mr. William Harvey Doctor of Physic made suit for the

reversion of the office of the Physician of this house when the

same shall be next void and brought the King's Majesty his letters

directed to the Governors of this house in his behalf, and showed

forth a testimony of his sufficiency for the same place under

the hand of Mr. Doctor Adkynson president of the College of the

physicians and diverse other doctors of the auncientest of the

said College. It is granted at the contemplation of his Majesty's

letters that the said Mr. Harvey shall have the said office next

after the decease or other departure of Mr. Doctor Wilkenson who

now holdeth the same with the yearly fee and duties thereunto

belonging, so that then he be not found to be otherwise employed,

that may let or hinder the charge of the same office, which

belongeth thereunto."

This grant practically gave Harvey the position which is now occupied

by an assistant physician, as one who was appointed to succeed to an

office in this manner was usually called upon to discharge its duties

during the absence or illness of the actual holder. Harvey seems to

have carried out his duties with tact and zeal, for Dr. Wilkinson,

himself a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, gave him the benefit of

his professional experience and remained his friend.

It seems possible that John Harvey's position at Court enabled him to

obtain from the King the letters recommendatory which rendered his

brother's application so successful at St. Bartholomew's Hospital.

However this may be, Harvey did not long occupy the subordinate

position, for Dr. Wilkinson died late in the summer of 1609, and

on August 28 in the same year Harvey offered himself to the House

Committee "to execute the office of physician of this house until

Michaelmas next, without any recompense for his pains herein, which

office Mr. Doctor Wilkinson, late deceased, held. And Mr. Doctor

Harvey being asked whether he is not otherwise employed in any other

place which may let or hinder the execution of the office of the

physician toward the poor of this hospital hath answered that he is

not, wherefore it is thought fit by the said governors that he supply

the same office until the next Court (of governors). And then Mr.

Doctor Harvey to be a suitor for his admittance to the said place

according to a grant thereof to him heretofore made." The form of his

election therefore was identical with that which is still followed at

the Hospital in cases of an appointment to an uncontested vacancy. The

House Committee or smaller body of Governors recommend to the whole

body or Court of Governors with whom the actual appointment lies.

Harvey performed his duties as physician's substitute at the hospital

until--

"At a Court [of Governors] held on Sunday the 14th

day of October 1609.

"In presence of Sir John Spencer, Knight, President

(and others).

"Dr. HARVEY.

"This day Mr. William Harvey Doctor of Physic is admitted to the

office of Physician of this Hospital, which Mr. Dr. Wilkenson,

deceased, late held, according to a former grant made to him and

the charge of the said office hath been read unto him."

The charge runs in the following words; it is dated the day of Harvey's

election:--

"_October 14, 1609._

"The Charge of the Physician of St. Bartholomew's

Hospital.

"PHYSICIAN.

"You are here elected and admitted to be the physician for the

Poor of this Hospital, to perform the charge following, That is to

say, one day in the week at the least through the year or oftener

as need shall require you shall come to this hospital and cause

the Hospitaller, Matron, or Porter to call before you in the hall

of this hospital such and so many of the poor harboured in this

hospital as shall need the counsell and advice of the physician.

And you are here required and desired by us, in God his most holy

name, that you endeavour yourself to do the best of your knowledge

in the profession of physic to the poor then present, or any other

of the poor at any time of the week which shall be sent home unto

you by the Hospitaller or Matron for your counsel, writing in a

book appointed for that purpose such medicines with their compounds

and necessaries as appertaineth to the apothecary or this house

to be provided and made ready for to be ministered unto the poor,

every one in particular according to his disease. You shall not,

for favour, lucre, or gain, appoint or write anything for the

poor but such good and wholesome things as you shall think with

your best advice will do the poor good, without any affection or

respect to be had to the apothecary. And you shall take no gift

or reward of any of the poor of this house for your counsel. This

you will promise to do as you shall answer before God, and as it

becometh a faithful physician, whom you chiefly ought to serve

in this vocation, is by God called unto and for your negligence

herein, if you fail, you shall render account. And so we require

you faithfully to promise in God his most holy name to perform this

your charge in the hearing of us, with your best endeavour as God

shall enable you so long as you shall be physician to the poor of

this hospital."

Dr. Norman Moore says that, as physician, Harvey sat once a week at

a table in the hall of the hospital, and that the patients who were

brought to him sat by his side on a settle--the apothecary, the

steward, and the matron standing by whilst he wrote his prescriptions

in a book which was always kept locked. The hall was pulled down about

the year 1728, but its spacious fireplace is still remembered because,

to maintain the fire in it, Henry III. granted a supply of wood from

the Royal Forest at Windsor. The surgeons to the hospital discharged

their duties in the wards, but the physician only went into them to

visit such patients as were unable to walk.

The office of physician carried with it an official residence rented

from the governors of the hospital at such a yearly rent and on such

conditions as was agreed upon from time to time. Harvey never availed

himself of this official residence, for at the time of his election he

was living in Ludgate, where he was within easy reach of the hospital.

For some reason, however, it was resolved at a Court of Governors, held

under the presidency of Sir Thomas Lowe on July 28, 1614, that Harvey

should have this residence, consisting of two houses and a garden in

West Smithfield adjoining the hospital. The premises were let on lease

at the time of the grant, but the tenure of Harvey or of his successor

was to begin at its expiration. The lease did not fall in until 1626,

when Harvey, after some consideration, decided not to accept it. It

was therefore agreed, on July 7, 1626, that his annual stipend should

be increased from £25 to £33 6s. 8d. In these negotiations, as well

as in some monetary transactions which he had with the steward of the

hospital at the time of his election as physician to the hospital, we

seem to see the hand of Eliab, for throughout his life William was

notoriously open-handed, indifferent to wealth, and constitutionally

incapable of driving a bargain.

III

THE LUMLEIAN LECTURES

Until the year 1745 the teaching of Anatomy in England was vested in

a few corporate bodies, and private teaching was discouraged in every

possible way, even by fine and imprisonment. The College of Physicians

and the Barber Surgeons' Company had a monopoly of the anatomical

teaching in London. In the provinces the fragmentary records of the

various guilds of Barber Surgeons show that many of them recognised

the value of a knowledge of Anatomy as the foundation of medicine. In

the universities there were special facilities for its teaching. But

subjects were difficult to procure, and dissection came to be looked

upon as part of a legal process so inseparably connected with the death

penalty for crime that it was impossible to obtain even the body of a

"stranger" for anatomical purposes.

The Act of Parliament which, in 1540, united the Guild of Surgeons

with the Company of Barber Surgeons in London especially empowered

the masters of the united company to take yearly the bodies of four

malefactors who had been condemned and put to death for felony for

their "further and better knowledge, instruction, insight, learning,

and experience in the science and faculty of surgery." Queen Elizabeth,

following this precedent, granted a similar permission to the College

of Physicians in 1565. The Charter allowed the President of the College

of Physicians to take one, two, three, or four bodies a year for

dissection. The radius from which the supply might be obtained was

enlarged, so that persons executed in London, Middlesex, or any county

within sixteen miles might be taken by the college servants.

The proviso would appear to be unnecessary, considering the great

number of executions which then took place and the small number of

bodies which were required, but it probably enabled the subjects to be

obtained with greater ease. The executions in London were witnessed

by great crowds, who often sided with the friends of the felons, and

rendered it impossible for the body to be taken away for dissection.

The Charter of James I. enlarged these powers by allowing the College

of Physicians to take annually the bodies of six felons executed in

London, Middlesex, or Surrey.

Little is known in detail of the manner in which Anatomy was taught

by the College of Physicians, but the labours of Mr. Young and Mr.

South have given us an accurate picture of the way in which it was

carried out by the Barber Surgeons in London. We may be sure that in

so conservative an age the methods did not differ greatly at the two

institutions, especially as the Barber Surgeons usually enlisted the

services of the better trained physicians to teach their members both

Anatomy and Surgery.

Anatomy was taught practically in a series of demonstrations upon the

body; but as there was no means of preserving the subject, it had to

be taught by a general survey rather than in minute detail. The method

adopted was the one still followed by the veterinary student. A single

body was dissected to show the muscles (this was the muscular lecture);

another to show the bones (the osteological lecture); another to show

the parts within the head, chest, and abdomen (the visceral lecture).

The osteological lecturer was not always identical with the visceral

lecturer, nor he with the lecturer upon the muscles, though some great

teachers, like Reid and Harvey, gave a course upon each subject.

The Demonstrations usually took place four times a year, and were

called Public Anatomies, because the subject was generally a public

body--that is to say, it was a felon executed for his misdeeds. There

was also an indefinite number of Private Anatomies. The attendance of

surgeons at the Public Anatomies was compulsory. The attendance at the

Private Anatomies was by invitation. It was illegal for any surgeon

to dissect a human body in the City of London, or within a radius of

seven miles, without permission of the Barber Surgeons' Company; and

in 1573 the Company's Records for May 21st contain the minute: "Here

was John Deane and appointed to bring in his fine of ten pounds (for

having an Anatomy in his house contrary to an order in that behalf)

between this and Midsummer next"--an enormously heavy punishment when

we remember the relative value of money in those days. Whenever a

surgeon wished to dissect a particularly interesting subject, it was

termed a Private Anatomy, and it was generally performed at the Hall of

the Company after due permission had been asked for and obtained, the

surgeon inviting his own friends and pupils, the Company inviting whom

it chose.

Every effort was made to insure the punctual attendance at the public

or compulsory anatomies, for it was enacted in 1572 that every man of

the Company using the mystery or faculty of surgery, be he freeman,

foreigner, or alien stranger, shall come unto the Anatomy lecture,

being by the beadle warned thereto. And for not keeping their hour,

both in the forenoon and also in the afternoon, and being a freeman,

shall forfeit and pay at every time fourpence. The foreigner (or one

who was not free of the Company) in like manner, and the stranger

sixpence. The said fines and forfeits to be employed by the anatomists

for their expenses. Excuses were sometimes admitted, for a few years

earlier Robert Mudsley "hath licence to be absent from all lecture

days without payment of any fine because he hath given over exercising

of the art of Surgery and doth occupy only a silk shop and shave." In

later years, the higher the position of the defaulter in the Company,

the heavier was his fine for non-attendance; so that the assistants

of the Company, who corresponded to the Council of the present Royal

College of Surgeons, were fined 3s. 4d. for each lecture they missed.

Every effort was made to render the lectures successful. The best

teachers were obtained; they were paid liberally, and each lecturer or

reader was himself assisted by two demonstrators. Each course lasted

three days--a lecture in the morning, a lecture in the afternoon, and

a feast between the two lectures. As the anatomies were a public show,

we may feel sure that Pepys attended one, and, as usual, he gives a

perfectly straightforward account of the proceedings. He records under

the date February 27, 1662-1663: "Up and to my office.... About eleven

o'clock Commissioner Pett and I walked to Chyrurgeon's Hall (we being

all invited thither, and promised to dine there), where we were led

into the Theatre: and by and by comes the reader Dr. Tearne, with the

Master and Company in a very handsome manner: and all being settled,

he begun his lecture, this being the second upon the kidneys, ureters,

&c., which was very fine; and his discourse being ended, we walked into

the Hall, and there being great store of company, we had a fine dinner

and good learned company, many Doctors of Phisique, and we used with

extraordinary great respect.... After dinner Dr. Scarborough took some

of his friends, and I went along with them, to see the body alone,

which we did, which was a lusty fellow, a seaman that was hanged for a

robbery. I did touch the dead body with my bare hand: it felt cold,

but methought it was a very unpleasant sight.... Thence we went into

a private room, where I perceive they prepare the bodies, and there

were the kidneys, ureters, &c., upon which he read to-day, and Dr.

Scarborough, upon my desire and the company's, did show very clearly

the manner of the disease of the stone and the cutting, and all other

questions that I could think of.... Thence with great satisfaction to

me back to the Company, where I heard good discourse, and so to the

afternoon lecture upon the heart and lungs, &c., and that being done we

broke up, took leave and back to the office, we two, Sir W. Batten, who

dined here also, being gone before." Pepys' interest in this particular

lecture lay in the fact that he had himself been cut for stone, a

disease which seems to have been hereditary in his mother's family. Dr.

Scarborough, who had been the Company's lecturer for nineteen years,

was the friend and pupil of Harvey, whose interest had obtained the

post for him. He seems to have been succeeded by Dr. Christopher Terne,

assistant physician to St. Bartholomew's Hospital, whose lecture Pepys

heard.

The cost of the lectures and demonstrations was defrayed at first by

the Corporations, but in course of time, benefactors came forward and

bequeathed funds for the purpose. In the year 1579 there was a motion

before the Court of the Barber Surgeons' Company concerning a lecture

in surgery "to be had and made in our Hall and of an annuity of ten

pounds to be given for the performance thereof yearly by Master Doctor

Caldwall, Doctor in phisick; but it was not concluded upon neither

was any further speech at that time." No reference to the proposal

occurs subsequently in the minute books, so that the idea was probably

abandoned, no doubt upon the ground that it would lead to additional

expense which the Company was unprepared to meet. The annuity was only

ten pounds a year, and in 1646 the cost of the lectures, including the

dinners, amounted to £22 14s. 6d., or without the feasts to £12 14s.

6d. It is now obvious that the Company did a very stupid thing, for in

1581, two years later, Lord Lumley in conjunction with Dr. Caldwell,

and at his instance, founded the Lumleian lectureship at the College of

Physicians. The surgeons thus lost a noble benefaction which should of

right have belonged to them and with which Harvey might still have been

associated, for whilst he was lecturing at the College of Physicians,

Alexander Reid, his junior in years as well as in standing, was

lecturing at the Barber Surgeons' Hall in Monkwell Street.

The Lumleian lecture was a surgery lecture established at a cost of

forty pounds a year, laid as a rent charge upon the lands of Lord

Lumley in Essex, and of Dr. Caldwell in Derbyshire.

Its founders were two notable men. Lord Lumley, says Camden, was a

person of entire virtue, integrity, and innocence, and in his old

age, was a complete pattern of true nobility. His father, the sixth

baron, suffered death for high treason, but the son was made a Knight

of the Bath two days before the coronation of Queen Mary. He was one

of the lords appointed to attend Queen Elizabeth at her accession, in

the journey from Hatfield to London, and at the accession of James

I. he was made one of the Commissioners for settling the claims at

his coronation. He died April 11, 1609, without surviving issue. Dr.

Caldwell had enjoyed unique honour at the College of Physicians. He was

examined, approved, and admitted a Fellow upon 22nd December, 1559, and

upon the same day he was appointed a Censor. He became President in

1570, and was present at the institution of the lecture in 1582. He

was then so aged, his white head adding double reverence to his years,

that when he attempted to make a Latin oration to the auditors he was

compelled to leave it unfinished by reason of his manifold debilities.

And in a very short time afterwards the good old doctor fell sick, and

as a candle goeth out of itself or a ripe apple falleth from a tree, so

departed he out of this world at the Doctors' Commons, where his usual

lodgings were, and was buried on the 6th of June immediately following,

in the year 1584, at S. Ben'et's Church by Paul's Wharf, at the upper

end of the chancel.

The design of the benefaction was a noble one. It was the institution

of a lecture on Surgery to be continued perpetually for the common

benefit of London and consequently of all England, the like whereof

had not been established in any University of Christendom (Bologna

and Padua excepted). An attempt had been made to establish such a

lectureship at Paris, but the project failed when Francis I. died, on

the last day of March, 1547.

The reader of the Lumleian lecture was to be a Doctor of Physic of

good practice and knowledge who was to be paid an honest stipend, no

less in amount than that received by the Regius Professors of law,

divinity, and physic, in the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. The

lecturer was enjoined to lecture twice a week throughout the year, to

wit on Wednesdays and Fridays, at ten of the clock till eleven. He was

to read for three-quarters of an hour in Latin and the other quarter

in English "wherein that shall be plainly declared for those that

understand not Latin."

The lecturer was appointed for life and his subjects were so arranged

that they recurred in cycles. The first year he was to read the tables

of Horatius Morus, an epitome or brief handling of all the whole art

of surgery, that is, of swellings, wounds, ulcers, bone-setting, and

the healing of broken bones commonly called fractures. He was also to

lecture upon certain prescribed works of Galen and Oribasius, and at

the end of the year in winter he was directed "to dissect openly in the

reading place all the body of man, especially the inward parts for five

days together, as well before as after dinner; if the bodies may last

so long without annoy."

The second year he was to read somewhat more advanced works upon

surgery and in the winter "to dissect the trunk only of the body,

namely, from the head to the lowest part where the members are and to

handle the muscles especially. The third year to read of wounds, and

in winter to make public dissections of the head only. The fourth year

to read of ulcers and to anatomise [or dissect] a leg and an arm for

the knowledge of muscles, sinews, arteries, veins, gristles, ligaments,

and tendons. The fifth year to read the sixth book of Paulus Aegineta,

and in winter to make an anatomy of a skeleton and therewithall to show

the use of certain instruments for the setting of bones. The sixth year

to read Holerius of the matter of surgery as well as of the medicines

for surgeons to use. And the seventh year to begin again and continue

still."

The College of Physicians made every effort to fulfil its trust

adequately. Linacre, its founder and first President in 1518, allowed

the Fellows to use the front part of his house--the stone house in

Knightrider Street, consisting of a parlour below and a chamber above,

as a council room and library, and the college continued to use these

rooms for some years after his death, the rest of the premises being

the property of Merton College, Oxford. At the Institution of the

Surgery lecture the Fellows determined to appropriate the sum of a

hundred pounds out of their common stock--and this proved to be

nearly all the money the College possessed--to enlarge the building

and to make it more ornamental and better suited for their meetings

and for the attendance at their lectures. The result appears to have

been satisfactory, for two years later, it was ordered, on the 13th

of March, 1583-1584, that a capacious theatre should be added to the

College thus enlarged.

Dr. Richard Forster was appointed the first Lumleian lecturer, and

when he died in 1602, William Dunne took his place. Dunne, however,

did not live to complete a single cycle of lectures for Thomas Davies

was elected in May, 1607. The College then again began to outgrow its

accommodation, and as the site did not allow of any further additions

to the buildings, a suitable house and premises were bought of the Dean

and Chapter of St. Paul's in Amen Corner, at the end of Paternoster

Row. The last meeting of the College in Linacre's old house in

Knightrider Street, took place on the 25th of June, 1614, and its first

meeting in Amen Corner was held on the 23rd of August, 1614. Dr. Davies

died in the following year, and on the 4th of August, 1615, William

Harvey was appointed to the office of Lumleian lecturer, though his

predecessor was not buried until August 20th. He continued to occupy

this post until his resignation in 1656, when his place was taken by

(Sir) Charles Scarborough. The duties of the lecturer, no doubt, had

been modified with each fresh appointment, but even in Harvey's time,

there is some evidence to show that the subjects were still considered

in a definite order.

Harvey, in all probability, began to lecture at once upon surgery as

the more theoretical portion of his subject, but it was not until

April, 1616, that he gave his first anatomical lecture. It was a

visceral lecture for the terms of the bequest required that it should

be upon the inward parts. At this time Harvey was thirty-seven years of

age. A man of the lowest stature, round faced, with a complexion like

the wainscot; his eyes small, round, very black and full of spirit; his

hair as black as a raven and curling; rapid in his utterance, choleric,

given to gesture, and used when in discourse with any one, to play

unconsciously with the handle of the small dagger he wore by his side.

The MS. notes of his first course of lectures are now in the British

Museum. They formed a part of the library of Dr. (afterwards Sir

Hans) Sloane, which was acquired under the terms of his will by the

nation in 1754. For a time the book was well known and extracts were

made from it, then it disappeared and for many years it was mourned

as irretrievably lost. But in 1876 it was found again amongst some

duplicate printed books which had been set aside, and in the following

year it was restored to its place in the Manuscript Department. The

notes were reproduced by an autotype process, at the instigation of Sir

E. H. Sieveking, and under the supervision of a Committee of the Royal

College of Physicians. This facsimile reproduction was published in

1886 with a transcript by Mr. Scott, and an interesting introduction

from the pen of Dr. Norman Moore. The original notes are written upon

both sides of about a hundred pages of foolscap, which had been reduced

to a uniform size of six inches by eight, though the creases on the

paper show that they have been further folded so as to occupy a space

of about eight inches by two. These leaves have been carefully bound

together in leather which presents some pretensions to elegance, but it

is clear that the pages were left loose for some years after they were

written. There seems to be no doubt that Harvey used the volume in its

present form whilst he was lecturing, for three small threads of twine

have been attached by sealing wax to the inner side of the cover so

that additional notes could be slipped in as they were required. It

must be assumed that Harvey did this himself, for he wrote so badly

and the notes are so full of abbreviations, interlineations, and

alterations, as to render them useless to any one but the author.

The title-page, which is almost illegible, is written in red ink. It

runs, "Stat Jove principium, Musae, Jovis omnia plena. Prelectiones

Anatomiae Universalis per me Gulielmum Harveium Medicum Londinensem

Anatomie et Chirurgie Professorem. Anno Domini 1616. Anno aetatis 37

prelectae Aprili 16, 17, 18. Aristoteles Historia Animalium, lib. i.

cap. 16. Hominum partes interiores incertae et incognitae quam ob rem

ad caeterorum Animalium partes quarum similes humanae referentes eas

contemplare." The motto prefixed to the title-page that "everything is

full of Jove" is an incorrect quotation from the third Eclogue of his

favourite author Virgil, of whom he was so enamoured that after reading

him for a time he would throw away the book with the exclamation, "He

hath a devil." This particular line appears especially to have struck

his fancy, for he quotes it twice in his treatise on development, and

he works out the idea which it represents in his fifty-fourth essay.

He there shows that he understands it to mean that the finger of God or

nature, for with him they are synonymous terms, is manifest in every

detail of our structure whether great or small. For he says: "And to

none can these attributes be referred save to the Almighty, first

cause of all things by whatever this name has been designated--the

Divine Mind by Aristotle; the Soul of the Universe by Plato; the Natura

Naturans by others; Saturn and Jove by the Gentiles; by ourselves,

as is seemly in these days, the Creator and Father of all that is

in heaven and earth, on whom all things depend for their being, and

at whose will and pleasure all things are and were engendered." He

thus opened his lectures in a broad spirit of religious charity quite

foreign to his environment but befitting the position he has been

called upon to occupy in the history of science.

These notes of Harvey's visceral lecture are of especial value to us

though they are a mere skeleton of the course--a skeleton which he

was accustomed to clothe with facts drawn from his own vast stores of

observation, with the theories of all his great predecessors and with

the most apposite illustrations. Fortunately they deal with the thorax

and its contents so that they show us the exact point which he had

reached in connection with his great discovery of the circulation of

the blood and the true function of the heart. The notes therefore are

interesting reading quite apart from the peculiarities of their style.

Harvey was so good a Latin scholar, and during his stay in Italy had

acquired such a perfect colloquial knowledge of the language that it is

clear he thought with equal facility in Latin or in English, so that it

is immaterial into which language he put his ideas. He uses therefore

many abbreviations, and whole sentences are written in a mixture of

Latin and English, which always sounds oddly to our unaccustomed ears,

and often seems comical. Thus, in speaking of the lungs and their

functions, he says, "Soe curst children by eager crying grow black and

suffocated _non deficiente animali facultate_," and in speaking of the

eyes and their uses, he says, "Oculi eodem loco, viz., Nobilissimi

supra et ante ad processus eminentes instar capitis in a Lobster ...

snayles cornubus tactu pro visu utuntur unde occuli as a Centinell to

the Army locis editis anterioribus." Sometimes he embodies an important

experimental observation in this jargon as in the example, "Exempto

corde, frogg scipp, eele crawle, dogg Ambulat."

The more important and original ideas throughout the notes are

initialled WH., and this seems to have been Harvey's constant practice,

for it occurs even in the books which he has read and annotated, whilst

to other parts of his notes he has appended the sign [Greek: D].

The lectures were partly read and partly oral, and we know from the

minute directions laid down by the Barber Surgeons Company the exact

manner in which they were given. The "Manual of Anatomy," published by

Alexander Reid in 1634, has a frontispiece showing that the method of

lecturing adopted in England was the same as that in use throughout

Europe. The body lay upon a table, and as the dissections were done in

sight of the audience, the dissecting instruments were close to it.

The lecturer, wearing the cap of his doctor's degree, sate opposite

the centre of the table holding in his hand a little wand[2] to

indicate the part he mentions, though in many cases the demonstration

was made by a second doctor of medicine known as the demonstrator,

whilst the lecturer read his remarks. At either end of the table was

an assistant--the Masters of the Anatomy--with scalpel in hand ready

to expose the different structures, and to clear up any points of

difficulty. The audience grouped themselves in the most advantageous

positions for seeing and hearing, though in some cases places were

assigned to them according to age and rank.

The lecturer upon Anatomy, apart from the fact that he was a Doctor

of Physic was a person of considerable importance in the sixteenth

century. The greatest care was taken of him, as may be understood

from the directions which the Barber Surgeons gave to their Stewards

in Anatomy or those members of the Company who were appointed to

supervise the arrangements for the lectures. They were ordered "to see

and provide that there be every year a mat about the hearth in the

Hall that Mr. Doctor be made not to take cold upon his feet, nor other

gentlemen that do come and mark the Anatomy to learn knowledge. And

further that there be two fine white rods appointed for the Doctor to

touch the body where it shall please him; and a wax candle to look into

the body, and that there be always for the doctor two aprons to be from

the shoulder downwards and two pair of sleeves for his whole arm with

tapes, for change for the said Doctor, and not to occupy one Apron and

one pair of sleeves every day which is unseemly. And the Masters of the

Anatomy that be about the body to have like aprons and sleeves every

day both white and clean. That if the Masters of the Anatomy that be

about the Doctor do not see these things ordered and that their knives,

probes, and other instruments be fair and clean accordingly with Aprons

and sleeves, if they do lack any of the said things afore rehearsed he

shall forfeit for a fine to the Hall forty shillings."

The whole business of a public anatomy was conducted with much

ceremony, and every detail was regulated by precedent. The exact

routine in the Barber Surgeons' Company is laid down in another series

of directions. The clerk or secretary is instructed in his duties

in the following words: "So soon as the body is brought in deliver

out your tickets which must be first filled up as followeth four

sorts:--The first form, to the Surgeons who have served the office of

Master you must say: Be pleased to attend &c. with which summons you

send another for the Demonstrations: to those below the Chair [_i.e._,

who have not filled the office of Master of the Company] you say: Our

Masters desire your Company in your Gown and flat Cap &c. with the

like notice for the Demonstrations as you send to the ancient Master

Surgeons. To the Barbers, if ancient masters, you say: Be pleased to

attend in your Gown only, and if below the Chair, then: Our Masters

desire &c. as to the others above, but without the tickets for the

demonstrations.

"The body being by the Masters of Anatomy prepared for the lecture

(the Beadles having first given the Doctor notice who is to read) and

having taken orders from the Master or Upper Warden [of the Company]

of the Surgeons' side concerning the same, you meet the whole Court

of Assistance [_i.e._, the Council] in the Hall Parlour where every

gentlemen cloathes himself [_i.e._, puts on his livery or gown], and

then you proceed in form to the Theatre. The Beadles going first, next

the Clerk, then the Doctor, and after him the several gentlemen of the

Court; and having come therein, the Doctor and the rest of the Company

being seated, the Clerk walks up to the Doctor and presents him with a

wand and retires without the body of the Court [_i.e._, the theatre in

which the assemblage of the company technically constituted a "court"]

until the lecture is over when he then goes up to the Doctor and takes

the wand from him with directions when to give notice for the reading

in the afternoon which is usually at five precisely, and at one of the

clock at noon, which he pronounces with a distinct and audible voice

by saying, This Lecture, Gentlemen, will be continued at five of the

clock precisely. Having so said he walks out before the Doctor, the

rest of the Company following down to the Hall parlour where they all

dine, the Doctor pulling off his own robes and putting on the Clerk's

Gown first, which it has always been usual for him to dine in. And

after being plentifully regaled they proceed as before until the end of

the third day, which being over (the Clerk having first given notice

in the forenoon) that the lecture will be continued at five of the

clock precisely (at which time the same will be ended) he attends the

Doctor in the clothing room where he presents him folded up in a piece

of paper the sum of ten pounds, and where afterwards he waits upon the

Masters of Anatomy and presents each of them in like manner with the

sum of three pounds, which concludes the duty of the Clerk on this

account.

