■■ Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016 https://archive.org/details/williamharvey01will WILLIAM HARVEY Man soil immer vorwdris ringen mid nicht stehen bleiben, aber auch riickwarts blicken und gerecht seyn. MARX (K. F. H.) M.D. On est convenu de consider er une Science comme fonde'e par celui qui lui fait faire le pas le plus decisif et l' on attribue cette gloire d la nation chez laquelle ce pas a ete fait. PAUL JANET. WILLIAM HARVEY A HISTORY OF THE DISCOVERY OF THE CIRCULATION OF THE BLOOD BY R. WILLIS, M.D. AUTHOR OF “THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF SPINOZA;” “ SERVETUS AND CALVIN,” & C., &C. WITH A PORTRAIT OF HARVEY, AFTER FA I THORNE LONDON C. Kegan Paul & Co., i, Paternoster Square 1878 TO WILLIAM SHARPEY, M.D., F.R.S., LL.D., &c., EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF ANATOMY IN UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON, '(lEorh is gcbicatcb BY HIS OLD FRIEND, THE AUTHOR. PREFACE. It is now more than thirty years since, at the in- stance of my associates of the Sydenham Society, I undertook to edit an English version of the works of Harvey, and to add a Notice of the Life of the immortal discoverer of the Circulation of the Blood. My Sketch, however, was only from sources most readily accessible to me, and nowise critical — principally from the one comprised in the Biographia Britannica, and that by Dr. Lawrence, which prefaces the fine edition of Harvey’s works in Latin, edited by Dr. Mark Akenside, for the College of Physicians, and published in the year 1 766. Though favourably received by my professional brethren, the Life I com- piled was unavoidably much less complete than I had thought to make it ; for, soon after undertaking my task of Editor, I became immersed in the coil of general medical practice, which leaves little leisure for literary labour. Yet have I always hoped that, living long enough, and escaping from more active professional duties, I might one day be enabled to accomplish my purpose of writing a Life of Harvey, of ampler scope than the earlier sketch, and, by reference to the writings of the great Anatomists of the period of the Renaissance especially, to trace the gradual approximation to truer interpretations of function through better apprehensions of structure, until Physiology for the first time, and in the highest sense of the word, received its birth from the genius of Harvey, and the foundations of rational medicine were laid. If I had cherished a desire of the kind for half a lifetime, the propriety of bringing it to fruition had been growing on me for the last year or two. The persistent attempts of continental writers, Italians especially, to detract from the honour of Harvey, and ascribe his discovery to others ; as well as the shortcomings of the half-hearted and, through inadequate information, perfunctory apologies for the great Anatomist which have appeared among our- selves, seemed to me, indeed, to make the work, not only a matter of propriety, but one of necessity. Honoured and revered as is the memory of Harvey, by the most learned of our brethren, both at home and abroad, it is not a little extraordinary that we have no special detached Life of him in our literature. A work dedicated expressly to a History of the Circulation of the Blood, and the Life of one of the greatest of Englishmen, its discoverer, appears, however, to have been somewhat generally expected as a fitting accom- paniment of the Tercentenary birthday of our great Anatomist, and among my friends who were aware of the bent of my studies for some time past, to have been looked for at my hands. And my work, as Preface. IX anticipated, had been all but completed by the close of the past year, when serious illness overtook me, and incapacitated me from seeing it through the press. The interval that has elapsed between the date of April i st, and that of the actual publication which had been contemplated, will, I trust, be found to have proved no detriment to the work. I have, in fact, mainly to regret my inability to revisit the great libraries of the British Museum and Royal College of Surgeons, which I had used so freely, for the final revision and verification of the passages from the works of the writers I have quoted. I am admonished by a highly competent authority that I have fallen short of what I might have said on the function of the Lymphatic system, which I take the opportunity of amending here. In so far as the fluid secreted and conveyed by the Lymphatics is of less specific gravity than venous blood, in so far must the blood of the veins be more dense than that of the arteries, and so have become fitted to absorb from the plasma-bathed tissues through which they run. But I had no intention of saying that this was all the duty performed by the great Lymphatic system. All recent researches seem to point to it as influential in the htemapoesis ; but how and in what way it is so seems to me to remain an enigma. I only referred to so much of the function as I conceived to bear on the question I had in hand, viz., the way in which the veins acquired their signal absorbent powers. A word as to the Portraits we have of Harvey. Their number and the places where they are preserved X Preface. manifest the esteem in which he was held by his con- temporaries. The best known, perhaps, is the one ascribed to Cornelius Jansen, which adorns the library of the Royal College of Physicians. There is another in the library of the Royal Society by De Reyn, which has been engraved by Scriven in Knight’s “ Gallery of Portraits.” The picture in our National Portrait Gallery is a poor production ; it has been engraved by Houbraken and Gay wood, and was once the pro- perty of Dr. Mead. I have seen another, which be- longed to Dr. Bright, and is still in the possession of his son, which I believe to have been painted nearly at the same period as the one in the College of Physicians. All of these portraits, nevertheless, are undoubtedly of the same man, and correspond in most respects with the description left us of Harvey by his con- temporary Aubrey. On panels over the fireplace in the dining-room of the Manor House of Rolls Park, near Chigwell, in Essex, which I have visited, are portraits of Thomas Harvey, the Kentish yeoman, and his seven sons, the one on the upper left-hand file being inscribed with the name of William Harvey ; but in this, the portrait of a man in the very prime of life, only a lively imagination can perceive any likeness to the pictures we have of Harvey in riper years, when he had become famous. The portrait of the sire is cer- tainly of the time when he lived, and bears a certain resemblance to some of the likenesses we have of his most distinguished son. But the portraits of all the Preface. xi seven sons have so marked a similarity to one another, being all of them of men about forty years of age, and apparently by the same hand, that I am much inclined to look on them as apocryphal, or as reproductions of portraits that have disappeared. Other portraits of members of the Harvey family, however, graced the walls of Rolls Park while it was still the residence of the successive descendants of Eliab Harvey, who purchased half the manor in the year 1655. The present owner of the estate (Captain Richard Lloyd, one of the lineal representatives of the family through his mother, a daughter of the distin- guished Admiral Sir Eliab Harvey) informs me that he removed as many as thirty family portraits, and among them one of the Doctor, from Rolls Park to his present residence, Aston Hall, Oswestry, Salop. This portrait is not noticed in the list which I owe to my friend Mr. Scharf, Keeper of the National Portrait Gallery ; and there is yet another not included in this list, the last that could have been made of the illus- trious Discoverer — the bust, namely, over the memo- rial tablet in Hempstead Church. This I have not met with in any engraving, and the same cause which delayed the appearance of my work incapacitated me from accomplishing the pilgrimage to the burial-place of the Harvey family. My friend, Dr. Richardson, however, lately visited Harvey’s final resting-place, in company with Mr. Thomas Woolner, R.A., the great sculptor, on whose unquestionable authority he informs me that the bust on the monu- ment is undoubtedly modelled from a mask taken after Preface. xii death, and gives a very fine version of Harvey’s face. Mr. F. T. Day, of Saffron- Walden, has made a series of fine photographs of the Harvey Chapel and Monument, which can be had on application to him. The portrait I have selected is the one in bust form, a fac-simile reproduction, by the admirable Armand-Durand process, of the engraving by Wil- liam Faithorne, a contemporary of Harvey, and doubtless familiar with his personal appearance, founded on the Cornelius Jansen of the College of Physicians . 1 My friend Mr. Scharf also mentions life-size por- traits in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, and at Jesus College and Caius College, Cambridge, and another, by Jansen, which belongs to Sir Henry Wilmot. The Earl of Moira has one at Donnington Park, Leicestershire, attributed to Vandyke ; and there is yet another, belonging to Lady Berkeley, Cranford Lodge, Middlesex. Mr. Scharf believes that the one which was the property of Sir W. W. Wynn perished with other treasures in the fire at Wynnstay. The fine picture in the Museum of University Col- lege, London, is certainly not a portrait of Harvey. Barnes, October, 1878. 1 Faithorne’s contemporary engraving was published as a frontispiece to the English version of the work on Generation in 1653. CONTENTS. PAGE Introduction i BOOK I.— THE ANCIENTS. THE GREEKS— PHILOSOPHERS— ANATOMISTS— PHYSIOLOGISTS. Plato 1 1 Aristotle 13 Praxagoras . 16 Herophilus 17 Erasistratus 18 Hippocrates . . .' 21 Galenus 26 BOOK II.— THE MODERNS. MUNDINUS, BERENGARIUS CARPUS AND THE ITALIAN ANATOMISTS TO HARVEY. CHAPTER I. Mundinus — Berengarius Carpus 45 Rabelais 47 Sylvius 50 XIV Contents. PAGE Winter of Andernach 55 Vesalius 61 Servetus 70 Columbus 87 Eustachius 96 Amatus Lusitanus 99 Faloppius IOI Sarpi 105 Arantius 109 Ruini hi Oesalpinus 1 16 Fabricius 143 Rudius 148 CHAPTER II.— SECTION I. Harvey— H is Early Life 154 SECTION II. The Exercises on the Motion of the Heart and Blood 185 SECTION III. Reception of the Exercises on the Heart and Blood 210 SECTION IV. Harvey, assailed by Riolan, Replies to Him, and Develops His own Views 225 SECTION V. Harvey Discusses the Cause of the Heart’s Action and Motion of the Blood 235 Contents. xv SECTION VI. PAGE Transfusion of the Blood from Arteries to Veins, and the Imbibing Power of the Veins . . .241 SECTION VII. Harvey’s Views begin to be Generally Accepted — De Back, Schlegel, Walrus, Pecquet, Bartholin, Licetus 251 SECTION VIII. Advantages of Harvey’s Discovery : Fontenelle . . 257 SECTION IX. The Lacteal Vessels. Aselli. Pecquet . . .259 SECTION X. Envy and Detraction Follow the Discoverer . . 263 SECTION XI. What is Discovery?— What are Harvey’s Merits as a Discoverer ? — Dr. Wm. Hunter 267 SECTION XII. Harvey’s Originality. He Quotes no Authorities . 273 SECTION XIII. On the Generation of Animals 276 SECTION XIV. Correspondence. The Lacteal Vessels. Absorption of the Chyle . 286 XVI Contents. section xv. PAGE The Note Book of 1616, and Origin of the Idea of the Circulation 298 SECTION XVI. Harvey’s Character and Personal Appearance, His Last Illness, Death, and Burial .... 304 CHAPTER III. Recent Historians of the Discovery of the Circula- tion of the Blood 323 INTRODUCTION. A certain sanctity appears to have been connected with the blood at a very early period in the history of humanity. Its loss, in quantity, was seen to be so necessarily followed by death, that it even came to be spoken of as the Life in the sacred writings of the Jews ; and, poured out upon the altar, it was long held by them, as by so many of the peoples of anti- quity, to be not only the most acceptable offering that could be presented to propitiate the Gods, but even as competent to purge mankind from sin. No wonder, therefore, that the blood, the life- giving element, at all events, if not the very life, was an early object of study with physiologists, and that it was held to have powers, properties and motion apart from, and independent of, the organisms whereof it is so important an integral part — motion above all, another word for life, even as stagnation is equivalent to death. At no time, therefore, do we observe that the blood was ever thought of as other- wise than in motion. When we turn to the writings of our predecessors in the field of anatomy, and find them possessed of such an amount of accurate information on the struc- B (• 2 INTRODUCTION. ture of the animal body, we are at a loss to account for the imperfect, or more positively erroneous, nature of so many of their physiological conclusions. But the old observers were hampered by metaphysical assumptions, irrespective of cognizable fact and by fancies concerning the way and manner in which the world of matter as of mind is ruled. Neither the Macrocosm nor the Microcosm, as the universe and the body of man were designated, was seen to be possessed of powers adequate to produce the phe- nomena it manifested, and so to make it self-sufficing. The world without, was believed to be dominated by Entities apart from itself ; the world within, by Principles distinct from the organs of which it is com- posed. No Spinoza had yet appeared to assimilate the “something not himself” — his dream, his shadow on the ground, his reflection in the pool — originated by none of these, but personified and called by so many names by man, with the universe of things ; no Leibnitz to announce a “ Pre-established Har- mony,” and, following Spinoza, though using other words, to declare that the World being, as it is, could have been no other than it is ; and no Locke to assert the competence of God to have Consciousness an appanage of nerve, and to say that the reason vouchsafed to man was guide sufficient for conduct and conclusion, both as regards the now and the here- after. But as the astronomer has of late been INTRODUCTION. 3 suffered to say that the Sun, with his attendant planets and their satellites, suffices for the cosmical phenomena observed in the system he dominates, so has the physiologist more lately still been allowed to own that the organisms of man and animals in their several estates suffice for the faculties they manifest. None of the natural sciences had in truth such obstacles to contend with, in the shape of metaphy- sical assumptions — from which, indeed, it has not yet entirely escaped — as physiology. When the facts of observation did not tally with these, it was long held imperative either to pass them by unnoticed, to explain them away, or to regard them as effects of misleading sense. Certain agents by which the organism was presumed to be supplemented and dominated, characterized as Spirits or Principles, were imagined ; and, being associated with the more impor- tant organs, the functions of these were believed to be severally evoked by them, much as the hand of the musician elicits music from his instrument. Strangely and illogically too, as it seems, these agents were still thought of as dependent on the organs they actuated — to come into play, they had themselves to be engen- dered. The right ventricle of the heart, with the blood supplied by the liver, produced the Natural Spirit; the left ventricle, with the aid of the lungs, begat the Vital Spirit ; and the brain, with the help of the heart, fashioned the Animal Spirit. Thus believed to be of different kinds, the Spirits B 2 4 INTRODUCTION. were further thought of as associated with blood of dissimilar qualities, by the medium of which they were communicated to the body. Hence the assumption of Two Kinds of Blood, which stood so long in the way of true physiological conclusions — one derived from the Liver as its source, another from the Heart Hence, also, two orders of vessels, accordant in structure and property with the presumed qualities of their con- tents — the Veins, channels of the sluggish and dark- coloured natural blood, product of the liver ; the Arteries, conduits of the elaborated, subtle and florid blood, product of the heart. The dark blood dis- tributed from the liver to every part of the body by the vena cava for purposes of growth and nutrition ; the florid blood delivered from the heart by the aorta to supply the frame with heat and vital endowment. The two kinds of blood, it was then supposed, moved to and fro in their respective channels, doing their office to the tissues and returning to their sources for fresh supplies of material and renovation of powers ; the motions being assimilated now to the ripple on the surface of a lake or stream, and again, and more com- monly, to the ebb and flow of the tide in a narrow sea ; the outward motions, mainly due to attractions between the parts of the body and the blood in the vessels ; the return, to a per-contra attraction of the centres, and a suction-power connected with the diastole of the heart, both alike aided by the alternate heaving and subsidence of the chest in respiration. INTRODUCTION. 