(1578-1657)
William Harvey was born on April 1, 1578, at Folkestone, on the southern
coast of Kent. He was the eldest of nine children; of the rest little
more is known, than that several of the brothers were among the most
eminent merchants in the city of London during the reigns of the two
first Stuarts. His father, Thomas Harvey, followed no profession. He
married Joanna Falke, at the age of twenty, and lived upon his own
estate at Folkestone. This property devolved by inheritance upon his
eldest son; and the greater part of it was eventually bequeathed by him
to the college at which he was educated.
At ten years of age he commenced his studies at the grammar school in
Canterbury; and upon May 31, 1593, soon after the completion of his
fifteenth year, was admitted as a pensioner at Caius College, Cambridge.
[Illustration: William Harvey.]
At that time a familiar acquaintance with logic and the learned
languages was indispensable as a first step in the prosecution of all
the branches of science, especially of medicine; and the skill with
which Harvey avails himself of the scholastic form of reasoning in his
great work on the Circulation, with the elegant Latin style of all his
writings, particularly of his latest work on the Generation of Animals,
affords a sufficient proof of his diligence in the prosecution of these
preliminary studies during the next four years which he spent at
Cambridge. The two next were occupied in visiting the principal cities
and seminaries of the Continent. He then prepared to address himself to
those investigations to which the rest of his life was devoted; and the
scene of his introduction to them could not have been better chosen than
at the University of Padua, where he became a student in his
twenty-second year.
The ancient physicians gathered what they knew of anatomy from
inaccurate dissections of the lower animals, and the slender knowledge
thus acquired, however inadequate to unfold the complicated functions of
the human frame, was abundantly sufficient as a basis for conjecture, of
which they took full advantage. With them everything became easy to
explain, precisely because nothing was understood; and the nature and
treatment of disease, the great object of medicine, and its subsidiary
sciences, was hardily abandoned to the conduct of the imagination, and
sought for literally among the stars. Nevertheless, so firmly was their
authority established, that even down to the close of the sixteenth
century the naturalists of Europe still continued to derive all their
physiology, and the greater part of their anatomy and medicine, from the
works of Aristotle and Galen, read not in the original Greek, but
re-translated into Latin from the interpolated versions of the Arabian
physicians. The opinions entertained by these dictators in the republic
of letters, and consequently by their submissive followers, with regard
to the structure and functions of the organs concerned in the
circulation, were particularly fanciful and confused; so much so that it
would be no easy task to give an intelligible account of them that would
not be tedious from its length. It will be enough to say, that a
scarcely more oppressive mass of mischievous error was cleared away from
the science of astronomy by the discovery of Newton, than that from
which physiology was disencumbered by the discovery of Harvey.
But though the work was completed by an Englishman, it is to Italy that,
in anatomy, as in most of the sciences, we owe the first attempts to
cast off the thralldom of the ancients. Mundinus had published a work
in the year 1315, which contained a few original observations of his
own; and his essay was so well received that it remained the text-book
of the Italian schools of anatomy for upward of two centuries. It was
enriched from time to time by various annotators, among the chief of
whom were Achillini, and Berengarius, the first person who published
anatomical plates. But the great reformer of anatomy was Vesalius, who,
born at Brussels in 1514, had attained such early celebrity during his
studies at Paris and Louvain, that he was invited by the Republic of
Venice, in his twenty-second year, to the chair of anatomy at Padua,
which he filled for seven years with the highest reputation. He also
taught at Bologna, and subsequently, by the invitation of Cosmo de'
Medici, at Pisa. The first edition of his work, "De Corporis Humani
Fabrica" was printed at Basle, in the year 1543; it is perhaps one of
the most successful efforts of human industry and research, and from the
date of its publication begins an entirely new era in the science of
which it treats. The despotic sway hitherto maintained in the schools of
medicine by the writings of Aristotle and Galen was now shaken to its
foundation, and a new race of anatomists eagerly pressed forward in the
path of discovery. Among these no one was more conspicuous than
Fallopius, the disciple, successor, and in fame the rival, of Vesalius,
at Padua. After him the anatomical professorship was filled by Fabricius
ab Aquapendente, the last of the distinguished anatomists who flourished
at Padua in the sixteenth century.