"N.B.--The Demonstrator, by order of the Court of Assistants, is

allowed to read to his pupils after the public lecture is over for

three days and till six of the clock on each day and no longer, after

which the remains of the body is decently interred at the expence of

the Masters of Anatomy, which usually amounts unto the sum of three

pounds seven shillings and fivepence."

The study of Anatomy seems to have been regarded universally as an

exhausting occupation, for throughout Europe it was the custom to

present the auditors with wine and spices after each lecture, unless

some more substantial refreshment was provided.

Harvey's lectures at the College of Physicians were probably given

with similar ceremony to those just described. His first course was

delivered on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, April 16, 17, and

18, 1616. On the following Tuesday, April 23rd, Shakespeare died at

Stratford-on-Avon, and on the succeeding Thursday, April 25th, he was

buried in the chancel of the parish church.

At the beginning of his lectures Harvey lays down the following

excellent canons for his guidance, of which the sixth seems to indicate

that he was acquainted with the works of John of Arderne--

1. To show as much as may be at a glance, the whole belly for

instance, and afterwards to subdivide the parts according to their

position and relations.

2. To point out what is peculiar to the actual body which is being

dissected.

3. To supply only by speech what cannot be shown on your own credit

and by authority.

4. To cut up as much as may be in the sight of the audience.

5. To enforce the right opinion by remarks drawn from far and near,

and to illustrate man by the structure of animals according to

the Socratic rule [given by Aristotle and affixed as an extract

to the title-page of the lectures[3]]. To bring in points beyond

mere anatomy in relation to the causes of diseases, and the general

study of nature with the object of correcting mistakes and of

elucidating the use and actions of parts for the use of anatomy to

the physician is to explain what should be done in disease.

6. Not to praise or dispraise other anatomists, for all did well,

and there was some excuse even for those who are in error.

7. Not to dispute with others, or attempt to confute them, except

by the most obvious retort, for three days is all too short a time

[to complete the work in hand].

8. To state things briefly and plainly, yet not letting anything

pass unmentioned which can be seen.

9. Not to speak of anything which can be as well explained without

the body or can be read at home.

10. Not to enter into too much detail, or into too minute a

dissection, for the time does not permit.

11. To serve in their three courses according to the glass (_i.e._,

to allot a definite time to each part of the body). In the first

day's lectures the abdomen, nasty, yet recompensed by its infinite

variety. In the second day's lecture the parlour [_i.e._, the

thorax?]. In the third day's lecture the divine banquet of the

brain.

Harvey adheres pretty closely in his visceral lecture to the programme

which he had thus laid down for his own guidance.

The first set of notes deal with the outside of the body, and the

abdomen and its contents. The second portion contains an account

of the chest and its contents; whilst the third portion is devoted

to a consideration of the head with the brain and its nerves. Only

nine pages of the ninety-eight which the book contains are allotted

to the heart. The scheme of the lectures is first to give a general

introduction in which the subject is arranged under different headings,

and then to consider each part under a variety of sub-headings.

Harvey's playfulness is shown even in the introduction. Each main

division is indicated by a roughly drawn hand, and each hand is made

to point with a different finger. The first hand points with its

little finger, and has the other fingers bent, though the thumb is

outstretched as if applied to the nose of the lecturer. The next

heading is indicated by an extended ring finger, the next by the middle

finger, whilst the later ones are mere "bunches of fives," or single

amputated digits. In his description of the abdomen Harvey shows

himself fully alive to the evils of tight-lacing, for, in speaking of

the causes of difficult respiration he says, "young girls by lacing:

unde cut their laces." After a full discussion of the situation and

functions of the various parts of the abdominal viscera, he passes

on to the thorax and enunciates his memorable discovery in these

remarkable words, which are initialled to show that he thought the idea

was peculiarly his own:--

"It is plain from the structure of the heart that the blood is

passed continuously through the lungs to the aorta as by the two

clacks of a water bellows to raise water.

"It is shown by the application of a ligature that the passage of

the blood is from the arteries into the veins.

"Whence it follows that the movement of the blood is constantly

in a circle, and is brought about by the beat of the heart. It is

a question therefore whether this is for the sake of nourishment

or rather for the preservation of the blood and the limbs by the

communication of heat, the blood cooled by warming the limbs being

in turn warmed by the heart."

Here the notes on the heart end abruptly, and Harvey passes on to

consider the lungs. These few sentences show, however, that he had

discovered the circulation, and that although he delayed for twelve

years to make his results public he was unable to add any important

fact in the interval.

The College of Physicians still preserve some interesting memorials

of this portion of Harvey's Lumleian lectures. They consist of a

series of six dissections of the blood vessels and nerves of the human

body, which are traditionally reported to have been made by Harvey

himself. The dissections are displayed upon six boards of the size

of the human body, and they exhibit the complete system of the blood

vessels separated from the other parts so as to form diagrams of the

circulatory apparatus. They have been made with such care that one

of the series still shows the semilunar valves at the beginning of

the aorta. These "tabulae Harveianae" were kept for many years at

Burley-on-the-Hill, the seat of the Earls of Winchelsea, one of whose

ancestors--Heneage Finch--the Lord Chancellor Nottingham, married

Elizabeth, a daughter of William Harvey's younger brother Daniel.

Harvey continued his Lumleian lectures year by year, but we know

nothing more of them until 1627, when he delivered a series of lectures

upon the anatomy and physiology of the human body, more especially of

the arm and leg, with a description of the veins, arteries, and nerves

of these parts. This was clearly the Muscular lecture, and if he had

followed the course prescribed by the founders of the lecture it should

have been given in the years 1619 and 1625, for the years 1621 and

1627 should not have embraced an anatomical course. The notes of the

Muscular lecture are in the Sloane collection at the British Museum,

where they have been preserved by as happy an accident as those of the

much more important Visceral lecture. The volume consists of 121 leaves

with writing upon both sides of each page. The notes are as rough and

as concise as those of the Visceral lecture, and the language is again

a mixture of Latin and homely English. They show, like the treatise on

development, that Harvey had by no means emancipated himself from the

trammels of authority. He felt for Aristotle what many of us still feel

for John Hunter, for he said of his great Master that he had hardly

ever made any discovery in connection with the structure of an animal

but that Aristotle either knew of it or explained it. He seems to have

given his fertile imagination full play in these lectures, and amongst

a wealth of similes we find:--

An cerebrum rex [Whether the Brain is to be looked upon as King,]

Nervi Magistratus [The nerves as his ministers,]

Ramuli nervorum officiales [and the branches of the nerves as

their subordinates,]

Musculi Cives, populus [whilst the muscles are the burgesses or the

commonalty].

And in another place:--

An Cerebrum, Master: Spina his mate.

Nervi, Boteswayne.

Musculi, Saylors.

"There are similar comparisons," says Sir George Paget, who analysed

these lectures, and published an account of the manuscript, "of the

brain with a military commander, the leader of an orchestra, an

architect, and the prius motor, and of the nerves and muscles with the

respective subordinate officers."

His treatise on the movement of the blood must have been passing

through the press at the time he gave these lectures, and the subject

of the circulation must therefore have been uppermost in his mind. He

compares the heart to the other organs thus:--

An WH. potius.

Cor, imperator, Rex. [Whether the heart should not rather be

considered as the Emperor or King,]

Cerebrum, Judex, Serjeant-Major, praepositi [whilst the brain is

the judge, serjeant-major, or monitor].

IV

THE ZENITH

Year by year Harvey continued to deliver the Lumleian lectures at the

College of Physicians and to attend his patients at St. Bartholomew's

Hospital. He soon obtained an important and fairly lucrative practice.

On the 3rd of February, 1618, he was appointed Physician Extraordinary

to James I. or in the language of the time, "The king, as a mark of

his singular favour, granted him leave to consult with his ordinary

physicians as to his Majesty's health," and at the same time he

promised him the post of a Physician in Ordinary as soon as one should

become vacant. This promise he was unable to fulfil, but it was

redeemed by his son Charles I., who appointed Harvey a Physician in

Ordinary in 1631 and remained his friend through life.

We can still obtain glimpses of Harvey's practice during the ten

years which preceded the issue in 1628 of his "Anatomical Essay on

the Movement of the Heart and Blood." Aubrey tells us that "he rode

on horseback with a footcloth to visit his patients, his man still

following on foot, as the fashion then was, which was very decent, now

quite discontinued. The judges rode also with their footclothes to

Westminster Hall, which ended at the death of Sir Robert Hyde, Lord

Chief Justice. Anthony, Earl of Shaftesbury, would have revived it, but

several of the judges being old and ill-horsemen would not agree to

it." The footcloth was originally a mark of dignity, and it is still

seen in its full splendour hanging over the backs of the horses in a

state pageant and in a debased form on those drawing the hearse at a

funeral.

Besides being physician to the household of the king, Harvey seems

to have held a similar position in the households of the most

distinguished nobles and men of eminence. He treated amongst others the

Lord Chancellor Bacon, always a weak and ailing man, and somewhat of

a hypochondriac. Bacon, with the curious lack of individuality which

has so often obscured the greatness of the highest form of speculative

genius, entirely failed to impress the more practical mind of Harvey,

who would not allow him to be a great philosopher, though he esteemed

him much for his wit and style. Speaking of him in derision, he told

Aubrey, "He writes philosophy like a Lord Chancellor." Nothing,

perhaps, brings home to us more clearly the real greatness of Aristotle

and the immeasurably superior position to which he attained than this

want of sympathy between Harvey and Bacon. Both were master minds, both

were working on the lines laid down by Aristotle himself, yet their

results were so little in accord that whilst Bacon, working upon the

theoretical side, succeeded in undermining his authority, Harvey taking

the experimental side actually enhanced his lustre.

The following notice of Harvey's practice is preserved in the Domestic

Series of the State Papers. It is dated the 18th of November, 1624,

and it is interesting, because it shows that the country gentry had

to obtain special leave if they wanted to stay in London during the

winter:--

"Mr. ATTORNEY.

"His Majesty is graciously pleased in regard of the indisposition

of health of Sir William Sandis and his Lady and the great danger

of their remove into the Country, as appears by the enclosed

certificate of Dr. Harvey, to dispense with their stay in

London this winter season, notwithstanding the proclamation. And

accordingly requires you to take present order for their indemnity

that no charge or trouble come upon them for their stay in London

this winter for which they have his Majesty's leave."

But the patient did not improve under Harvey's care, though he kept him

alive, for it is noted again on the 1st of January, 1627-1628:--

"I do hereby certify of a truth that Sir William Sands is in body

infirm and subject to those diseases (which) in the country he

cannot receive remedy for, nor undergo and perform that course of

physic which is fitting for his recovery.

"WILLIAM HARVEY."

The Domestic Series of State Papers also contains a letter showing that

Harvey was attending the Lord Treasurer for a fit of the stone on the

23rd of May, 1627.

The year 1628 may fairly be looked upon as the crowning year of

Harvey's scientific life. It was that in which he published at

Frankfort-on-the-Main his matured account of the circulation of the

blood. After its publication he was sometimes heard to say that "he

fell mightily in his practice," for it was believed by the vulgar that

he was crack-brained, and all the physicians were against him. Such

ideas probably occurred to him in his later years when he was depressed

by repeated attacks of gout. But party feeling ran high, and was even

greater than professional jealousy at a time when Harvey was very

closely connected with the losing side. Some of his contemporaries

took advantage of the double meaning attaching to the word Circulator

which Celsus applies to a merry andrew. It was also said about him

that "though all of his profession would allow him to be an excellent

anatomist, I never heard of many that admired his therapeutic way.

I knew several practitioners in this town that would not have given

threepence for one of his bills, as a man can hardly tell by his bills

what he did aim at." The apothecaries at this time were accustomed to

buy up the bills or prescriptions of the leading physicians in much the

same manner and for the same purpose that a clinical clerk or a dresser

in a hospital now treasures up the prescriptions of his physician

or surgeon. We can afford to smile at these pieces of contemporary

criticism by empirics, for we remember that as the apothecaries

objected to the practice of Harvey, the attorneys led by Coke sneered

at the legal knowledge of Bacon, but in neither case has the verdict of

posterity ratified that of contemporary opinion.

Harvey early attained to high office in the College of Physicians, then

but a small body, though it contained as it has always done, the picked

men of the medical profession. Here he was elected a Censor in 1613,

an office to which he was reappointed in 1625 and again in 1629. The

Censors were four fellows of the College appointed annually, with power

"to supervise, watch, correct, and govern" those who practised physic

in London or within the statutory limit of seven miles, whether members

of the College or not. They had power to punish by fine and summary

imprisonment in the Wood Street Counter, and the name of Harvey occurs

more than once about this time in connection with proceedings taken by

the College against quacks or "Empirics" as they were then called.

The Censors attended by the representatives of the Society of

Apothecaries were empowered to visit the shops of the apothecaries in

London to "search, survey, and prove whether the medicines, wares,

drugs, or any thing or things, whatsoever in such shop or shops

contained and belonging to the art and mystery of an apothecary be

wholesome, meet and fit for the cure, health, and ease of his Majesty's

subjects." These inquisitorial visits were made at irregular times

every summer and autumn. The procession, consisting of the Censors with

the Wardens and the Beadle of the Society of Apothecaries, started at

one o'clock, and before six in the afternoon from twenty to thirty

shops had been visited. At each shop the visitors entered and asked

for a few drugs selected at random. They then examined the stock from

which the supply was taken, as well as the individual sample offered,

a few rough tests were applied, and if the drugs were found to be bad

or adulterated they were at once destroyed by the simple but effectual

method of throwing them out into the street. The records of each

visitation were kept in a book belonging to the College of Physicians.

Dr. Robert Pitt, Censor in 1687 and again in 1702 has left us an

interesting account of the results of such a visitation, which in all

probability did not differ materially from those which it was Harvey's

duty to conduct. The Transcript of the Deposition in the time of Dr.

Pitt's censorship runs thus--

MR. G----'S SHOP.

_London Laudanum_ without either colour or smell.

_Oxycroceum_ without saffron.

_Pil. Ruff._ no colour of saffron. [This was a pill largely used as

a preservative against the plague. It contained myrrh, aloes, and

saffron.]

MR. R----'S SHOP.

_Diascordium_ dark and thin, without a due proportion of the

gums. [It was a compound electuary containing no less than 19

ingredients. It was considered useful in the treatment of epilepsy,

megrim, want of appetite, wind, colic, and malignant fevers.]

_London Laudanum_, a dry, hard substance, without smell or colour.

MR. S----'S SHOP.

_Diascordium_ too thin (let down with honey, I suppose).

_Venice treacle_, a thin body, much candied. [This, like

Diascordium and Mithridate, was one of the complex electuary

medicines of the Middle Ages. Its proportions were almost word

for word those recommended by Galen in his treatise, [Greek: Peri

Antidotôn]. It was also known as the treacle of Andromachus.]

_London Laudanum_, a dry, hard substance, without smell or colour.

MR. G----'S SHOP.

_Diascordium_ thin bodied, much candied.

_Venice treacle_ thin, candied, without its proportions.

_London Laudanum_, a dry, hard substance.

MR. G.----'S SHOP.

_Paracelsus_ without its powders or gums.

_Oxycroceum_ of a dark colour.

_Diascordium_ of a thin substance.

_Gascoin's powder_ without bezoar. [This was the compound powder

of crabs' claws much used in measles, smallpox, and all spotted

fevers. It contained in addition to bezoar and crabs' eyes, red

coral, white amber, hart's horn philosophically prepared, and jelly

of English vipers' skins.]

_London Laudanum_ hard, without smell or colour.

_Pil. ex duobus_ without the oil of cloves. [This was reckoned one

of the best and most general pills in the Dispensatory, being

strong but yet safe. It was especially useful against scurvy,

dropsy, and gout. It consisted of colocynth, scammony, and cloves.]

MR. S----'S SHOP.

_Diascordium_ of a thin body without the gums.

_Mithridate_ no colour of saffron. [This was the remedy _par

excellence_ until the middle of the eighteenth century. It was said

to owe its name to Mithridates, King of Pontus and Bithynia, who

invented it. Like Diascordium it was an electuary, though it was

more complex, for it contained over fifty ingredients. Mithridate

was reputed to cure the bites and stings of any poisonous animal.

It expelled poison and cured nearly every disease. It was not only

a cure, but a preservative against the plague and all pestilential

and infectious fevers.]

_London Laudanum_ neither smell nor colour.

_Liquid Laudanum_ no smell, thin, no colour of saffron.

_Gascoin's powder_ without bezoar.

A part of Harvey's time was employed in duties of this nature, but on

the 3rd of December, 1627, he was appointed to the still more important

office of "Elect." The "Elects" were eight in number. They were chosen

from the most cunning and expert men of the faculty in London. It was

their duty once in a year to select one of their number to fill the

office of President, whilst as a Board with a quorum of three they

formed the examiners of those who desired to exercise or practise

physic throughout England, whose fitness they certified by letters

testimonial. These examinations were conducted at the house of the

President, where, on the 9th of December, 1629, Harvey examined and

approved that Dr. James Primrose who soon became the most malignant

opponent of his teaching. Primrose was a pupil of Riolanus, Professor

of Anatomy in Paris, and was well described as the quibbling advocate

of exploded teaching.

Harvey seems to have comported himself well even in the high position

of an elect, for in 1628 he was made Treasurer of the College, an

office to which he was re-elected in 1629, so that he must have shown

some of the business capacity which was so marked a feature in the

other members of his family.

In this year Harvey received the commands of the King to accompany

the Duke of Lennox (born in 1612) who was sent to travel abroad. This

was the first interval in the monotony of his professional life since

Harvey's return to England from Padua. But the times soon became so

broken that he never afterwards settled down again into anything

like his old habits. He was nearly fifty-two years of age when, in

September, 1629, the Lord Secretary Dorchester procured a licence for

James Stuart, Duke of Lennox, to travel for three years taking with

him Dr. Topham, Dean of Lincoln, John St. Almain, and eight other

servants. The Duke, who was advanced to the Dukedom of Richmond by

letters patent dated the 8th of August, 1641, afterwards became Lord

Great Chamberlain, and held many honourable appointments in the reign

of Charles I. Clarendon often mentions him as a young nobleman of the

highest principles, and his staunch loyalty to the King is shown by

his being one of the four Lords who with Juxon attended their master's

funeral at Windsor. He subscribed no less than £40,000 towards the

expenses of the war.

Harvey had to make many arrangements before he could leave England.

On the 3rd of December, 1629, he collected the seven "Elects" at his

house, and, after a sumptuous banquet, he asked their permission to

resign his office of Treasurer at the College of Physicians, a request

which was immediately granted. On the 21st of January he applied for

leave of absence from his post of physician to St. Bartholomew's

Hospital, for the Minutes record--

"Curia tent. Sabti xxi die Januarii 1629-30.

"In presence of Sir Robt. Ducy Knight & Barronet,

President (and others).

"DR. HARVEY.

"This day Dr. Harvey Physician to this hospital declares to this

court that he is commanded by the Kings most excellent majesty to

attend the illustrious Prince the now Duke of Lenox in his travels

beyond the seas and therefore desireth this court would allow of

[Edmund] Smith, Doctor in Physic for his deputy in performance of

the office of physician for the poor of this hospital during his

absence. It is thought fit that the Governors of this Hospital

shall have further knowledge & satisfaction of the sufficiency of

the said Mr. Smith. Then they to make their choice either of him or

of some other whom they shall think meet for the execution of the

same place during the absence of the said Dr. Harvey."

Leave of absence having been thus granted by the College of Physicians

and St. Bartholomew's Hospital, Harvey had only to get a substitute

for his Court appointment. An undated letter written from abroad by

Harvey to Mr. Secretary Dorchester, says: "Before I went I entreated

and appointed Dr. Chambers and Dr. Bethune [physicians in ordinary to

the King] and one Dr. Smith of London, one of them at all occasions

to perform the duty for me; and I acquainted the household therewith

[though] it is not usual [to do so] for serjeant [surgeon] Primrose

was away above a year (and he is surgeon of the household) and yet

none were put in his place to wait whilst he was in Germany with my

Lord Marquis. Sir Theodore Mayerne [too] in Switzerland in King James

his time was away very long and none put in his place." The letter

was written upon an unfounded report which had reached Harvey in his

absence that Dr. Adam Moesler "hath gotten to be appointed to wait in

my place for the household."

Dr. Aveling's care has traced the course of the travellers on this

journey. Sir Henry Mervyn writes to Nicholas (clerk of the Council)

under the date of the 28th of July, 1630, "of having put over my Lord

Duke [Lennox] for the coast of France." The journey was therefore

begun at this date, but the Duke and his retinue seem to have stayed

for a time in the towns upon the French coast, for on the 2nd of August

Sir Henry Mervyn writes that he is going to attend the Duke of Lennox,

and purposes to be in the Downs, &c.; and again on the 10th of August

he says he has landed the Duke of Lennox at Dieppe. On the 23rd of

September of the same year Edward Dacres writes to Secretary Dorchester

that the Duke of Lennox is now settled in Paris for the winter; and

again on the 22nd of November, saying that the Duke is willing to stay

in Paris, and that "in the spring he intends the tour de France, and in

the end of the summer to go into Italy, unless the continuance of the

wars or the plague hinder him."

Dacres writes again, on the 5th of April, 1631, that the Duke is

still in Paris but he thinks of going out of town for a few days.

Harvey, however, was in London on the 8th of October and on the 22nd

of December, 1630, so that he probably joined the Duke in Paris in

the spring or early summer of 1631. Nothing is known of the movements

of the party after April, until Dacres writes again to Dorchester in

August, 1631, saying: "Blois proved a place not long to be endured by

my Lord because of the plague which grew hot there, as Tours likewise,

where we made little stay, so that we came down to Saumurs there to

pass the dog days from whence we are now parting they being at an end.

My Lord hath continually been in good health and intends now to follow

your Lordship's directions this winter for Spain whither we are now

bending our course (_viâ_ Bordeaux) where we shall be before the latter

end of September."

It is probably of this part of his journey that Harvey writes to

Viscount Dorchester, "the miseries of the countries we have passed

and the hopes of our good success and such news your Honour hath from

better hands. I can only complain that by the way we could scarce see

a dog, crow, kite, raven or any other bird, or any thing to anatomise,

only some few miserable people, the relics of the war and the plague

where famine had made anatomies before I came. It is scarce credible in

so rich, populous, and plentiful countries as these were that so much

misery and desolation, poverty and famine should in so short a time be,

as we have seen. I interprete it well that it will be a great motive

for all here to have and procure assurance of settled peace. It is time

to leave fighting when there is nothing to eat, nothing to be kept, and

nothing to be gotten." The forecast was correct. The Mantuan war was

soon afterwards brought to a close by the mediation of Pope Urban VIII.

It was one of the minor struggles in which Richelieu's attempts to

consolidate the power of his master were counteracted by the combined

efforts of Spain and the Empire, for in the end Charles of Nevers was

left to enjoy his Duchy of Mantua. The plague, too, was especially

virulent in Northern Italy about this time. It was reckoned that above

a million died of it in the territories which Lennox and his retinue

would have traversed to reach Venice; and 33,000 are said to have died

in Verona alone. It was partly for this reason and partly, perhaps,

from political motives, that the travellers turned off into Spain

instead of visiting Italy, as had been intended. In February, 1632, Sir

Thomas Edmonde, writing to Sir Harry Vane, says: "the Duke of Lenox has

been made a Grand in Spain;" and it was about this time that the party

returned homewards.

Harvey was certainly in England on the 26th of March, 1632, for on

that day he drew up a set of rules for the Library of the College of

Physicians, towards a site for which he had subscribed £100 on the 22nd

of December, 1630. The necessity for a new set of rules to govern the

use of the Library seems to have been due to an important bequest of

680 volumes presented by Dr. Holsbosch, a graduate in medicine, and a

German who had practised surgery and physic in England for fifty years,

though he had not attached himself to the College. The new regulations

laid down that the key of the room was to remain in the keeping of the

President, whilst the key of the book-cases was kept by the Senior

Censor. The Library was to be open on all College days to the Fellows,

Candidates, and Licentiates; but no book was to be taken away from the

College without leave from the President and Censor and the deposit

of a "sufficient caution" for its value. Harvey was also present at

a meeting of the College of Physicians on the last day of May, 1632,

when he signed a petition to the King, praying him to limit the sale of

certain poisons unless the purchaser was willing to give his name.

There is no record of the exact date at which Harvey was made

Physician in Ordinary to the King Charles I., though the time is

fixed approximately by the following extract from the minutes at St.

Bartholomew's Hospital:--

"Monday 25 April 1631 at a Court [of Governors]

held in the Mansion house in the presence of

Sir Robert Ducy Lord Mayor, President.

"DR. ANDREWES

"It is granted that Richard Andrewes Doctor of Physic shall have

the reversion, next avoidance and place of physician to this

hospital after the death, resignation or other departure of Doctor

Harvey now physician to this hospital late sworn Physician in

Ordinary for his Majesty's Household, with the yearly stipend

thereunto now belonging."

The actual date of his appointment seems to have been at some time

during the quarter ending Lady Day, 1630, for the Calendar of State

Papers (Domestic Series) contains the record, "3 July 1635. To William

Harvey, one of his Majesty's physicians in ordinary, his annuity for a

year ending at Our Lady Day 1631 £300." And again on the 17th of July,

1635, "Dr. William Harvey £25;" and a few months later, on the 5th of

February, 1635-1636--"Dr. William Harvey upon his annuity of £300 per

annum £150." These entries also make it appear that although his salary

amounted to the considerable sum of £300 a year, it was paid very

irregularly and by small instalments.

Harvey's appointment as personal physician to the King seems to have

brought him into close connection with his master, and it was no doubt

at this time that Charles allowed him to obtain the intimate knowledge

of the habits and structure of the deer which was afterwards turned

to such good use in the treatise on Development. Harvey, in fact,

became the personal friend of his king, he accompanied him everywhere,

and consequently took a share in the hunting excursions to which his

Majesty was so devoted.

This constant attendance at Court naturally interfered with Harvey's

professional duties, and his colleagues at St. Bartholomew's Hospital

soon began to complain of his absence.

"At a Court held on Sunday 19 January 1632-1623,

"In presence of Sir Robert Ducie Knight &

Baronet, President.

"DR. HARVY

"It hath been thought convenient upon complaint of some of the

chirurgions of this hospital that whereas Doctor Harvy physician

for the poor of the said hospital by reason of his attendance on

the King's Majesty cannot so constantly be present with the poor

as heretofore he hath been, but sometimes doth appoint his deputy

for the same. That therefor Doctor Andrewes physician in reversion

of the same place to this hospital in the absence of Doctor

Harvey do supply the same place whereby the said poor may be more

respected and Doctor Andrewes the better acquainted to perform the

same office when it shall fall [vacant], and in the mean time to

be recompensed by this court yearly as shall be thought fit. This

order not to prejudice Dr. Harvy in his yearly fee or in any other

respect than aforesaid."