5 The liver, then, was the laboratory of the natural blood, having derived the materials for its work from the stomach and intestines. This blood sufficed for ordinary growth ; but to acquire vitalizing, and as sometimes said, nutritive properties it had to reach the heart and undergo further elaboration in its chambers. On the right side there was obvious and ready access to the ventricle from the vena cava ; and there the blood was believed to be altered and improved to a certain extent — to have something of a natural spirit imparted to it ; but it was not yet sufficiently attenuated and subtilized to be fit recipient or associate of the vital spirit. To attain to such a degree of refinement it must reach the left ventricle ; and this it was presumed to do by permeating the partition between the two ventricles, whereby it became clarified and improved, as is muddy water by filtration through a sponge. This, however, was not yet all. Blood was at best a palpable and gross material ; spirit was impalpable and etherial in its nature, nearest akin to air among things cognizable to sense ; and breathing being seen to be even as necessary to life as the blood, the Vital Spirit was presumed to be finally obtained from the inbreathed air commingled with the purified blood. In the Jewish Scriptures, says the writer, “ God breathed into the nostrils of man the breath of life, and he became a living soul.” Communication between the left ventricle and the 6 INTRODUCTION. inbreathed air was therefore required, and was not far to seek. There was the rigid, ringed trachaea pro- ceeding from the throat, that brought air, the opaque artery springing from the right ventricle, and the diaphanous vein arising from the left, tending in either case to, or from, but meeting alike amid the soft and spongy substance of the lungs. By means of these the needful intercourse between the blood and the air was accomplished, and the vital spirit believed to be engendered. Beside this, their most important office, the lungs had the further not insignificant duty of fanning and refrigerating the heart ; which, as seat and source of the native heat, was thought to require the access of air at once to maintain and to prevent it from becom- ing excessive ! It is in consonance with these physio- logical ideas that we find the great vessels connected with the heart specially designated by the old anatomists. The vessel leading from the right side carried the natural blood of the vena cava to the lungs for their nourishment, and was a vein, in fact, though it had the structure of an artery; therefore was it called the vena arterialis. The vessel leading from the left side again, which transferred the spirituous blood from the heart to the lungs, and from the lungs brought air mixed with blood to the heart, was an artery in reality having the structure of a vein, whence its title artcria venalis. Its duties, however, were more complicated than those of the arteries in general. The air exhaled INTRODUCTION. 7 was not always so sweet and pure as it had been when inhaled ; it had become loaded with excrementitious matters thown off by the blood ; and as the smoke of a lamp was the impure or effete particles of the oil elimi- nated in the burning, so was the fuliginous vapour of the blood got rid of by the arteria venalis, and discharged with the breath. Such, in brief, was the physiology of the heart, of the blood and blood-vessels, and of the lungs, trans- mitted from the ancient to the modern world, the gradual development of which into the more perfect system we now possess, it is the business of the fol- lowing pages to work out and present. BOOK I.— THE ANCIENTS. THE GREEKS— PHILOSOPHERS— ANATOMISTS PHYSIOLOGISTS. . PLATO. Plato, the great idealist, has not much in his volumi- nous writings on the subject that engages us. In the “ Timaeus,” however, he speaks of the heart as the fountain of the blood, and as giving origin to its containing vessels — 3>Ae/3er, a word by which both arteries and veins are designated. The heart, he says, erroneously, has three ventricles ; but concludes, correctly, that it is the organ which sets the blood in motion — a statement strangely misunderstood or neglected by so many who came after him. He is also the first to call the great artery of the body by the name it still retains — Aorta ; and there is a short sentence in connection with what is said of this vessel which must not be passed unnoticed, for it has led to the assumption that Plato was actually acquainted with the circulation of the blood. “ The blood,” he says, “ is forcibly carried round to all the members — to aip,a kclt'cl Travra t a fie~ka afpoSpws' irepifyepeaOaL words notable enough when interpreted by the light of the present day, but that could hardly have had the mean- ing to their writer which has lately been connected with 12 PLA TO. them, as they certainly had no such sense to the long ages that came after him. The a^oSpws- Trepityepeadcu however, seems to imply propulsion from the heart ; but this, although I believe it influenced Csesalpinus, was neglected by almost all the rest of Plato’s suc- cessors until the days of Harvey. ARISTOTLE. Aristotle — prototype of the man of science of the modern world — -the scholar of Plato, was not likely to pass the structure and action of the heart without particular notice, or the important part played by the blood in the animal economy. We find Aristotle accordingly speaking of the heart as the source as well as the reservoir of the blood. Alone, of all the viscera, he says, does the heart contain blood. Every- where else it is included in vessels — W/3es-, the name by which, like Plato, he designates both veins and arteries. He distinguishes between the two orders of vessels, however, and says truly that he thinks they are severally complementary, each existing for the sake of the other. (De Respir., cap. ix.) The heart is further spoken of by Aristotle as the seat and source of the native heat ; and the end and object of respiration, with which he holds the beating of the heart to be intimately connected, is to temper or keep the heat of the heart, tending ever towards excess, within proper bounds. “ The hotter the animal,” says the Stagyrite, “ the more vigorously 14 ARISTOTLE. must it breathe, in order the more effectually to subdue the heat ; whence the larger development of the lungs in quadrupeds and birds than in amphibious animals.” The reasons why warm-blooded animals die in water and fishes in air, he thinks, is due to their hearts not being adequately cooled by the inbreathed air in the one case, by the water passed over their gills in the other. (Ibid., cap. xix.) The air of the atmosphere, held indispensable to the engenderment of the vital spirit, was received from the ramifications of the trachaea in the lungs, by contact and insudation, not by any direct communica- tion through open mouths between the bronchial tubes and the blood-vessels. The pulsation of the heart depended on a sudden expansion or puffing up of the material supplied for the elaboration of the blood by the food digested in the stomach. Coming into contact with the heart as focus of the innate heat, each fresh afflux of nutrient fluid dilating, caused a beat, and as the supply was continuous, so was the pulse without intermission. (Ibid., cap. xx.) The arteries pulsated synchronously with their source, and the blood flowed alternately from the vessels to the heart, from the heart to the vessels ; the valves at the orifices of these regulating the current, and being so disposed that whilst one motion of the heart opened one set and closed another, a second motion of the organ shut those that HIS PHYSIOLOGY. 15 had been opened and opened those that had been shut. In the course of the numerous dissections of the lower animals he performed, and following up what he had said on the cause of the heart’s action, Aristotle appears to have observed the lacteal vessels of the mesentery, tending, as he concluded, from the intes- tines to the vena cava and aorta. Likening them to what is seen in plants, he says : “ Even as plants draw nourishment by their roots from the ground, so do animals derive nutriment from the stomach and intes- tines, these standing to them in lieu of the earth, and having veins in the guise of roots implanted in their substance.” (De Part. Animal, lib. iv., cap. 4.) Singularly enough, when we think of him as the practical anatomist, Aristotle is generally understood as saying that the nerves are derived from the heart — led to the conclusion, it may be, by current notions of the heart being the seat or source of the affections, emotions, and passions. PRAXAGORAS. Praxagoras. This philosopher appears to have had his knowledge of anatomy from actual inspection of the human body ; he is the first who uses the word pulse in the modern sense, and who distinguishes accurately between the two orders of blood-vessels, imagining that the arteries pulsated by a certain in- herent power of their own, contained nothing but a spirituous humour, and, taking their rise from the lungs, terminated in the nerves, whose source, with Aristotle, he believed to be the heart. Respiration, he thought, was instituted for the production of the vital spirit. (Conf. Haller, Biblioth. Anat., vol. i., sub voc.) HEROPHILUS. Herophilus was an anatomist of the school of Pra .:a- goras. His name is still remembered through the title he gave to an intricate portion of the vascular system of the brain, comparing it to a winepress— the Torcular Heropkili. He it was who first desig- nated the pulmonary artery and the pulmonary vein by the names they so long retained — - Vena arteriosa and Artei'ia venosa. He seems also to have antici- pated every other physiologist by a somewhat careful study of the pulse, which he characterized as full, quick, jerking, rhythmical or the contrary, in different cases. The beat of the artery he concluded correctly must proceed from the action of the heart, but he held erroneously that it was transmitted by the coats of the vessels. Herophilus is said to have dissected the human subject alive. (Haller, ut sup. sub voc.) c ERASISTRATUS. Erasistratus. This really distinguished anatomist recognized two principles in the living body — one spirituous, another sanguineous — which were imparted to all its parts by two distinct kinds of vessels, in- cluded under the common title of Phlebes. These, he says, intercommunicate or synastomose — a term by which coaptation or juxtaposition, rather than com- munication by open mouths (although this is not always excluded), appears to have been implied. The blood of the thinner, softer, membranous vessels— the proper blood-vessels, says Erasistratus — is prevented from making its way into the harder tendinous vessels in consequence of their being already replete with vital spirits, or, if it does enter them at any time, disorder and disease are the consequence. When an artery was wounded, the vital spirit, finding a vent, escaped, and then it was that the blood of a neigh- bouring vein made its way into the artery and flowed out through the wound. Living in Egypt, Erasistratus had opportunities of learning something of the anatomy of the human HIS PHYSIOLOGY. 19 body — nay, he is said to have had criminals presented to him, whom he dissected alive! He was better acquainted with the valves of the heart than any anatomist who had preceded him, and thought that their office was to regulate the flow of the blood and the vital spirits. Prepared by the liver, and brought to the right ventricle of the heart by the vena cava, the blood is passed from thence into the vena arteriosa, which proceeds to the lungs. The left ventricle, again, occupied by the vital spirits imparted to it from the lungs by the arteria venosa, transmits these by the arteria magna to all parts of the body. The purpose of respiration, from what has just been said, is, therefore, to communicate spirit from the inbreathed air to the blood. Erasistratus certainly apprehended the function of the valves more correctly than Aristotle. Wherever they occur, he says — and the expression leads us to infer that he saw them elsewhere than in the heart — their function is to prevent retrogression of the blood. Referring particularly to those of the heart, the valvulce venosce — by which we must understand the tricuspid and mitral valves — he says, give ready access to the ventricles from without, and effectually oppose regurgitation from within. Erasistratus also distinguished more accurately than had been done before between arteries and veins ; the arteries alone pulsating by an independent power of their own, whilst the veins were the purely passive channels of c 2 20 ERASISTRA TUS. the blood. Elsewhere, however, he ascribes the beating of the heart and arteries to rhythmical efforts of the vital spirit to escape from confinement. Almost all we know of Erasistratus is derived from the writings of Galen, but the little that has reached us shows him to have been a man in advance of his age, a greater human anatomist than Aristotle, and, if embracing a less extensive field of study, even as particular in describing an : interested in accounting for what he saw as the mighty Stagyrite. (Conf. Op. Galeni et Bib. Anat. Haileri, T. I. sub voc.) HIPPOCRATES. Hippocrates. There is so much discrepancy between one and another of the works ascribed to Hippocrates when anatomical matters are touched on, that assur- edly they are not all products of the same mind. In the book on the heart — 7 Tepl KapS^s — for instance, it is spoken of as a thick and strong muscle, having auricles and ventricles (these last being divided by a dense sulcated partition), giving rise to the great vessels of the lungs and body, which have valves at their roots, for the purpose, it is said, of closing their orifices against any intrusion of the inbreathed air. I n the book on Nourishment — 7 rep), rpcxprjs — however (in which both arteries and veins are spoken of, as by Erasis- tratus, under the name of fiXe'fies, the term artery — - dprepla — being applied to the windpipe and its bron- chial divisions), the blood-vessels are described as arising from the head and other regions of the body rather than from the heart. Of the vessels arising in the manner stated above, there are four principal pairs, as well as several others of less magnitude which take their origin from the 22 HIPPOCRATES. stomach and intestines, and collect and distribute nourishment to the parts of the body, internal as well as external, to which they tend. The vessels in general manifest motion and carry spirit, many branches proceeding from single trunks ; but where these arise or where they end is not well known, “ for in a circle you find no beginning- — kvkKov yap yeyevo/ie'vov apX 7 'i °^X ev P e '@V ” — words which, detached from their context, have been held to show that the world had not to wait for Harvey to proclaim the general circu- lation of the blood, the great physiological fact having been familiarly known to the Father of Physic ! Nor is the above the only passage in the Hippo- cratic writings that has been laid hold of and inter- preted in a similar sense. In the book De Insomniis, the words “ TTOTapLol Be' p,r) Kara rpoirov yivo/aevoL aifiaros TrepioBov repiaLvovai, &c. — but, like rivers, not comporting themselves according to wont, when the course of the blood is interrupted,” &c., give one of the prejudiced people who would ascribe the discovery of the circu- lation to any one rather than its author, an opportunity to translate the Greek aipbajos rrepioBov by the Latin sanguinis circuitus, and to say : “ There cannot be the shadow of a doubt that the circulation of the blood was known to Hippocrates — ut omnino omncm fenestram prcEcludat dubitationi furitne Hippocrati notus circuitus sanguinis .” 