Harvey became his pupil in 1599, and from this time he appears to have
applied himself seriously to the study of anatomy. The first germ of the
discovery which has shed immortal honor on his name and country was
conceived in the lecture-room of Fabricius.
He remained at Padua for two years; and having received the Degree of
Doctor of Arts and Medicine, with unusual marks of distinction, returned
to England early in the year 1602. Two years afterward he commenced
practice in London and married the daughter of Dr. Launcelot Browne, by
whom he had no children. He became a Fellow of the College of
Physicians, when about thirty years of age, having in the meantime
renewed his degree of Doctor in Medicine, at Cambridge; and was soon
after elected Physician to St. Bartholomew's Hospital, which office he
retained till a late period of his life.
On August 4, 1615, he was appointed Reader of Anatomy and Surgery to the
College of Physicians. From some scattered hints in his writings it
appears that his doctrine of the circulation was first advanced in his
lectures at the college about four years afterward; and a note-book in
his own hand-writing is still preserved at the British Museum, in which
the principal arguments by which it is substantiated are briefly set
down, as if for reference in the lecture-room. Yet with the
characteristic caution and modesty of true genius, he continued for nine
years longer to reason and experimentalize upon what is now considered
one of the simplest, as it is undoubtedly the most important known law
of animal nature; and it was not till the year 1628, the fifty-first of
his life, that he consented to publish his discovery to the world.
In that year the "Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis" was
published at Frankfort. This masterly treatise begins with a short
outline and refutation of the opinions of former anatomists on the
movement of the animal fluids and the function of the heart; the author
discriminating with care, and anxiously acknowledging the glimpses of
the truth to be met with in their writings; as if he had not only kept
in mind the justice due to previous discoveries, and the prudence of
softening the novelty and veiling the extent of his own, but had
foreseen the preposterous imputation of plagiarism, which, with other
inconsistent charges, was afterward brought forward against him. This
short sketch is followed by a plain exposition of the anatomy of the
circulation, and a detail of the results of numerous experiments; and
the new theory is finally maintained in a strain of close and powerful
reasoning, and followed into some of its most important consequences.
The whole argument is conducted in simple and unpretending language,
with great perspicuity, and scrupulous attention to logical form.
The doctrine announced by Harvey may be briefly stated thus: The blood
circulates through the body, thereby sustaining life. The heart is
simply the pump which drives the blood through the arteries, from whence
it returns impure, and is then forced through the lungs and repurified.
The pulmonary circulation had been surmised by Galen, and maintained by
his successors; but no proof even of this insulated portion of the
truth, more than amounted to strong probability, had been given till the
time of Harvey, and no plausible claim to the discovery, still less to
the demonstration, of the general circulation has ever been set up in
opposition to his. Indeed, its truth was quite inconsistent with the
ideas everywhere entertained in the schools on the functions of the
heart and other viscera, and was destructive of many favorite theories.
The new doctrine, therefore, as may well be supposed, was received by
most of the anatomists of the period with distrust, and by all with
surprise. Some of them undertook to refute it, but their objections
turned principally on the silence of Galen, or consisted of the most
frivolous cavils; the controversy, too, assumed the form of personal
abuse even more speedily than is usually the case when authority is at
issue with reason. To such opposition Harvey for some time did not think
it necessary to reply; but some of his friends in England, and of the
adherents to his doctrine on the Continent, warmly took up his defence.
At length he was induced to take a personal share in the dispute in
answer to Riolanus, a Parisian anatomist of some celebrity, whose
objections were distinguished by some show of philosophy, and unusual
abstinence from abuse. The answer was conciliatory and complete, but
ineffectual to produce conviction; and in reply to Harvey's appeal to
direct experiment, his opponent urged nothing but conjecture and
assertion. Harvey once more rejoined at a considerable length; taking
occasion to give a spirited rebuke to the unworthy reception he had met
with, in which it seems that Riolanus had now permitted himself to join;
adducing several new and conclusive experiments in support of his
theory; and entering at large upon its value in simplifying physiology
and the study of diseases, with other interesting collateral topics.