Early in 1633 Harvey received the commands of Charles I. to attend him

on his journey to Scotland, and the annexed Minute shows that he again

endeavoured to gain the permission of the Governors of the hospital to

allow Dr. Smith to act for him in his absence.

"13 May Anno Domini 1633.

"This day came into this Compting house Doctor Smith physician by

the appointment of Dr. Harvey, physician to this hospital who is to

attend the King's Majesty into Scotland and tendered his service

to Mr. Treasurer and other the Governors for the poor in the behalf

and absence of Doctor Harvey. Answer was made by Mr. Treasurer that

Doctor Andrewes physician in reversion to this house was by the

Court ordered to attend the occasions of this house in the absence

of Doctor Harvey and to have allowance from this house accordingly.

Nevertheless if Doctor Smith pleased to accompany Doctor Andrewes

in the business, this house would be very well content, unto which

Doctor Smith replied that if Dr. Andrewes was appointed and did

perform accordingly, there is no need of two."

It seems to be evident from these Minutes that Dr. Smith was Harvey's

nominee. He was his life-long friend, and he only survived a fortnight

the opening of the Harveian Museum, of which he was the most active

promoter. Dr. Andrewes, on the other hand, had powerful City influence

to back him. He was a distinguished graduate of St. John's College,

Oxford. He had been educated at the Merchant Taylors' School, and stood

high in the favour of the Merchant Taylors' Company. He died the 25th

of July, 1634.

Charles' tour in Scotland was fraught with the most momentous

consequences both to himself and his kingdom. He was crowned with great

pomp in the Abbey Church at Holyrood, and the rochet worn by the Bishop

of Moray when he preached before the assembled Court on this occasion

was an innovation which gave the greatest offence to the people. Their

discontent was still further increased by an order from the King

enjoining the ministers to wear surplices and the Bishops vestments

instead of the Geneva gown to which they had been accustomed since the

Reformation. The dissatisfaction thus aroused culminated in the Liturgy

tumults of 1637, when Jenny Deans launched her stool at the head of the

Bishop of St. Giles whilst he was preaching in Edinburgh. The tumults

in turn led to the formation of "the Tables" and to the taking of "the

Covenant," which are so familiar to every student of the history of the

Civil War.

Harvey must have been in close attendance upon the King during the

whole of his stay in Scotland, but he probably interested himself

very little in the proceedings of the Court or in the hot discussions

between the rival sects around him. We know, indeed, that, he was

thinking about the method by which a chick is formed within the egg,

and that to solve the point he paid a visit to the Bass Rock, of

which he gives the following description in the eleventh essay of his

treatise on Development:--

"In the barren island of the East Coast of Scotland, such flights of

almost every kind of seabirds congregate, that were I to state what I

have heard from those who were worthy of credit, I fear I should be

held guilty of telling greater stories than they who have committed

themselves about the Scottish geese produced as they say from the

fruits of certain trees (which they had never seen) that had fallen

into the sea.[4] What I have seen myself, however, I will relate

truthfully.

"There is a small island, Scotsmen call it the Bass (let it serve as a

type of all the rest), lying near the shore, but in deep water. It is

so rugged and precipitous that it might rather be called a huge stone

or rock than an island, for it is not more than a mile in

circumference. The whole surface of the island in the months of May

and June is almost completely carpeted with nests, birds, and

fledglings. There are so many that you can scarcely avoid stepping

upon them, and when they fly the crowd is so great that it hides the

sun and the sky like a cloud. The screaming and the din too are so

great that you can hardly hear any one speaking close to you. If you

look down upon the sea, as if from a tower or tall precipice,

whichever way you turn you will see an enormous number of different

kinds of birds skimming about and gaping for their prey, so that the

sea looks like a pond which is swarming with frogs in springtime, or

like those sunny hills looked at from below when they are covered with

numerous flocks of sheep and goats. If you sail round the island and

look up you see on every ledge, shelf, and recess innumerable flocks

of birds of every sort and size, more numerous than the stars seen at

night in the unclouded moonless sky, and if you watch the flights that

come and go incessantly, you might imagine that it was a mighty swarm

of bees. I should hardly be believed if I said what a large revenue

was obtained annually from the feathers and from the old nests (used

for firing) and from the eggs, which are boiled and then sold, though

the owner told me himself. There is one feature, too, which seems to

be especially worthy of note because it bears closely upon my argument

and is clear proof of what I have just said about the crowd of birds.

The whole island shines brilliantly white to those who approach it,

and the cliffs are as bright as if they were made of the whitest

chalk; yet the natural colour of the rock is dusky and black. It is

due to a brittle crust of the whitest colour that is spread over all

and gives the island its whiteness and brilliancy, a crust of the same

consistence, colour, and nature as the shell of an egg."

Harvey was in London again on the 5th of October, 1633, for on this

day, at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, "upon the motion of Dr. Harvey,

physician to this house, it is thought fit that Tuesday se'night in

the afternoon be the time that the Governors shall hear himself and

the Chirurgeons upon some particulars concerning the good of the poor

of this house and reformation of some orders conceived to be in this

house. And the Chirurgeons and the Apothecary to be warned to meet

accordingly. And Mr. Alderman Mowlson, Sir Maurice Abbott, Mr. Alderman

Perry, and others the Governors here present, are intreated to meet at

the Compting house to hear and determine the same." Accordingly, on

the 15th of October some radical changes were made in the management

of the hospital, as is indicated in the next Minute. The articles are

introduced with the following preface, which gives a clear account

of the high estimation in which Harvey's services were held at this

time. "This day Dr. Harvey, physician to this hospital, presented to

this court [of Governors] certain articles for the good and benefit

of the poor of this house, which the Governors have taken into their

considerations and do allow and order them to be put in practice. And

all defaults in the not performance of any of the said articles to be

corrected and amended by the Governors as they in their discretions

shall think fit and convenient.

"Forasmuch as the poor of this house are increased to a greater number

than formerly have been, to the great charge of this hospital, and to

the greater labour and more necessary attendance of a physician. And

being much more also than [it] is conceived one physician may

conveniently perform.

"And forasmuch as Dr. Harvey, the now physician to this hospital, is

also chosen to be physician to his Majesty, and [is] thereby tied to

daily service and attendance on his Majesty,

"It hath been thought fit and so ordered, that there shall be for this

present occasion two physicians for this hospital. And that Dr.

Andrewes, physician in reversion, be now admitted to be also an

immediate physician to this hospital. And to have the salary or yearly

fee of £33 6s, 8d. for his pains henceforth during the pleasure of

this court.

"And this court, for the long service of the said Dr. Harvey to this

hospital, and in consideration that he is physician to his Majesty, do

give and allow him leave and liberty to dispose of himself and time,

and to visit the poor no oftener than he in his discretion shall think

fit.

"And it is ordered that Mr. Treasurer shall also pay unto the said Dr.

Andrewes the sum of £20 for his pains taken in visiting and

prescribing for the poor of this house for this year last past by the

direction and at the request of the Governors of this house.

"Also at the suit of the apothecary (for the considerations

abovesaid), it is thought fit and so granted, that £10 be yearly added

to his salary from Michaelmas last past for and towards the

maintenance of a journeyman to be daily present in the apothecary's

shop in this hospital to help him in the dispatch of his business

during the pleasure of this court.

"Likewise at the motion of Dr. Harvey, it is granted that Mr.

Treasurer shall pay unto Dr. Smith, who was the deputy of Dr. Harvey

and by him appointed in his absence to visit the poor of this

hospital, the sum of £10 in gratuity from this court, and he is

thereupon intreated in respect the hospital hath now two physicians,

that he do not henceforth trouble himself any more to visit or

prescribe to the poor of this hospital."

On the same day (October 15, 1633), "Dr. Harvey, physician to this

hospital, presented to this court certain orders or articles by him

thought fit to be observed and put in practice, viz.:--

"1. That none be taken into the Hospital but such as be curable, or

but a certain number of such as are incurable.

"Allowed.

"2. That those that shall be taken in for a certain time be

discharged at that time by the Hospitaller, unless they obtain a

longer time. And to be discharged at the end of that time also.

"In use.

"3. That all such are certified by the doctor uncurable, and

scandalous or infectious shall be put out of the said house or to

be sent to an outhouse,[5] and in case of sudden inconvenience this

to be done by the Doctor or Apothecary.

"Allowed.

"4. That none be taken into any outhouse on the charge of this

Hospital but such as are sent from hence.

"Allowed.

"5. That no Chirurgion, to save himself labour, take in or present

any for the doctor; otherwise the charge of the Apothecary's

shop will be so great, and the success so little, as it will be

scandalous to the house.

"Allowed.

"6. That none lurk here for relief only or for slight causes.

"Allowed.

"7. That if any refuse to take their physic, they may be discharged

by the Doctor or Apothecary or punished by some order.

"Allowed.

"8. That the Chirurgions, in all difficult cases or where inward

physic may be necessary, shall consult with the Doctor, at the

times he sitteth once in the week and then the Master [_i.e._, the

Surgeon] himself relate to the Doctor what he conceiveth of the

cure and what he hath done therein. And in a decent and orderly

manner proceed by the Doctor's directions for the good of the poor

and credit of the house.[6]

"Agreed unto.

"9. That no Chirurgion or his man do trepan the head, pierce the

body, dismember [amputate], or do any great operation on the body

of any but with the approbation and by the direction of the Doctor

(when conveniently it may be had) and the Chirurgions shall think

it needful to require.

"Agreed unto.

"10. That no Chirurgion or his man practice by giving inward physic

to the poor without the approbation of the Doctor.

"Allowed.

"11. That no Chirurgion be suffered to perform the cures in this

house by his boy or servant without his own oversight or care.

"Allowed.

"12. That every Chirurgion shall shew and declare unto the Doctor

whensoever he shall in the presence of the patient require him,

what he findeth and what he useth to every external malady; that

so the Doctor being informed may better with judgment order his

prescriptions.

"The Chirurgions protest against this.[7]

"13. That every Chirurgion shall follow the direction of the Doctor

in outward operations for inward causes for the recovery of every

patient under their several cures, and to this end shall once in

the week attend the Doctor, at the set hour he sitteth to give

directions for the poor.

"Agreed by the Chirurgions.

"14. That the Apothecary, Matron, and Sisters do attend the Doctor

when he sitteth to give directions and prescriptions, that they may

fully conceive his directions and what is to be done.

"Allowed.

"15. That the Matron and Sisters shall signify and complain to the

Doctor, or Apothecary in the Doctor's absence, if any poor lurk in

the house and come not before the Doctor when he sitteth or taketh

not his physic but cast it away and abuse it.

"Allowed.

"16. That the Apothecary keep secret and do not disclose what the

Doctor prescribeth nor the prescriptions he useth but to such as

in the Doctor's absence may supply his place and that with the

Doctor's approbation.

"Allowed."

The ordinances are peremptory, and for many years they governed the

action of the Hospital in the control of the patients. Some of them,

indeed (as §6), are still acted upon. They show that Harvey was

determined to maintain the superior status of the physicians, and there

is but little room to doubt that this was one of the guiding principles

of his life. In February, 1620, he was appointed by the College of

Physicians to act with Dr. Mayerne and Dr. William Clement in watching

the proceedings of the surgeons who were moving Parliament in their own

interest. For this purpose he attended a Conference at Gray's Inn on

the 17th of February, 1620, and he afterwards went to Cambridge; but

he failed to induce the University to co-operate with the College of

Physicians.

On the 4th of July, 1634, Harvey gave a tanned human skin to the

College of Physicians, and on the same day by the order of the

President he made a speech to the Apothecaries persuading them to

conform to the orders of the College.

On the 7th of August, 1634, John Clarke was granted the reversion of

Harvey's office of Physician to St. Bartholomew's Hospital "in the

room and place of Dr. Andrewes late deceased. And this Hospital do

order that after Doctor Harvey his death or departure, there be but one

Physician forthwards." Harvey, however, outlived Dr. Clarke, who died

in 1653 and was buried in St. Martin's, Ludgate, but as Harvey did not

attend the Hospital after 1643 Clarke probably acted as sole Physician

to the Hospital for ten years before he died. He was President of the

College of Physicians 1645-1649.

The year 1634 was long memorable on account of "the Lancashire

witches," whose story is not yet quite forgotten. Their accusation, as

in that of the great outbreak at Salem in New England in 1692, began in

the lying story of a child. Edward Robinson, a boy of ten, and the son

of a woodcutter living on the borders of Pendle Forest in Lancashire,

played truant and to excuse himself accused Mother Dickenson of being a

witch. The boy, being examined by the magistrates, told his story so

openly and honestly that it was at once believed. He said that as he

was roaming in one of the glades of the forest picking blackberries he

saw two greyhounds which he thought belonged to one of the gentlemen

living in the neighbourhood. A hare appearing at the same time he hied

on the dogs, but neither of them would stir. Angry at the beasts he

took up a switch and was about to punish them when one of the dogs

started up as a woman, the other as a little boy. The woman was Mother

Dickenson, who offered him money to sell his soul to the devil, but he

refused. She then took a bridle out of her pocket, and shaking it over

the head of the other little boy he instantly became a horse. Mother

Dickenson seized Robinson in her arms and sprang upon the animal. They

rode with inconceivable swiftness over forests, fields, bogs, and

rivers until they came to a large barn. The witch alighted, and taking

him by the hand led him inside. There he saw seven old women pulling at

seven halters which hung from the roof. As they pulled, large pieces of

meat, lumps of butter, loaves of bread, basins of milk, hot puddings

and black puddings fell from the halters on to the floor. Thus a

supper was provided, and when it was ready other witches came to share

it. Many persons were arrested, for the boy was led about from church

to church to identify those he had seen in the barn.

The story made a great sensation and Sir William Pelham wrote to Lord

Conway that "the greatest news from the country is of a huge pack

of witches which are lately discovered in Lancashire, whereof it is

said nineteen are condemned and that there are at least sixty already

discovered. It is suspected that they had a hand in raising the great

storm wherein his Majesty was in so great danger at sea in Scotland."

Popular report exaggerated the number arrested, but seven of the

accused were condemned and Bishop Bridgman, of Chester, was requested

to examine them. He went to the gaol and found that three had died and

another, Janet Hargreaves, lay "past hope of recovery." Of the three

examined by him two declared that they had no knowledge of witchcraft,

but the third, Margaret Johnson, a widow of sixty, whom the Bishop

describes as a person of strong imagination and weak memory, confessed

to have been a witch for six years. She told him, "There appeared to

her a man in black attire, who said, if she would give him her soul

she should have power to hurt whom she would. He called himself

Mamilion, and appeared in the shape of a brown-coloured dog, a white

cat, and a hare, and in these shapes sucked her blood."

The report of the Bishop to Secretary Coke reached the ears of the

King, who commanded Henry Earl of Manchester, the Lord Privy Seal, to

write:--

"To Alexander Baker Esq. and Sarjeant Clowes

his Majesty's Chirurgions.

"These shall be to will and require you forthwith to make choice

of such midwives as you shall think fit to inspect and search the

bodies of those women that were lately brought by the sheriff of

the County of Lancaster indicted for witchcraft and to report unto

you whether they find about them any such marks as are pretended:

wherein the said midwives are to receive instructions from Mr. Dr.

Harvey his Majesty's Physician and yourselves.

"Dated at Whitehall the 29 June 1634.

"H. MANCHESTER."

The prisoners, who were then at the Ship Tavern in Greenwich, were

brought to London upon the receipt of the King's order. They were

examined and the following certificate was issued:--

"Surgeons Hall in Monkwell Street, London.

"2 July A.D. 1634.

"We in humble obedience to your Lordship's command have this

day called unto us the Chirurgeons and midwives whose names are

hereunder written who have by the directions of Mr. Dr. Harvey

(in our presence and his) made diligent search and inspection on

those women which were lately brought up from Lancaster and find as

followeth, viz.:--

"On the bodies of Jennett Hargreaves, Ffrances Dicconson and Mary

Spencer nothing unnatural nor anything like a teat or mark or any

sign that any such thing hath ever been.

"On the body of Margaret Johnson we find two things (which) may be

called teats. The first in shape like to the teat of a bitch but in

our judgement nothing but the skin as it will be drawn out after

the application of leeches. The second is like the nipple or teat

of a woman's breast, but of the same colour with the rest of the

skin without any hollowness or issue for any blood or juice to come

from thence."

The report is signed by ten midwives, by Alexander Reid, M.D., the

lecturer on Anatomy at the Barber Surgeons' Hall, whom Harvey seems to

have deputed to take his place, and by six surgeons evidently chosen

from amongst the most eminent of those then practising in London.

The result of this report was that four of the seven convicted witches

were pardoned, an exercise of mercy "which may have been due," says Mr.

Aveling, "to the enlightened views and prompt and energetic action of

Dr. Harvey."

There is no doubt that at this time and throughout his life Harvey

practised every branch of his profession. That he was primarily a

physician is evident; that he was a surgeon is shown by the fact that

in his will he bequeathed to Dr. Scarborough his "silver instruments of

surgery," whilst in his writings he says, "Looking back upon the office

of the arteries, I have occasionally, and against all expectation,

completely cured enormous sarcoceles by the simple means of dividing

or tying the little artery that supplied them, and so preventing all

access of nourishment or spirit to the part affected, by which it came

to pass that the tumour on the verge of mortification was afterwards

easily extirpated with the knife or searing iron." No one, reading

his treatise on Development, can doubt for a moment that he was well

versed in the diseases of women and in such practical midwifery as

the prejudices and habits of the time allowed him to become familiar.

Specialism, indeed, as it is now understood in England, did not exist

at this time, though there was a debased form in which men attended

only to outward injuries or to internal complaints.

Harvey sometimes got into trouble with his cases, as must always happen

even to the most experienced. The records of the Barber Surgeons'

Company contain the following notice under the date 17th of November,

1635. It has the marginal note, "Dr. Harvey's ill practise":--

"This day Wm. Kellett being called here in Court for not making

presentation of one of Mr. Kinnersley's maids that died in his

charge, he said here in Court that Mr. Doctor Harvey being called

to the patient did upon his view of the patient say, that by means

of a boulster [poultice?] the tumour on the temporal muscle could

be discussed and his opinion was that there was no fracture but the

vomiting came by reason of the foulness of the stomach and to that

purpose prescribed physic by Briscoe the Apothecary, so the patient

died by ill practice, the fracture being neglected and the Company not

called to the view." When a person was dangerously ill of a surgical

disease in London it was long the custom for the practitioner to

call in those surgeons who held an official position in the Barber

Surgeons' Company. This was called "viewing" the patient. It divided

the responsibility whilst it ensured that everything possible was done

for the relief of the patient.

In this year too Harvey was ordered by the King to examine the body

of Thomas Parr, who is said to have died at the extraordinary age of

152 years and nine months, having survived through the reigns of nine

princes. He had lived frugally in Shropshire until shortly before

his death, when he was brought to London by Thomas Howard, Earl of

Arundel, who showed him to the King. Harvey examined the body on the

16th of November, 1635, the birthday--as he is careful to note--of Her

Serene Highness Henrietta Maria, Queen of Great Britain, France, and

Ireland. The notes of the autopsy came into the possession of Harvey's

nephew Michael, who presented them to Dr. Bett, and they were not

printed until 1669, when they were published in Dr. Bett's work "On

the Source and Quality of the Blood." The notes give a clear account

of the appearances seen upon opening the body, and the very practical

conclusion is drawn that as all the internal parts seemed so healthy

the old man might have escaped paying the debt due to nature for some

little time longer if nothing had happened to interfere with his usual

habits. His death is therefore attributed to the change from the pure

air of Shropshire to that of London, and to the alteration in his

diet which necessarily attended his residence in the house of a great

nobleman.

The mutual interest taken by the Earl of Arundel and Harvey in old

Parr may have led to the friendship which existed between the two men;

perhaps, too, Lord Arundel--the prince of art collectors, to whom we

owe the Arundel marbles--had detected in Harvey some similar love of

art which rendered him a kindred spirit. It is clear that some bond

of union existed, for in the following year--1636--Lord Arundel was

sent to Vienna as Ambassador Extraordinary to the Emperor Ferdinand in

connection with the peace which the Protestant States of Germany had

concluded in 1635. The mission left England in April, 1636; and the

Clarendon State Papers contain a letter dated from Cologne in May in

which Lord Arundel speaks of a visit to the Jesuits' new college and

church, where he says "they received me with all civility," and then

adds jokingly, "I found in the College little Doctor Harvey, who means

to convert them." There are no means of knowing when or why Harvey left

England, but he seems to have attached himself to the Embassy and to

have visited with it the principal cities on the way to Vienna.

He used the opportunity to make the acquaintance of the leading

scientific men in Germany, as he had already introduced himself to

those in France on a former journey. On the 20th of May, 1636, he was

at Nuremberg, where he wrote to Caspar Hofmann offering to demonstrate

the circulation of the blood. He has heard, he says, that Hofmann

complained of his theory, that "he impeached and condemned Nature of

folly and error, and that he had imputed to her the character of a

most clumsy and inefficient artificer in suffering the blood to become

recrudescent, and making it return again and again to the heart in

order to be reconcocted only to grow effete again in the arterial

system: thus uselessly spoiling the perfectly made blood merely

to find her something to do." Tradition says that Harvey actually

gave this demonstration in public, and that it proved satisfactory

to every one except to Hofmann himself. The old man--then past the

grand climacteric--remained unconvinced, and as he continued to urge

objections Harvey at length threw down his knife and walked out of the

theatre.

We are indebted to Aubrey for the following anecdote, which is probably

more true than some of his other statements about Harvey, for it is

in exact accordance with what we know of his habits. Aubrey says that

one of the Ambassador's gentlemen, Mr. William Hollar--the celebrated

painter--told him that in this voyage "Dr. Harvey would still be making

observations of strange trees and plants, earths, &c., and sometimes

[he was] like to be lost. So that my Lord Ambassador would be really

angry with him, for there was not only a danger of thieves, but also

of wild beasts." How real the danger was may be gauged by remembering

that the party was passing through the country devastated by the Thirty

Years' War, which had still to drag out its disastrous length until it

was brought to a close by the peace of Westphalia in 1648--a time so

productive of lawlessness that it was only two years since Wallenstein,

the great Commander-in-chief of the Imperial forces, had been murdered

by those who were afterwards publicly rewarded by his Imperial master.

Harvey parted company with the Embassy at Ratisbon, for in a letter

dated from there he is spoken of as "Honest little Harvey whom the

Earl is sending to Italy about some pictures for his Majesty." From

Ratisbon he proceeded to Rome, where the pilgrims' book at the English

College shows that he dined in the refectory on the 5th of October,

1636. Dr. Ent dined there the same night. The two travellers probably

met by arrangement, for Ent was born at Sandwich, closely allied as a

Cinque Port to Folkestone, Harvey's native home. He was educated too in

Cambridge--at Sidney Sussex College--and after five years at Padua he

took his degree of Doctor of Physic on the 28th of April, 1636. Harvey

and Ent had therefore much in common, and they remained firm friends

until Harvey died. Ent's love for Harvey led him to defend the doctrine

of the circulation against the attacks of Parisanus; Harvey's love

for Ent caused him to entrust to him the essay on Development; to be

printed or preserved unpublished as Ent should think most fit.

Nothing is known of Harvey's return to England except that he was in

London attending to his duties and seeing his patients at the end of

the year 1636.

The following certificate appears to be the only record left of his

work during the next two years. It is dated the 2nd of December, 1637:

"Having had experience of the disposition and weakness of the

body of Sir Thomas Thynne, Knight (who hath been and still is

our patient), we testify that we are of opinion that it will be

dangerous for the health of his body to travel this winter into the

country and place of his usual abode until he hath better recovered

his health and strength.

"WILL. HARVEY."

CHAPTER V

THE CIVIL WAR

The life of Harvey, like that of all his contemporaries, falls

naturally into two great divisions. Hitherto it had been passed in

peace and learned ease, but for the future much of it was to be spent

in camps amongst the alarms of war. War indeed he had seen both in

the Mantuan campaign and in the Thirty Years' War in Germany, and the

war clouds had been gathering rapidly at home. Few, however, could

have imagined that the religious excitement in Scotland, coupled with

the results of Strafford's policy in Ireland and the acts of Laud in

England, would provoke in a few years an internecine struggle which was

not ended even by the execution of him whom in 1640 all looked upon as

the Lord's Anointed.

Harvey, perhaps, saw what was coming less clearly than any of those in

a responsible position round the King, and it affected him less. Dr.

Bethune, the senior Physician in Ordinary to the King, died in July,

1639, and Harvey was appointed in his place. The post was more valuable

than the one he had held, for the College of Physicians contains a

memorandum giving an account of the sums of money due to Harvey out of

the King's Exchequer. It is docketed--

"Money due out of the

Exchequer for my pension

21 April 1642

and also since

for my pension

of £400 p. ann."

The appointment carried with it a lodging at Whitehall and certain

perquisites which are mentioned in the following order extracted by Mr.

Peter Cunningham from the Letter Book of the Lord Steward's office:

"CHARLES R.

"Whereas we have been graciously pleased to admit Doctor Harvey

into the place of Physician in Ordinary to our Royal Person, our

will and pleasure is that you give order for the settling a diet

of three dishes of meat a meal, with all incidents thereunto

belonging, upon him the said Doctor Harvey, and the same to begin

from the seventeenth day of July last past and to continue during

the time that the said Doctor Harvey shall hold and enjoy the said

place of Physician in Ordinary to our Royal Persen, for which this

shall be your warrant.

"Given at our Court of Whitehall the sixth of December 1639.

"To our trusty and well beloved Councillors Sir Henry Vane and Sir

Thomas Jermyn, Knights, Treasurer and Comptroller of our Household

or to either of them."

In Scotland the religious riots of 1637 had culminated in the

destruction of episcopacy and the formation of the Covenant, acts of

rebellion which were assisted by Richelieu in revenge for Charles's

opposition to his designs upon Flanders. Preparations were at once

made for war. Early in the summer of 1639 the King joined the army

under the command of Harvey's friend the Earl of Arundel, and summoned

the peers of England to attend him in his progress towards Scotland.

His splendid Court, accompanied by nearly 25,000 troops, marched to

Berwick. The Scotch forces, with Leslie as their leader, marched South

and encamped on Dunse Law, a hill commanding the North Road. The two

armies faced each other for a short time, but the King, finding that

his troops sided with the Scotch and that defeat was inevitable,

concluded a sudden treaty,--signed on the 18th of June, 1639, and

known as the "Pacification of Berwick,"--and returned to London. The

pacification was not of long duration, but it led to the summoning

of that Parliament whose actions soon showed the more sagacious

politicians that a civil war was imminent.

The Estates met in Edinburgh on the 2nd of June, 1640, and ordered

every one to sign the Covenant under pain of civil penalties. In so

doing they acted in direct defiance of the King, and they refused to

adjourn at his order. They sent Commissioners to London, but Charles

refused to see them, and the Estates then appealed for help to France.

A Scotch army was again mustered. It crossed the Tweed and entered

England on the 20th of August, 1640. Newcastle, Durham, Tynemouth,

and Shields were occupied, whilst the fortresses of Edinburgh and

Dumbarton again fell into the hands of the insurgents, who defeated the

King's troops at Newburn-on-Tyne.

The King travelled to York, where he held a great Council of Peers on

the 24th of September, 1640. By the advice of the Council negotiations

were opened with the Scots. Eight Commissioners from their army came

to Ripon, and a treaty--called the Treaty of Ripon--was entered upon,

though it was not signed until nearly a year later. All that the Scots

asked was conceded, and they were promised £300,000 to defray the

expenses they had incurred. The armies were then disbanded, and for a

time peace seemed to be restored. The King again visited Scotland, and

a meeting of the Estates was held, whilst in London the Long Parliament

met on the 3rd of November, 1640, and chose Lenthall their Speaker.