1 How several distinct 1 Io. Ant. van der Linden. Hippocrates. De Circulatione Sanguinis Exercitationes, xxvii. Lugd. Batav., 1659-63. 4to. HIS PHYSIOLOGY. 23 currents in circles should imply one general current in a circle, however, is not very obvious, to say the least. Hippocrates believed the heart to be the fountain of the blood and source of the native heat, being surrounded by the lungs in order that its ardour might be tempered by the cooler air they contain. The left ventricle, nevertheless, and somewhat in contradiction with this, is said to be thicker than the right in order to economize or hold the heat ! The ventricles of the heart, inasmuch as they are the source whence proceed the streams that irrigate the body and give life, Hippocrates concluded must impress upon man the whole of his distinguishing powers ; on which account it is that a wound of the heart is followed by instant death. The auricles, again, were appendages to the ventricles — but have nothing to do with hearing, their office being to draw air into their interior for transmission to the ventricles, in virtue of a power they possess analogous to that of the bellows used by workers in metal. But motion is an appanage of the whole heart ; the auricles and ventricles alternately dilating and contracting. Within the ventricles are seen certain membranes, spread abroad like spider’s webs, attached to the sides of the cavities by filaments, spoken of under the name of vevpa, which guard the several orifices that lead into and out of the sinuses. The Greek word vevpov signifying both nerve and sinew, Aristotle, 24 HI PP OCR A TES. as has been said, is generally thought to have believed that the heart gave origin to the proper nerves as well as to the blood-vessels— a conclusion which is not adopted by Hippocrates, who derives the proper nerves from the brain and spinal cord. The mem- branes or valves in question, he thinks, are more perfect on the left than on the right side of the heart ; the left ventricle being the more immediate seat of the soul, and the true centre whence the body is ruled — mens enim hominis in ventriculo sinistro sita est. As by much the most noble organ of the body, the heart is not nourished by blood supplied directly from the intestines, but by blood of a purer kind trans- mitted by a special vein proceeding from the sinus of the vena cava — the vena coronaria. Neither is it to be presumed that the aorta is nourished by the blood it contains ; seeing that both it and the left ventricle are found completely empty in a slaughtered animal — in totum solitudo appareant — or if perchance anything be found in them, it is only a little serum. The right ventricle and its artery, on the contrary, are always seen to be more or less full of blood, this having been in course of transmission to the lungs for their nourishment, an office for which it is fitted after under- going improvement in its quality by the motions of the heart, and obtaining a certain addition of air by the action of the auricles. The air added, however, can be but little ; for it were absurd to suppose that the cold should be in excess of the heat, the blood HIS PHYSIOLOGY. 25 not being hot of itself or by its own nature — like water heated on the coals, it receives the heat it has from the substance of the heart. Many, nevertheless, he adds, are of opinion that the blood is truly hot of itself. In conformity with these views, the arteries are spoken of as venulce calidiores — the vessels charged with heat, as by Erasistratus they had been charac- terized as vasa spiritus , — the vessels charged with zetherialized air or spirit. The veins, again, are always regarded as the proper blood-vessels ; the channels by which the fluid that nourishes the body is conveyed to all its parts. (Conf. Op. Hippocratis a Kuehn, passim.) GALENUS. Claudius Galenus of Pergamos, was born about the 131st year of the Christian era, and lived in high repute at Rome during the reigns of the Emperors Hadrianus and Marcus Antoninus, by the latter of whom he was much esteemed, having been his physician, and, during his absence with the army, entrusted with the guardianship of his son. Galen is said to have travelled extensively in early life, and to have studied medicine at Alexandria, famous above all other cities in his day for its medical school. Piously disposed by nature, we cannot sup- pose that he had not heard something of the doc- trines of the Jewish Sect called Christians, then beginning to be noticed in the world ; but he never professed himself as having belonged to them, any more than did the pious Emperor under whom he lived. Galen must have read the Hebrew Scriptures, however, for he criticizes Moses, and does not entirely agree with him as to the omnipotence of the Jewish Deity. “To the will of God,” he says, “ there was always added considerations for that which was fittest HIS PHYSIOLOGY. 2 7 or best. It was not that God willed a certain arrangement of parts about the eyelids ; he chose the firm cartilaginous structures we find there. Neither could he have proceeded of a sudden to make a man of a stone ; and herein our opinion agrees with that of Plato and others among the Greeks, who have written on the Nature of things, which differs from that of Moses, who thinks that God, had he so willed, could at once have made a horse or an ox out of ashes. But we are not of this way of thinking ; we acknow- ledge that there are some things which nature could not do, which indeed would never be attempted ; whilst of what could be done, choice was made of the best.” A sentence in which we see combined the Leibnitzian idea of “ the best of all possible worlds,” and something like the more modern doctrine of “ Evolution, with survival of the fittest.” Galen himself says expressly, that his work on the Use of the parts of the human body is “ nothing less than a hymn to the Creator — Ego Conditori nostro verum hymnum compono — and I hold that true piety is not shown in the sacrifice of hecatombs of bulls, or in raising clouds of fragrant incense ; but in studying myself to know, and in making known to others, the wisdom, the power and the goodness of God.” (De usu Partium, lib. iii.) Surely very beautiful in one living under the shadow of Temples dedicated to Jupiter and Minerva; more reasonable withal, perhaps, 28 GALEN. than the Cultus of more than one kind now prevailing in the world. In this truly great man we meet with the anatomi- cal, physiological, and medical genius of the ancient world, although it has been conclusively shown that Galen’s knowledge, whether of structure or function, was not derived from any study of the body of man, but from inspection of the bodies of the lower animals. That he had seen the human skeleton, however, is admitted ; and, for the rest, it matters little, as we now know, whether it was from man or beast that the immense amount of interesting anato- mical and physiological information he accumulated and transmitted to us was derived. To this acute and most accomplished man the heart was the most important of all the organs of the body — source of the native heat, and storehouse of the subtle blood replete with vital spirits, by which the whole of the organism was actuated. The heart, he says, is as it were a lamp alight in the middle of the body, the blood being the oil that feeds the flame, and the inbreathed air that which keeps it burning. Respiration consequently is instituted to keep the flame of the heart alive, and to engender the vital spirit, not, as was believed by Erasistratus, to fill the arteries with air in substance. (Lib. de Utilitate Respirationis.) The flesh of the heart, says Galen, is not exactly the same as that of the muscles of voluntary motion ; HIS PHYSIOLOGY. 29 neither when boiled has it the same taste as these ; neither like them is it under the control of the will. The arrangement of its fibres is also peculiar, some of the bundles running longitudinally and others trans- versely ; the former by their contractions shortening the organ, the latter compressing and narrowing it — words which show that Galen did really regard the heart as essentially muscular. The valvular apparatus of the heart is fully de- scribed, and its action thoroughly appreciated, by Galen ; although certain hypothetical ideas force him to speak of the action as less perfect than it is in reality. Made up of auricles and ventricles in warm- blooded animals, the auricles, he says, exist for the sake of the lungs ; the ventricles for the sake of the blood and vital spirits ; neither auricles nor ventricles, however, in their alternate dilations and contractions, have the motion of the blood for their object, or if they do influence this, as is by-and-by admitted to be the case, it is the diastole or expansion of the organ, not the systole or contraction, that comes into efficient play. When the heart dilates, it puts the membranulae within it on the stretch, opens the orifices of the intro- mitting, and closes those of the emitting, vessels ; yet not so completely as to oppose all escape of lighter or more subtle matters. It is to this end, therefore, that whilst one of the two great corresponding ventricular orifices is guarded by three membranes, GALEN. 3o the other — that namely of the arteria venosa or pulmonary vein — is not so effectually cared for ; inasmuch as by it the fuliginous or excrementitious matter of the blood has to find a passage from the heart to the lungs and be emitted with the breath . 1 “ From the arrangement of the valves, here,” he proceeds, “ one might think that nothing could return by any of the other three orifices. But the thing is not so in reality ; for as the blood and spirit are in course of being drawn into the heart at the moment when the valves are coming into action, something may escape or be remitted before they fully and finally close. With the more powerful motions of the heart especially, something more than vapour or spirit, — some blood in substance, may escape. The blood of the arteries being of a thinner, purer, and more vapourous nature than that of the veins, might seem to facilitate the escape in question. So much at all events is certain : that if the arteries of the heart impart something to it, that which is imparted must needs be returned to them by its action ; even as the arteries of the body, sucking in from all the parts, must, by contracting, remit to them again.” 1 “ Quod igitur cor, quo tempore dilatatur, membranarum trahens radices aperit quidem intromittentium materias vasorum orificia, claudet autem educentium ; ne minus etiam quod trahentibus omnibus laeviora expe- ditius obsequuntur ; quodque in aliis quidem oriticiis membrance tres incumbant ; in arteriae venosae orificio non item ; quod earn solam excrementis fuliginosis quae a corde feruntur ad pulmonem dare transitum oportet.” (De usu Partium, lib. vi., cap. 14, 15J HIS PHYSIOLOGY. 3i “ All are agreed,” says our author, “ that one of the ventricles is the instrument of alimentation, the other the instrument of the vital spirit ; the former being cha- racterized by anatomists as the sanguineous, the latter as the spirituous ventricle. That the two ventricles pulsate at the same moment, may be seen by laying open the chest of a living animal ; but they do not contain blood and spirit in the same proportion ; the right having a much larger charge of blood relatively to its charge of spirit than the left, which may be said to contain the substance of the spirit. “ That the arteries contain blood and when wounded discharge nothing but blood, no one will deny who has seen one of them divided. They therefore who with Erasistratus maintain that the arteries contain air, are forced to admit that they must have commu- nications or anastomoses with the veins, and that the veins have thus a share of spirit .” 1 In so important a light does Galen see this subject that he returns to it in a special book in which he combats Erasistratus and those who follow him, saying : “When an artery is wounded we always see blood escape ; wherefore one of two things : Blood is either contained in the arteries immediately, or it flows into them from some- where else. But if from elsewhere, it is obvious that the arteries in their natural state should contain spirit only. Were this the case, however, we should see 1 “ Hag duag vasorum genera mutuis anastomosibus inter se juncta venasque aliqua ex parte spiritus esse participes.” (Ib., cap. 21.) 32 GALEN. spirit escape from a wounded artery as a prelude to any flow of blood ; but as nothing of the kind occurs we conclude that the vessel never contained aught but blood.” 1 Again he says : “ If we lay bare an artery, include a portion of it between ligatures, and then open it, we shall find it full of blood.” And yet again : “ But how, say the followers of Erasistratus, if the arteries contain blood only, does the air we take in when we breathe reach every part of the body ? To whom we reply : wherefore the necessity of its doing so, when all that is taken in is returned again ? Many therefore, and among these some of the most able both of our philosophers and physicians, have seen that the heart requires not air in substance, but cool- ness only, whereby it is refreshed — and this is the purpose of Respiration” — another of the Galenical, and still more ancient errors, that was only dissipated by the progress of modern chemistry, the discovery 7 of oxygen by Priestly, and the theory of combustion announced by Lavoisier. Albert Haller, the most learned anatomist and physiologist of his age (Ele- menta Physiologiae, 1757), retained a lingering belief 1 “ Quoniam arteria quocunque vulnerata sanguinem egredi videmus, duorum alteram sit oportet : vel in arteriis sanguinem contineri, vel aliunde ipsum in eas confluere. Quod si aliunde, manifestum cuique est, cum se naturaliter arterias habebant [ut dictum est], spiritum ipsas solummodo contenuisse, oportebat in vulneratis priusquam sanguis egrederetur spiritum exire conspiceremus. Cum hoc autem fieri non videamus, nec antek solum spiritum in arteriis contentum fuisse collige- mus. (Lib. An sanguis in arteriis natura contineatur ?) HIS PHYSIOLOGY. 