of Animals" appeared; but neither physiological nor microscopical
science was sufficiently advanced to admit of the production of an
enduring work on a subject necessarily so abstruse as that of
generation. It was impossible, however, for so shrewd and able an
investigator as Harvey to work at a subject even as difficult as this
without leaving the impress of his original genius. He first announced
the general truth, "Omne animal ex ovo," and clearly proved that the
essential part of the egg, that in which the reproductive processes
begin, was not the _chalazæ_, but the _cicatricula_. This Fabricius had
looked upon as a blemish, a scar left by a broken peduncle. Harvey
described this little cicatricula as expanding under the influence of
incubation into a wider structure, which he called the eye of the egg,
and at the same time separating into a clear and transparent part, in
which later on, according to him, there appeared, as the first rudiment
of the embryo, the heart, or _punctum saliens_, together with the
blood-vessels. He was clearly of opinion that the embryo arose by
successive formation of parts out of the homogeneous and nearly liquid
mass. This was the doctrine of epigenesis, which, notwithstanding its
temporary overthrow by the erroneous theory of evolution,[20] is, with
modifications, the doctrine now held.
Of Harvey's scholarship and culture we are not left in ignorance. Bishop
Pearson, writing about seven years after the doctor's death, and
Aubrey[21] have told us of his appreciation of the works of Aristotle,
and in his own writings he refers more frequently to the Stagirite than
to any other individual. Sir William Temple[22] has also put it on
record that the famous Dr. Harvey was a great admirer of Virgil, whose
works were frequently in his hands. His store of individual knowledge
must have been great; and he seems never to have flagged in his anxiety
to learn more. He made himself master of Oughtred's "Clavis Mathematica"
in his old age, according to Aubrey, who found him "perusing it and
working problems not long before he dyed."
Nor should it be forgotten that this illustrious physiologist and
scholar was also the first English comparative anatomist. Of his
knowledge of the lower animals he makes frequent use, and he says (in
his work on the heart), "Had anatomists only been as conversant with the
dissection of the lower animals as they are with that of the human body,
many matters that have hitherto kept them in a perplexity of doubt,
would, in my opinion, have met them freed from every kind of
difficulty." Aubrey says that Harvey often told him "that of all the
losses he sustained, no grief was so crucifying to him as the loss of
his papers (containing notes of his dissections of the frog, toad, and
other animals), which, together with his goods in his lodgings at
Whitehall, were plundered at the beginning of the rebellion."
FOOTNOTES:
[20] According to the theory of evolution, the egg contained from the
first an excessively minute, but complete animal, and the changes which
took place during incubation consisted not in a formation of parts, but
in a growth, _i.e._ in an expansion of the already existing embryo (see
p. 40).
[21] See p. lxxxii. of "Life," by Dr. Willis.
[22] "Miscellanies:" Part II. on Poetry, p. 314.
INDEX.
Albertus Magnus, 65
Alexander the Great, 23, 24
Andronicus of Rhodes, 27
"Animals, History of," by Aristotle, 27
"Animals, On the Parts of," by Aristotle, 31
Antipater, Governor of Macedonia, 25
Apellicon, 27
"Aphorisms" of Hippocrates, 12
Aristotle, birth, 21;
youth, 22;
zoological researches, 24;
charge against, 25;
death, 26;
history of the manuscripts of his works, 26;
account of his biological writings, 27-44;
his philosophy of nature teleological, 39
Arundel, Earl of, 94
Asclepiads, physical training among the, 4
Asclepions, description of the, 4
Aselli, 100
Aubrey, 95, 97, 98, 102
Bathurst, George, 95
Blood, description of, by Aristotle, 31
Blood, opinions before the time of Harvey as to the movements of the,
85, 86
Bogarucci, 76
Brain, description of the, by Aristotle, 33