Harvey must have witnessed all these events, for he was in close

personal attendance upon the King during the whole time. He received a

warrant by Royal Sign Manual whilst the King was at York, addressed to

the Comptroller of the Household and dated the 25th of September, 1640,

by which the King gives £200 to Dr. William Harvey for his diet." This

was in lieu of the three dishes of meat, which in those troublous times

were not easily to be obtained.

A month or two later Harvey was in London, for on the 24th of November,

1640, he obtained permission from the College of Physicians to sue the

heirs of Baron Lumley in the name of the College to recover the salary

of the Lumleian lecturer on surgery and anatomy. Leave was given him,

but the political disturbances and Harvey's attendance upon the King

appear to have prevented him from carrying out his object. Dr. Munk

says that no further mention of this suit occurs in the Annals of the

College until the 31st of May, 1647, when "a letter was read from Dr.

Harvey desiring the College to grant him a letter of attorney to one

Thompson to sue for the anatomical stipend. It was presently generally

granted, and shortly afterwards sent him under the general seal." From

a manuscript of Dr. Goodall's, in the possession of the College, it

appears that Harvey expended at least five hundred pounds in various

lawsuits on this subject, which was not settled until some time after

his death, and then at the expense of Sir Charles Scarborough, his

successor in the chair of the Lumleian Lecturer.

The only notice of Harvey during the year 1641 is the following entry

on page 38 of the Album of Philip de Glarges, preserved amongst the

manuscripts at the British Museum:

"'Dii laboribus omnia vendunt.'

"Nobilissimo juveni Medico. Phillipo de Glarges amicitiae ergo

libenter scripsit

GUL HARVEUS.

Anglus Med. Reg. et Anatomie professor. Londin: May 8 A.D. 1641."

["'For toil the Gods sell everything.'

"This was willingly written as a mark of friendship for the noble

young Doctor Philip de Glarges by William Harvey, the Englishman,

Physician to the King and Professor of Anatomy.

"At London 8 May A.D. 1641."]

Nothing appears to be known of De Glarges except that he was a

wandering student of medicine, theology, and philosophy, and an ardent

collector of autographs. He seems to have graduated at the Hague in

1640 when he defended a thesis upon palpitation of the heart. His

collection of autographs show that he was provided with first-rate

introductions, and that he was apparently a promising student. It would

be difficult, says Dr. Aveling, to find a more suitable motto than the

one Harvey has chosen to impress upon the mind of a young man. It is

one which Harvey had always acted upon and found to be true.

Matters were soon brought to a crisis in England; only four days

after Harvey wrote this motto Strafford was beheaded. On January 3,

1641-1642, the King's desperate attempt to seize the five members

precipitated his fate. It led Parliament to make preparations for the

war which had now become inevitable, and Isaac Pennington, a vigorous

and determined Puritan, was chosen Lord Mayor of London. Soldiers were

enrolled to form an army. On the 16th of August, 1642, the King left

London, and six days later his standard was raised at Nottingham.

Harvey accompanied him. The newly raised troops belonging to the

Parliament, as yet ignorant of the trammels of discipline, broke into

the houses of suspected persons, rifled them of their contents and

often sold their booty for the merest trifle. Harvey had been living in

his official lodgings at Whitehall, and though he attended the King,

not only with the consent, but at the desire of the Parliament, he was

very rightly suspected of being a vehement Royalist. Perhaps, too, the

mention of his name in Parliament had brought him prominently into

notice, for though the proceedings of the Parliament were nominally

private, every act was rigorously scrutinised and actively canvassed by

the agitators and local politicians. The chief outbreak of lawlessness

occurred in August, 1642, immediately after it was known that the

King had unfurled his standard, and it was probably on this occasion

that the mob of citizen-soldiers entered Harvey's lodgings, stole his

goods, and scattered his papers. The papers consisted of the records

of a large number of dissections, or as they would now be called

post-mortem examinations, of diseased bodies, with his observations

on the development of insects, and a series of notes on comparative

anatomy. Aubrey says: "He had made dissections of frogs, toads, and

a number of animals, and had curious observations upon them." Harvey

bitterly regretted the loss of his papers which he thus laments:

"Let gentle minds forgive me, if recalling the irreparable injuries

I have suffered, I here give vent to a sigh. This is the cause of my

sorrow:--Whilst in attendance on His Majesty the King during our late

troubles, and more than civil wars, not only with the permission but

by the command of the Parliament, certain rapacious hands not only

stripped my house of all its furniture, but, what is a subject of

far greater regret to me, my enemies abstracted from my museum the

fruits of many years of toil. Whence it has come to pass that many

observations, particularly on the generation of insects, have perished

with detriment, I venture to say, to the republic of letters."

Charles left Nottingham on the 13th of September, so that it was

probably early in this month that Harvey took the opportunity of

riding over to Derby to see Percival Willoughby, who had been admitted

an extra-licentiate at the College of Physicians on the 20th of

February, 1640-1641. Willoughby says: "There came to my house at

Derby, my honoured good friend Dr. Harvey. We were talking of several

infirmities incident to the womb. He added to my knowledge an infirmity

which he had seen in women, and he gave it the name of a honey-comb

[epithelioma] which he said would cause flooding in women."

A few weeks later Harvey was actually under fire at Edgehill. The

battle took place on the 23rd of October, 1642. All the morning was

spent in collecting the King's troops from their scattered quarters,

and it was not until one o'clock that the royal army descended the

steep hill leading to the wide plain in which stand the village of

Radway and the little town of Kineton. Harvey took charge of the two

Princes, boys of 12 and 10 years old, who afterwards became Charles

II. and James II., and in the course of the morning he probably walked

along the brow of the hill from the inn at Sunrising to the Royalist

headquarters which were placed about a mile further east. Weary with

waiting he and the boys betook themselves to the wide ditch at the

very edge of the hill, and to while away the time Harvey took a book

out of his pocket and read. "But," says Aubrey, "he had not read very

long before the bullet from a great gun grazed the ground near him,

which made him remove his station." As soon as the battle had really

begun, Harvey, we may be sure, was alive and interested, his book was

pocketed and he devoted himself at once to assist the wounded. The very

nature of the wounds would give additional zest to the work for, unless

he was present at the battle of Newburn-on-Tyne, this must have been

his first opportunity of treating gunshot wounds. Anthony Wood in his

account of Adrian Scrope shows that Harvey was no impassive spectator

of the fight, for he says: "This most valiant person, who was son of

Sir Jervais Scrope, did most loyally attend his Majesty at the fight

of Edgehill, where receiving several wounds he was stripped and left

among the dead, as a dead person there, but brought off by his son and

recovered by the immortal Dr. Will. Harvey, who was there but withdrawn

under a hedge with the Prince and Duke while the battle was at its

height. 'Tis reported that this Adrian Scrope received 19 wounds in one

battle in defence of his Majesty's cause, but whether in that fight at

Edgehill I cannot justly say. Sure I am that he was made Knight of the

Bath at the Coronation of King Charles II., An. 1661."

The battle was undecided, and Harvey, like the other personal

attendants upon the King, must for a while have felt the keenest

anxiety for the safety of his master. The King remained for a time at

the top of the hill, but when the battle began in earnest he could not

be restrained from mixing with the troops, sharing their danger and

adjuring them to show mercy to such of the enemy as fell into their

hands. Perhaps too Harvey saw one of the most picturesque acts of

the battle. The Royal Standard, carried by Sir Edmund Verney at the

beginning of the fight, had waved over the King's Red Regiment--the

Royal Foot Guards. Verney slain, and the Guards broken, it passed

to the Parliamentary army, and was committed to the charge of the

secretary of the Earl of Essex, the Commander-in-chief. Captain

Smith, a Catholic officer in the King's Life Guards, hearing of

the loss, picked up from the field the orange scarf which marked a

Parliamentarian and threw it over his shoulders. Accompanied by some

of his troop, similarly attired, he slipped through the ranks of the

enemy, found the secretary holding the standard, and telling him that

so great a prize was not fitly bestowed in the hands of a penman,

snatched it from him. Then, protected by the scarf, he made his way

once more through the hostile force and laid his trophy at the feet of

the King, who knighted him upon the spot.

The battle over, Charles pushed on towards London. Banbury surrendered

on the 27th of October, and on the 29th he entered Oxford in triumph.

Harvey attended the King to Oxford where he was at once received as a

_persona grata_. His position in London, his attachment to the King,

and his fame as a scientific man, must have combined to render his

entrance to the most exclusive Common Rooms a matter of ease. In

Oxford he very soon settled down to his accustomed pursuits, unmindful

of the clatter of arms and of the constant marching and countermarching

around him, for the city remained the base of operations until its

surrender in July, 1646. Aubrey says that he first saw Harvey at Oxford

"in 1642, after the Edgehill fight, but [I] was then too young to be

acquainted with so great a doctor. I remember he came several times to

our College [Trinity] to George Bathurst, B.D., who had a hen to hatch

eggs in his chamber, which they opened daily to see the progress and

way of generation." Two years later Bathurst was killed in defending

Faringdon, but he was a distinguished Fellow of his College, and it was

doubtless, with the aid and by the advice of such a friend, that Harvey

was incorporated Doctor of Physic at Oxford on the 7th of December,

1642.

For the next year or two Harvey lived quietly at Oxford, making

dissections and carrying on his professional work amongst the courtiers

who thronged the town. It appears too from the following report that

Dr. Edmund Smith was living with him in Oxford. The memorial consists

of a letter from Richard Cave to Prince Rupert, concerning the health

of his brother, Prince Maurice. It is preserved among the Rupert

Correspondence in the British Museum, and it runs--

"May it please your Highness.

"This last night arrived here at Milton, Dr. Harvey and Doctor

Smyth and this morning they were with the other two Doctors having

seen and spoken with his Highness your brother intreateth me to

write as followeth.

"That his sickness is the ordinary raging disease of the army, a

slow fever with great dejection of strength and since last Friday

he hath talked idly and slept not but very unquietly, yet the last

night he began to sleep of himself and took his rest so quietly

that this present morning when Doctor Harvey came to him he knew

him and welcomed Doctor Smith respectively and upon Doctor Harvey's

expression of his Majesty's sorrow for and great care of him he

showed an humble, thankful sense thereof. Doctor Harvey asking his

highness how he did, he answered that he was very weak, and he

seemed to be very glad to hear of and from your Highness as was

delivered by Doctor Harvey.

"Now the Doctors having conferred and computed the time have

good hopes of his recovery yet by reason that the disease is

very dangerous and fraudulent they dare not yet give credit to

this alteration. And concluding the disease to be venomous they

resolved to give very little physic only a regular diet and cordial

antidotes. The Doctors present their most humble service to your

Highness and subscribe themselves

"Sir,

"Your Highness' most humble servants,

"WILL. HARVEY

"ROBERT VILVAIN

"EDMUND SMITH

"THO. KING.

"MILTON, _Oct. 17th, 1643_."

Dr. Aveling, from whose "Memorials of Harvey" this letter is copied,

says "the treatment by 'very little phisick' and 'only a regular diet'

seems to have been successful, for Cave, writing soon afterwards

to Prince Rupert, says: "Maurice is not able yet to write letters,

but hath this day taken physic and so intends to bid his physicians

farewell."

In this year, 1643, Harvey received his last payment as physician to

St. Bartholomew's Hospital. The Journals contain no record of his

retirement from office in the hospital, but the ledgers, which have

been kept with great accuracy and minuteness ever since the granting

of the Charter in 1547, show the entry standing in its usual place,

but for the last time. "Item to Doctor Harvey, Physician, xxxiii

li. vi s. viii d." Harvey was resident in Oxford at the time of his

retirement, and the absence of any allusion to so important an event in

the history of the hospital must be ascribed in part to the confusion

of the times. The Journals of the House of Commons, however, contain a

significant note: "Feb. 12, an. 1643-1644. A motion this day made for

Dr. Micklethwayte to be recommended to the Wardens and Masters of St.

Bartholomew's Hospital, to be physician in the place of Dr. Harvey, who

hath withdrawn himself from his charge and is retired to the party in

arms against the Parliament." (Sir) John Micklethwaite was as a matter

of fact appointed Physician in reversion to St. Bartholomew's Hospital,

May 26, 1648, and he succeeded to the post of full physician May 13,

1653. He was one of the physicians in ordinary to Charles II., and died

in 1682.

Harvey's presence in Oxford, and his method of working by experiment

and by logical deduction from observation, must have been singularly

agreeable to that band of experimental philosophers who in a few

years were destined to found the Royal Society. Harvey's leaven worked

successfully in the brains of such men as Scarborough, Highmore,

Willis, and Wren, and in due season the pupils brought forth fruit

worthy of their master.

Harvey's connection with the University of Oxford was destined soon to

become both intimate and honourable, though it was unfortunately only

of short duration. In 1645 he was elected Warden of Merton College, in

succession to Sir Nathaniel Brent. The present Warden of Merton, the

Hon. G. C. Brodrick, says that on the 27th of Jan., 1645, letters were

received from the King, then lodged at Christ Church, reciting that

Sir Nathaniel Brent had absented himself for nearly three years, had

adhered to the rebels, and had accepted the office of Judge Marshal in

their ranks, to which might have been added that he had actually signed

the Covenant, for he gradually became more and more Presbyterian in

his views though he was originally a friend of Laud. We learn from the

articles afterwards exhibited against [Sir] John Greaves, then a Fellow

of the College, Savilian Professor of Astronomy, and the senior Linacre

lecturer upon anatomy, that he was the person who drew up the petition

against the Warden, and "inveigled some unwary young men to subscribe

to it." The King's letters accordingly pronounce the deposition of

Brent, and direct the seven senior Fellows to present three persons as

eligible to be his successor, out of whom the King would choose one.

The Royal mandate was obeyed, but there were some irregularities in the

consequent election, against which Peter Turner protested and resigned

his Fellowship on his protest being overruled by Lord Hertford, who

had succeeded the Earl of Pembroke as Chancellor of the University in

October, 1645. However, five out of the seven seniors, including the

Sub-Warden, placed Harvey first on their lists, and the King lost no

time in nominating him. He was solemnly admitted Warden according to

ancient custom, on the 9th of April, and two days later, on April 11th,

he addressed the Fellows in a short speech which is still preserved.

The extract from the College register runs:--"Dominus Custos,

Convocatis in Altâ Gaul Sociis, haec verba ad illos fecit. Forsitan

decessores Custodiam Collegii ambiisse, ut exinde sese locupletarent,

se vere longe alio animo nimirum ut College lucro et emolumento potius

foret: simulque socios, ut concordiam amicitiamque inter se colerent

sedule solliciteque hortatus est." [The Warden spoke thus to the

Fellows assembled in the Great Hall. He said that it was likely enough

that some of his forerunners had sought the Wardenship to enrich

themselves, but that for his own part he undertook its duties with far

other motives, wishing as he did to increase the wealth and prosperity

of the College. At the same time he appealed earnestly and anxiously to

the Fellows to cherish amongst themselves an harmonious friendship.]

The speech was thought at the time to be somewhat "Pharisaical," but

there seems to be no doubt that Harvey was really expressing his

feelings. There had always been a close bond between Merton and the

medical profession from the days when John of Gaddesden, one of the

earliest Englishmen to write a complete treatise on medicine, was a

Fellow, and it was peculiarly fitting that Harvey should have been

elected head of the College. He was a rich man, childless, without

expensive habits, and so devoted to the pursuit of science that there

is but little doubt that if he had retained his position he would have

become one of the greatest benefactors of the College. As it was, the

College during Harvey's year of office presented more the appearance of

a Court than of a seat of learning. From 1643 to 1646, when the Queen

was in Oxford, she lodged in Merton College, occupying the Warden's

House, and living in the room still known as "the Queen's room," with

the drawing-room adjoining it. Anthony Wood says that during her

occupation "there were divers marriages, christenings, and burials

carefully registered in a private register by Mr. John Gurgany, one of

the chaplains of Merton College; but about the time of the surrender of

Oxford the said register, among other books, was stolen by the soldiers

out of his window in his chamber joining to the church door." Many

officers too were quartered in Merton, and the College was so full on

the 1st of August, 1645, that the annual meeting had to be held in the

library, as neither the Hall nor the Warden's lodgings were available

for the purpose.

The year 1645-1646, during which Harvey held the office of Warden of

Merton, was long a memorable one in the annals of Oxford. The City was

invested by Fairfax for fifteen days from May 22nd, whilst the King

was at Droitwich. On June 14th the Royal cause was ruined at Naseby,

and on November 27th the College was called upon to lay in a supply of

provisions against another siege. On December 28th the King ordered

a special form of prayer to be used in the chapel on Wednesdays and

Fridays "during these bad times." On March 24th the College gave a

bond for £94 on account of provisions which it had no money to buy. At

three in the morning of April 27th the King, disguised as a servant,

with his beard and hair closely trimmed, passed over Magdalen bridge

in apparent attendance upon Ashburnham and Hudson, and we cannot but

believe that Harvey was one of the little band who closed the gates

of the city with heavy hearts as his Majesty rode off to begin his

wearisome captivity. On May 11, 1646, Oxford was summoned by Fairfax,

and on June 24th it was surrendered on very honourable terms, the

garrison marching out over Shotover 3,000 strong. The Duke of York fell

into the hands of the Parliament; but Rupert, Maurice, and the greater

part of the noblemen and gentlemen attendant upon the Court had left

Oxford the day before its surrender. Mr. Brodrick says that "Harvey

must now have retired from the Wardenship and Brent must have resumed

office, though no minute of either event is preserved in the College

Register." We find, however, that in September, 1648, Brent rendered

accounts, as Warden, for the four years from 1642 to 1646.

Anthony Wood describes in language which has often been quoted,

the utter confusion in which the past three years had left the

University--the colleges impoverished, lectures almost abandoned, many

of the students dispersed and others quite demoralised--"in a word,

scarce the face of an University left, all things being out of order

and disturbed." This account is confirmed by a striking entry in the

College Register, under the date October 19, 1646, where it is stated

that by the Divine goodness the Civil War had at last been stayed, and

the Warden [Brent] with most of the Fellows had returned, but that as

there were no Bachelors, hardly any scholars and few Masters, it was

decided to elect but one Bursar and one Dean. It is also added that as

the Hall still lay "situ et ruinis squalida" the College meeting was

held in the Warden's lodgings.

Of the few students whom we know that the influence of Harvey's name

attracted to Oxford that of Charles Scarborough, the first English

editor of Euclid, is the most noted. Ejected from his fellowship at

Caius College, Cambridge, on account of his Royalist tendencies, he

immediately withdrew to Oxford, entered himself at Merton College,

obtained the friendship of Harvey and rendered him considerable

assistance in the preparation of his work on the development of

animals. He was created a Doctor of Physic on June 23, 1646, by virtue

of letters from the Chancellor of the University, and in these letters

he is described as a Master of Arts of Cambridge of seven years'

standing and upwards, who was spoiled of his library in the beginning

of the Civil War, and afterwards for his conscience deprived of his

fellowship. His letters testimonial are under the hand of Dr. William

Harvey, who says that he is well learned in Physic, Philosophy, and

Mathematics.

CHAPTER VI

HARVEY'S LATER YEARS

The surrender of Oxford in 1645 marks the period of Harvey's severance

from the Court and of his practical retirement from public life. He was

now 68; a martyr to gout, childless, and suffering under a series of

heavy bereavements, he can have had but little heart to re-enter upon

an active professional life in London. His twin brothers Matthew and

Michael died in 1643. John, his second brother, died in 1645. His wife

who was alive in this year, must have died shortly afterwards, or she

would probably have accompanied him to Oxford. Such a series of shocks

would act prejudicially upon his affectionate nature, and would still

further unfit him to pursue the harassing cares of his profession. His

mind, always philosophical and reflective rather than empirical, was

now allowed to follow its bent to the uttermost, and his time was

employed in putting into shape his treatise upon Development.

Harvey returned to London after the surrender of Oxford, and one

of his first thoughts was to send to Charles Scarborough, who had

continued with the Royal army, the message--"Prithee leave off thy

gunning and stay here. I will bring thee into practice." And well he

kept his word, for on the 8th of October, 1649, Dr. Scarborough was

elected by the Company of Barber Surgeons of London reader of the

anatomical lectures. "He was the first," says Wood, "that introduced

geometrical and mechanical speculations into Anatomy, and applied them

in all his learned conversation, as more particularly in his famous

lectures upon the muscles of the human body for sixteen or seventeen

years together in the public theatre at Surgeons' Hall, which were

read by him with infinite applause and admiration of all sorts of

learned men in the great City. Afterwards he became a most learned

and incomparable anatomist, a Fellow of the College of Physicians in

1650, principal physician to King Charles II. (from whom he received

the honour of knighthood, August 15, 1669), and to His Royal Highness

James, his brother, while Duke of York and when King, Physician to the

Tower of London, and afterwards to King William III." His friendship

with Harvey, commenced at Oxford, continued unabated to the end of

his patron's life; and when on July 28, 1656, Harvey presented to the

College of Physicians the title-deeds of his paternal estate in Kent

and resigned his Lumleian lectureship, the office was transferred

to Charles Scarborough. In his will, too, Harvey makes affectionate

mention of his friend, and bequeaths to him his surgical instruments

and his velvet gown, so that literally as well as metaphorically

Harvey's mantle fell upon Sir Charles Scarborough, and he nobly

sustained the charge, great as it was.

The bond of friendship which had always marked the members of the

Harvey family now comes into striking relief. The eldest brother, whose

goods had been destroyed at Whitehall and scattered at Oxford, was a

welcome guest for the rest of his life in the houses of his younger

brothers. He appears to have lived chiefly at Cockaine House, which

was probably situated in Broad Street, for it afterwards became the

Excise Office. It was the town house of his brother Eliab, who also

lived either at Roehampton or at Rolls Park. But sometimes Harvey spent

a part of his time with Daniel in the suburban village of Lambeth, or

at Combe, near Croydon in Surrey. Some curious details of his habits at

this time have been handed down.

Aubrey says: "He was much and often troubled with the gout, and his

way of cure was thus: He would sit with his legs bare, though it were

frost, on the leads of Cockaine House, put them into a pail of water

till he was almost dead with cold, then betake himself to his stove,

and so 'twas gone." "A method of treatment," says Heberden, "which I

neither recommend nor propose to others for imitation, although Harvey

lived to his eightieth year, and died not so much from disease as from

old age." The first coffee-house was opened in London about the year

1652 by Bowman (a coachman to Mr. Hodges, a Turkey merchant, who put

him upon it), but Harvey was wont to drink coffee, which he and his

brother Eliab did before coffee-houses were in fashion in London. In

his will he makes a special reservation of his "coffy-pot;" his niece,

Mary West, and her daughter are to have all his plate except this

precious utensil, which, with the residue of his fortune, he evidently

desired should descend to his brother Eliab, as a memorial doubtless

of the pleasure he had often enjoyed over its contents, for coffee was

not yet a common drink. Another coffee-house in London was opened just

after the Restoration. It was kept by an old sergeant of Monk's army.

Among some papers at the College of Physicians relating to Harvey,

which were collected by Dr. Macmichael, is one in the handwriting of

Dr. Heberden, which runs as follows:--

"1761, May 29th.--Mrs. Harvey (great-niece to Dr. Harvey) told me

that the Doctor lived at his brother's at Roehampton the latter

part of his life. That he used to walk out in a morning, combing

his hair in the fields.

"That he was humoursome and would sit down exactly at the time he

had appointed for dinner whether the company was come or not. That

his salt-cellar was always filled with sugar which he used to eat

instead of salt.

"That if the gout was very painful to him in the night he would

rise and put his feet into cold water."

This list of harmless little eccentricities is further enlarged by

Aubrey, who says: "He was always very contemplative and was wont to

frequent the leads of Cockaine House, which his brother Eliab had

bought, having there his several stations in regard to the sun and the

wind for the indulgence of his fancy; whilst at the house at Combe

in Surrey, he had caves made in the ground in which he delighted in

the summer-time to meditate." He also loved darkness, telling Aubrey

"that he could then best contemplate." "His thoughts working would many

times keep him from sleeping, in which case his way was to rise from

his bed and walk about his chamber in his shirt till he was pretty

cool and then return to his bed and sleep very comfortably." He was

ready at all times to communicate what he knew and to instruct any that

were modest and respectful to him, and when Aubrey was starting for

Italy "he dictated to me what to see, what company to keep, what books

to read, and how to manage my studies--in short, he bid me go to the

fountain head and read Aristotle, Cicero, and Avicenna, and did call

the Neoteriques" by a foul name.

Dr. Ent has left a striking picture of the old man at Christmas, 1650,

nearly a year after the execution of the King. It shows at first a

weariness of spirit which we would fain hope was not quite natural

to him, like the sadness of age which is so marked a feature in the

life-like portrait left by Janssen. Dr. Ent's account is the epistle

dedicatory to Harvey's work on the development of animals, and it so

clearly shows the man in the fashion as he lived, and as his beloved

pupil saw him, that I have not ventured to shorten it. The Epistle is

addressed:--

"To the learned and illustrious, the President and Fellows of the

College of Physicians of London.

"Harassed with anxious, and in the end not much availing cares,

about Christmas last, I sought to rid my spirit of the cloud that

oppressed it, by a visit to that great man, the chief honour and

ornament of our College, Dr. William Harvey, then dwelling not far

from the city. I found him, Democritus like, busy with the study

of natural things, his countenance cheerful, his mind serene,

embracing all within its sphere. I forthwith saluted him and asked

if all were well with him? 'How can it be,' said he, 'whilst the

Commonwealth is full of distractions, and I myself am still in the

open sea? And truly,' he continued, 'did I not find solace in my

studies, and a balm for my spirit in the memory of my observations

of former years, I should feel little desire for longer life. But

so it has been, that this life of obscurity, this vacation from

public business, which causes tedium and disgust to so many, has

proved a sovereign remedy to me.'

"I, answering, said, 'I can readily account for this: whilst

most men are learned through others' wits, and under cover of a

different diction and a new arrangement, vaunt themselves on things

that belong to the ancients, thou ever interrogatest Nature herself

concerning her mysteries. And this line of study as it is less

likely to lead into error, so is it also more fertile in enjoyment,

inasmuch as each particular point examined often leads to others

which had not before been surmised. You yourself, I well remember,

informed me once that you had never dissected any animal--and many

and many a one you have examined--but that you discovered something

unexpected, something of which you were formerly uninformed.'

"'It is true,' said he; 'the examination of the bodies of animals

has always been my delight, and I have thought that we might thence

not only obtain an insight into the lighter mysteries of Nature,

but there perceive a kind of image or reflex of the omnipotent

Creator himself. And though much has been made out by the learned

men of former times, I have still thought that much more remained

behind, hidden by the dusky night of nature, uninterrogated:

so that I have oftentimes wondered and even laughed at those

who have fancied that everything had been so consummately and

absolutely investigated by an Aristotle or a Galen or some other

mighty name, that nothing could by any possibility be added to

their knowledge. Nature, however, is the best and most faithful

interpreter of her own secrets; and what she presents, either more

briefly or more obscurely in one department, that she explains

more fully and clearly in another. No one indeed has ever rightly

ascertained the use or function of a part who has not examined its

structure, situation, connections by means of vessels and other

accidents in various animals, and carefully weighed and considered

all he has seen. The ancients, our authorities in science, even

as their knowledge of geography was limited by the boundaries of

Greece, so neither did their knowledge of animals, vegetables,

and other natural objects extend beyond the confines of their

country. But to us the whole earth lies open and the zeal of our

travellers has made us familiar not only with other countries and

the manners and customs of their inhabitants, but also with the

animals, vegetables, and minerals that are met with in each. And

truly there is no nation so barbarous which has not discovered

something for the general good, whether led to it by accident or

compelled by necessity, which had been overlooked by more civilised

communities. But shall we imagine that nothing can accrue to the

wide domains of science from such advantages or that all knowledge

was exhausted by the first ages of the world? If we do, the blame

very certainly attaches to our indolence, nowise to nature.