33 that the purpose of Respiration was to cool the heart. “ The reason why there are two orders of vessels in the animal body,” says the great man of Pergamos, “ is that the several parts may be supplied with the kind of nutriment appropriate to them. What so absurd as to suppose that the dense and heavy liver should have nourishment of the same kind imparted to it as the light and spongy lungs ? 1 Hence it is, that we see the liver furnished almost exclusively with veins, whilst the lungs are provided in large proportion with arteries. Let us, therefore, admire the providence of nature which ordains a two-fold order of vessels, but arranges mutual openings be- tween the terminations of neighbouring branches of each.” 2 Nor is this by any means the only place in which such communications between arteries and veins are spoken of. In one especially it is said that the blood, thrown by the heart into the aorta, being prevented from returning into the ventricle by the ' semilunar valves at its root, communicates by innumerable 1 Non oporteat eodem alimento partes omnes corporis ali. Si enim unicum esset duntaxat sanguinis vas, simili partes omnes alerentur nutri- mento ; quo quid absurdius dici potest quam ut similem ad sui nutriti- onem postulent sanguinem, verbi gratia, hepar, viscerum omnium gravis- simum et densissimum, et pulrno laevissimus ac rarissimus. Proinde rite a natura factum est ut non arteriae modo, verum etiam venae in animalium corporibus inessent. (De usu Partium, lib. vi., cap. 17.) 2 “ Simul ipsorum fines sibi ipsis vicinos mutuis inter se orifrciis aperuit atque applicuit.” (Ib.) D 34 GALEN. anastomoses with the veins, to the end that they may participate in the vital spirit with which the arteries are especially charged. That there was the freest possible communication between the arteries and veins of the body, was indeed perfectly well known to Galen. The two orders of vessels, he says, anastomose or inosculate by means of certain minute and invisible passages so that if a large artery be divided, both arteries and veins are alike and rapidly drained of their blood---a fact which he had ascertained experi- mentally . 2 In the transfusion which is thus shown to take place, the arteries by their dilatations are said to suck in from the veins, and by their contractions to return to them what thev had taken . 3 •> These matters are seen by our author to be of such moment that they are reverted to and discussed in another work, in which all that is said above is repeated in other words : “If you kill an animal by dividing one or more of the larger arteries, you will find the veins as well as the arteries of the whole 1 “ In toto corpore mutua est anastomosis atque osculorum apertio arteriis simul cum venis ; transumuntque per invisibiles quasdam atque angustas plane vias.” (Ib., vi., io.) 2 “ Arteria magna vulnerata universum animalis sanguinem per earn exhauriret. Hujus rei periculum fecimus subinde ; et quum semper vacuatas cum arteriis venas deprehendissemus, verum esse dogma de communibus arteriarum et venarum osculis nos persuasemus.” (Ib., lib. v., cap. 5.) The two orders of vessels, he goes on to say, do, in fact, communicate freely throughout the body. 3 “ Ouippe per hos transitus arteriae dilatatae ex venis trahunt ; con- tractae contra, in eas regerunt.” (Ib., v., 5.) HIS PHYSIOLOGY. 35 body emptied of their blood ; but this could not happen did not the two orders of vessels inosculate .” 1 “ The heart is ceaselessly in motion from the begin- ning of life to its close ; the principal motion being the diastole, which is ascribed to the innate heat of the organ : As the bellows of the blacksmith draw in air when they are expanded, as the flame of the lamp draws oil to it through the wick, or as the magnet (lapis Heraclius) attracts iron, so is it with the heart : it possesses in itself an inherent power of attraction ; so that even as air is drawn into the lungs by the expansion of the chest in breathing, is the finer part of the blood attracted from the right to the left ventricle of the heart by its diastole, the partition between them having certain minute pores or orifices to this end designed. These indeed are seen with difficulty in the dead body, the parts being then cold, hard and rigid. Reason assures us, however, that such pores must exist. Nature does nothing imperfectly or in vain, and it is not by accident that these passages lie so deeply, or end by such inconspicuous orifices. Besides these pores, however, there are two mouths — duo ora — in the right ventricle, one by which the blood is brought into the heart ; another by which it is sent out to the lungs.” 2 “ But all the blood thus intromitted is not for the 1 “ Quod sane nunquam fieret nisi inter se haberent altera in alteram ora reclusa (De Natura Facult., iii., 15.) 2 “ Quorum quidem alterum sanguinem in ipsum cor intromittet,alterum autem ex ipso in pulmonem deducit.” (Ib., lib. i., cap. 7.) D 2 36 GALEN. nourishment of the heart ; there is even a particular vein distributed to it for this purpose ; and as there is no such disparity between the size of the vena arteriosa, and the arteria venosa, we cannot suppose that any considerable portion of the blood that is sent to the lungs by the former vessel is appropriated by them for their nourishment. It is therefore manifest that it must be transmitted to the left sinus of the heart — Manifeste ergo est quod in sinistrum sinus (cordis) transmittetur How much, we may well ask here, is wanting to a satisfactory account of the passage from the right to the left side of the heart through the lungs ? How much indeed is wanting, in respect of the general circulation, when taken in con- junction with what is said above of the communication between the veins and arteries of the bodv at largfe ? But little, truly, when the language is interpreted by the light we have from Harvey, who himself, reading the text by what he has come to know, gives the writer credit for more than he deserves when referring to him in words like these : Ex ipsius etiam Galeni verbis hanc veritatem confimnari posse, scilicet : non solum posse sanguinem e vena arteriosa in arteriam venosam , et inde in sinistrum ventriculum cordis , et postca in arterias transmitti. 1 But Galen did not believe, neither does he ever say, that the blood passes bodily or in mass from the pulmonary artery to the pulmonary 1 Harvey, Exercit. Anat. de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis, cap. 7 ad medium. HIS PHYSIOLOGY. 37 vein. The blood of the pulmonary artery he believed went mainly to nourish the lungs : it was a certain portion of it only that reached the pulmonary vein by the anastomoses which he imagined to exist between the two vessels throughout their whole course, and not by their extremities only, as we understand matters. This interpretation of Galen’s idea of the pulmonary physiology, is fully confirmed by what is said in the sixth chapter of the tenth book De usu Partium : “ When the thorax contracts, the pulse [here taken for the heart and great vessels], the lungs, and all they contain, being much compressed, the spirit within the arteria venosa is forced out at a great rate, but a certain quantity of blood is at the same time trans- ferred to it by those same subtle orifices. This, how- ever, could not happen were the blood free to flow back to the heart by the ample outlet of the vena arterialis. But return by this being prevented, the compression that is suffered on all sides, forces some- thing to distil by the minute orifices .” 1 The pulmonary veins therefore transzide spirit on the one hand, and receive something — quidpiam, viz. a little blood \ on the other. There is no question of any continuous transfusion from the right to the left 1 “ Cum autem thorax contrahitur, pulsae atque intro compressae un- dique, quae in pulmone sunt, venosae arteriae, exprimunt quidem quam celerrime qui in ipsis est spiritum ; transumunt autem per subtilia ilia oscilla sanguinis portionem aliquam. Quod nunquam accidisset pro- fecto, si sanguis per maximum os (cujusmodi est venae arteriosae) retro remeare potuisset. Nunc vero, reditu per os magnum intercluso, dum comprimitur undique, distillat quidpiam per exigua ilia oriticia.” 38 GALEN. ventricle by the pulmonary artery and vein, but of a simple intercommunion of these vessels ; the pul- monary vein giving spirit to the artery; the pulmonary artery supplying a little blood to the vein — the same process precisely as that which obtains between the veins and arteries of the body at large. Galen did not understand the pulmonary transit as we do. The sigmoid valves of the pulmonary artery, we see, do not serve to make the ventricular contraction efficient in forcing the blood through the lungs from the right ventricle to the left, but to secure the efficiency of the thoracic squeeze by which spirit is forced out here, blood forced in there. Had Galen seen the Septtim cordis as the dense and thoroughly impervious partition it is in fact, or reflected for a moment that the two cavities, divided by a common partition and acting together, could neither give nor take from one another, and gone on to inter- pret the valvular apparatus as truly as his predecessor Erasistratus, he would necessarily have learned that if blood was to reach the left ventricle from the right, the one only way by which it could do so was through the lungs by the pulmonary artery and vein, and that the road from the left to the rieht side of the central organ again was by the aorta and vena cava. Then would the inosculations between veins and arteries of which he speaks, have received the true instead of the hypothetical interpretation he puts upon them, and nothing would have been left for the modern world to HIS PHYSIOLOGY. 39 discover in connection with the circulation of the blood. But the “ divine man ” was hampered by his belief in the two kinds of blood, appropriate to the two systems of vessels, flowing to and fro in their conduits from distinct centres, intercommunicating for fanciful ends by their anastomoses, and having essentially different functions to perform. Theory divorced from fact led to erroneous inference, and ample room was left for further discovery. The arteries, Galen thought, possessed a pulsative and attractive power of their own independently of the heart, the moment of their dilatation being the moment of their activity. They, in fact, drew their charge from the heart, as the heart by its diastole drew its charge from the vena cava and pulmonary vein, in the same way precisely as the bellows of the metal worker draws in air from the atmosphere. The pulse of the arteries he also thought was propagated by their coats, not by the wave of blood thrown into them by the heart. Were the continuity of the canal interrupted by the substitution of an unyielding for the yielding wall, no pulse, he said, would be felt beyond the interrup- tion ; a conclusion which he thought he had proved ex- perimentally. But he was mistaken ; for the experiment has been repeated oftener than once — by Vesalius among others — with a different result . 1 All important as was the heart in Galen’s physiology, as giving origin to the arteries, whence flowed forth 1 De Corp. hum. fab., lib. iii. and iv. 40 GALEN. vital endowment, the liver was yet the organ which had in a certain sense precedence of the heart ; for it was the laboratory of the blood — est sangiiificatione dicatum — and source of the streams that nourish the body. In conformity apparently with the theory univer- sally entertained of the Emotions and Passionshaving their seat in the heart, we have found Aristotle credited with having spoken of it as giving origin to the nerves. Proceeding to extremes in the opposite direction, Galen thought that the heart, if not entirely devoid of nerves, was yet nearly so. It might in- deed have one small branch derived from the nervus vagus sent to it ; but it possessed no such large con- spicuous nerves as we see distributed to the voluntary muscles. Galen overlooked the great nervous plexus surrounding the roots of the blood-vessels, from which branches, minute, indeed, but visible enough when looked for, proceed in company with the branches of the coronary arteries and veins, and penetrate the muscular substance of the ventricles at every point. Errors of Psychology live long in language at least, and errors in Anatomy, too, die hard. We still speak of the heart as if it were the seat of the affections and passions, though we know that their source is the brain ; and it is but yesterday since Galen’s dictum of the heart being without nerves was dissipated. It is now known to be plentifully supplied with filamentous nerves from the sympathetic system, and is even HIS PHYSIOLOGY. 4i said by some to possess special ganglionic coils of its own as stores and strengtheners of nervous action. At such length have I deemed it requisite to speak of Galen, the ruler of men’s mind on all matters con- nected with medical science for thirteen centuries and more ; his authority at once a despotism and a religion, which it would have been treason to question and impiety to gainsay ; his works, with those of Aristotle, the text on which the intelligence of Europe expended itself in criticism and comment during all these ages. But his rule, in any repressive sense, came to an end at last, and mainly through the influence of two men, united in their student lives, as in their misfortunes and early deaths, of whom, after a few words on their teachers, we shall have to speak particularly — Andrea Vesalius and Michael Servetus. 1 1 Could I find any ground in his work De Natura Hominis for the credit Nemesius, Bishop of Emessa, has had given him of having had an idea more or less complete of the circulation of the blood, this would be the place in my survey in which I should have to criticize him. But I am spared the pains, for, though I have looked somewhat particu- larly into his book, I find nothing that is not better and more fully set forth by his authority, Galen, whom he follows with little divergence in all he has to say on the liver, the heart, and the blood. BOOK II.— THE MODERNS. MUNDINUS, BERENGARIUS CARPUS AND THE ITALIAN ANATOMISTS TO HARVEY. CHAPTER I. MUNDINUS — BERENGARIUS CARPUS. The work that served the modern world as Text-book on the subject of Anatomy, for something like two centuries, was that of Mundinus, or Mondini. This Anatomist, so celebrated during the whole period of the Renaissance, flourished in the earlier part of the fourteenth century, and died at Bologna, in the university of which he was one of the medical pro- fessors, so long ago as the year 1 3 1 8. He is said to have composed his work on Anatomy only three years before his death. It immediately arrested public attention, and was in fact the first work after the writings of Galen that led the medical world to think of Anatomy as a somewhat important guide in the interpretation and treatment of disease. The Anatomy of Mundinus, transcribed, of course, times out of num- ber, existed in manuscript only to the year 1478, when it was printed in folio form at Pavia. This edition, I presume, is extremely rare, and I have not been able to meet with it. But there is one forming part of the Fasciculus Medicinae of Joannes & Ketham (1494); and another edited by Jac. Berengarius of 46 MUNDINUS. Carpi, of both of which very rare books there are copies in the Library of the Royal College of Sur- geons. The edition of Jo. a Ketham is especially interesting from the woodcut of the title-page, re- presenting the Anatomist engaged in the dissection of the human body — -the first representation of the kind, I believe, that exists. The edition by Carpus is entitled : Anatomia Mundini noviter impressa ac per Carpum castigata. (Bononise, 1514.) The best edition of the work, however, is that which Carpus published subsequently, under the title of Commentaria cum amplissimis additionibus super Anatomiam Mundini, una cum Textu ejusdem in pris- tinum et verum nitorem redacto. (Bonon. 