Riolanus, however, still remained unconvinced; and his second rejoinder
was treated by Harvey with contemptuous silence. He had already
exhausted the subject in the two excellent controversial pieces just
mentioned, the last of which is said to have been written at Oxford
about 1645; and he never resumed the discussion in print. Time had now
come to the assistance of argument, and his discovery began to be
generally admitted. To this, indeed, his opponents contributed, by a
still more singular discovery of their own, namely, that the facts had
been observed, and the important inference drawn, long before. This was
the mere allegation of envy, chafed at the achievements of another,
which, from their apparent facility, might have been its own. It is
indeed strange that the simple mechanism thus explained should have been
unobserved or misunderstood so long; and nothing can account for it but
the imperceptible lightness as well as the strength of the chains which
authority imposes on the mind.
In the year 1623 Harvey became physician extraordinary to James I., and
seven years later was appointed physician to Charles. He followed the
fortunes of that monarch, who treated him with great distinction during
the first years of the civil war, and he was present at the battle of
Edgehill, in 1642. Having been incorporated doctor of physic by the
University of Oxford, he was promoted by Charles to the wardenship of
Merton College, in 1645; but he did not retain this office very long,
his predecessor, Dr. Brent, being reinstated by the Parliament after the
surrender of Oxford in the following year.
Harvey then returned to London, and resided with his brother Eliat at
Cockaine house, in the Poultry. About the time of Charles's execution he
gave up his practice, which had never been considerable, probably in
consequence of his devotion to the scientific, rather than the
practical, parts of his profession. He himself, however, attributed his
want of success to the enmity excited by his discovery. After a second
visit to the Continent, he secluded himself in the country, sometimes at
his own house in Lambeth, and sometimes with his brother Eliat at Combe,
in Surrey. Here he was visited by his friend, Dr. Ent, in 1651, by whom
he was persuaded to allow the publication of his work on the "Generation
of Animals." It was the fruit of many years of experiment and
meditation; and, though the vehicle of no remarkable discovery, is
replete with interest and research, and contains passages of brilliant
and even poetical eloquence. The object of his work is to trace the germ
through all its changes to the period of maturity; and the illustrations
are principally drawn from the phenomena exhibited by eggs in the
process of incubation, which he watched with great care, and has
described with minuteness and fidelity. The microscope had not at that
time the perfection it has since attained; and consequently Harvey's
account of the first appearance of the chick is somewhat inaccurate, and
has been superseded by the observations of Malpighi, Hunter, and others.
The experiments upon which he chiefly relied in this department of
natural history had been repeated in the presence of Charles I., who
appears to have taken great interest in the studies of his physician.
[Illustration: Harvey demonstrating the Circulation of the Blood.]
In the year 1653, the seventy-fifth of his life, Harvey presented the
College of Physicians with the title-deed of a building erected in their
garden, and elegantly fitted up, at his expense, with a library and
museum, and commodious apartments for their social meetings. Upon this
occasion he resigned the professorship of anatomy, which he had held for
nearly forty years, and was succeeded by Dr. Glisson.
In 1654 he was elected to the presidency of the college, which he
declined on the plea of age; and the former president, Sir Francis
Prujean, was re-elected at his request. Two years afterward he made a
donation to the college of a part of his patrimonial estate, to the
yearly value of £56, as a provision for the maintenance of the library,
and the annual festival and oration in commemoration of benefactors.
At length his constitution, which had long been harassed by the gout,
yielded to the increasing infirmities of age, and he died in his
eightieth year, on June 3, 1657. He was buried at Hempstead, in Essex,
in a vault belonging to his brother Eliat, who was his principal heir,
and his remains were followed to the grave by a numerous procession of
the body of which he had been so illustrious and munificent a member.
In person he was below the middle size, but well proportioned. He had a
dark complexion, black hair, and small, lively eyes. In his youth his
temper is said to have been very hasty. If so, he was cured of this
defect as he grew older; for nothing can be more courteous and temperate
than his controversial writings; and the genuine kindness and modesty
which were conspicuous in all his dealings with others, with his
instructive conversation, gained him many attached and excellent
friends. He was fond of meditation and retirement; and there is much in
his works to characterize him as a man of warm and unaffected piety.