"'To this there is another evil added. Many persons, wholly without

experience, from the presumed verisimilitude of a previous opinion,

are often led by and by to speak of it boldly, as a matter that is

certainly known; whence it comes, that not only are they themselves

deceived, but that they likewise lead other incautious persons into

error.'

"Discoursing in this manner and touching upon many topics besides

with wonderful fluency and facility, as is his custom, I interposed

by observing 'How free you yourself are from the fault you indicate

all know who are acquainted with you; and this is the reason

wherefore the learned world, who are aware of your unwearied

industry in the study of philosophy, are eagerly looking for your

farther experiments.'

"'And would you be the man,' said Harvey smiling, 'who should

recommend me to quit the peaceful haven where I now pass my life

and launch again upon the faithless sea? You know full well what a

storm my former lucubrations raised. Much better is it oftentimes

to grow wise at home and in private, than by publishing what you

have amassed with infinite labour, to stir up tempests that may rob

you of peace and quiet for the rest of your days.'

"'True,' said I; 'it is the usual reward of virtue to have received

ill for having merited well. But the winds which raised those

storms like the north-western blast, which drowns itself in its own

rain, have only drawn mischief on themselves.'

"Upon this he showed me his 'Exercises on the Generation of

Animals,' a work composed with vast labour and singular care, and

having it in my hands I exclaimed, 'Now have I what I so much

desired, and unless you consent to make this work public, I must

say that you will be wanting both to your own fame and to the

public usefulness. Nor let any fear of farther trouble in the

matter induce you to withhold it longer; I gladly charge myself

with the whole business of correcting the press.'

"Making many difficulties at first, urging among other things

that his work must be held imperfect, as not containing his

investigations on the generation of insects; I nevertheless

prevailed at length, and he said to me, 'I intrust these papers

to your care with full authority either speedily to commit them

to the press, or to suppress them till some future time.' Having

returned him many thanks, I bade him adieu and took my leave,

feeling like another Jason laden with the golden fleece. On

returning home I forthwith proceeded to examine my prize in all its

parts, and could not but wonder with myself that such a treasure

should have lain so long concealed; and that whilst others produce

their trifles and emptiness with much ado, their messes twice,

aye, an hundred times, heated up, our Harvey should set so little

store by his admirable observations. And indeed so often as he

has sent forth any of his discoveries to the world, he has not

comported himself like those who, when they publish, would have

us believe that an oak had spoken, and that they had merited the

rarest honours--a draught of hen's milk at the least. Our Harvey

rather seems as though discovery were natural, a matter of ordinary

business; though he may nevertheless have expended infinite labour

and study on his works. And we have evidence of his singular

candour in this, that he never hostilely attacks any previous

writer, but ever courteously sets down and comments upon the

opinions of each; and indeed he is wont to say that it is argument

of an indifferent cause when it is contended for with violence and

distemper, and that truth scarce wants an advocate.

[Illustration:

[_To face page 152._

FACSIMILE OF WILLIAM HARVEY'S HANDWRITING.]

"It would have been easy for our illustrious colleague to have

woven the whole of this web from materials of his own; but to

escape the charge of envy he has rather chosen to take Aristotle

and Fabricius of Aquapendente as his guides, and to appear as

contributing but his portion to the general fabric. Of him whose

virtue, candour, and genius are so well known to you all I shall

say no more, lest I should seem to praise to his face one whose

singular worth has exalted him beyond the reach of all praise.

Of myself I shall only say that I have done no more than perform

the midwife's office in this business, ushering into the light

this product of our colleague's genius as you see it, consummate

and complete, but long delayed and fearing perchance some envious

blast; in other words, I have overlooked the press; and as our

author writes a hand which no one without practice can easily

read[8] (a thing that is common among our men of letters), I have

taken some pains to prevent the printer committing any very grave

blunders through this--a point which I observe not to have been

sufficiently attended to in the small work[9] of his which lately

appeared. Here then, my learned friends, you have the cause of

my addressing you at this time, viz., that you may know that our

Harvey presents an offering to the benefit of the republic of

letters, to your honour, to his own eternal fame.

"Farewell, and prosper

"GEORGE ENT."

This account brings home to us the charm of Harvey's personality.

Beloved by his family and honoured by the College of Physicians, the

old man went to his grave amidst the genuine grief of all who knew

him. The publication of his essay on Development in 1651 was almost

his last literary effort. He wrote a few letters to different friends

abroad which show that his mind was still actively engaged upon the

problem of the circulation of the blood, but nothing more of importance

appeared from his pen. His love for the College of Physicians remained

unabated, and he gave proof of it in a most practical manner. At an

extraordinary Comitia held July 4, 1651, Dr. Prujean, the President,

read a written paper to the assembled Fellows which contained the

following proposition: "If I can procure one that will build a library

and a repository for simples and rarities, such a one as shall be

suitable and honourable to the College, will you assent to have it

done or no, and give me leave and such others as I shall desire to be

the designers and overlookers of the work both for conveniency and

ornament?" This offer from an anonymous donor was too handsome to meet

with other than immediate acceptance, and as the Annals of the College

express it, "super hac re prompté gratéque itum est ab omnibus in

suffragia" [the proposition was instantly and thankfully agreed to by

the votes of all present]. The building proceeded apace, but there is

no doubt that the name of the benefactor became known, for on December

22, 1652, and before it was completed, the College voted that a statue

of Harvey should be placed in their hall which then occupied a site in

Amen Corner. It was accordingly erected there with an inscription upon

the pedestal which ran:--

GULIELMO HARVEIO

Viro monumentis suis immortali

Hoc insuper Collegium Medicorum Londinense

posuit,

Qui enim sanguini motum

ut et

Animalibus ortum dedit,

Meruit esse

Stator perpetuus.

It represented Harvey in the cap and gown of his degree, and though it

perished in the Great Fire of London in 1666, it was not replaced when

the College was rebuilt on or near its old site nor in the more recent

building in Pall Mall.

Harvey's building was a noble example of Roman architecture (of rustic

work with Corinthian pilasters). It stood close to the site now

occupied by Stationers' Hall, and consisted of two stories, a great

parlour with a kind of convocation house for the Fellows to meet in

below and a library above. This inscription was engraved upon the

frieze outside the building in letters three inches long: "Suasu et

cura Fran. Prujeani, Praesidis et Edmundi Smith, elect: inchoata et

perfecta est haec fabrica An. Mdcliii" (This building was begun and

finished in the year 1653, at the suggestion and under the eye of

Francis Prujean, the President, and Edmund Smith, an Elect). Harvey

therefore with characteristic modesty refrained from taking any share

in the praise; perhaps he was wise. The building is destroyed and

forgotten, Smith's name has perished, Prujean's is only remembered

as that of a square in the Old Bailey, but Harvey's memory remains

and needs neither bricks and mortar, nor pictures, nor a statue to

perpetuate it.

Harvey not only paid for the building but he furnished its library

with books, amongst which were treatises on geometry, geography,

astronomy, music, optics, natural history, and travels, in addition

to those upon medical subjects. It was to be open on Fridays from two

till five o'clock in summer, but only till four in winter; during all

meetings of the College and whenever the librarian, being at leisure,

should choose to be present; but no books were allowed to be taken out.

The Museum contained numerous objects of curiosity and a variety of

surgical instruments. The doors of the buildings were formally opened

on February 2, 1653, when Harvey received the President and the Fellows

at a sumptuous entertainment, and afterwards addressed a speech to them

in which he made over to the College the title-deeds and his whole

interest in the structure and its contents.

The College gave a fresh proof of its gratitude by choosing Harvey

unanimously as its President when Dr. Prujean's term of office came to

an end on Michaelmas Day, 1654. As he was absent when the election took

place, the Comitia was prorogued until the next day, and Dr. Alston and

Dr. Hamey, two of the Elects, were asked to wait upon him to tell him

of the honour his colleagues had done themselves and him, and to say

that they awaited his answer.

Every act of Harvey's public life that has come down to us is marked,

as Dr. Willis very properly observes, not merely by propriety, but

by grace. He attended the Comitia or assembly of the College next

day, thanked his colleagues for the distinguished honour of which

they had thought him worthy--the honour, as he said, of filling the

foremost place amongst the physicians of England; but the concerns of

the College, he proceeded, were too weighty to be entrusted to one

who, like himself, was laden with years and infirm in health; and

if he might be acquitted of arrogance in presuming to offer advice

in such circumstances, he would say that the College could not do

better than reinstate in the authority which he had just laid down

their late President, Dr. Prujean, under whose prudent management

and fostering care the affairs of the College had greatly prospered.

This disinterested counsel had a fitting response, and Harvey's

advice being adopted by general consent, Dr. Prujean was forthwith

re-elected President. His first act was to nominate Harvey one of the

Consilarii--an honourable office which he did not refuse to accept, and

to which he was reappointed in 1655 and 1656.

That Harvey's complaint of age with its attendant infirmities was no

mere figure of speech may be gathered from his letters written about

this time. Thus he tells Dr. Horst, the principal physician at Hesse

Darmstadt, on the 1st of February, 1654-1655: "I am much pleased to

find that in spite of the long time that has passed, and the distance

that separates us, you have not yet lost me from your memory, and

I could wish that it lay in my power to answer all your inquiries.

But indeed my age does not permit me to have this pleasure, for I am

not only far stricken in years, but am afflicted with more and more

indifferent health." And writing again to Dr. Horst five months later

he says: "Advanced age, which unfits us for the investigation of novel

subtleties, and the mind which inclines to repose after the fatigues

of lengthened labours, prevent me from mixing myself up with the

investigation of these new and difficult questions; so far am I from

courting the office of umpire in this dispute [about the digestion and

absorption of the food] that I send you the substance of what I had

formerly written about it."

Harvey appears to have devoted much of his time in his later years

to a study of general literature, which must always have had many

attractions to his cultivated mind--a study which is indeed absolutely

necessary as a relaxation to one whose mind is bent upon the solution

of obscure scientific problems if he desires to make his results

intelligible. Writing to Nardi on the 30th of November, 1653, to thank

him for a commentary on Lucretius' account of the plague, he goes on

to say, "Nor need you plead in excuse your advanced life. I myself,

though verging on my eightieth year and sorely failed in bodily health,

nevertheless feel my mind still vigorous, so that I continue to give

myself up to studies of this kind, especially connected with the sacred

things of Apollo, for I do indeed rejoice to see learned men everywhere

illustrating the republic of letters." It would seem too as if he had

gained some reputation as a judge of general literature, for Howell in

his familiar letters writes to him:--

"To Dr. Harvey, at St. Lawrence Pountney.

"SIR,--I remember well you pleased not only to pass a favourable

censure but gave a high character of the first part of 'Dodona's

Grove,' which makes this second to come and wait on you, which, I

dare say, for variety and fancy, is nothing inferior to the first.

It continueth an historical account of the occurrences of the times

in an allegorical way, under the shadow of trees; and I believe it

omits not any material passage which happened as far as it goes.

If you please to spend some of the parings of your time and fetch

a walk in this Grove, you may haply find therein some recreation.

And if it be true what the Ancients write of some trees, that they

are fatidical, these come to foretell, at least to wish you, as

the season invites me, a good New Year, according to the Italian

compliment, Buon principio, miglior mezzo, ed ottimo fine. With

these wishes of happiness in all the three degrees of comparison,

"I rest, Your devoted Servant,

"J. H.

"LOND. _2 Jan._"

As a rule it is almost impossible to fix the dates of the "Epistolæ

Ho-Elianæ," but the first part of "Dodona's Grove" was issued in 1640,

and the second part in 1650, so that the letter was probably written in

1651. Even if the letters were never really sent to those to whom they

are addressed, Howell selected his apparent correspondents with such

care that he would not have addressed Harvey in this manner unless he

had been credited with some skill as a critic of general literature.

This, too, is borne out in another letter to Nardi on October 25,

1655, in which he says that he is used to solace his declining years

and to refresh his understanding, jaded with the trifles of everyday

life, by reading the best works. Shortly before he died he was engaged

in reading Oughtred's "Clavis Mathematica," and in working out the

problems. The book was no doubt brought under his notice by Charles

Scarborough, who with Seth Ward was the first to read it with his

pupils at Cambridge, where it long remained a favourite textbook.

When Scarborough and Ward were young, they once made a journey to see

Oughtred, an old Etonian, "who was then living at Albury, in Surrey, to

be informed of many things in his 'Clavis Mathematica,' which seemed at

that time very obscure to them. Mr. Oughtred treated them with great

humanity, being very much pleased to see such ingenious young men,"

says Anthony Wood, who tells the story, "apply themselves to those

studies, and in a short time he sent them away well satisfied in their

desires."

Harvey still retained his Lumleian lectureship, the duties of which

he conscientiously discharged to the last. His life, says Dr. Munk,

already prolonged beyond the span allotted to man, and his waning

powers yet further broken by repeated and severe attacks of illness,

warned him of his approaching end. He had lived to see his grand

discovery of the circulation of the blood universally accepted and

inculcated as a canon in most of the medical schools of Europe; and

he is said by Hobbes to have been "the only one that conquered envy

in his lifetime and saw his new doctrine everywhere established."

Harvey now prepared for the great change awaiting him, and on July 28,

1656, resigned his lectureship, took his leave of the College, and in

so doing manifested the same zeal for its prosperity as had marked

the whole of his former life. On this occasion he put the crowning

act to his munificence by giving to the College in perpetuity his

patrimonial estate at Burmarsh in Kent, then valued at £56 a year. The

particular purposes of this donation were the institution of an annual

feast, at which a Latin oration should be spoken in commemoration

of the benefactors of the College, a gratuity for the orator, and a

provision for the keeper of his library and museum. All this attention

to perpetuate a spirit of concord and social friendship among his

brethren, was in full accordance with Harvey's benevolent and liberal

sentiments.

The last of his letters which has been preserved is addressed to John

Vlackveld, physician at Haarlem, who had sent him an interesting

specimen. The letter is a characteristic one. It runs:--

"LEARNED SIR,--Your much esteemed letter reached me safely, in

which you not only exhibit your kind consideration of me, but

display a singular zeal in the cultivation of our art.

"It is even so. Nature is nowhere accustomed more openly to display

her secret mysteries than in cases where she shows traces of her

workings apart from the beaten path; nor is there any better way to

advance the proper practice of medicine than to give our minds to

the discovery of the usual law of nature, by careful investigation

of cases of rarer forms of disease. For it has been found in almost

all things, that what they contain of useful or of applicable, is

hardly perceived unless we are deprived of them, or they become

deranged in some way. The case of the plasterer to which you refer

is indeed a curious one and might supply a text for a lengthened

commentary by way of illustration. But it is in vain that you

apply the spur to urge me, at my present age, not mature merely

but declining, to gird myself for any new investigation; for I

now consider myself entitled to my discharge from duty. It will,

however, always be a pleasant sight to see distinguished men like

yourself engaged in this honourable arena. Farewell, most learned

sir, and whatever you do, still love

"Yours, most respectfully,

"WILLIAM HARVEY.

"LONDON, _April 24, 1657_."

CHAPTER VII

HARVEY'S DEATH, BURIAL, AND EULOGY

Harvey died at Roehampton in the house of his brother Eliab on the 3rd

of June, 1657. Aubrey says that on the morning of his death, about

ten o'clock, he went to speak and found that he had the dead palsy in

his tongue; then he saw what was to become of him. He knew there were

then no hopes of his recovery, so presently he sends for his young

nephews to come up to him, to whom he gives one the minute watch with

which he had made his experiments, to another his signet ring, and to

another some other remembrance. He then made signs (for being seized

with the dead palsy in his tongue he could not speak) to Sambroke, his

apothecary in Blackfriars, to let him blood in the tongue, which did

him little or no good, and so ended his days, dying in the evening

of the day on which he was stricken, the palsy giving him an easy

passport.

It would appear from this account that Harvey died of a cerebral

hemorrhage from vessels long injured by gout and situated rather at the

base or internal parts of the brain than in the frontal lobes. Most

probably the left Sylvian artery gave way, leading at first to a slight

extravasation of blood, which rapidly increased in quantity until it

overwhelmed his brain. The copy of the death mask in the church at

Hempstead shows the left eye more widely open than the right, whilst

the furrows on the right side of the face are much more marked than

those on the left side.

The body was brought to London, where it seems to have been placed in

Cockaine House, which also belonged to Eliab Harvey, and in that room

of the house which became afterwards the office of Elias Ashmole, the

antiquary to whom Oxford owes the Ashmolean Museum. Here it rested many

days because, though Harvey died on the 3rd of June, it was not until

the 25th of June that the Fellows of the College of Physicians received

a notice requesting them, clothed in their gowns, to attend the

funeral on the following day. In the meantime, Eliab, as his brother's

executor, had decided that Harvey should be buried at Hempstead

in Essex, and accordingly, on the 26th of June, 1657, the funeral

procession started from London. It was followed far beyond the City

walls by a large number of the Fellows of the College of Physicians,

many of whom must afterwards have hurried back to Westminster Hall,

where, on the same day, with the greatest ceremony and with all the

pomp of circumstance, Cromwell was a second time inaugurated after

the humble petition and advice had given him the power of nominating

his successors and of forming a second House of Parliament, whilst it

assigned to him a perpetual revenue.

There is no record of the time when the funeral party reached

Hempstead, nor where it stopped on the way. The village is situated

about fifty miles from London and seven miles east of Saffron Walden,

so that one, if not two, nights must have been spent upon the journey.

Here, about 1655, Eliab Harvey had built "the Harvey Chapel," a plain,

rectangular building of brick with a high-pitched tile roof, on the

north side of the church, adjoining and communicating with the chancel

and lighted by three large windows. He had also built the outer vault

beneath it as a place of sepulture for his family, and when this became

full in 1766, one of his descendants, also an Eliab Harvey, but of

Claybury, built the inner vault. Twice before had Eliab made a similar

journey. Once in 1655, after the death of his daughter Sarah, a girl

of twelve, and again in 1656, at the funeral of Elizabeth, another

daughter aged nine. Harvey was laid in the outer chapel, between

the bodies of his two nieces, and like them he was "lapt in lead,"

coffinless, and upon his breast was placed in great letters--

DOCTOR

WILLIAM + HARVEY +

DECEASED + THE + 3 +

OF + JUNE + 1657 +

AGED + 79 + YEARS.

"I was at the funeral," says Aubrey, "and helped to carry him into

the vault." The simple wrapping of the body in lead seems to have

been a custom peculiar to the Harvey family. The leaden case used for

William Harvey was roughly shaped to the form of the body, the head

part having the rude outline of a face with mouth, nose, and eyes; the

neck wide and the shoulders expanded. The breastplate was broad and the

inscription upon it was in raised letters. The body of the case was

long and tapering towards the feet, where the lead was turned up at a

right angle. The measurements of the case show that it afforded no data

as to Harvey's size, for though he was a man "of the lowest stature,"

its extreme length from the crown of the head to the toes was no less

than six feet and a quarter.

When the late Sir Benjamin Ward Richardson first entered the vault in

1847, the remains of Harvey had not been visited within the memory of

man, though the villagers knew by tradition that "Dr. Harvey was a very

great man, who had made, they were told, some great discovery, though

they did not know what it was." At that time the vault was practically

open to the public, for the window in it at the eastern end was uncased

and badly barred. The leaden shell containing Harvey's remains lay upon

the floor just beneath the window and with the feet directed towards

it. It was therefore exposed to the drift of rain when it beat into

the vault with an east wind, and the sarcophagus was so unprotected

that boys could throw stones upon it, and did so. The lead in the upper

third of its length from the feet was almost torn through on its upper

surface, though the rent was only a small one. The leaden case, too,

was beginning to bend in over the middle of the body like a large

scoop or spoon, in which water could accumulate.

Some repairs were made in the vault after it had been visited and its

condition had been reported upon by Dr. Stewart and (Sir) Richard

Quain in 1868, but the leaden case still remained upon the floor and

the opening had become so large that a frog jumped out of it on one

occasion as soon as it was touched. Ten years later Sir Benjamin

Richardson made a further examination of the case and reported that the

centre of the shell, extending from the middle of the trunk to the feet

had so far collapsed that the upper surface all but touched the lower

one, whilst the crack in the lead was now so large that it measured

fully six inches in length. But owing to the greater collapse of the

lead the fissure was not so wide as it was in 1868; indeed, the edges

had now closed, leaving only a space of half an inch at the widest part.

"The question which interests us most," says Richardson, "has yet to

be considered. Are any remains of Harvey left in the sarcophagus?

Expecting to find the opening in the lead in the same condition at my

latest visit, as it was at the latest but one, I took with me a small

mirror, a magnesium light, and every appliance for making what may

be called a sarcophoscopic investigation. To my dismay, I discovered

that the opening is now almost closed by the collapse of the lead, so

that the reflector could not be used, while the shell is positively

filled at the opening with thick, dirty fluid, like mud--a fluid thick

as melted pitch and having a peculiar organic odour. This extends into

the case above and below the crack or fissure. There can be little

remaining of the body, not much probably even of the skeleton."

Sir Benjamin concluded his report with the suggestion that "these

honoured remains should be conveyed to their one fit and final

resting-place--Westminster Abbey. There, laid two feet deep in the

floor in some quiet corner and covered merely with a thick glass plate,

the leaden sarcophagus, still visible to those who take an interest

in the history of science, would be protected for ages, instead of

being destined, as it now certainly is, to fall into a mere crumbling,

unrecognisable mass, in the course, at furthest, of another hundred

years." The failing health and subsequent death of Dr. Stanley, the

Dean of Westminster, prevented the execution of this project, which

would probably have been carried into effect had he lived, for it is

thought that he was willing to allow the remains of Harvey to be

placed near those of Hunter or Livingstone.

On the 28th of January, 1882, the whole tower of Hempstead Church fell

towards the south-west into the churchyard. No injury was done to

the Harvey Chapel, but the accident led to a further examination of

Harvey's shell. It was found that the lead was perishing rapidly, and

that the shell itself was full of water. A formal report was made to

the College of Physicians, who appointed a committee of its Fellows to

advise upon the best method of procedure. The labours of the Committee

resulted in a decision to leave the remains at Hempstead, but to remove

them to the chapel above the vault. The necessary consent having been

obtained, and a marble sarcophagus to receive the leaden case having

been selected, an architect was invited to examine the vault and the

floor of the chapel. Under his directions pillars were built in the

vault to sustain the additional weight upon the floor of the chapel,

and on St. Luke's Day, 1883, the leaden case containing Harvey's

remains was carried reverently from the vault by eight Fellows of

the College. It was immediately deposited in the sarcophagus in the

presence of the President, the Office Bearers, and many Fellows of the

Royal College of Physicians. A leaden case was also deposited within

the sarcophagus containing the quarto edition of Harvey's works in

Latin, edited in 1766 by Drs. Akenside and Lawrence, with a memorial

bottle hermetically sealed and containing a scroll with the following

memorial:

"The body of William Harvey lapt in lead, simply soldered, was laid

without shell or enclosure of any kind in the Harvey vault of this

Church of Hempstead, Essex, in June, 1657.

"In the course of time the lead enclosing the remains was, from

exposure and natural decay, so seriously damaged as to endanger

its preservation, rendering some repair of it the duty of those

interested in the memory of the illustrious discoverer of the

circulation of the Blood.

"The Royal College of Physicians, of which corporate body

Harvey was a munificent Benefactor, and which by his favour

is the possessor in perpetuity of his patrimonial estate at

Burmarsh, Kent, did in the years 1882-83, by permission of the

Representatives of the Harvey family, undertake that duty.

"In accordance with this determination the leaden mortuary chest

containing the remains of Harvey was repaired, and was, as far

as possible, restored to its original state, and on this 18th day

of October, 1883, in the presence of four representatives of the

Harvey family and of the President, all the office bearers and

many other Fellows of the College of Physicians (whose names are

hereunto appended), was reverently translated from the Harvey vault

to this Sarcophagus, raised by the College for its reception and

preservation."

High in the wall of the Church at Hempstead is a marble monument

containing a bust of William Harvey. The ornamentation of the tablet

is bold and effective, and below the bust is a long Latin inscription

testifying to Harvey's good works. The bust was carefully examined

by Mr. Thomas Woolner, R.A., who came to the conclusion that it was

made from a death mask. He says that "the features presented by the

bust are clearly those of a dead face. The sculptor exhibits no

knowledge of sculpture except when he was copying what was directly

before him. With the cast of the face for his copy he has shown true

artistic delineation, but all that he has been obliged to add to make

up the bust as it stands is of the worst possible quality. The ears

are placed entirely out of position, the large, redundant head of

hair is altogether out of character, imaginary and badly executed,

and the drapery of the shoulders is simply despicable." We have

nevertheless to thank the rude sculptor for the care he has devoted

to the face, and we are enriched by the knowledge supplied to us by a

great contemporary authority in sculpture, that the true lineaments of

William Harvey, as they were seen at the time of his death, are still

in our possession--lineaments which indicate a face at once refined,

reflective, and commanding.

Harvey's will is an interesting document. It is without date, but it

seems to have been made at some time between July, 1651, and February,

1653. The codicil is also undated. Perhaps it was added shortly before

Sunday, the 28th of December, 1656, the day on which Harvey read over

the whole document and formally declared and published it as his last

will and testament in the presence of Heneage Finch, his nephew by

marriage, afterwards the Lord Chancellor, and his faithful servant,

John Raby. The will runs:

"The Last Will and Testament of William Harvey, M.D.

"In the name of the Almighty and Eternal God, Amen.

"I, WILLIAM HARVEY, of London, Doctor of Physic, do by these

presents make and ordain this my last Will and testament in manner

and form following, revoking hereby all former and other wills and

testaments whatsoever.

"Imprimis, I do most humbly render my soul to Him that gave it and

to my blessed Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus, and my body to the

earth to be buried at the discretion of my executor herein after

named.

"The personal estate which at the time of my decease I shall be

in any way possessed of either in law or equity, be it in goods,

household stuff, ready monies, debts, duties, arrearages of rents

or any other ways whatsoever and whereof I shall not by this

present will or by some Codicil to be hereunto annexed make a

particular gift and disposition I do after my debts, funerals, and

legacies paid and discharged, give and bequeath the same unto my

loving brother Mr. Eliab Harvey, merchant of London, whom I make

executor of this my last will and testament."

He then settles the distribution of certain lands which "I have

lately purchased in Northamptonshire or thereabouts, commonly known

by the name of Oxon grounds and formerly belonging unto the Earl of

Manchester; and certain other grounds in Leicestershire, commonly

called or known by the name of Baron Parke and sometime heretofore

belonging unto Sir Henry Hastings, Knight, both which purchases

were made in the name of several persons nominated and trusted by

me." The will then proceeds: "And first I appoint so much money

to be raised and laid out upon that building which I have already

begun to erect within the College of Physicians in London as will

serve to finish the same according to the design already made.

"Item, I give and bequeath unto my loving sister-in-law Mrs. Eliab

Harvey one hundred pounds to buy something to keep in remembrance

of me.

"Item, I give to my niece Mary Pratt all that linen, household

stuff and furniture which I have at Combe, near Croydon, for the

use of Will. Foulkes and to whom his keeping shall be assigned

after her death or before (by) me at any time.

"Item, I give unto my niece Mary West and her daughter Amy West

half the linen I shall leave at London in my chests and chambers

together with all my plate excepting my coffee-pot.

"Item, I give to my loving sister Eliab all the other half of my

linen which I shall leave behind me.