1521, 4to min.) It is a handsome volume of 528 pages, and I mention it particularly as I find the anatomy of the heart and its valvular apparatus described in terms that for clearness and precision have scarcely been surpassed. Mundinus and Carpus therefore deserve something like special notice from us as pioneers of the anatomical knowledge that eventuated in Harvey. RABELAIS. Rabelais (Francis), born 1483, died 1553. I must by no means omit to mention the immortal author of Pantagruel, for whom a claim has lately been made as discoverer of the circulation. Scattered throughout his work there are several passages which have been interpreted in this sense, but which in truth show no more than that Rabelais, as a learned physician, was the obsequious follower of Galen in so far as the nature and motions of the blood are concerned. In Book III. Chapter 4, for example, he speaks of the blood as the seat of the soul ; the chiefest work of the body being incessantly to make blood. Now the stuff which nature gives to be turned into blood is bread and wine. The teeth chew, the stomach digests, and the mesenteric veins suck out of it what is good ; this is carried to the liver, where it is turned into blood, and then to the heart, which, by its diastolic and systolic motions, subtilizes and heats it so that in the right ventricle it is brought to perfection, and by the veins is sent to all the members. Every part of the body then draws to itself the blood it requires, and after its own fashion is nourished and alimented. 48 RABELAIS. In chapter 31 of the same Book, the Physician Rondibilis, when lecturing Panurge on concupiscence and the means of subduing it, says : “ By painful exer- cises and laborious work, so great a dissolution is brought upon the whole body that the blood which runs along the channels of the veins for the nourish- ment and alimentation of each of its members, has neither leisure nor power to afford the seminal residuum, or third concoction, which nature carefully reserves for the conservation of the kind.” In the same chapter the author speaks further of the spirits running through those pipes, windings, and conduits, which to skilful anatomists are perceptible at the end of the rete mirabile , where all the arteries, having taken their rise from the left ventricle of the heart, converge and end in a single spot. The most notable passage, however, still from the third book (cap. 14), is that in which much of what we have already seen is repeated, and was lately par- ticularly quoted' to show that Servetus and every one else had been anticipated by Rabelais in his knowledge, not only of the pulmonary transit but of the general circulation of the blood. “ The blood,” says Rabelais, is next carried to another laboratory — to wit the heart ; which by its diastolic and systolic motions subtilizes and heats it in such a way that it acquires perfection in the right ventricle, and by the veins is sent to all the members of the body. Each of these 1 By Mr. R. W. Weldon in the “ Athenaeum ” of August 25th, 1877. HIS PHYSIOLOGY. 49 then attracts it and nourishes itself in the manner required — feet, hands, eyes — every part, in short, all of these being now turned into debtors that had previously been lenders. By the left ventricle, again, the blood, rendered so subtle that it is said to be spirituous, is sent by the arteries to all the parts, to warm and ventilate the other blood of the veins . 1 He who is acquainted with the Physiology of Galen, will see no more in all of this than the current ideas of the age : Two kinds of blood, one dis- tributed by the veins for growth and maintenance ; another by the arteries, charged with heat and spirit for vital endowment. 1 “ Puys (le Sang) est transport^ en une autre officine, c’est le cueur, lequel, par les mouvemens diastoliques et systoliques, le subtilise et l’enflamme tellement que par le ventricule dextre le met a perfection, et par les venes l’envoye k tous les membres. Chascun membre l’attire a soy et s’en alimente a sa guise — pieds, mains, yeux — tous : et lors sont faictz debteurs qui paravant etoyent presteurs. Par le ventricule gauche, il le fait tant subtil, qu’on le dit spirituel, et l’envoye h tous les membres par les arteres pour l’aultre sang des venes eschauffer et esventer.” SYLVIUS. Jacobus Sylvius 1 (Jacques du Bois) of Amiens, born 1487, was the scion of a family in easy circum- stances, and enjoyed the advantages of a liberal education without having to struggle for it. His natural temperament, however, disposed him to take every advantage of his opportunities. Distinguishing himself first in general literature, he was only attracted to natural science after having made his mark in the field of Philosophy; but finding Anatomy and its associated disciplines much to his taste, and studying hard, he was soon on a level with all that was known to his teachers, and even before having taken a medical diploma began lecturing on his own account. This of course aroused the jealousy of the Faculty of Paris, which showed itself disposed to pursue him as an intruder ; but every objection being overcome by his graduating at Mont- pellier, he shortly afterwards resumed his anatomical prelections, and with such success that he had usually as many as 500 students on his benches, whilst those 1 In Hippocratis et Galeni physiologiae partem anatomicam Isagoge. iamo. Paris, 1556. Iterum Venet. et alibi. HIS LIFE AND ANATOMY. 5i of the professor in the place of authority were well nigh deserted. Famed for his avarice and the strictness with which he exacted his fee from the students, requiring it to be paid every month, he on one occasion threatened to close his doors until the money due from two of them was either paid, or they were expelled by their fellows ! A miser in the most absolute sense of the word, he lived a solitary life as a bachelor, scarcely allowing himself the barest necessaries of life, and no fire through the bitter Parisian winter ; but taking a turn at hand-ball ever and anon in his chamber to keep him- self warm ! Though it was known that he must have amassed a large fortune, but little was found after his death ; and that secreted in unlikely corners — he had hidden away his treasure where it was never dis- covered. Sylvius must have possessed the art of the lec- turer in perfection ; he had large audiences, as said, and seems always to have proceeded by the way of demonstration : he did not lecture in the style which appears to have been in fashion with other anatomists, from the writings of Galen, but from the dead body ; and when his subject was the materia medica , which he also taught, there were the drugs and preparations in presence ; when it was botany, specimens of the plants described were on the table, and so on. Sylvius was the first who gave particular names to the muscles, and who distinguished between those of e 2 52 SYLVIUS. automatic life and those under the control of the will. The muscles of automatic life he describes under the generic title of villi, their fibres, unlike what is seen in the muscles of voluntary motion, being disposed in layers overlying one another in different directions — longitudinally, transversely, and obliquely. Under his category of villi fall the muscular compages of the heart, stomach and urinary bladder ; the straight fibres in each attracting, the transverse expelling, and the oblique retarding or retaining. It is by the action of the longitudinal bundles, consequently, that the heart has its principal attractive power — the diastole; by the action of the transverse bundles its expulsive pro- perty — the systole; and by that of the oblique bundles combining with the other two orders, its retaining quality (lib. i. chap. 5). Sylvius, however, had highly complicated ideas on the motions of the heart. By its diastole he says it attracts blood into the right ventricle from the vena cava, and air into the left from the arteria venosa (pulmonary vein) ; by its systole, again, it throws the blood it has attracted into the vena arteriosa (pul- monary artery) and arteria magna (aorta), and certain fuliginous vapours or excrementitious matters into the arteria venosa (pulmonary vein). It is by means of its oblique fibres that the heart, in the interval between the diastole and systole, is enabled to free itself of fuliginous vapours. I find little in Sylvius with which we are not already HIS PHYSIOLOGY. 53 familiar through Galen ; but his notice of the valves of the veins is original — he having been aware of the exist- ence of these appendages ; and his account of the influ- ence of the foramen ovale of the foetal heart is not to be found in the works of his predecessors. “In the foetal heart,” he says, “ there is a certain membrane, in the nature of a covercle or lid, at the orifice of the vessel which connects the vena cava with the arteria venosa. It is readily turned towards the orifice of the vas arteri- osum, and thereby prevents the blood from entering the lungs ; but on the birth of the child the membrane coalesces with the edges of the orifice it had hitherto left free, and closes it in the course of the first day, but sometimes not until several days have passed. “ There is a membranous process (epiphysis) of a similar kind at the commencement of the vena azygos, and others also in more than one of the great vessels, such as the jugulars, brachials, crural veins, and trunk of the cava as it leaves the liver. The use of all of these processes, says Sylvius, is the same as that of the membranes which close the orifices of the heart. Some of the membranes in question have even deli- cate layers of muscular fibres like those of the larger veins and arteries, the oesophagus, urinary bladder, & C .” 1 1 “ Membranae quoque epiphysis est in ore venae azygi, vasorumque aliorum magnorum saepe, ut jugularium, brachialium, cruralium, trunco cavae ex hepate prosilientis, usus ejusdem cum membranis ora vasorum cordis claudentibus.” In Hippocratis et Galeni physiologia Isagoge. Venet., 1536. i2mo. Lib. I., cap. 3, p. 3W. The valve at the root of the vena azygos became the subject of fre- 54 SYLVIUS. Sylvius was the first who thought of using injections in tracing the blood-vessels, and so could not fail to discover the obstructions which his liquids, or the air he tried to blow into them, met with in the veins. Strange as it seems to us now, however, and in spite of his assimilating their function to that of the cardiac valves, he does not see their real significance. Galen had said that the veins were the channels of the nutrient blood, and Sylvius was content to have it pass the obstructions within as it best could ! Fabricius of Aquapendente, we might imagine, could hardly have been unacquainted with the Isagoge of Jacobus Sylvius, although we must admit that intercourse between Paris and Padua may have been less easy in his day than it is in ours. Still, that there was intercourse cannot be doubted. But Fabricius has not been challenged by his countrymen, as they have challenged Harvey, with ignoring what others had done before him ; nor has he been spoken of as a plagiarist, because, following the fashion of his age, and believing he had himself something which was new to impart, he failed to refer more particularly to his predecessors for what was familiarly known to be theirs. quent discussion in after years. If it is ever found in the human subject, it certainly is not a constant structure ; neither are any valves found in the vena cava or vena hepatica in man ; but they exist in some of the lower animals — in the dog, among others. Sylvius and they who followed him probably described what they saw from the bodies of four-footed creatures. WINTER OF ANDERNACH. Guinterus (Joannes) Andernacus, — John Winter of Andernach, in the old Archiepiscopate of Cologne. Born in 1487, he died in 1574. 1 As the master of Vesalius and Servetus, this accomplished scholar and able man, had he no other claim, would require a passing notice at our hands. Of humble origin, having had innumerable difficulties to contend with in early life, but by indomitable perseverance and frugality overcoming them all, he achieved the very highest distinction, first in Greek letters, and then in medicine. Whilst engaged as Professor of Greek at Leyden, Winter had Vesalius among the number of his youthful scholars ; and subsequently, after remov- ing to Paris, and when the pupil was more advanced in years, as his anatomical prosector. Such was the repu- tation Winter now attained in his profession that he was appointed Physician to Francis the First, and on his demise to Henry the Second of France. But the Reformation had by this time spread to the 1 Institutionum Anatomicarum ex Galeni sententia, Libri iii. Basil, 1 539 ; and many other works, particularly translations from the works of Galen. 56 WINTER OF ANDERNACH. metropolis ; and Winter, having adopted its tenets, appears to have fallen under suspicion, and been denounced to the higher powers by the opponents of the great movement. Persecution extending, and his personal safety becoming compromised, Winter fled from Paris and found shelter and a home at Metz ; but this was for a short time only. Moving on to Strasburg, he remained there in the double capacity of Professor of Greek and practical Physician to the day of his death, at the advanced age of eighty-seven years. In the introduction to his “Anatomical Institu- tions ” he informs us that he had as his prosectors, “first Andrea Vesalius, a young man, by Hercules! of singular zeal in the study of anatomy ; and second, Michael Villanovanus (Servetus), deeply imbued with learning of every kind, and behind none in his know- ledge of Galenical doctrine. With the aid of these two,” he continues, “ I have examined the muscles, veins, arteries, and nerves of the whole body, and demonstrated them to the students.” Vesalius and Servetus, then living under the name of Villeneuve or Villanovanus, we thus learn were Winter’s assistants in the dissecting room ; and it is surely matter of no common interest that we find these two men — one the creator of modern anatomy, the other the discoverer of the pulmonary transit of the blood — thus associated in a common study, pursued by each in conformity with his mental aptitude and HIS ANATOMY. 57 natural proclivity : Vesalius, the observer, interested in the forms, connections, relations, and structure of the organs composing the body, but indisposed to swerve from the beaten path of interpretation when function came to be considered ; Servetus, the philosopher, the reasoner, nowise negligent of data, but disposed to speculate on the meaning of things as they were, and recking little of authority when its dictum was not found by him in conformity with sensible fact. It must have been in the dissecting room of John Winter of Andernach that Andrea Vesalius and Michael Servetus acquired the intimate anatomical knowledge which, put to interest by each in his own way, has made both of their names im- mortal in the annals of anatomical and physiological science. When we turn to Winter’s “ Institutions” we find him perfectly well informed on the anatomy of the heart. In contact with two such assistants as he had, he was not likely to be behindhand here ; whether it were structure or the possible purpose of all which the scalpel brought to view that was in debate. The heart, according to Winter, is a truly muscular organ ; being constituted by several superposed layers of fleshy fibres variously disposed — longitudinally, obliquely, transversely ; different from ordinary mus- cular tissue, however, and to be assimilated to that which is met with in the intestines, the urinary bladder, the uterus, &c. WINTER OF ANDERNACH. 