Browne, Sir Thomas, 65
Cæsalpinus, 98
Calcar, Jean, 71
Callisthenes, 24
Capillaries, discovery of the, 99
"Corporis Humani Fabrica," 72
Cuvier's exaggerated praise of Aristotle, 41
"Dead image of God," the, 65
"De Anatome," 66
"De Motu Cordis et Sanguinis," 88-92
"De usu Radicis Chinæ," 73
Disease, causes of, 7
"Disease, The Sacred," 6
Diseases, natural history of, 9
Dissection of the human body, 10, 52
"Divine old man," the, 3
Don Carlos, cure of, 75
_Ductus venosus_, observed by Vesalius, 79
Ent, Dr., 96
"Epigenesis" and "evolution" compared, 40, 102
Erasistratus, 47, 58, 85
Etienne's observation confirmed by Vesalius, 79
Eustachius, discovery of the thoracic duct of the horse by, 100
Fabricius of Aquapendente, 85, 92
Fallopius, anatomical observations of, 77
"Father of medicine," the, 3
_Foramen ovale_, valve guarding the, 79
Franciscus Puteus, reply to, by Gabriel Cuneus, 77
Galen, birth, 48;
influence, 49, 60, 65;
education, 49;
at Smyrna, 49;
at Alexandria, 49;
at Pergamus, 50;
at Rome, 50;
return to Greece, 50;
summoned to meet the Emperors at Aquileia, 50;
death, 51;
writings, 51;
views as to the modes of existence, 52;
and osteology, 53;
and the nervous system, 53;
and the lacteals, 54;
the heart, 55;
the arteries, 56;
and respiration, 57-59;
made a near approach to the Harveian theory of the circulation, 57
Generation of animals, the, 38, 101
Geynes, Dr., 60
Harvey, date and place of birth, 92;
at Canterbury School, 92;
at Cambridge, 92;
at Padua, 92;
elected Fellow of the College of Physicians, 93;
appointed physician to St. Bartholomew's Hospital, 93;
physician to Charles I., 93;
foreign travels, 94;
present at the battle of Edgehill, 95;
elected Warden of Merton College, 95;
death, 97;
discovery of the circulation incomplete in one respect, 98, 99;
work on the generation of animals, 101;
a scholar, 102;
and comparative anatomist, 103
Heart, description of the, by Aristotle, 35
Hellebore, administered by Hippocrates, 9
Hermias, despot of Atarneus, 22;
murder of, 23
Herophilus, 47, 58, 85
Hippocrates, date of birth, 3;
Greek contemporaries, 3;
birthplace, 3;
his freedom from superstition, 5, 16;
compared with Socrates, 7;
medical doctrines of, 8;
works, 10;
knowledge of osteology, 10;
traditions concerning, 14;
oath of, 16
Hobbes of Malmesbury, 98
Hoffmann, Caspar, 94
Humours, the four, 8
Huxley, Professor, on errors attributed to Aristotle, 37, 42
Lacteals, the, 54, 100
Lennox, Duke of, 93
Lungs, Aristotle's description of the, 37
Malpighi, discovery of the capillaries by, 99
Marcus Aurelius, 50
Marine animals, description of, by Aristotle, 29
_Mediastinum_, correct description of the, by Vesalius, 79
Milk in male animals, occasional appearance of, 29
Mundinus, 66
Neleus, 26
Nicon, father of Galen, 49
_Omentum_, the, and its connections, 80
Owen, Professor, on Aristotle's knowledge of the cephalopoda, 29
"Parva naturalia," 27
Pausanias, 15
Pecquet of Dieppe, 100
Peripatetics, the, 24
Philip, father of Alexander, 22, 23
"Physiological division of labour," 43
Plato, 22
Pliny, 47, 48
_Pneuma_, 38
_Punctum saliens_, 35, 93, 101
_Pylorus_, the, described by Vesalius, 80
Pythias, 23
_Receptaculum chyli_, 100
Roelants, Joachim, 78
_Scamnum Hippocratis_, 12
Servetus, 86
Septimius Severus, 51
Slegel of Hamburg, 98
Socrates compared with Hippocrates, 7
Sprengel's opinion of Galen, 60
Sylla, 27
Sylvius, 67, 72, 73, 74
Teupulus, Paulus, 77
Theophrastus, 26
_Theriac_, the, 50
Thoracic duct, discovery of, 100
Tyrannion, 27
Vesalius, birth, 66;
scholarship, 66;
studied under Sylvius, 67;
and Winter of Andernach, 67;
adventure at Louvain, 67, 68;
appointed professor at Padua, at Bologna, and at Pisa, 69;
zeal for correctness in anatomy, 70;
skill in diagnosis, 70;
distrusts infallibility of Galen's teaching, 71;
writes "Fabric of the Human Body," 72;
is summoned to Ratisbon, 73;
destroys his manuscripts, 74;
his success as a practitioner, 75;
charged with impiety, 75;
is sent on pilgrimage, 75;
shipwreck and death at Zante, 76;
works, 76-80
_Vis medicatrix naturæ_, 9
Winter of Andernach, 67