"Item, I give to my loving sister Daniell at Lambeth and to every

one of her children severally the sum of fifty pounds.

"Item, I give to my loving cousin Mr. Heneage Finch for his pains,

counsel and advice about the contriving of this my will one hundred

pounds.

"Item, I give to all my little Godchildren, Nieces and Nephews

severally to every one fifty pounds.

"Item, I give and bequeath to the town of Folkestone where I was

born two hundred pounds to be bestowed by the advice of the Mayor

thereof and my Executor for the best use of the poor.

"Item, I give to the poor of Christ Hospital [? St. Bartholomew's

Hospital] in Smithfield thirty pounds.

"Item, I give to Will. Harvey my godson, the son of my brother

Michael Harvey deceased, one hundred pounds and to his brother

Michael fifty pounds.

"Item, I give to my nephew Tho. Cullen and his children one hundred

pounds and to his brother my godson, Will. Cullen one hundred

pounds.

"Item, I give to my nephew John Harvey the son of my loving brother

Tho. Harvey deceased two hundred pounds.

"Item, I give to my servant John Raby, for his diligence in my

service and sickness twenty pounds. And to Alice Garth, my servant,

ten pounds over and above what I am already owing unto her by my

bill which was her mistress's legacy.

"Item, I give among the poor children of Amy Rigdon daughter of my

loving uncle Mr. Tho. Halke twenty pounds.

"Item, among other my poorest kindred one hundred pounds to be

distributed at the appointment of my executor.

"Item, I give among the servants of my sister Dan at my funeralls

five pounds. And likewise among the servants of my nephew Dan.

Harvey at Coombe as much.

"Item, I give to my cousin Mary Tomes fifty pounds.

"Item, I give to my loving friend Mr. Prestwood one hundred pounds.

"Item, I give to every one of my loving brother Eliab his sons and

daughters severally fifty pounds apiece.

"All which legacies and gifts aforesaid are chiefly to buy

something to keep in remembrance of me.

"Item, I give among the servants of my brother Eliab which shall be

dwelling with him at the time of my decease ten pounds.

"Furthermore, I give and bequeath unto my sister Eliab's sister

Mrs. Coventrey, a widow, during her natural life the yearly rent

or sum of twenty pounds.

"Item, I give to my niece Mary West during her natural life the

yearly rent or sum of forty pounds.

"Item, I give for the use and behoof and better ordering of Will

Foulkes for and during the term of his life unto my niece Mary

Pratt the yearly rent of ten pounds, which sum if it happen my

niece shall die before him I desire may be paid to them to whom his

keeping shall be appointed.

"Item, I will that the twenty pounds which I yearly allow him my

brother Galen Browne may be continued as a legacy from his sister

during his natural life.

"Item, I will that the payments to Mr. Samuel Fenton's children out

of the profits of Buckholt lease be orderly performed as my dear

deceased loving wife gave order so long as that lease shall stand

good.

"Item, I give unto Alice Garth during her natural life the yearly

rent or sum of twenty pounds.

"Item, to John Raby during his natural life sixteen pounds yearly

rent.

"All which yearly rents or sums to be paid half yearly at the two

most usual feasts in the year, viz.:--Michaelmas and our Lady day

without any deduction for or by reason of any manner of taxes to

be anyway hereafter imposed. The first payment of all the said

rents or Annuities respectively to begin at such of those feasts

which shall first happen next after my decease.

"Thus I give the remainder of my lands unto my loving brother Eliab

and his heirs. All my legacies and gifts &c. being performed and

discharged.

"Touching my books and household stuff, pictures and apparell

of which I have not already disposed I give to the College of

Physicians all my books and papers and my best Persia long carpet

and my blue satin embroidered cushion, one pair of brass Andirons

with fire shovel and tongs of brass for the ornament of the meeting

room I have erected for that purpose.

"Item, I give my velvet gown to my loving friend Mr. Doctor

Scarborough desiring him and my loving friend Mr. Doctor Ent to

look over those scattered remnant of my poor Library and what

books, papers or rare collections they shall think fit to present

to the College and the rest to be sold and with the money buy

better. And for their pains I give to Mr. Doctor Ent all the

presses and shelves he please to make use of and five pounds to buy

him a ring to keep or wear in remembrance of me.

"And to Doctor Scarborough all my little silver instruments of

surgery.

"Item, I give all my chamber furniture, tables, bed, bedding,

hangings which I have at Lambeth, to my sister Dan and her daughter

Sarah. And all that at London to my loving sister Eliab and her

daughter or my godson Eliab as she shall appoint.

"Lastly, I desire my executor to assign over the custody of Will

Fowkes after the death of my niece Mary Pratt, if she happen to die

before him, unto the sister of the said William, my niece Mary West.

"Thus I have finished my last Will in three pages, two of them

written with my own hand and my name subscribed to every one with

my hand and seal to the last.

"WIL. HARVEY.

"Signed, sealed and published as the last will and testament of me

William Harvey in the presence of us Edward Dering. Henneage Finch.

Richard Flud. Francis Finche." A codicil is added to the will

making certain rearrangements of the bequests, rendered necessary

by the deaths and marriages of some of the recipients. Amongst

others, "All the furniture of my chamber and all the hangings I

give to my godson, Mr. Eliab Harvey at his marriage, and all my

red damask furniture and plate to my cousin Mary Harvey." "Item, I

give my best velvet gown to Doctor Scarborough.

"WILL. HARVEY."

The entry of the issue of probate upon this will runs thus in the books

at Somerset House:--

"May 1659. The second day was proved the will and Codicil annext of Dr.

William Harvey, late of the parish of St. Peter's Poore, in London,

but at Roehampton in the County of Surrey, deceased, by the oath of

Eliab Harvey, the brother and sole executor, to whom administration was

committed, he being first sworn truly to administer." This entry seems

to set at rest the doubt that had been expressed as to the exact place

of Harvey's death, for Aubrey with his customary inaccuracy in detail

stated that he died in London.

William Harvey may perhaps be compared more fitly with John Hunter

than with any single scientific man who either preceded or followed

him. Harvey laid the foundation of modern medicine by his discovery

of the circulation of the blood. Hunter laid the foundation of modern

pathology, not by any single and striking discovery, but by a long

course of careful observation. Harvey, like Hunter, was a careful and

competent observer; both were skilled anatomists, both were ardent

pathologists, both were comparative anatomists of a high order. By

singular ill fortune we have lost the records of many years of careful

work done by each of these great men. Harvey's work was destroyed or

scattered by the violence of the times in which he lived, and we can

only be grateful that so much is spared to us; Hunter's work was lost

irrevocably by the crime of his trusted assistant and brother-in-law.

Harvey, like Hunter, was choleric, but his nature was the more lovable,

though each had the power, innate in every great teacher, of attaching

to himself and enrolling in his work all sorts of unlikely people. The

collecting or acquisitive spirit was equally developed both in Hunter

and Harvey, but the desire for knowledge was less insatiable in Harvey.

The influence of breeding and education is nowhere more marked than in

these two great men, otherwise so nearly allied. Harvey's knowledge is

always well within the grasp of his intellect. He can formulate it,

often in exquisite language, and it is so familiar to him that he can

afford to use similes and images which show him to be a man of wide

general education. He thinks clearly so that his unerring conclusions

are drawn in a startlingly easy manner. Yet he was often hampered by

the theories of the ancient philosophical schools of medicine. Hunter's

knowledge was gigantic, but it was uncontrolled. His thoughts are

obscure and so ill expressed that it is often difficult to discover

what he would say. His conclusions too are sometimes incorrect and are

frequently laboured, yet the advance of knowledge in the hundred years

and more which separated him from Harvey afforded him many additional

data.

Harvey's acquaintance with the literature of medicine enabled him

to cite apposite examples, and must evidently have been of the

greatest service to him in elucidating his problems. Hunter too often

traversed paths which were already well trodden, for his defective

education prevented him from knowing the works of his predecessors.

The atmosphere of Courts and of the refined and learned society in

which Harvey spent most of his life has given a polish to his writings

and a gentleness to his character which were wholly wanting to John

Hunter, upon whom the _res angustae domi_--absent in Harvey's case--had

impressed a certain ruggedness of character, but in both there was a

native strength and robustness of constitution which render them not

dissimilar.

As mere practitioners or curers of the body neither Harvey nor Hunter

were highly esteemed by their contemporaries, though both made

considerable sums of money by their art. The curiosity both of Harvey

and of Hunter was boundless, but their minds were of the creative

rather than of the imaginative type. Both collected facts and were

averse to theories.

Neither Hunter nor Harvey were religious men in the ordinary and narrow

sense of the term. Harvey, living at an intensely religious period in

the history of England, appears to have held the broad views befitting

a student of nature. An eminently religious tone runs throughout his

work, "a devout and reverential recognition of God," as Sir Russell

Reynolds expressed it, "not only as the great primal ever-acting force,

behind, outside and before all the works of Nature; but as the Being,

'the Almighty and Eternal God,' to whom he says in his last will and

testament, 'I do most humbly render my soul to Him who gave it; and to

my blessed Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus.'" Hunter living in a freer

age had yet the remains of his Scottish upbringing adherent to the

last.

CHAPTER VIII

HARVEY'S ANATOMICAL WORKS

Harvey's _liber aureus_ is certainly his "Exercitatio anatomica de

motu cordis et sanguinis in animalibus." [An Anatomical Treatise on

the Movement of the Heart and Blood in Animals, by William Harvey,

the Englishman, Physician to the King and Professor of Anatomy in the

London College of Physicians.] The work was issued from the press of

William Fitzer, of Frankfort, in the year 1621. Harvey chose Frankfort

as the place of publication for his book because the annual book fair

held in the town enabled a knowledge of his work to be more rapidly

spread than if it had been issued in England.

The book contains the matured account of the circulation of the blood,

of which somewhat more than the germ had appeared in the notes of the

Lumleian visceral lecture for 1616. It is a small quarto, containing

seventy-two pages and a page and half of _errata_, for Harvey wrote a

villainous hand, and communication between Germany and England was too

slow, expensive, and uncertain to allow an author to correct his book

sheet by sheet as it issued from the press.

The Treatise opens with a dedication to Charles I. couched in fitting

emblematical language, and signed "Your Most August Majesty's Most

Devoted Servant, William Harvey." The dedication is followed by a

preface addressed to "Dr. Argent [then President of the College of

Physicians, and one of Harvey's intimate friends] as well as to the

other learned physicians, his most esteemed colleagues." In this

preface he excuses himself for the book, saying that he had already and

repeatedly presented to them his new views of the movement and function

of the heart in his anatomical lectures. And that he had now for nine

years and more confirmed these views by multiplied demonstrations in

their presence. He had illustrated them by arguments and he had freed

them from objections of the most learned and skilful Anatomists. He

then proceeds so modestly that it is difficult to realise how great an

innovation he was really making when he says, "I profess both to learn

and to teach anatomy, not from books but from dissections, not from the

positions of philosophers but from the fabric of nature."

Such a statement is now a mere truism, because every one who starts

upon a subject of original research follows the method adopted by

Harvey. He learns thoroughly what is known already; he frames a

working hypothesis and puts it to the test of experiment. He then

combines his _à priori_ reasoning with a logical deduction from the

facts he observes. A feeble mind is sometimes overmastered by its

working hypothesis, and may be led to consider it proved when a better

trained observer would dismiss it for a more promising theory. Harvey's

hypothesis--tested by experiment, by observation, and by reasoning--was

no longer an hypothesis but a proved fact fertile beyond measure, for

it rendered possible a coherent and experimental physiology and a new

medicine and surgery.

The anatomical treatise gives in seventeen short chapters a perfectly

clear and connected account of the action of the heart and of the

movement of the blood round the body in a circle. A movement which

had been foreshadowed by some of the earlier anatomists and had been

clearly indicated by Harvey himself as early as 1616. But it is here

laid down with a precision of detail, with a logical exactness, and

with a wealth of illustration which is marvellous even to us who read

of the circulation as an established and fundamental principle upon

which the whole body of physic rests. Harvey's proof fell short of

complete demonstration, for he had no means of showing how the smallest

arteries are connected with the smallest veins. He worked, indeed, with

a simple lens, but its magnifying power was too feeble to show him the

arterioles and the venules, whilst the idea of an injection does not

seem to have occurred to him. It was not until after the invention of

the compound microscope that Leeuwenhoek, in 1675, described the blood

corpuscles and the circulation in the capillary blood vessels, though

they had already been seen by Malpighi.

The first chapter of the Treatise is introductory. It is a review of

the chief theories which had been held as to the uses of the heart and

lungs. It had been maintained that the heart was the great centre for

the production of heat. The blood was driven alternately to and from

the heart, being sucked into it during the diastole and driven from it

during the systole. The use of the arteries was to fan and cool the

blood, as the lungs fanned and cooled the heart, for the pulse was due

to an active dilatation and contraction of the arteries. During their

dilatation the arteries sucked in air, and during their contraction

they discharged murky vapours through pores in the flesh and skin. In

the heart, as well as in the arteries, the dilatation was of greater

importance than the contraction. The whole of this tissue of falsehood

seems to have been founded upon an incorrect apprehension of the nature

of heat. It was looked upon as a fundamental principle or entity, and

until chemistry and physics reached the stage of experimental sciences

it was impossible to give a correct explanation of the phenomena it

presents. Even Harvey sometimes lost himself in mysticism when he had

to deal with the subject of animal heat, though he was struggling hard

to find a firm foothold when he said, "We are too much in the habit of

worshipping names to the neglect of things. The word Blood has nothing

of grandiloquence about it, for it signifies a substance which we have

before our eyes and can touch; but before such titles as Spirit and

Calidum Innatum [or inherent heat] we stand agape."

Harvey begins his Treatise on the movement of the Heart and Blood with

the clear statement that the heart must be examined whilst it is

alive; but he says, "I found the task so truly arduous and so full of

difficulties that I was almost tempted to think with Fracastorius that

the movement of the heart was only to be comprehended by God. For I

could neither rightly perceive at first when the systole[10] and when

the diastole took place, nor when and where dilatation and contraction

occurred, by reason of the rapidity of the movement, which in many

animals is accomplished in the twinkling of an eye, coming and going

like a flash of lightning.

"At length by using greater and daily diligence and investigation,

making frequent inspection of many and various animals and collating

numerous observations, I thought that I had attained to the truth ...

and that I had discovered what I so much desired--both the movement and

the use of the heart and arteries. From that time I have not hesitated

to expose my views upon these subjects, not only in private to my

friends, but also in public in my anatomical lectures, after the manner

of the Academy of old.

"These views, as usual, pleased some more, others less: some chid and

calumniated me and laid it to me as a crime that I had dared to depart

from the precepts and opinion of all anatomists: others desired further

explanations of the novelties, which they said were both worthy of

consideration, and might perchance be found of signal use."

The results of his experiments soon made it plain to Harvey that the

heart's movements could be studied more readily in the colder animals,

such as toads, frogs, serpents, small fishes, crabs, shrimps, snails,

and shell-fish, than in warm-blooded animals. The movements of the

heart became more distinct even in warm-blooded animals, such as the

dog and hog, if the organ was attentively noted when it began to flag.

The movements then became slower, the pauses longer, so that it was

then much more easy to perceive and unravel what the movements really

were and how often they were performed.

Careful observation and handling the heart made it clear that the organ

was muscular, and that its systole was in every way comparable with the

contraction which occurs in the muscles of the forearm when the fingers

are moved. "The contraction of the heart is therefore of greater

importance than its relaxation. During its contraction the heart

becomes erect, hard, and diminished in size, so that the ventricles

become smaller and are so made more apt to expel their charge of

blood. Indeed, if the ventricle be pierced the blood will be projected

forcibly outwards at each pulsation when the heart is tense."

After thus disproving the erroneous views of the heart's action, Harvey

next proceeds to discuss the movements in the arteries as they are seen

in the dissection of living animals. He shows that the pulsation of the

arteries depends directly upon the contraction of the left ventricle

and is due to it, whilst the contraction of the right ventricle propels

its charge of blood into the pulmonary artery which is distended

simultaneously with the other arteries of the body. When an artery is

divided or punctured the blood is forcibly expelled from the wound at

the instant when the left ventricle contracts, and when the pulmonary

artery is wounded the blood spurts forth with violence when the right

ventricle contracts. So also in fish, if the vessel leading from the

heart to the gills be divided the blood flows out forcibly when the

heart becomes tense and contracted.

These facts enabled Harvey to disprove the current theory that the

heart's systole corresponded with the contraction of the arteries

which then became filled with blood by a process of active dilatation,

as bellows are filled with air. He illustrated this by a homely method

which he had been accustomed to use in his lectures for years. He says

that "the pulses of the arteries are due to the impulses of the blood

from the left ventricle may be illustrated by blowing into a glove,

when the whole of the fingers will be found to become distended at one

and the same time and in their tension to bear some resemblance to the

pulse."

The broad points in connection with the vascular system being thus

settled, Harvey turned his attention more particularly to the

mechanism of the heart's action. He shows that the two auricles move

synchronously and that the two ventricles also contract at the same

time. Hitherto it had been supposed that each cavity of the heart

moved independently, so that every cardiac cycle consisted of four

distinct movements. To prove that the movement of the heart was double

he examined the eel, several fish, and some of the higher animals.

He noticed that the ventricles would pulsate without the auricles,

and that if the heart were cut into several pieces "the several parts

may still be seen contracting and relaxing." The minute accuracy of

Harvey's observation is shown by his record of what is in reality a

perfusion experiment. He says: "Experimenting with a pigeon upon one

occasion after the heart had wholly ceased to pulsate and the auricles

too had become motionless, I kept my finger wetted with saliva and warm

for a short time upon the heart and noticed that under the influence

of this fomentation it recovered new strength and life, so that both

ventricles and auricles pulsated, contracting and relaxing alternately,

recalled as it were from death to life." We now know that this was

due to the warmth, to the moisture, and to the alkalinity of Harvey's

saliva, so that he performed crudely, and no doubt by accident, one

of the most modern experiments to show that the heart, under suitable

conditions, has the power of recovering from fatigue.

This portion of the treatise affords an insight into the enormous

amount of labour which Harvey had expended in its production, for he

says: "I have also observed that nearly all animals have truly a heart,

not the larger creatures only and those that have red blood, but the

smaller and pale-blooded ones also, such as slugs, snails, scallops,

shrimps, crabs, crayfish, and many others; nay, even in wasps, hornets,

and flies I have, with the aid of a magnifying glass and at the upper

part of what is called the tail, both seen the heart pulsating and

shown it to many others." That this was the result of a careful study

of the animals mentioned and not a simple observation is shown by the

following sentences: "In winter and the colder season, pale-blooded

animals such as the snail show no pulsations: they seem rather to live

after the manner of vegetables or of those other productions which are

therefore designated plant animals.... We have a small shrimp in these

countries, which is taken in the Thames and in the sea, the whole of

whose body is transparent: this creature, placed in a little water, has

frequently afforded myself and particular friends an opportunity of

observing the movements of the heart with the greatest distinctness,

the external parts of the body presenting no obstacle to our view, but

the heart being perceived as though it had been seen through a window.

"I have also observed the first rudiments of the chick in the course

of the fourth or fifth day of the incubation, in the guise of a little

cloud, the shell having been removed and the egg immersed in clear,

tepid water. In the midst of the cloudlet in question there was a

bloody point so small that it disappeared during the contraction and

escaped the sight, but in the relaxation it reappeared again red and

like the point of a pin."

Harvey formulates in his fifth chapter the conclusions to which he had

been led about the movement, action, and use of the heart. His results

appear to be absolutely correct by the light of our present knowledge,

and they show how much can be done by a careful observer, even though

he be unassisted by any instrument of precision.

"First of all the auricle contracts, and in the course of its

contraction forces the blood (which it contains in ample quantity as

the head of the veins, the storehouse and cistern of the blood) into

the ventricle which, being filled, the heart raises itself

straightway, makes all its fibres tense, contracts the ventricles and

performs a beat, by which beat it immediately sends the blood supplied

to it by the auricle into the arteries. The right ventricle sends its

charge into the lungs by the vessel which is called the vena arteriosa

[pulmonary artery], but which in structure and function and all other

respects is an artery. The left ventricle sends its charge into the

aorta and through this by the arteries to the body at large.

"These two movements, one of the ventricles, the other of the

auricles, take place consecutively, but in such a manner that there is

a kind of harmony or rhythm preserved between them, the two concurring

in such wise that but one movement is apparent, especially in the

warmer blooded animals in which the movements in question are rapid.

Nor is this for any other reason than it is in a piece of machinery in

which, though one wheel gives movement to another, yet all the wheels

seem to move simultaneously; or in that mechanical contrivance which

is adapted to firearms, where the trigger being touched, down comes

the flint, strikes against the wheel, produces a spark, which falling

among the powder, ignites it, upon which the flame extends, enters the

barrel, causes the explosion, propels the ball, and the mark is

attained--all of which incidents by reason of the celerity with which

they happen, seem to take place in the twinkling of an eye.... Even so

does it come to pass with the movements and action of the heart....

Whether or not the heart besides propelling the blood, giving it

movement locally and distributing it to the body, adds anything else

to it--heat, spirit, perfection--must be inquired into by and by, and

decided upon other grounds. So much may suffice at this time, when it

is shown that by the action of the heart the blood is transfused

through the ventricles from the veins to the arteries and is

distributed by them to all parts of the body.

"The above indeed is admitted by all, both from the structure of the

heart and the arrangement and action of its valves. But still they are

like persons, purblind or groping in the dark, for they give utterance

to various contradictory and incoherent sentiments, delivering many

things upon conjecture.... The great cause of doubt and error in this

subject appears to me to have been the intimate connection between the

heart and the lungs. When men saw both the pulmonary artery and the

pulmonary veins losing themselves in the lungs, of course it became a

puzzle to them to know how or by what means the right ventricle should

distribute the blood to the body or the left draw it from the venae

cavae....

"Since the intimate connection of the heart with the lungs, which is

apparent in the human subject, has been the probable cause of the

errors that have been committed on this point, they plainly do amiss

who, pretending to speak of the parts of animals generally, as

Anatomists for the most part do, confine their researches to the human

body alone, and that when it is dead. They obviously do not act

otherwise than he who, having studied the forms of a single

commonwealth, should set about the composition of a general system of

polity: or who, having taken cognisance of the nature of a single

field, should imagine that he had mastered the science of agriculture;

or who, upon the ground of one particular proposition, should proceed

to draw general conclusions.

"Had Anatomists only been as conversant with the dissection of the

lower animals as they are with that of the human body, the matters

that have hitherto kept them in a perplexity of doubt would, in my

opinion, have met them freed from every kind of difficulty."

After this plea for the employment of comparative anatomy to elucidate

human anatomy, Harvey proceeds to deal in a most logical manner with

the various difficulties in following the course taken by the blood

in passing from the vena cava to the arteries, or from the right to

the left side of the heart. He begins with fish, in which the heart

consists of a single ventricle, for there are no lungs. He then

discusses the relationship of the parts in the embryo, and arrives at

the conclusion that "in embryos, whilst the lungs are in a state of

inaction, performing no function, subject to no movement any more than

if they had not been present, Nature uses the two ventricles of the

heart as if they formed but one for the transmission of the blood." He

therefore concludes that the condition of the embryos of those animals

which have lungs, whilst these organs are yet in abeyance or not

employed, is the same as that of the animals which have no lungs. From

this he wishes it to be understood that the blood passes by obvious and

open passages from the vena cava into the aorta through the cavities

of the ventricles. A statement which was in direct opposition to the

generally received tradition of the time that the blood passed from the

right into the left ventricle by concealed pores in the septum which

separates the two cavities in the heart.

Thus far Harvey's teaching has been excellent, but now, leaving the

highway of fact, he plunges into theory and is at once involved in

error. He proceeds, "And now the discussion is brought to this point,

that they who inquire into the ways by which the blood reaches the

left ventricle of the heart and pulmonary veins from the vena cava

will pursue the wisest course if they seek by dissection to discover

why, in the larger and more perfect animals of mature age, Nature has

rather chosen to make the blood percolate the parenchyma of the lungs,

than as in other instances chosen a direct and obvious course--for I

assume no other path or mode of transit can be entertained. It must be

because the larger and more perfect animals are warmer, and when adult

their heat greater, ignited I might say, and requiring to be damped

or mitigated, that the blood is sent through the lungs, in order that

it may be tempered by the air that is inspired, and prevented from

boiling up and so becoming extinguished or something else of the sort.

But to determine these matters and explain them satisfactorily were to

enter upon a speculation in regard to the office of the lungs and the

ends for which they exist. Upon such a subject, as well as upon what

pertains to respiration, to the necessity and use of the air, &c., as

also to the variety and diversity of organs that exist in the bodies of

animals in connection with these matters, although I have made a vast

number of observations, I shall not speak till I can more conveniently

set them forth in a treatise apart."

The next chapter is devoted to the description of the manner in which

the blood passes through the substance of the lungs from the right

ventricle of the heart into the pulmonary veins. It is followed by the

glorious eighth chapter, in which Harvey's style, always impressive and

solid, rises into real eloquence, for a great occasion justifies the

use of repetitions, of antitheses and an abundance of metaphors. He now

quits the method of demonstration and experiment for that of indirect

but irrefragable argument. He deals with the quantity of blood passing

through the heart from the veins to the arteries, and again brings

together all his threads to a nodal point. "Thus far I have spoken of

the passage of the blood from the veins into the arteries, and of the

manner in which it is transmitted and distributed by the action of the

heart; points to which some, moved either by the authority of Galen

or Columbus, or the reasonings of others, will give their adhesion.

But what remains to be said upon the quantity and source of the blood

which thus passes is of a character so novel and unheard of that I not

only fear injury to myself from the envy of a few, but I tremble lest

I have mankind at large for my enemies, so much doth wont and custom

become a second nature. Doctrine once sown strikes deeply its root, and

respect for antiquity influences all men. Still the die is cast, and my

trust is in my love of truth and the candour of cultivated minds. And

sooth to say when I surveyed my mass of evidence, whether derived from

vivisections and my various reflections on them, or from the study of

the ventricles of the heart and the vessels that enter into and issue

from them, the symmetry and the size of these conduits, for Nature

doing nothing in vain, would never have given them so large a relative

size without a purpose--or from observing the arrangement and intimate

structure of the valves in particular and of the other parts of the

heart in general, with many things besides, I frequently and seriously

bethought me and long revolved in my mind, what might be the quantity

of blood which was transmitted, in how short a time its passage might

be effected and the like. But not finding it possible that this could

be supplied by the juices of the ingested aliment without the veins on

the one hand becoming drained, and the arteries on the other getting

ruptured through the excessive charge of blood, unless the blood should

somehow find its way from the arteries into the veins and so return to

the right side of the heart; I began to think whether there might not

be a movement, as it were, in a circle. Now this I afterwards found to

be true, and I finally saw that the blood, forced by the action of the

left ventricle into the arteries, was distributed to the body at large

and in several parts in the same manner as it is sent through the lungs

impelled by the right ventricle into the pulmonary artery, and that it

then passed through the veins and along the vena cava and so round to

the left ventricle in the manner already indicated. This movement we

may be allowed to call circular."

Harvey's great discovery is here formulated in his own words. The

lesser or pulmonary circulation was already tolerably well known, owing

to the work of Realdus Columbus, the successor of Vesalius in the

anatomical chair at Padua, though he had been anticipated by Servetus,

who published it at Lyons in 1543 in the "Christianismi Restitutio,"

a theological work, containing doctrines for which Calvin caused him

to be burnt. But it is more than doubtful whether Harvey knew of this

work, as not more than three or four copies of it have escaped the

flames which consumed the book and its writer.