58 Having a two-fold function to perform, the arrange- ment of the muscular bundles of the heart necessarily differs from that which appears in the muscles of the trunk and extremities ; those that are longitudinally disposed causing the diastole of the organ by their contraction, those transversely arranged begetting the systole, and, in the brief interval between these two motions, those that lie obliquely coming into play and momentarily suspending action, securing the discharge of the fuliginous or excrementitious matters of the blood along with the breath. The ventricles of the heart are two in number only, not three, as had been said by Aristotle ; and they are divided by a firm fleshy partition, through the pores in which the blood reaches the left from the right side of the organ. The mitral, tricuspid, and semilunar valves are accurately described ; their disposition, in connection with the great orifices they guard, being declared to be such as to permit of ingress on the one hand and to oppose egress on the other. But they have an additional duty to perform : Put on the stretch by the motion of the heart, and acting on the coats of the arteries, they cause these vessels to respond at the proper moment and forward the blood which the diastole has attracted to every part of the body. To Winter, as to the older anatomists, we thus see that the blood did not enter the ventricles by any force from behind, but was drawn into them by the HIS PHYSIOLOGY. 59 diastole — into the left from the arteria venosa, into the right from the vena cava ; and the reason why there are only two valves on the left instead of three, as on the right side of the heart, is in order that the orifice they guard should not be so accurately closed as to impede the escape of fuliginous matters from the blood, and thereby endanger the damping or extinction of the native heat enshrined in the ventricles. The lungs are light and spongy, and look as if they were composed of frothy blood — of blood replete with air or spirit — which it is their business to elaborate into the pure, subtle, vapourous and proper aliment of the heart and arteries. The air taken into the lungs in breathing undergoes a change by coming into contact with the vascular network of the vena arteriosa proceeding from the right side of the heart, and of the arteria venosa sent from the left, interwoven as they are with the minute ramifications of the proper air vessel, the trachaea. The vena arteriosa (pulmonary artery) is of such ample size in order that it may transmit a sufficiency of nourishment to the lungs, and its walls are of the thickness we observe, in order that none of the blood it contains may escape through them to the detriment of the peculiarly delicate tissue of the organ it supplies. The walls of the arteria venosa (pulmonary vein) on the contrary, as its office is to impart vital spirit along with the more subtle and attenuated blood 6o WINTER OF ANDERNACH. it contains, are thin and membranous, in order that no obstacle should be opposed to the access of the inbreathed air on the one hand — to the escape of fuliginous vapours on the other. In the above we here and there observe an advance on anything we have found in Galen ; and as Winter, in his Introduction, shows by his language that he was in the hands of his two able assistants, we shall probably do him no injustice when we conclude, that, as he owed his better knowledge of the anatomy of the heart and lungs to the dissections of Vesalius, so in his physiology he had all wherein he advances on his predecessors, from the reflective and more independent Servetus. What we have just found advanced on functional matters had certainly not been said by any one before ; and it does not differ greatly from that we discover in the Christianismi Resti- tutio of Servetus. The remark on the change under- gone by the air and — as we find it in Servetus’s work — by the blood, during its passage through the capillary system of the lungs, is very notable. VESALIUS. Vesalius (Andrea), 1 scion of a respectable German family, natives of the Duchy of Cleves, was born at Brussels in 1512, in which city he received the rudiments of a thoroughly liberal education. Electing medicine as his profession, he proceeded to Paris, the nearest and most flourishing school of medical science of the day, and under Jacobus Sylvius, and Joannes Winter, the professors of anatomy, received initiation into the science in which he was soon so greatly to distinguish himself, and not only to eclipse his masters, but all anatomists who had lived before him. When no more than twenty years of age, in common with Michael Servetus, his senior by some two or three years, he acted as prosector to Winter, and from the way the professor speaks of his assistants it would almost seem that they were the teachers, he the taught. It was from their dissections, as we have seen, that he lectured to his class. 1 De Humani corporis fabrica Libri Septem. — fol. Basil. 1542. Ed. altera, lb., 1555. A magnificent volume, full of figures admirably drawn, having a portrait of the author, as well as a frontispiece, in which he is represented demonstrating from the dead body to a crowd of lookers-on. 62 VESALIUS. With the dead body before him, Vesalius, forced, reluctantly it might seem, to repudiate the authority of Galen on many points in so far as structure was con- cerned, became the creator of modern anatomy. Ser- vetus, gifted with inductive genius and a bolder spirit, after breaking with Scholasticism in theology, and cast- ing off the shackles of Greeks and Arabians in Practical Medicine, inaugurated Rational Physiology when he proclaimed the course of the blood from the right to the left side of the heart through the lungs, and observed the change it underwent in its passage, from the dark colour it had in the veins to the florid hue it showed in the arteries. Nor was it in their studies only that these two remarkable men were associates ; in their misfortunes, and early deaths, they were also fellows. While Vesalius was engaged in examining the body of a young noble- man who had died under his care, the heart was de- clared, by an ignorant bystander, to have palpitated when touched by the knife of the anatomist. Matters would probably have gone hard with Vesalius, who was vindictively prosecuted by the relations of the dead man for murder, not only before the civil tribunal, but before that of the Inquisition, had not Philip II. inter- fered. At his instance the impending capital con- viction for murder and impiety was commuted for a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, with confession made and absolution obtained at the shrine of the Holy Sepulchre. The penance was undergone ; but the HIS ANATOMY. 63 pilgrim homeward bound suffered shipwreck on the Island of Crete or Zante, and perished miserably there. Servetus, again, in his zeal for what he believed to be truth in the super-subtle regions of dogmatic theology, given no chance for his life but such as an honourable man could not accept, had to abide the still more cruel death of the faggot and stake. 1 When scarcely out of his pupilage, Vesalius was elected to the anatomical chair of Padua in 1537; and his fame as a skilful practitioner of medicine as well as a distinguished anatomist extending, he was soon after- wards appointed physician to the Emperor Charles V., and subsequently to his son and successor Philip II. of Spain. Vesalius may be properly spoken of as a pure anatomist. In the sphere of anatomy only did he shine or show himself independent. He is com- paratively brief in his great work when he refers to the functions of the organs he describes ; and what he says is all but invariably in conformity with the views of Galen— if he ever differs from the “ divus homo ” it is never otherwise than apologetically. With his great master, then, Vesalius regards the heart as the seat of the soul and of the emotions and passions. The hottest of all the viscera, it is also the source of the heat of the body, and gives rise to the arteries, but not to the nerves, as had been erroneously concluded 1 See the writer’s work, “ Servetus and Calvin.” London, 1877. 6 4 VESALIUS. by Aristotle. In ceaseless motion, alternately dilating and contracting, and causing the pulse, all its parts have reference to the heat and the spirit. The diastole is the influential act of the organ, its apex being drawn towards its base by the straight fibres which enter into its composition, and the sides thereby caused to bulge. “Were a pyramidal bundle of rushes, tied at top and bottom,” says Vesalius, “ made to approximate by a string passed through the middle of the bundle, the pyramid would be rendered capacious within in the same proportion as it was diminished in length (De Cordis subst., cap. io). The circular and transverse fibres, again, have an opposite effect, constringing the walls, and elongating the organ by forcing the base and apex apart, not otherwise than the pyramidal bundle of rushes would be lengthened were it grasped by the hands from without, the string within having been relaxed. The straight fibres,” he continues, “ we are persuaded serve for attraction, the transverse for expulsion, and the oblique for retention,”- — language meaningless in fact, but accommodated to the physiological ideas of Galen. Thoroughly well informed on all that concerns the anatomy and essential function of the valvular apparatus of the heart, Vesalius, nevertheless, does not question Galen’s assumption of the partial inefficiency of the valves. He is very particular in describing the numerous foveae or pits that appear on the inner HIS ANATOMY. 65 walls of the ventricles, and opposite surfaces of the septum ; but he sees none of them of any depth or pervious, so as to bring the two ventricles into com- munication (De Cordis sinibus, cap. 11.) The vena cava fetches blood from the liver to the right side of the heart, whence it is transmitted to the lungs by the vessel having the structure of an artery, but performing the office of a vein, and therefore called Vena arterialis. The vessel, again, which brings blood and also air into the left ventricle from the lungs, is properly an artery, and so is spoken of as the Arteria venalis. The left ventricle, in fine, gives origin to the great vessel of the body, the Aorta. Vesalius, the scholar of Sylvius, as well as of Winter, could not have been cognisant of the valvular arrangements about the heart alone ; he knew that there were ostiola connected with the veins also, speaks of them as eminences or projections , and even says that they are analogous to the valves of the heart ; but he strangely denies to them the office of valves. To Vesalius, however, we are to remember that the motion of the blood was of a to-and-fro kind — hue acccdit quod per venas arteriasque mutuos materiarum jluxus et refluxus esse (lib. vi., cap. xvi. ad fin.) ; and valves in the veins, acting as such, would have interfered with anything of the sort ; therefoi'e were they not true valves, but accidental rugosities in the interior of the veins, interfering in nowise with their accredited functions. F 66 VESALIUS. Elsewhere, yet not in contradiction with his proper idea of the office of the veins, Vesalius is found speaking of a relapse or return of the blood from the branches of the veins to their trunks — Sanguinis ex venarum ramis in truncos relapsum ; an expression which one so learned, and in general so critically judicious, as Haller interprets into a “not obscure rudimentary intimation of the circulation — non ob- scurum circuitus sanguinis rudimentuml' 1 But as Vesalius follows Galen in regarding the veins as the channels by which the parts of the body are supplied with nutriment, there was necessarily relapse into the trunks of the veins as an element in the to-and-fro motion of the blood within them. He also expresses very clearly the idea that was entertained in the old physiology of the attractions exerted by the various parts of the body for the blood, and of the heart and veins for the blood itself. “ The right Sinus of the heart,” he says, “ attracts blood from the vena cava, and the left attracts air from the lungs through the arteria venalis, the blood itself being attracted by the veins in general, the vital spirit by the arteries." These attractions were, in fact, regarded as the chief causes of all the motions of the blood in its containing vessels. “ So often as the heart dilates,” says Vesalius, “the right ventricle attracts a quantity of blood from the vena cava, which it concocts and attenuates by its heat, 1 Biblioth. Anat., T. I., sub voc. Vesalius. HIS PHYSIOLOGY. 67 and so makes more fit to be carried forward by the arteries. A very small proportion only of the blood thus taken by the right ventricle from the vena cava, however, can possibly filter through the septum to the left ventricle ; by far the larger amount passes to the lungs by the vena arterialis ; and the reason why this vessel has the structure of an artery with the function of a vein — for it takes nourishment to the lungs — is that it may resist the violent contractions of the heart, and the compression due to the motions of the chest in breathing. Its coats also required to be thick, in order that the blood it contains, already attenuated by the action of the right ventricle, should not transude to such an extent as to leave an inadequate supply for the nourishment of the lungs and for eduction through the arteria venalis into the left ventricle, there to be yet further elaborated and perfected into vital spirits. “ The office of the auricles,” he continues, “ is to furnish a little blood to the ventricles at the first moment of their sharp diastolic movement, a provision without which the delicate vena cava and pulmonary artery might be ruptured by the suddenness of the ventricular contraction. “In the same way as the right ventricle attracts blood from the vena cava, does the left draw in air from the lungs through the arteria venalis, for the purpose of tempering its native heat ; and, with the aid of the blood that has filtered through the septum, f 2 68 VESALIUS. of preparing the vital spirit for transmission by the aorta and its branches to all parts of the body. We are of opinion,” concludes Vesalius, “ that these matters pertaining to the functions of the heart may all be accomplished in the manner set forth by the Divine Man.” The functions of the heart we therefore see, are left by Vesalius in no more satisfactory a state than they reached him from his master, Galen. He knows that the septum is really impervious ; but the “ divine man ” has spoken of it as if it were a sieve, and to this the complacent follower assents at one time, though he dissents from it at another ; and in speak- ing of it as perfectly solid makes transudation through it impossible. Vesalius seems even to revert to the views of Erasistratus, combated by Galen ; and against his better knowledge leaves himself little but air, in so far as appears, for transmission by the aorta and its branches to the body at large. When the immense reputation Vesalius so long enjoyed as an anatomist is considered, it is difficult to understand how he did so little in the interpretation of function. He appears to have been one of those men who delight in gathering and garnering up facts, without presuming to reason upon their significance, different far in this respect from his friend and fellow- student, Michael Servetus, open-eyed to all he saw, but still fonder of speculating than of accumulating data. HIS PHYSIOLOGY. 69 In a notable but misty passage of his Christianismi Restitutio, where he speaks of the brighter and purer part of the mind as having its home in one of the chambers of the brain, he says : “ There, calling up the germs of innate ideas in company with the images of things perceived and their similitudes, the mind excogitates and composes others that are new ; from one infers another and another, contrasts, compares, distinguishes, and so, God giving the light, attains to truth at last.” 1 Somewhat freely interpreted we here meet with the very soul of the inductive philosopher — with the spirit that in after years found congenial resting-place in our Bacons, Newtons, and Harveys! 1 “ Ubi lucidior et purior est mentis pars ; quae, divinitus innata sibi idearum semina excerens, ex semel jam apprehensis imaginibus, potest res novas, similitudine quadam, cogitare sive componere, immaginata commiscere, ex aliis alia inferre, inter ea discernere, et puram ipsam veritatem colligere, lustrante Deo.” SERVETUS. Servetus (Michael), a native of the old Spanish King- dom of Aragon, was born in the year 1509 of a family in easy circumstances, his father following law as a kind of hereditary profession in the town of Villanova. From all we know, Servetus must have received an elementary education calculated to qualify him for the service of the Church ; but, of a singularly self-reliant, independent nature, he seems soon to have abandoned the idea of becoming either monk or priest, and betook himself to the study of law as his future profession. With this view he proceeded to Toulouse, the most celebrated legal school in those days ; and there, beside other reading outside the faculty of juris- prudence, he found an opportunity to peruse the Bible — a kind of reading that may be said not only to have influenced the whole of his after life, but to have been that which brought him to his untimely end. Recommended to Fra Juan Quintana, Confessor of the Emperor Charles V., in the quality of Secretary as we may presume, Servetus journeyed from Spain through France in the Imperial suite first to Italy, HIS EARLY LIFE. 7i and then to Germany ; but neither at Bologna where he witnessed the coronation of the Emperor, nor at Augsburg during the sitting of the Diet, did he see aught that did not confirm the strong dislike of the Papacy, its dogmas and all that follows therefrom, which he appears to have imbibed from reading the forbidden book. In the frame of mind with which we may now venture to credit Servetus, service with a priest in the atmo- sphere of a Court was not likely to endure. In the course of a year, or little more, accordingly, we find him free, and, full of certain new theological notions, seeking acquaintance with the Reformers of Basle and Strasburg, by whom, however, with a single exception perhaps, he was very coldly received. Disappointed of recognition in quarters where he seems to have felt sure of sympathy, Servetus now resolved to appeal to a wider public, and to print the treatise he had written on Trinitarian Errors . 1 This he speedily accomplished ; adding in the course of the following year a sequel to the work under the title of “Two Dialogues on the Trinity .” 2 Both of these publications, be it said in a word, meant by the writer to be specially directed against the dogmas of the Church of Rome, were found highly heretical by the Reformers, although the daring specu- 1 De Trinitatis Erroribus Libri Septem. Auctore Michael Serveto alias Reves, ab Aragonia, Hispano. iamo, s. 1 . 1 531. 2 Dialogi duo de Trinitate. 121110, s. 1 . 1532. 7 2 SERVETUS. lations of Michael Servetus of Aragon, the Spaniard, were eagerly read and discussed by the very foremost men among them. No open countenance, however, could be given to the author of such innovations. Not only failing to find favour and footing with the Reformers of Basle and Strasburg, but observing that he had become an object of suspicion, and that his liberty if not his life was in danger from the civil authorities of Basle, Servetus now betook himself to France, under the assumed name of Villeneuve or Villanovanus, by which he continued to be known during the rest of his life. Reaching Paris in the course of the year 1533, he gave himself up to the study of mathematics, geography, and astronomy ; and there, still hankering after theological matters, he sought out and made the acquaintance of the man who subsequently became his most determined enemy and persecutor — the celebrated John Calvin. The next we hear of Michel Villeneuve is in Lyons, engaged as reader and editor in the printing establish- ment of the brothers Trechsel ; and there it was that he became known to Dr. Symphorien Champier, a patron of learning, besides being the physician of highest repute in the city, and well pleased to play the part of a Mecaenas to struggling talent. Interesting himself in one so intelligent and well informed as Michel Villeneuve, Champier led him away from astronomy, mathematics, and theology to the study of medicine 1 See two interesting articles by the Rev. H. Tollin in Goschen’s HIS EARLY LIFE. 73 into the rudiments of which great science Champier appears to have taken some pains to initiate him. But there was no established school of medicine at Lyons. Finding himself in funds, however, through the good work he had done with the Trechsels, he returned to Paris, then in the zenith of its fame as a school of medicine, and attending the prelections of Jacobus Sylvius, and engaging himself as prosector to Winter of Andernach, he acquired such a knowledge of the structure of the human body as led him in after years to the most brilliant induction of his age — the transit of the blood from the right to the left side of the heart by a lengthened passage through the lungs. Graduating M.A. and M.B. in due course, Dr. Villeneuve settled as physician in Paris, and by way of making his existence known to the world of the metro- polis, within a year or so of his reception by the Faculty of Medicine, he wrote and published a small volume on the class of medicines designated Syrups' — much akin, it would seem, to the tisanes still popular in the medical practice of the French. The book was well received ; practical in its ten- dency, and unmistakably written by a man of learning and ability; could its author but have had patience it must certainly have proved the foundation of his fortune. But business comes slowly to the young Deutsche Klinik, 1875, an d Virchow’s Archiv, 1874, Bd. 61, headed Wie Servet Mediciner werde. 1 Syruporum universa ratio ad Galeni censuram concinnata. i2mo. Paris, 1537. 74 SERVETUS. physician, who must nevertheless live ; so that Ville- neuve, impecunious as he felt himself, was compelled to fall back on his geography and astronomy — then called astrology — and to show himself as a teacher of these branches of natural knowledge. He delivered a course of lectures on the subjects named, which proved highly successful, and besides money and friends brought the young professor into vogue as an adept in prescribing for disease and forecasting events in the lives of men from the aspects of the stars ! And we are not to think altogether disparagingly of him who, in the early part of the sixteenth century, believed that every man and woman coming into the world had their destiny foreshadowed to them in the state of the heavens at the hour of their birth. Belief of the kind was still common, although upon the wane, as seems proclaimed by the fact that Villeneuve was shortly afterwards sued by the Faculty and University of Paris, as a practitioner of Judicial Astrology or Divination. Jealousy of the stranger, however, and retaliation for light speech from him of his fellows the physicians of Paris, because of their ignorance of the subject by which he was putting money in his purse and taking patients from them, would seem to have had not a little to do with the institution of the process. Villeneuve fought his battle bravely with the Faculty, but being cast in the suit, he took his defeat so much to heart, that he vacated the field, and pro- HIS LATER LIFE. 75 ceeded first to Charlieu as medical practitioner, and then, on the invitation of its archbishop, who had been among the number of his auditors in Paris, to Vienne in Dauphiny, where for twelve years or more, by the legitimate practice of his profession, he lived respectably and respected, trusted in his calling and on terms of intimacy with the foremost people of the metropolitan city. But the old theological fire, if quenched to outward view, still smouldered in the secret chambers of his soul, and found vent at length in a second theological work, entitled Christianismi Restitutio 1 — The Resto- ration of Christianity. The printing of the book led almost immediately to his arrest and prosecution for heresy, at the in- stigation of Calvin, by the authorities of Vienne. He escaped from prison, however, through the con- nivance of his friends ; but it was only to fall into the hands of the Reformer of Geneva, at whose instance he was arrested, cast into the felon’s dungeon, put upon his trial for life or death, and being condemned to die, he perished miserably at the stake, in the forty-fourth year of his age, and the fifteen hundred and fifty-third of the Christian era. It is in the work on the Restoration of Chris- tianity that the new and pregnant truth in physiology, the transit of the blood from the right to the left 1 Christianismi Restitutio : Totius Ecclesiae apostolicae ad sua limina vocatio, &c. 8vo, min., s. 1. 1553. 76 SERVE TUS. side of the heart through the lungs, is first definitively proclaimed to the world. We have seen Servetus, still in statu pupillari , credited by his master with his particular knowledge of Galenical doctrine ; but he was never its slave, any more than he had shown himself the slave in his first theological work of the metaphysical assump- tions of the Roman Catholicism in which he had been educated. As the work on Trinitarian error had been the first open rebellion against Catholic Dogma by a man of learning, so might the little volume on Syrups be characterized as the earliest lapse from the universally prevalent faith in the pathological and therapeutical dogmas of Galen ; and the physiologi- cal portions of the Christianismi Restitutio, in its turn, be seen as the herald of a new era in medical science. Harvey had, in reality, no proper precursor in the field he made so wholly his own, but Michael Servetus. All the great German and Italian anato- mists, who came between them, were under the spell of Galen. They may have bettered his anatomy, but they made no advance on his physiology. The blood of the vena arterialis passed to the lungs for their nourishment, and was mostly absorbed by them, until Servetus maintained that such a quantity of blood as reached them by the vena arterialis could not be required for this purpose, but must proceed in mass to the left ventricle by the arteria venalis for other purposes. HIS PHYSIOLOGY. 77 Servetus, however, had not, any more than his age, freed himself from the idea that there were two kinds of blood in the body, one appropriate to the veins - — -the natural blood, destined to the nourishment of the parts ; another confined to the arteries — the spirituous blood, the vehicle of heat and vital endowment ; the liver being the source of the one, the heart the fountain of the other. But the way and manner in which the vital spirit was engendered was the subject in physiological science which attracted the most particular attention of Servetus. “ There are commonly said to be three spirits within us,” says he , 1 quoting Aphrodisseus, “ a natural, a vital, and an animal spirit. There are not three spirits however, but two only ; the vital spirit being com- municated from the arteries to the veins, in which it is called natural, by their anastomoses. The blood, therefore, in which inheres the first, or natural spirit, has precedence ; its source and home being the liver and veins. The second or vital spirit, associated with the blood of the arteries, has its origin and dwelling- place in the heart and arteries. The third, the animal spirit, a ray of light as it were, has its habita- tion in the brain and nerves. '“Tres spiritus vocat Aphrodisseus. Vere non sunt tres, sed duo spiritus distincti. Vitalis est spiritus qui per anastomoses ab arteriis communicatur venis, in quibus dicitur naturalis. Primus ergo est sanguis, cujus sedes est in hepate, et corporis venis. Secundus est spiritus vitalis, cujus sedes est in corde, et corporis arteriis. Tertius est spiritus animalis, quasi lucis radius, cujus sedes est in cerebro, et cor- 78 SERVE TUS. “ Situated in the middle of the body, the heart is the first part that lives, and is the source of the vital heat ; but it is from the liver that it receives and vivifies the liquor — the material as it were — of life ; even as the water of the earth supplies material to the superior elements, and being returned by these to the earth united with light, is vivified into vegetable forms. “ From the blood of the liver, then, is derived the material of the soul ; but it has to undergo elaboration by an admirable process which you shall now have described to you, whereby it comes to pass that the soul is said to be in the blood, or the blood itself to be the life ; for the soul is not in the walls of the heart, or in the mass of the brain or of the liver, but in the blood, as God teaches. (Genes, ix., Levit. xvii., Deuter. xii.) “To understand this, the substantial generation of the vital spirit — engendered of the most subtle parts of the blood and the air — has to be properly appre- hended. The vital spirit, then, has its origin in the left ventricle of the heart, the lungs aiding essentially in its generation. It is a fine subtle spirit, elaborated poris nervis.” . . . Cor est primum vivens, fons caloris in medio corpore. Ab hepate sumit liquorem vitas, quasi materiam, et earn, vice versa, vivificat : sicut aquas liquor superioribus elementis materiam suppeditat, et ab eis, juncta luce, ad vegetandum vivificatur. Ex hepatis sanguine est animae materia, per elaborationem mirabilem, quam nunc audies. Hinc dicitur anima esse in sanguine, et anima ipsa esse sanguis, sive sanguineus spiritus. Non dicitur anima principaliter esse in parietibus cordis, aut in corpore ipso cerebri, aut hepatis, sed in sanguine, ut docet ipse Deus : Genes, ix., Lev. xvii., et Deut. xii.” “ Ad quam rem est prius intelligenda substantialis generatio ipsius HIS PHYSIOLOGY. 