Harvey continues his treatise by laying down three propositions to

confirm his main point that the blood circulates.

First, that the blood is incessantly transmitted by the action of the

heart from the vena cava to the arteries.

Secondly, that the blood under the influence of the arterial pulse

enters and is impelled in a continuous, equable, and incessant stream

through every part and member of the body, in much larger quantity than

is sufficient for nutrition or than the whole mass of fluids could

supply.

Thirdly, that the veins return this blood incessantly to the heart.

"These points being proved, I conceive it will be manifest that the

blood circulates, revolves, is propelled, and then returning from the

heart to the extremities, from the extremities to the heart, and thus

that it performs a kind of circular movement."

These propositions Harvey proves to demonstration and in a most

masterly manner. He says of the first: "Let us assume either

arbitrarily or by experiment, that the quantity of the blood which the

left ventricle of the heart will contain when distended to be, say

two ounces, three ounces, or one ounce and a half--in the dead body I

have found it to hold upwards of two ounces. Let us assume further how

much less the heart will hold in the contracted than in the dilated

state, and how much blood it will project into the aorta upon each

contraction, and all the world allows that with the systole something

is always projected ... and let us suppose as approaching the truth

that the fourth, or fifth, or sixth, or even but the eighth part of

its charge is thrown into the artery at each contraction, this would

give either half an ounce, or three drachms, or one drachm of blood as

propelled by the heart at each pulse into the aorta, which quantity

by reason of the valves at the root of the vessel can by no means

return into the ventricle. Now in the course of half an hour the heart

will have made more than one thousand beats, in some as many as two,

three, or even four thousand. Multiplying the number of drachms by the

number of pulses we shall have either one thousand half ounces, or one

thousand times three drachms, or a like proportional quantity of blood,

according to the amount we assume as propelled with each stroke of the

heart, sent from this organ into the artery: a larger quantity in every

case than is contained in the whole body. In the same way in the sheep

or dog, say that but a single scruple of blood passes with each stroke

of the heart, in one half hour we should have one thousand scruples, or

about three pounds and a half of blood injected into the aorta, but the

body of neither animal contains more than four pounds of blood, a fact

which I have myself ascertained in the case of the sheep."

This is one of the highest efforts of Harvey's genius. The facts

are simple and they are easily ascertained. But the reasoning was

absolutely new and the conclusion must remain sound until the end of

time, for it is true. It shows too the minute care taken by Harvey not

to overstate his case, for he deliberately takes a measurement of the

capacity of the ventricles which he knew to be well under the average.

This part of his argument is ended with an appeal to practical

experience. "The truth, indeed, presents itself obviously before us

when we consider what happens in the dissection of living animals: the

great artery need not be divided, but a very small branch only (as

Galen even proves in regard to man), to have the whole of the blood in

the body, as well that of the veins as of the arteries, drained away

in the course of no long time--some half hour or less. Butchers are

well aware of the fact and can bear witness to it; for, cutting the

throat of an ox and so dividing the vessels of the neck, in less than

a quarter of an hour they have all the vessels bloodless--the whole

mass of blood has escaped. The same thing also occasionally occurs

with great rapidity in performing amputations and removing tumours in

the human subject.... Moreover it appears ... that the more frequently

or forcibly the arteries pulsate, the more speedily will the body be

exhausted of its blood during hæmorrhage. Hence also it happens that

in fainting fits and in states of alarm when the heart beats more

languidly and less forcibly, hæmorrhages are diminished and arrested.

"Still further, it is from this, that after death, when the heart has

ceased to beat, it is impossible by dividing either the jugular or

the femoral veins and arteries by any effort to force out more than

one-half of the whole mass of the blood. Neither could the butcher ever

bleed the carcass effectually did he neglect to cut the throat of the

ox which he has knocked on the head and stunned before the heart had

ceased beating."

Harvey continues to push his argument to a logical conclusion in the

succeeding chapters of his Treatise partly by argument and partly by

adducing fresh experimental evidence. But if any one shall here object

that a large quantity may pass through (the heart) and yet no necessity

be found for a circulation, that all may come from the meat and drink

consumed, and quote as an illustration the abundant supply of milk in

the mammæ--for a cow will give three, four, and even seven gallons a

day, and a woman two or three pints whilst nursing a child or twins,

which must manifestly be derived from the food consumed; it may be

answered, that the heart by computation does as much and more in the

course of an hour or two.

"And if not yet convinced he shall still insist, that when an artery

is divided, a preternatural route is, as it were, opened, and that so

the blood escapes in torrents, but that the same thing does not happen

in the healthy and uninjured body when no outlet is made ... it may be

answered, that ... in serpents and several fish by tying the veins some

way below the heart, you will perceive a space between the ligature and

the heart speedily to become empty, so that unless you would deny the

evidence of your senses, you must needs admit the return of the blood

to the heart.... If, on the contrary, the artery instead of the vein

be compressed or tied, you will observe the part between the obstacle

and the heart and the heart itself to become inordinately distended, to

assume a deep purple or even livid colour, and at length to be so much

oppressed with blood that you will believe it about to be choked; but

the obstacle removed, all things immediately return to their natural

state in colour, size, and impulse."

Harvey next proceeds to demonstrate his second proposition. He shows

that the blood enters a limb by the arteries and leaves it by the

veins; that the arteries are the vessels carrying the blood from the

heart, and the veins the returning channels of the blood to the heart;

that in the limbs and the extreme parts of the body the blood passes

either immediately by anastomosis or mediately by the pores of the

flesh.

Harvey is here hampered by the conditions of the age in which he lived,

yet it is here that he shows himself far superior to his contemporaries

as well as to the most enlightened of his predecessors. His lens was

not sufficiently powerful to show him the capillary blood-vessels,

and he had therefore no real knowledge of the way by which the blood

passed from the arterioles into the venules. On the other hand, he

did not repeat the mistake made by Aristotle, and reiterated by

Cesalpino in 1571 that the blood passed from the smallest arteries into

"capillamenta," the [Greek: neura] of Aristotle.

Later commentators have given to Cesalpino the credit due to Harvey by

translating "capillamenta" into our term capillaries. But this process

of "reading into" the writings of man what he never knew is one of the

commonest pitfalls of defective scholarship.

Harvey attempted to solve the problem of the capillary circulation by

an appeal to clinical evidence, which soon led him into inaccuracies,

as when he says that the fainting often seen in cases of blood-letting

is due to the "cold blood rising upwards to the heart, for fainting

often supervenes in robust subjects, and mostly at the moment of

undoing the fillet, as the vulgar say from the 'turning of the blood.'"

This Chapter XI. is an important one. Harvey takes the operation of

bleeding as one which is familiar to every class of his readers,

and he uses the various phenomena which attend the application of a

ligature to the arm to clinch his arguments as to the existence of the

circulation of the blood. He introduces incidentally his surgical and

pathological knowledge, quoting, amongst other instances, the fact

that if the blood supply to a tumour or organ be stopped, "the tissues

deprived of nutriment and heat dwindle, die, and finally drop off." He

also introduces some pathological results from personal experience,

for he says:--"Thrown from a carriage upon one occasion, I struck my

forehead a blow upon the place where a twig of the artery advances

from the temple, and immediately, within the time when twenty beats

could have been made, I felt a tumour the size of an egg developed,

without either heat or any great pain; the near vicinity of the artery

had caused the blood to be effused into the bruised part with unusual

force and velocity."

This passage shows one of the minor difficulties that Harvey and all

observers in his age had to contend with in the fact that no method

existed by which small fractions of time could be measured.[11] The

ordinary watch had only a single hand marking the hours, so that

neither minutes nor seconds could be registered by them.

The difficulty was one of old standing, and Dr. Norman Moore alluded

to it, when he says in regard to Mirfeld's "Breviarium Bartholomei:"

"The mixture of prayers with pharmacy seems odd to us; but let it be

remembered that Mirfeld wrote in a religious house, that clocks were

scarce, and that in that age and place time might not inappropriately

be measured by the minutes required for the repetition of so many

verses of Scripture or so many prayers. Thus Mirfeld recommends that

chronic rheumatism should be treated by rubbing the part with olive

oil. This was to be prepared with ceremony. It was to be put into a

clean vessel while the preparer made the sign of the cross and said

the Lord's Prayer and an Ave Maria. When the vessel was put to the

fire the Psalm 'Why do the heathen rage' was to be said as far as the

verse, 'Desire of Me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine

inheritance.' The Gloria, Pater Noster, and Ave Maria are to be said,

and the whole gone through seven times. Which done let that oil be

kept. The time occupied I have tried, and found to be a quarter of an

hour."

In the succeeding chapters Harvey continues his observations on

phlebotomy, and draws a conclusion so striking in its simplicity that

it appears hard to understand why it had not already occurred to

others. He says: "And now, too, we understand why in phlebotomy we

apply one ligature above the part that is punctured, not below it: did

the flow come from above, the constriction in this case would not only

be of no service but would prove a positive hindrance. It would have to

be applied below the orifice in order to have the flow more free did

the blood descend by the veins from the superior to inferior parts."

Harvey next returns to the question whether the blood does or does not

flow in a continuous stream through the heart--a subject upon which his

contemporaries had the wildest notions, for even Cesalpino says: "That

whilst we are awake there is a great afflux of blood and spirit to the

arteries whence the passage is to the nerves and whilst we are asleep

the same heat returns to the heart by the veins, not by the arteries,

for the natural ingress to the heart is by the _vena cava_, not by

the artery ... so that the undulating flow of blood to the superior

parts, and its ebb to the inferior parts--like Euripus--is manifest in

sleeping and waking." Harvey combats this theory in exactly the same

manner as we should do if it were propounded at the present day. He

first brings forth his mathematical proof of the circulation, and then

continues his surgical observations upon the operation of bleeding.

"It is still further to be observed that in practising phlebotomy

the truths contended for are sometimes confirmed in another way, for

having tied up the arm properly and made the puncture duly, still, if

from alarm or any other causes, a state of faintness supervenes, in

which the heart always pulsates more languidly, the blood does not

flow freely, but distils by drops only. The reason is that with the

somewhat greater than usual resistance offered to the transit of the

blood by the bandage, coupled with the weaker action of the heart and

its diminished impelling power, the stream cannot make its way under

the ligature; and further, owing to the weak and languishing state

of the heart, the blood is not transferred in such quantity from the

veins to the arteries through the sinuses of that organ.... And now

a contrary state of things occurring, the patient getting rid of his

fear and recovering his courage, the pulse strength is increased, the

arteries begin again to beat with greater force, and to drive the blood

even into the part that is bound, so that the blood now springs from

the puncture in the vein, and flows in a continuous stream...." Thus

far, he proceeds, "we have spoken of the quantity of blood passing

through the heart and the lungs in the centre of the body, and in like

manner from the arteries into the veins in the peripheral parts, and

in the body at large. We have yet to explain, however, in what manner

the blood finds its way back to the heart from the extremities by

the veins, and how and in what way these are the only vessels that

convey the blood from the external to the central parts; which done,

I conceive that the three fundamental propositions laid down for the

circulation of the blood will be so plain, so well established, so

obviously true, that they may claim general credence. Now the remaining

proposition will be made sufficiently clear from the valves which are

found in the cavities of the veins themselves, from the uses of these,

and from experiments cognisable by the senses."

Harvey returns again to his anatomical demonstrations to prove

his point. He explains the true uses of the valves in the veins,

whose existence, he says, were known to his old teacher "Hieronymus

Fabricius, of Aquapendente, a most skilful anatomist and venerable old

man.... The discoverer of these valves did not rightly understand their

use, nor have succeeding anatomists added anything to our knowledge;

for their office is by no means explained when we are told that it is

to hinder the blood by its weight from all flowing into the inferior

part; for the edges of the valves in the jugular veins hang downwards,

and are so contrived that they prevent the blood from rising upwards;

the valves, in a word, do not invariably look upwards, but always

towards the trunks of the veins, invariably towards the seat of the

heart. Let it be added that there are no valves in the arteries, and

that dogs, oxen, &c., have invariably valves at the divisions of their

crural veins, in the veins that meet towards the top of the os sacrum,

and in those branches which come from the haunches, in which no such

effect of gravity from the erect position was to be apprehended."

"The valves are solely made and instituted lest the blood should pass

from the greater into the lesser veins, and either rupture them or

cause them to become varicose.... The delicate valves, whilst they

readily open in the right direction, entirely prevent all contrary

movement.... And this I have frequently experienced in my dissections

of the veins: if I attempted to pass a probe from the trunk of the

veins into one of the smaller branches, whatever care I took, I found

it impossible to introduce it far any way, by reason of the valves;

whilst, on the contrary, it was most easy to push it along in the

opposite direction from without inwards, or from the branches towards

the trunks and roots." He concludes his argument by again pointing

out that the uses of the valves can be clearly shown in an arm which

has been tied up for phlebotomy, and that the valves are best seen in

labouring people.

The fourteenth chapter is devoted to the "Conclusion of the

Demonstration of the Circulation." It runs thus:--

"And now I may be allowed to give in brief my view of the circulation

of the blood, and to propose it for general adoption.

"Since all things, both argument and ocular demonstration show that

the blood passes through the lungs and heart by the force of the

ventricles, and is sent for distribution to all parts of the body,

where it makes its way into the veins and pores of the flesh, and then

flows by the veins from the circumference on every side to the centre

from the lesser to the greater veins, and is by them finally

discharged into the vena cava and right auricle of the heart, and this

in such quantity or in such afflux and reflux, thither by the

arteries, hither by the veins, as cannot possibly be supplied by the

ingesta, and is much greater than can be required for mere purposes of

nutrition; it is absolutely necessary to conclude that the blood in

the animal body is impelled in a circle, and is in a state of

ceaseless movement; that this is the act or function which the heart

performs by means of its pulse, and that it is the sole and only end

of the movement and contraction of the heart."

Harvey concludes his treatise with a series of reasons which he

rightly considers to be of a less satisfactory nature than those he

has already adduced. The seventeenth chapter contains much comparative

anatomy. It opens with the statement that "I do not find the heart as

a distinct and separate part in all animals; some, indeed, such as the

zoophytes, have no heart.... Amongst the number I may instance grubs

and earth-worms, and those that are engendered of putrefaction and do

not preserve their species. These have no heart, as not requiring any

impeller of nourishment into the extreme parts.... Oysters, mussels,

sponges, and the whole genus of zoophytes or plant-animals have no

heart, for the whole body is used as a heart, or the whole animal is

heart. In a great number of animals, almost the whole tribe of insects,

we cannot see distinctly by reason of the smallness of the body;

still, in bees, flies, hornets, and the like we can perceive something

pulsating with the help of a magnifying glass; in pediculi also the

same thing may be seen, and as the body is transparent, the passage of

the food through the intestines, like a black spot or stain, may be

perceived by the aid of the same magnifying glass.

"But in some of the pale-blooded and colder animals, as in snails,

whelks, shrimps, and shell-fish, there is a part which pulsates--a

kind of vesicule or auricle without a heart--slowly, indeed, and not

to be perceived except in the warmer season of the year.... In fishes,

serpents, lizards, tortoises, frogs, and others of the same kind there

is a heart present, furnished with both an auricle and a ventricle....

And then in regard to animals that are yet larger and warmer and

more perfect,... these require a larger, stronger, and more fleshy

heart.... Every animal that has lungs has two ventricles to its heart,

one right, the other left, and whenever there is a right there is a

left ventricle, but the contrary does not hold good; where there is a

left there is not always a right ventricle.... It is to be observed,

however, that all this is otherwise in the embryo where there is not

such a difference between the two ventricles.... Both ventricles also

have the same office to perform, whence their equality of constitution.

It is only when the lungs come to be used ... that the difference in

point of strength and other things between the two ventricles becomes

apparent. In the altered circumstances the right has only to drive the

blood through the lungs, whilst the left has to propel it through the

whole body."

This concludes Harvey's Demonstration of the Circulation of the Blood

in 1628, but he continued to work at the subject throughout his life.

In two letters or anatomical disquisitions, addressed to the younger

Riolanus of Paris, and dated from Cambridge in 1649, Harvey gives his

latest reflections upon the subject of the Circulation of the Blood.

These disquisitions differ very greatly from the original treatise.

They are less clear and concise, and dwell more upon points of dispute

which had arisen in connection with the controversy, which raged for

many years round Harvey's discovery.

The first disquisition is devoted more especially to the question

of the anastomosis which takes place between the arteries and the

veins, whilst the second disquisition illustrates more fully a number

of details connected with the nature and quantity of the blood and

its mode of progression. Harvey says incorrectly of the anastomosis,

"Neither in the liver, spleen, lungs, kidneys, nor any other viscus,

is such a thing as an anastomosis to be seen, and by boiling I have

rendered the whole parenchyma of these organs so friable that it could

be shaken like dust from the fibres or picked away with a needle,

until I could trace the fibres or every sub-division, and see every

capillary filament distinctly. I can, therefore, boldly affirm that

there is neither any anastomosis of the vena portæ with the cava, of

the arteries with the veins, or of the capillary ramifications of the

biliary ducts, which can be traced through the entire liver, with the

veins."

The second disquisition opens with Harvey's view of the contemporary

criticism upon his treatise. "But scarce a day, scarce an hour has

passed since the birthday of the Circulation of the blood that I

have not heard something, for good or for evil, said of this, my

discovery. Some abuse it as a feeble infant, and yet unworthy to

have seen the light; others again think the bantling deserves to

be cherished and cared for. These oppose it with much ado, those

patronise it with abundant commendation. One party holds that I have

completely demonstrated the circulation of the blood by experiment,

observation, and ocular inspection against all force and array of

argument; another thinks it scarcely sufficiently illustrated--not

yet cleared of all objections. There are some, too, who say that I

have shown a vainglorious love of vivisections, and who scoff at and

deride the introduction of frogs and serpents, flies, and other of the

lower animals upon the scene, as a piece of puerile levity, not even

refraining from opprobrious epithets.

"To return evil speaking with evil speaking, however, I hold to be

unworthy in a philosopher and searcher after truth. I believe that I

shall do better and more advisedly if I meet so many indications of

ill breeding with the light of faithful and conclusive observation. It

cannot be helped that dogs bark and vomit their foul stomachs, or that

cynics should be numbered among philosophers; but care can be taken

that they do not bite or inoculate their mad humours, or with their

dogs' teeth gnaw the bones and foundations of truth.

"Detractors, mummers, and writers defiled with abuse, as I resolved

with myself never to read them, satisfied that nothing solid or

excellent, nothing but foul terms was to be expected from them, so have

I held them still less worthy of an answer. Let them consume on their

own ill-nature. They will scarcely find many well-disposed readers, I

imagine, nor does God give that which is most excellent, and chiefly to

be desired--wisdom--to the wicked. Let them go on railing, I say, until

they are weary, if not ashamed."

Amidst a mass of unprofitable speculation, the second Disquisition

contains one or two gems of pathological observation, illustrating

physiological conclusions. Desiring to set in a clear light "that the

pulsific power does not proceed from the heart by the coats of the

vessels, I beg here to refer to a portion of the descending aorta,

about a span long in length, with its division into two crural trunks,

which I removed from the body of a nobleman, and which is converted

into a bony tube: by this hollow tube nevertheless, did the arterial

blood reach the lower extremities of this nobleman during his life, and

cause the arteries in these to beat.... Where it was converted into

bone it could neither dilate nor contract like bellows, nor transmit

the pulsific power from the heart to the inferior vessels: it could

not convey a force which it was incapable of receiving through the

solid matter of the bone. In spite of all, however, I well remember to

have frequently noticed the pulse in the legs and feet of this patient

whilst he lived, for I was myself his most attentive physician, and he

my very particular friend. The arteries in the inferior extremities of

this nobleman must, therefore, and of necessity, have been dilated by

the impulse of the bloodlike flaccid sacs, and not have expanded in

the manner of bellows through the action of their tunics.

"I have several times opened the breast and pericardium of a man

within two hours after his execution by hanging, and before the colour

had totally left his face, and in presence of many witnesses, have

demonstrated the right auricle of the heart and the lungs distended

with blood: the auricle in particular of the size of a large man's

fist, and so full of blood that it looked as if it would burst. This

great distension, however, had disappeared next day, the body having

stiffened and become cold, and the blood having made its escape through

various channels.

"I add another observation. A noble knight, Sir Robert Darcy, an

ancestor of that celebrated physician and most learned man, my very

dear friend, Dr. Argent, when he had reached to about the middle

period of life, made frequent complaint of a certain distressing pain

in the chest, especially in the night season, so that dreading at

one time syncope, at another suffocation in his attacks, he led an

unquiet and anxious life. He tried many remedies in vain, having had

the advice of almost every medical man. The disease going on from bad

to worse, he by and by became cachectic and dropsical, and finally

grievously distressed, he died in one of his paroxysms. In the body

of this gentleman, at the inspection of which there were present Dr.

Argent, the President of the College of Physicians, and Dr. Gorge, a

distinguished theologian and preacher, who was pastor of the parish,

we found the wall of the left ventricle of the heart ruptured, having

a rent in it of size sufficient to admit any of my fingers, although

the wall itself appeared sufficiently thick and strong. This laceration

had apparently been caused by an impediment to the passage of the blood

from the left ventricle into the arteries.

"I was acquainted with another strong man, who, having received an

injury and affront from one more powerful than himself, and upon whom

he could not have his revenge, was so overcome with hatred and spite

and passion, which he yet communicated to no one, that at last he fell

into a strange distemper, suffering from extreme oppression and pain

of the heart and breast, and the prescriptions of none of the very

best physicians proving of any avail, he fell in the course of a few

years into a scorbutic and cachectic state, became tabid, and died.

This patient only received some little relief when the whole of his

chest was pummelled or kneaded by a strong man, as a baker kneads

dough. His friends thought him poisoned by some maleficent influence

or possessed with an evil spirit. His jugular arteries enlarged to the

size of a thumb, looked like the aorta itself, or they were as large

as the descending aorta: they had pulsated violently and appeared like

two long aneurysms. These symptoms had led to trying the affects of

arteriotomy in the temples, but with no relief. In the dead body I

found the heart and aorta so much gorged and distended with blood that

the cavities of the ventricles equalled those of a bullock's heart in

size. Such is the force of the blood pent up, and such are the effects

of its impulse."

His letters show that Harvey was employed almost to the end of his

life in devising fresh experiments in proof of the circulation of the

blood. Thus, in a letter addressed to Paul Marquard Slegel, and dated

London, this 26th of March, 1651, Harvey writes: "It may be well here

to relate an experiment which I lately tried in the presence of several

of my colleagues.... Having tied the pulmonary artery, the pulmonary

veins, and the aorta, in the body of a man who had been hanged, and

then opened the left ventricle of the heart, we passed a tube through

the vena cava into the right ventricle of the heart, and having at

the same time attached an ox's bladder to the tube, in the same way

as a clyster-bag is usually made, we filled it nearly full of warm

water and forcibly injected the fluid into the heart, so that the

greater part of a pound of water was thrown into the right auricle and

ventricle. The result was that the right ventricle and auricle were

enormously distended, but not a drop of water or of blood made its

escape through the orifice in the left ventricle. The ligatures having

been undone, the same tube was passed into the pulmonary artery and

a tight ligature having been put round it to prevent any reflux into

the right ventricle, the water in the bladder was now pushed towards

the lungs, upon which a torrent of the fluid, mixed with a quantity

of blood, immediately gushed forth from the perforation in the left

ventricle: so that a quantity of water, equal to that which was pressed

from the bladder into the lungs at each effort, instantly escaped by

the perforation mentioned. You may try this experiment as often as you

please: the result you will still find to be as I have stated it."

The exact teaching of Harvey's contemporaries in London is easily

accessible. One of his distinguished colleagues at the College of

Physicians was Alexander Reid, son of the first minister of Banchory,

near Aberdeen, brother of Thomas Reid, Secretary for Latin and Greek

to King James I. Reid was born about 1586, learnt Surgery in France,

was admitted a Fellow of the College of Physicians in 1624, and was

appointed Lecturer on Anatomy at the Barber Surgeons' Hall December 28,

1628, in succession to Dr. Andrewes, Harvey's assistant. Reid, eight

years younger than Harvey, lectured at an annual stipend of £20 on

every Tuesday throughout the year from 1628 to 1634, when he published

a tiny Manual of Anatomy containing the substance of his lectures. For

some reason Harvey's doctrines did not recommend themselves to Reid,

and the Manual therefore contains the following traditional account of

the heart.

"As for the heart, the substance of it is compact and firm, and full

of fibres of all sorts. The upper part is called _Basis_ or _Caput_:

the lower part _Conus_, _Mucro_ or _Apex Cordis_. When the heart

contracteth itself it is longer, and so the point is drawn from the

head of it. But when it dilateth itself it becometh rounder, the conus

being drawn to the basis. About the basis the fat is. It is covered

with a skin which hardly can be separat[ed]. In moist and cowardly

creatures, it is biggest.... Of all parts of the body it is hottest,

for it is the wellspring of life, and by arteries communicateth it to

the rest of the body. The heart hath two motions, Diastole and Systole.

In Diastole, or dilatation of the heart, the conus is drawn from the

basis to draw blood by the cava to the right ventricle, and air by the

arteria venosa [pulmonary vein] to the left ventricle. In Systole or

contraction the conus is drawn to the basis.

"First, that the vital spirit may be thrust from the left ventricle of

the heart into the aorta.

"Secondly, that the arterial blood may be thrust into the lungs by

arteria venalis [the left auricle].

"Thirdly, that the blood may be pressed to the lungs, in the right

ventricle by vena arterialis [right auricle].

"The septum so called because it separateth the right ventricle from

the left, is that thick and fleshy substance set between the two

cavities.

"Riolan will have it the matter of the vital blood to pass through the

holes or porosities of it from the right to the left ventricle, but

that hardly any instrument can show them. First, because they go not

straight, but wreathed. Secondly, because they are exceeding narrow

in the end. He affirmeth that they are more easily discerned in an

ox-heart boiled."

It is difficult to realise how any reasonable man could teach such

a farrago of nonsense when he must have heard Harvey's perfectly

simple and clear demonstration of the structure and uses of the heart.

Harvey was lecturing on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays; Reid

only lectured on Tuesdays, and Harvey had especially set himself to

controvert the very errors that Reid was promulgating. But Reid was

perfectly impenitent, for his Manual was reprinted in 1637, in 1638;

and after his death it appeared again in 1642, 1650, 1653, and 1658,

yet there is no alteration in his text. He was not even sure of the

broad features of the anatomy of the heart, for he writes: "The first

vessel in the chest is the vena cava or magna. The second vessel in

the breast is vena arterialis. It is a vein from its office, for it

carrieth natural blood to the lungs by the right side of the windpipe.

It is called an artery because the coat of it is double, not single. It

doth spring from the upper part of the right ventricle of the heart,

and is implanted into the substance of the lungs by the right side of

the windpipe."

It seems obvious that this is a perverted description of the right

auricle, and that Reid had no idea of the pulmonary artery as a

distinct structure.

"The third vessel is arteria venalis. It is called an artery because

it carrieth arterial blood, but a vein because it hath a single coat

as a vein. It ariseth from the upper part of the left ventricle of the

heart, and is implanted into the substance of the lungs by the left

side of the windpipe."

This in like manner appears to be the left auricle and the pulmonary

veins.

"The vena arterialis hath three valves called sigmoides from the figure

of the great sigma, which answereth the Latin S, the figure is this, C.

They look from within outwards, to let out the blood but to hinder the

return of the same.

"The arteria venalis hath two valves called mitrales, because they are

like a bishop's mitre. They look from without inward to let in blood

carried from the vena arterialis. They are bigger than those of vena

cava and have longer filaments and to strengthen them many fleshy

snippets are joined together.

"It hath two valves only that the fuliginous vapours might the more

readily be discharged."

Reid, like all his contemporaries, had a glimmering of the lesser

circulation, for he says: "First the blood is carried by vena

arterialis and from hence to arteria venalis by sundry anastomoses,

and from hence to the left ventricle of the heart. Where being made

spirituous it is sent by the aorta to impart life to the whole body.

"One thing is to be noted that no air in its proper substance is

carried to the heart; for the blood contained in these two vessels is

sufficiently cooled by the bronchia passing between them.... One thing

is to be noted, that in arteria venosa a little below the valves there

is found a little valve ever open. It being removed, there appeareth a

hole by the which the blood passeth freely from the vena cava to it and

returneth by reason of this anastomosis that the blood in the veins may

be animate." This is a description of the foramen ovale and its use.

Such a comparison with the work of a contemporary teacher in the

same town shows how immeasurable was the advance made by Harvey. It

only remains to show what has been done since his death to perfect

our knowledge of the heart and of the circulation. The use of the

microscope by Malpighi in 1661 gave an insight into the true nature of

the porosities by which the blood passed from the terminal arteries to

the commencing veins in the lungs and proved them to be vessels. The

capillary circulation was still further investigated by Leeuwenhoek in

1674 who described it as it is seen in the web of a frog's foot, and

in other transparent membranes; Blankaart in 1676, William Cowper in

1697, and afterwards Ruysch, studied the arrangement of the capillaries

by means of injection. In 1664 Stenson demonstrated that the heart was

a purely muscular organ.

The various histological details being thus settled there came a long

interval until chemistry was sufficiently advanced to enable definite

statements to be made about the aëration of the blood.

The work of Black in 1757 and of Priestley and others in 1774 and 1775

at last allowed the process of respiration and the true function of

the lungs to be explained upon scientific grounds. But the interval

between the discovery of the capillaries and the explanation of the

act of respiration was not wholly barren; for in 1732 Archdeacon

Hales, by means of experiments, obtained an important insight into the

hydraulics of the circulation. During the present century our knowledge

of the physics of the heart and circulation has been reduced almost to

an exact science by the labours of the German, French, and Cambridge

schools of physiology under the guidance respectively of Ludwig, of

Chauveau, and of Foster; whilst the nervous mechanism of the heart and

of the arteries has been thoroughly investigated by Gaskell and others.

CHAPTER IX

THE TREATISE ON DEVELOPMENT

Fuller, speaking of Harvey, says very ingeniously: "The Doctor though

living a Bachelor, may be said to have left three hopeful sons to

posterity: his books,

"1. De circulatione sanguinis, which I may call his son and heir:

the Doctor living to see it at full age and generally received.

"2. De generatione, as yet in its minority: but I assure you

growing up apace into public credit.

"3. De ovo, as yet in the nonage thereof; but infants may be men in

due time."

The treatises on Development are so full of detail that it is

impossible to give an exact notion of their contents in a popular

work. They contain however certain passages of personal and of general

interest which must not be omitted.

Harvey shows the instinct of a naturalist in the following account

of the cassowary which was not only new to him, but was unknown to

Europe at the time he wrote. He says: "A certain bird, as large again

as a swan, which the Dutch call a cassowary, was imported no long

time ago from the island of Java in the East Indies into Holland.

Ulysses Aldrovandus gives a figure of this bird and informs us that it

is called an emu by the Indians. It is not a two-toed bird like the

ostrich but has three toes on each foot, one of which is furnished

with a spur of such length, strength, and hardness that the creature

can easily kick through a board two fingers' breadth in thickness.

The cassowary defends itself by kicking forwards. In the body, legs,

and thighs it resembles the ostrich: it has not a broad bill like the

ostrich, however, but one that is rounded and black. On its head by way

of crest it has an orbicular protuberant horn. It has no tongue and

devours everything that is presented to it--stones, coals even though

alight, pieces of glass--all without distinction. Its feathers sprout

in pairs from each particular quill and are of a black colour, short

and slender, and approaching to hair or down in their character. Its

wings are very short and imperfect. The whole aspect of the creature is

truculent, and it has numbers of red and blue wattles longitudinally

disposed along the neck.

"This bird remained for more than seven years in Holland and was then

sent among other presents by the illustrious Maurice Prince of Orange

to his Serene Majesty, our King James, in whose gardens it continued to

live for a period of upwards of five years."

It has already been shown that Harvey was on a footing of something

like intimacy with his master the King, whose artistic and scientific

tastes are well known. This fact is again made clear by the following

passages, in which Harvey followed his usual custom of showing to the

King anything unusually curious. "I have seen a very small egg covered

with a shell, contained within another larger egg, perfect in all

respects and completely surrounded with a shell. An egg of this kind

Fabricius calls an ovum centennium, and our housewives ascribe it to

the cock. This egg I showed to his Serene Majesty King Charles, my most

gracious master, in the presence of many persons. And the same year, in

cutting up a large lemon, I found another perfect but very small lemon

included within it, having a yellow rind like the other, and I hear

that the same thing has frequently been seen in Italy." Speaking in

another place of these eggs, he says: "Some eggs too are larger, others

smaller; a few extremely small. These in Italy are commonly called

centennia, and our country folks still believe that such eggs are laid

by the cock, and that were they set they would produce basilisks. 'The

vulgar,' says Fabricius, 'think that this small egg is the last that

will be laid and that it comes as the hundredth in number, whence the

name; that it has no yolk, though all the other parts are present--the

chalazae, the albumen, the membranes, and the shell.'

"It was customary with his Serene Majesty, King Charles, after he had

come to man's estate, to take the diversion of hunting almost every

week, both for the sake of finding relaxation from graver cares and for

his health. The chase was principally the buck and doe, and no prince

in the world had greater herds of deer, either wandering in freedom

through the wilds and forests or kept in parks and chases for this

purpose. The game, during the three summer months, was the buck then

fat and in season; and in the autumn and winter for the same length of

time the doe. This gave me an opportunity of dissecting numbers of

these animals almost every day during the whole of the season.... I had

occasion, so often as I desired it, to examine and study all the parts

... because the great prince, whose physician I was, besides taking

much pleasure in such inquiries and not disdaining to bear witness to

my discoveries, was pleased in his kindness and munificence to order

me an abundant supply of these animals, and repeated opportunities of

examining their bodies." Speaking of the first rudiments of the heart,

he says: "I have exhibited this point to his Serene Highness the King,

still palpitating.... It was extremely minute indeed, and without

the advantage of the sun's light falling upon it from the side, its

tremulous motions were not to be perceived."

The late Sir George Paget published, in 1850, an autograph letter from

Dr. Ward the learned divine and stout-hearted Royalist, who was master

of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, from 1609 to 1643. Both the letter

and Harvey's reply show the interest taken by King Charles in such

scientific curiosities; but Harvey's letter is also valuable because

the peculiarities of its writing and annotation led to the discovery

that the manuscript lectures in the British Museum [pp. 52-69] were in

the handwriting of Harvey. It must, therefore, be looked upon as the

origin of most of the recently acquired knowledge of the discoverer of

the circulation of the blood, of his methods of observation, of his

reading, and of his system of arrangement, and of verbal exposition.

Dr. Ward's letter is as follows:--

"SIR,--I received your letter by which I understand his Majesty's

pleasure that I should send up the petrified skull, which we have

in our College Library, which accordingly I have done, with the

case wherein we keep it. And I send in this letter both the key of

the case and a note which we have recorded of the Donor and whence

he had it. And so with my affectionate prayers and best devotions

for the long life of his sacred Majesty and my service to yourself

I rest

"At Your Command,

"SAMUEL WARD.

"SIDNEY COLLEGE, _June 10, Sunday_."

The address is--

"To his much honoured friend Doctor Harvey one of his Majesty's

Physicians at his house in the Blackfriars be this delivered."

The following is Harvey's reply; it is written on the back of Dr.

Ward's letter:--

"Mr. Doctor Ward, I have showed to his Majesty this skull

incrustated with stone which I received from you, and his Majesty

wondered at it and looked content to see so rare a thing. I do

now with thanks return it to you and your College, the same

with the key of the case and the memorial you sent me enclosed

herein, thinking it a kind of sacrilege not to have returned it to

that place where it may for the instruction of men hereafter be

conserved."

The letter and skull have been preserved in a small ancient cabinet of

carved oak, which stands in the Library of Sidney College. The skull

is very curious. It is that of a young person and is encrusted with

carbonate of lime, which is very hard and compact and is spread over

the bone in such a manner as to resemble a petrification of the soft

parts. The "note of the Donour" states that he was Captain William

Stevens of Rotherhithe, one of the elder brethren of the Trinity, and

that he brought the skull in 1627 from Crete where it was discovered

about ten yards (circiter passus decem) below the surface of the ground

in digging a well near the town of Candia.

Harvey's pathological knowledge was sometimes called into use by the

King as in the following case:--"A young nobleman, eldest son of the

Viscount Montgomery,[12] when a child, had a severe fall attended

with fracture of the ribs of the left side. The consequence of this

was a suppurating abscess, which went on discharging abundantly for a

long time, from an immense gap in his side: this I had from himself

and other credible persons who were witnesses. Between the eighteenth

and nineteenth years of his age, this young nobleman having travelled

through France and Italy, came to London, having at this time a very

large open cavity in his side, through which the lungs as it was

believed could both be seen and touched. When this circumstance was

told as something miraculous to his Serene Majesty King Charles, he

straightway sent me to wait upon the young man, that I might ascertain

the true state of the case. And what did I find? A young man, well

grown, of good complexion and apparently possessed of an excellent

constitution, so that I thought the whole story must be a fable. Having

saluted him according to custom, however, and informed him of the

King's expressed desire that I should wait upon him, he immediately

showed me everything, and laid open his left side for my inspection,

by removing a plate which he wore there by way of defence against

accidental blows and other external injuries. I found a large open

space in the chest, into which I could readily introduce three of my

fingers and my thumb: which done, I straightway perceived a certain

protuberant fleshy part, affected with an alternating extrusive and

intrusive movement: this part I touched gently. Amazed with the novelty

of such a state, I examined everything again and again, and when I had

satisfied myself, I saw that it was a case of old and extensive ulcer,

beyond the reach of art, but brought by a miracle to a kind of cure,

the interior being invested with a membrane and the edges protected

with a tough skin. But the fleshy part (which I at first sight took for

a mass of granulations, and others had always regarded as a portion

of the lung) from its pulsating motions and the rhythm they observed

with the pulse--when the fingers of one of my hands were applied to it,

those of the other to the artery at the wrist--as well as from their

discordance with the respiratory movements, I saw was no portion of the

lung that I was handling, but the apex of the heart! covered over with

a layer of fungous flesh by way of external defence as commonly happens

in old foul ulcers. The servant of this young man was in the habit

daily of cleansing the cavity from its accumulated sordes by means

of injections of tepid water: after which the plate was applied, and

with this in its place, the young man felt adequate to any exercise or

expedition, and in short he led a pleasant life in perfect safety.

"Instead of a verbal answer, therefore, I carried the young man

himself to the King, that his Majesty might with his own eyes behold

this wonderful case: that, in a man alive and well, he might without

detriment to the individual, observe the movement of the heart, and

with his own hand even touch the ventricles as they contracted. And

his most excellent Majesty, as well as myself, acknowledged that the

heart was without the sense of touch: for the youth never knew when we

touched his heart, except by the sight or sensation he had through the

external integument.

"We also particularly observed the movements of the heart, viz., that

in the diastole it was retracted and withdrawn: whilst in the systole

it emerged and protruded: and the systole of the heart took place

at the moment the diastole or pulse in the wrist was perceived; to

conclude, the heart struck the walls of the chest and became prominent

at the time it bounded upwards and underwent contraction on itself."

Harvey's powers of observation were particularly brought into play in

connection with his experiments on the development of the chick. He

fully appreciated the method of Zadig, for he says that "different

hens lay eggs that differ much in respect of size and figure, some

habitually lay more oblong, others rounder eggs that do not differ

greatly from one another: and although I sometimes found diversities

in the eggs of the same fowl, these were still so trifling in amount

that they would have escaped any other than the practised eye ... so

that I myself, without much experience, could readily tell which hen

in a small flock had laid a given egg and that they who have given

much attention to the point of course succeed much better. But that

which we note every day among huntsmen is far more remarkable: for

the more careful keepers who have large herds of stags or fallow deer

under their charge, will very certainly tell to which herd the horns

they find in the woods or thickets belonged. A stupid and uneducated

shepherd, having the charge of a numerous flock of sheep, has been

known to become so familiar with the physiognomy of each, that if any

one had strayed from the flock though he could not count them, he

could still say which one it was, give the particulars as to where it

had been bought or whence it had come. The master of this man for the

sake of trying him, once selected a particular lamb from among forty

others in the same pen and desired him to carry it to the ewe which

was its dam, which he did forthwith. We have known huntsmen who having

only once seen a particular stag or his horns or even his print in the

mud (as a lion is known by his claws) have afterwards been able to

distinguish him by the same marks from every other. Some, too, from

the footprints of deer, seen for the first time, will draw inferences

as to the size and grease and power of the stag which has left them:

saying whether he were full of strength or weary from having been

hunted, and farther whether the prints are those of a buck or doe. I

shall say this much more, there are some who in hunting, when there

are some forty hounds upon the trace of the game and all are giving

tongue together will nevertheless, and from a distance, tell which dog

is at the head of the pack, which at the tail, which chases on the hot

scent, which is running off at fault, whether the game is still running

or at bay, whether the stag have run far or have but just been raised

from his lair. And all this amid the din of dogs and men and horns and

surrounded by an unknown and gloomy wood. We should not therefore be

greatly surprised when we see those who have experience telling by what

hen each particular egg in a number has been laid. I wish there was

some equally ready way from the child of knowing the true father."

The next extract gives a good example of Harvey's general style.

Speaking of the escape of the chicken from the egg, he says: "Now we

must not overlook a mistake of Fabricius and almost every one else in

regard to this exclusion or birth of the chick. Let us hear Fabricius.

"'The chick wants air sooner than food, for it has still some store of

nourishment within it: in which case the chick by his chirping gives

a sign to his mother of the necessity of breaking the shell, which

he himself cannot accomplish by reason of the hardness of the shell

and the softness of his beak, to say nothing of the distance of the

shell from the beak and of the position of the head under the wing.

The chick, nevertheless, is already so strong, and the cavity in the

egg is so ample, and the air contained within it so abundant, that the

breathing becomes free and the creature can emit the sounds that are

proper to it. These can be readily heard by a bystander, and were

recognised both by Pliny and Aristotle, and perchance have something

of the nature of a petition in their tone. For the hen hearing the

chirping of the chick within, and knowing thereby the necessity of now

breaking the shell in order that the chick may enjoy the air which has

become needful to it, or if you will, you may say, that desiring to

see her dear offspring, she breaks the shell with her beak, which is

not hard to do, for the part over the hollow long deprived of moisture

and exposed to the heat of incubation, has become dry and brittle.

The chirping of the chick is consequently the first and principal

indication of the creature desiring to make its escape and of its

requiring air. This the hen perceives so nicely, that if she hears

the chirping to be low and internal, she straightway turns the egg

over with her feet, that she may break the shell at the place whence

the voice proceeds without detriment to the chick.' Hippocrates adds,

'Another indication or reason of the chick's desiring to escape from

the shell, is that when it wants food it moves vigorously, in search

of a larger supply, by which the membrane around it is torn, and the

mother breaking the shell at the place where she hears the chick moving

most lustily, permits it to escape.'

"All this is stated pleasantly and well by Fabricius; but there is

nothing of solid reason in the tale. For I have found by experience

that it is the chick himself and not the hen that breaks open the

shell, and this fact is every way in conformity with reason. For how

else should the eggs which are hatched in dung-hills and ovens, as in

Egypt and other countries, be broken in due season, where there is no

mother present to attend to the voice of the supplicating chick and to

bring assistance to the petitioner? And how again are the eggs of sea

and land tortoises, of fishes, silkworms, serpents, and even ostriches

to be chipped? The embryos in these have either no voice with which

they can notify their desire for deliverance, or the eggs are buried

in the sand or slime where no chirping or noise could be heard. The

chick, therefore, is born spontaneously, and makes its escape from the

eggshell through its own efforts. That this is the case appears from

unquestionable arguments: when the shell is first chipped the opening

is much smaller than accords with the beak of the mother, but it

corresponds exactly to the size of the bill of the chick, and you may

always see the shell chipped at the same distance from the extremity of

the egg and the broken pieces, especially those that yield to the first

blows, projecting regularly outwards in the form of a circlet. But as

any one on looking at a broken pane of glass can readily determine

whether the force came from without or from within by the direction of

the fragments that still adhere, so in the chipped egg it is easy to

perceive, by the projection of the pieces around the entire circlet,

that the breaking force comes from within. And I myself, and many

others with me besides, hearing the chick scraping against the shell

with its feet, have actually seen it perforate this part with its beak

and extend the fracture in a circle like a coronet. I have further seen

the chick raise up the top of the shell upon its head and remove it.

"We have gone at length into some of these matters, as thinking that

they were not without all speculative interest, as we shall show by and

by. The arguments of Fabricius are easily answered. For I admit that

the chick produces sounds whilst it is still within the egg, and these

perchance may even have something of the implorative in their nature:

but it does not therefore follow that the shell is broken by the

mother. Neither is the bill of the chick so soft, nor yet so far from

the shell, that it cannot pierce through its prison walls, particularly

when we see that the shell, for the reasons assigned, is extremely

brittle. Neither does the chick always keep its head under its wing, so

as to be thereby prevented from breaking the shell, but only when it

sleeps or has died. For the creature wakes at intervals and scrapes,

and kicks, and struggles, pressing against the shell, tearing the

investing membranes and chirps (that this is done whilst petitioning

for assistance I willingly concede), all of which things may readily

be heard by any one who will use his ears. And the hen, listening

attentively, when she hears the chirping deep within the egg, does not

break the shell, but she turns the egg with her feet, and gives the

chick within another and a more commodious position. But there is no

occasion to suppose that the chick by his chirping informs his mother

of the propriety of breaking the shell, or seeks deliverance from it;

for very frequently for two days before the exclusion you may hear the

chick chirping within the shell. Neither is the mother when she turns

the egg looking for the proper place to break it; but as the child when

uncomfortably laid in his cradle is restless and whimpers and cries,

and his fond mother turns him this way and that, and rocks him till he

is composed again, so does the hen when she hears the chick restless

and chirping within the egg, and feels it, when hatched, moving

uneasily about in the nest, immediately raise herself and observe that

she is not pressing upon it with her weight, or keeping it too warm, or

the like, and then with her bill and her feet she moves and turns the

egg until the chick within is again at its ease and quiet."

This extract shows that here, as in all Harvey's work there was a union

of common sense, observation, and experiment which enabled him to

overturn without any unkindly feeling the cherished teachings of his

predecessors and contemporaries.

When it was necessary he did not hesitate to experiment upon himself,

for he says: "I have myself, for experiment's sake, occasionally

pricked my hand with a clean needle, and then having rubbed the same

needle on the teeth of a spider, I have pricked my hand in another

place. I could not by my simple sensation perceive any difference

between the two punctures: nevertheless there was a capacity in the

skin to distinguish the one from the other; for the part pricked by the

envenomed needle immediately contracted into a tubercle, and by and by

became red, hot, and inflamed, as if it collected and girded itself up

for a contest with the poison for its overthrow."

The seventy-first essay of the treatise of Development is a good

example of the mystic or philosophical side of Harvey's character. The

essay is entitled "Of the innate Heat." It begins, "As frequent mention

is made in the preceding pages of the calidum innatum or innate heat,

I have determined to say a few words here, by way of dessert, both on

that subject and on the humidum primigenium or radical moisture, to

which I am all the more inclined because I observe that many pride

themselves upon the use of these terms without, as I apprehend, rightly

understanding their meaning. There is, in fact, no occasion for

searching after spirits foreign to or distinct from the blood; to evoke

heat from another source; to bring gods upon the scene, and to encumber

philosophy with any fanciful conceits. What we are wont to derive from

the stars is in truth produced at home. The blood is the only calidum

innatum or first engendered animal heat."

Harvey then proceeds to examine the evidence for a spirit different

from the innate heat, of celestial origin and nature, a body of perfect

simplicity, most subtle, attenuated, mobile, rapid, lucid, ethereal,

participant in the qualities of the quintessence. Of this spirit Harvey

confesses that "we, for our own parts, who use our simple senses in

studying natural things, have been unable anywhere to find anything

of the sort. Neither are there any cavities for the production and

preservation of such spirits, either in fact or presumed by their

authors."

Harvey then discusses at some length the Aristotelian and scholastic

views of the word "spirit" and "vital principle," and in the end

arrives at the conclusion that "the blood, by reason of its admirable

properties and powers, is 'spirit.' It is also celestial; for nature,

the soul, that which answers to the essence of the stars is the inmate

of the spirit, in other words, it is something analogous to heaven, the

instrument of heaven, vicarious of heaven.... The blood, too, is the

animal heat in so far namely as it is governed in its actions by the

soul; for it is celestial as subservient to heaven, and divine because

it is the instrument of God the great and good."

Harvey next attacks the doctrine of those who maintained that nothing

composed of the elements can show powers superior to the forces

exercised by these unless they at the same time partake of some other

and more divine body, and on this ground conceive the spirits they

evoke as constituted partly of the elements, partly of a certain

ethereal and celestial substance. He observes very pertinently in

opposition to such a train of reasoning: "In the first place you will

scarcely find any elementary body which in acting does not exceed its

proper powers; air and water, the winds and the ocean, when they waft

navies to either India and round this globe, and often by opposite

courses, when they grind, bake, dig, pump, saw timber, sustain fire,

support some things, overwhelm others, and suffice for an infinite

variety of other and most admirable offices--who shall say that

they do not surpass the power of the elements? In like manner what

does not fire accomplish? In the kitchen, in the furnace, in the

laboratory, softening, hardening, melting, subliming, changing, in an

infinite variety of ways! What shall we say of it when we see iron

itself produced by its agency?--iron 'that breaks the stubborn soil

and shakes the earth with war'! Iron that in the magnet (to which

Thales therefore ascribed a soul) attracts other iron, 'subdues all

other things and seeks besides I know not what inane,' as Pliny says;

for the steel needle only rubbed with the lodestone still steadily

points to the great cardinal points; and when our clocks constantly

indicate the hours of the day and night, shall we not admit that all

of these partake of something else, and that of a more divine nature

than the elements? And if in the domain and rule of nature so many

excellent operations are daily effected, surpassing the powers of the

things themselves, what shall we not think possible within the pale

and regimen of nature, of which all art is but imitation? And if, as

ministers of man, they effect such admirable ends, what I ask may we

not expect of them, when they are instruments in the hand of God?

"We must therefore make the distinction and say, that whilst no primary

agent or prime efficient produces effects beyond its powers, every

instrumental agent may exceed its own proper powers in action; for

it acts not merely by its own virtue but by the virtue of a superior

efficient....

"Since the blood acts, then, with forces superior to the forces of the

elements, and exerts its influence through these forces or virtues and

is the instrument of the Great Workman, no one can ever sufficiently

extol its admirable, its divine faculties.

"In the first place and especially, it is possessed by a soul which

is not only vegetative, but sensitive and motive also. It penetrates

everywhere and is ubiquitous; abstracted, the soul or the life too is

gone, so that the blood does not seem to differ in any respect from the

soul or the life itself (anima); at all events it is to be regarded as

the substance whose act is the soul or the life. Such, I say, is the

soul, which is neither wholly corporeal nor yet wholly incorporeal;

which is derived in part from abroad and is partly produced at home;

which in one way is part of the body, but in another is the beginning

and cause of all that is contained in the animal body, viz., nutrition,

sense, and motion, and consequently of life and death alike; for

whatever is nourished, is itself vivified, and _vice versâ_. In like

manner that which is abundantly nourished increases; what is not

sufficiently supplied shrinks; what is perfectly nourished preserves

its health; what is not perfectly nourished falls into disease. The

blood therefore, even as the soul, is to be regarded as the cause

and author of youth and old age, of sleep and waking, and also of

respiration. All the more and especially as the first instrument in

natural things contains the internal moving cause within itself. It

therefore comes to the same thing, whether we say that the soul and the

blood, or the blood with the soul, or the soul with the blood performs

all the acts in the animal organism." A lame and impotent conclusion

which does not advance our knowledge, though perhaps it was the most

plausible that could be drawn from the premisses at Harvey's command.

Indeed he was himself dissatisfied with his conception of the vital

principle, for in another essay after a discussion to show that the

egg is not the product of the body of the hen, but is a result of the

vital principle, he turns away from the subject with evident relief to

more profitable subjects, and with the words "Leaving points that are

doubtful and disquisitions bearing upon the general question, we now

approach more definite and obvious matters."

The ideas then prevalent in physical science led him in like manner

to spend much time and thought upon the unprofitable subject of the

primigenial moisture, and with these speculations the treatise on

development comes to an abrupt end.

The whole essay is an interesting one. It shows us the range of

Harvey's mind filled with the knowledge of ancient philosophy, but

animated by the experimental spirit of modern science. All that the

work contains of observation and experiment is valuable, for Harvey

had made use of his uncommon opportunities to acquire a knowledge,

such as is usually possessed only by huntsmen and gamekeepers, and has

very rarely been attained by a man of science. Harvey's knowledge, as

shown in this treatise, may be compared to that shown by Darwin in his

"Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication." Harvey tries to

explain his observations in the terms of an existing philosophy, while

Darwin uses his facts to establish an original hypothesis of his own.

We have so completely outlived the age of the schoolmen that it is

difficult for us to recognise the bondage endured by so great a mind

as Harvey's until we consider it in the light of Darwin's work. Then

we recognise that the theoretical disquisitions in the treatises on

development are not so foreign to the true nature of Harvey as they

appear to be at first sight. They are in reality an illustration of

the profound influence of the prevalent thought of a period upon every

contemporary mind, and show that the most thoughtful and original are

not always the least affected.

We thus take leave of one of the master minds of the seventeenth

century. Harvey's osteological lecture has not yet been found, and many

of his investigations in comparative anatomy are still wanting. But

there is a possibility that his papers and books were only dispersed,

and were not destroyed at the pillage of his lodgings in Whitehall.

Some of the wreckage is still cast up from time to time, and we may

hope that more may yet be found. So recently as 1888 Dr. Norman Moore

recognised thirty-five lines of Harvey's handwriting on a blank

page at the end of the British Museum copy of Goulston's edition of

Galen's "Opuscula Varia." Here, as in all the other manuscripts, the

peculiarities of Harvey's writing are too distinct to leave any doubt

of the authorship. Every fragment of his work is interesting, and even

in these few lines we seem to learn his opinion of artificial exterior

elevation as opposed to the genuine exaltation of worth or learning,

for against a passage in which Galen prefers learning to rank, Harvey

has written "wooden leggs." A fitting testimony from one who, though he

had spent the greater part of his life at court, was yet the foremost

thinker of his age.

FINIS.

_APPENDIX_

AUTHORITIES

CHAPTER I.

"The Genealogy of the Family of Harvey, compiled from Original

Sources," by W. J. Harvey, Esq., F.S.A., Scotland, in the "Misc.

Geneal. and Herald." Second Series, 1888-9, vol. iii. pp. 329, 362,

381.

Loftie's "History of London," ed. ii., vol. i.

Willis' "William Harvey," London, 1878.

Fuller's "Worthies of England," folio, 1662.

Sir James Paget's "Records of Harvey," London, (reprinted) 1887, by

the kind permission of Sir James Paget, Bart., F.R.S. Walpole's Works,

Cunningham's ed. vol. vii., p. 329.