79 by the power of heat, of a crimson colour and fiery potency, the lucid vapour, as it were, of the purer part of the blood, comprising in itself the substance of water, air and fire, being engendered in the lungs by the mixture of the respired air with the elaborated blood which the right ventricle of the heart communi- cates with the left. “ But this communication does not take place through the partition of the heart, as is generally believed ; but by another admirable contrivance, whereby from the right ventricle the subtle blood is agitated in a length- ened course through the lungs ; wherein prepared it becomes of a crimson colour, and, from the vena arte- rialis (pulmonary artery) is transferred into the arteria venalis (pulmonary vein). Mingled with the inspired air in the arteria venalis, freed by expiration from fuliginous matter, and become suitable home of the vital spirit, it is attracted at length into the left ven- tricle of the heart by the diastole of the organ. “Now, that the communication is effected in the lungs vitalis spiritus, qui ex aere inspirato et subtilissimo sanguine componitur et nutritur. Vitalis spiritus in sinistro cordis ventriculo suam originem habet, juvantibus maxime pulmonibus ad ipsius generationem. Est spiritus tenuis, caloris vi elaboratus, flavo colore, ignea potentia, ut sit quasi ex puriori sanguine lucidus vapor, substantiam in se continens aquae, aeris et ignis. Generatur ex facta in pulmonibus mixtione inspi- rati aeris cum elaborato subtili sanguine, quem dexter ventriculus cordis sinistro communicat. Fit autem communicatio haec, non per parietem cordis medium, ut vulgo creditur. Sed magno artificio a dextro cordis ventriculo, longo per pulmones ductu, agitatur sanguis subtilis : k pul- monibus praeparatur, flavus efficitur, et it vena arteriosa in arteriam venosam transfunditur. Deinde in ipsa arteria venosa inspirato aeri miscetur, expiratione k fuligine repurgatur. Atque itk tandem a sinistro So SERVETUS. in the manner described, is proclaimed by the various conjunctions of the vena arteriosa, with the arteria venosa which take place within their substance, and by the remarkable size of the vena arteriosa, which would not be of such dimensions as it is, nor pour such a stream of the purest blood into the lungs for their nourishment only. Neither would the heart have supplied the lungs in such a manner — a truth of which we seem to be assured when we see the lungs of the embryo otherwise nourished ; those membranes or valves of the heart not becoming unfolded and coming into play until the hour of birth, as Galen teaches. “ The blood is therefore poured in such quantities from the heart into the lungs at the moment of birth, for the purpose indicated. And then, as it is not air only, but blood mixed with air that is carried from the lungs to the heart by the arteria venosa, it is in the lungs not in the heart that the mixture is effected ; as it is also in the lungs, not in the heart, that the florid colour of the spirituous blood is acquired. There is not space cordis ventriculo totum mixtum per diastolem attrahitur, apta supellex, ut fiat spiritus vitalis. “ Quod ita per pulmones fiat communicatio et praeparatio, docet con- junctio varia et communicatio venae arteriosae cum arteria venosa in pulmonibus. Confirmat hoc magnitudo insignis venae arteriosae, quae nec talis, nec tanta facta esset, nec tantam a corde ipso vim purissimi sanguinis in pulmones emitteret, ob solum eorum nutrimentum, nec cor pulmonibus hac ratione serviret ; cum praesertim anteh in embryone solerent pulmones ipsi aliunde nutriri, ob membranulas illas, seu valvulas cordis, usque ad horam nativitatis nondunr opertas, ut docet Galenus. “ Ergo ad alium usum effunditur sanguis a corde in pulmones bora ipsa HIS PHYSIOLOGY. enough in the left ventricle for so great and important a composition ; neither does it seem competent to pro- duce the crimson colour. Finally, as the septum is without vessels and function, it is not adapted to effect the communication and elaboration in question, although something may sweat through it. It is by an artifice like that which we see in the liver, whereby transfusion takes place from the vena portae to the vena cava in respect of the blood, that transfusion is effected in the lungs from the vena arteriosa to the arteria venosa in respect of the spirit. If any one compares what has now been said with what he will find in the sixth and seventh books De usu partium, he will readily comprehend a truth not animadverted to by Galen. “ The vital spirit (thus prepared) is then transferred from the left ventricle of the heart by the arteries to the whole of the body, and in such wise that the lighter portion mounts to the superior parts. There, still nativitatis, et tam copiosus. Item, k pulmonibus ad cor non simplex aer sed mixtus sanguine mittitur per arteriam venosam : ergo in pulmonibus fit mixtio. Flavus ille color k pulmonibus datur sanguini spirituoso, non k corde. In sinistro cordis ventriculo non est locus capax tantae et tam copiosae mixtionis, nec ad flavum elaboratio ilia sufficiens. Demum paries ille medius, cum sit vasorum et facultatum expers, non est aptus ad communicationem et elaborationum illam, licet aliquid resudare possit. Eodem artificio, quo in hepate fit transfusio a vena porta ad venam cavam propter sanguinem, fit etiam in pulmone transfusio k vena arteriosa ad arteriam venosam propter spiritum. Si quis haec conferat cum iis quae scribit Galenus lib. vi. et vii. De usu partium veritatem penitus intelliget, ab ipso Galeno non animadversam. “ Ille itaque spiritus vitalis k sinistro cordis ventriculo in arterias totius corporis deind£ transfunditur, ita ut qui tenuior est superiora petat, G 82 SERVE T US. farther elaborated in the retiform plexus situated at the base of the brain, it reaches the proper seat of the rational soul ; from vital becomes animal, and is finally- perfected into the substance of the soul itself. Plexuses of vessels then penetrate the most intimate parts of the brain, reaching even to the origins of the nerves, imparting to them the faculties of sensation and motion, and although spoken of as arteries, they are in fact a new kind of vessels ; for as in the transfusion (of the blood) in the lungs there is a new sort of vessel between vein and artery, so in the transfusion from artery to nerve in the brain there is a certain new sort of vessel formed of the arterial tunic and meningeal substance.” When the above is compared with all we have found in the predecessors of Servetus, the originality of the writer will not be questioned ; Servetus does in fact stand alone as a reasoner among the anato- ubi magis adhuc elaboratur, prascipu^ in plexu retiformi, sub basi cerebri sito, in quo ex vitali fieri incipit animalis, ad propriam rationalis animae sedem accedens. Iterum ille fortius mentis ignea vi tenuatur, elaboratur, et perficitur, in tenuissimis vasis, seu capillaribus arteriis, quae in plexibus choroidibus sitae sunt, et ipsissimam mentem continent. Hi plexus intima omnia cerebri penetrant, et ipsos cerebri ventriculos interne succingunt, vasa ilia secum complicata et contexta servantes, usque ad nervorum origines, ut in eos sentiendi et movendi facultas inducatur. “Vasa ilia miraculo magno tenuissim£ contexta, tametsi arteriae dicuntur, sunt tamen fines arteriarum, tendentes ad originem nervorum, ministerio meningum. Est novum quoddam genus vasorum. Nam, sicut in transfusione k venis in arterias, est in pulmone novum genus vasorum ex vena et arteria, itk in transfusione ab arteriis in nervos est novum quoddam genus vasorum, ex arteriae tunica et meninge. (Op. cit ., p. 169.) HIS PHYSIOLOGY. 83 mists and physiologists of the Renaissance ; and it is impossible to say with what amount of independent thought, of pregnant suggestion and new truth he might have enriched the world had he not been cut off in the flower of his age. The arrangement of the valvular apparatus at the orifices of the heart, familiar to anatomists since the days of Galen, the disproportionate size of the pul- monary artery to any possible requirement by the light spongy tissue of the lung for nourishment, and the density of the ventricular partition — all led Servetus to conclude that the old teaching on the formation of the vital spirit was untenable. An insignificant and utterly inadequate portion of blood could alone sweat through the septum ; but there was the open way from the right side of the heart by the pulmonary artery to the lungs ; and, presuming this vessel to communicate with the pulmonary vein, a further passage from the lungs to the left side of the heart. The mixture of the inbreathed air with the blood, the first step towards the formation of the vital spirit, took place in the lungs, therefore, not in the heart ; and in the lungs also, not in the heart, was the crimson colour that characterized the arterial blood acquired. These novel views were further confirmed by what Servetus says of fcetal life. During the term of intra- uterine existence, the function of the lungs was in complete abeyance ; the blood did not then pass into them at all, but went direct from the pulmonary artery g 2 8 4 SERVE TUS. by a special canal to the aorta, and from the right side of the heart to the left by an open orifice between the auricles. The fcetus had as yet no independent existence, it lived exclusively through the life of the mother and had no soul of its own. Born and begin- ning to breathe, however, the lungs, following the heave of the chest, expanded, and a passage being thereby opened through their substance from the pulmonary artery to the pulmonary vein, with con- sequent exposure of the blood to the life-giving air, the vital spirit was engendered and the soul of the child acquired. The current which now poured into the left auricle and ventricle by the pulmonary' vein, counterbalancing that which had hitherto flowed into the right side of the heart, the membrane which had guarded the orifice of the pulmonary vein was brought into contact with the sides of the foramen ovale, thus closing it, and the flow from the right side of the heart to the left by way of the lungs was established. Servetus’s physiology of the pulmonary transit left nothing to be added by successors. It was complete. The little he says on the transfusion from the systemic ventricle to the aorta and arteries of the body is as old as Galen. A flow of blood, when it was not of spirit, from the heart to the arteries, had ever been held by anatomists to be even as neces- sary to impart heat and vital endowment to the parts, as the flow by the veins from the liver to minister to their maintenance and nutrition. HIS PHYSIOLOGY. 85 So much said makes it unnecessary for me to insist on the indefeasible title of Servetus to rank as the physiological genius of his age ; and, from what I have still to say of the great anatomists who came after him, to conclude that he was also the most legitimate predecessor of Harvey. It is only of late that all that physiology owes to Servetus has been adequately acknowledged, and it is encouraging to learn that his native country, Spain, has now shown herself not unmindful of what is due to him as a physiologist. In the addresses delivered at the opening of the Anthropological Museum of Madrid, founded by Doctor Pedro Gonzales de Velasco, Servetus is rightfully credited with having proclaimed the way in which the blood reaches the left from the right side of the heart by passing through the lungs and his terrible and undeserved death at Geneva is not for- gotten. “ Servetus,” says Dr. Angel-y-Pulido, the orator on the occasion, “ first proclaimed the passage of the blood from the heart through the lungs, and like other mighty geniuses who have suffered for their discoveries, died, nobly resolute, at the stake . 2 But we now see his statue, along with that of another 1 “ Discursos leidos en la Apertura de Museo Antropologico y Escuola libera del Dr. Velasco, por el Doctor Angel-y-Pulido, y el Dr. Pedro Gonzales de Velasco, Fundator del mismo.” Madrid, 1875. 2 “ Servet, perecer con noble altivez en la hoguera, despues de haber sorprendido el camino que braza la sangre desde el corazon d los pul- mones, y otros eminentes genios sufrir amargas penas como premio d sus grandes descubrimientos.” 86 SERVETUS. great man, set as illustrious sentinels beneath the portico of our Institute.” The statue on the right is that of Servetus ; on the left it is that of Vales, physician to Philip II., who is characterized as “el divino.” The Anthropological Museum of Madrid, let me take occasion to say, was founded by Dr. Pedro Gonzales Velasco, at his sole expense, and dedicated to the memory of his only daughter, whom he lost, to his ineffable grief, when she had just budded into womanhood, and was the very light of his life. I add the touching words in which he alludes to his irreparable loss, dimmed though they must needs be by transla- tion. “ My principal object,” says Dr. Velasco, “ in addressing you in these critical moments of my life, is to express to you the immense happiness, the measureless delight, which now inspires me at seeing realized the ideal for which I have striven these many, many years. Nor will the feeling, I trust, be thought extravagant that leads me to associate with this day and hour the memory of an angel of tenderness and of love, a messenger from heaven, lent by God to lighten the sorrows of this weary life, whom cruel death tore from my arms in days when her caresses were most needful to me — the daughter of my heart, whose image is ever present with me, whose spirit hovers by my side, whose winning smile I still seem to see, but whose kiss the poor bereaved worker for science no longer feels upon his cheek, and whose sweet voice no longer stirs his soul as in days gone by — days that will never be effaced from his mind.” (Discurso del Dr. Pedro Gonzales de Velasco, leido en la Apertura del Museo Antropologico. Madrid, 1875. 4to.) COLUMBUS. Columbus (Realdus) 1 was born at Cremona. He filled the chair of anatomy after Vesalius, in the Univer- sity of Padua, and died at Rome, in 1577. The year of his birth is uncertain. To this distinguished anato- mist, following Galen, the liver is the head, fount, origin, and root of all the veins — est igitur jecur omnium venarum caput, fons, origo, et radix. It is, as it were, the king of the abdomen, its function being to generate the blood — est sanguificatione dicatum, neqne alibi sanguis gignitur. It is mainly composed of veins with some arteries intermixed, and may be characterized as a mass of coagulated blood. The distribution of the vena portae is particularly described ; the peculiar arrangement there conspicuous having for its object the supply of the stomach, spleen, omentum and intestines with nutrient blood — hue vero nisi sunt hi venarum rami tit illorum sanguine nutrientur ventriculus, lien, omentum, &c. The vena portae, however, not only furnishes the abdominal viscera with nourishment, but is the channel by which 1 De Re Anatomica, libri xv. Venet., 1559. Folio. COLUMBUS. the natural blood is transmitted to the vena cava for distribution to the body generally. It has the further duty imposed on it of bringing chyle from the intes- tines to be elaborated into blood by the liver. The motion of the blood in the vena portae must therefore have been imagined to be of a to-and-fro kind, precisely as it was within the vena cava. The vena cava, on entering the thorax, sends two branches to the diaphragm, and one— the coronary vein — to the heart, before communicating with the right ventricle. Passing above the level of the lungs, the vena azygos is thrown off to carry nourishment to the parts to which its branches are distributed — partium earum nutriendarum gratia (lib. vi.) Proceeding to speak of the heart and arteries, Columbus says that the heart is by no means to be reckoned among the number of the muscles — millo autem pacto potest Cor inter musculos connumerari. It is completely encircled by the coronary vein in order that it may be duly nourished ; and the vein is accompanied by an artery, to the end that its substance may be vivified by the vital heat thereby conveyed to it — ut ejiis ope substantia vitali calore vivificetur — an arrangement, he goes on to say, which has led some on gmod grounds to conclude that the vital spirit was engendered in the lung rather than in the heart. It is not unimportant here to ask who had said so ? No one, except Servetus. Describing the ventricles particularly, the right, he says, is the one HIS PHYSIOLOGY. 89 that contains the nahiral blood — sanguis naturalis : whilst the left is dedicated to the service of the vital blood — sanguis vitalis ; and the walls of the left ven- tricle are so much thicker than those of the right to prevent the vital blood, which is extremely subtle and attenuated, from sweating through them — ne extra restidat. Nothing, however, can pass through the septum between the two ventricles, as is commonly said ; for the blood is carried by the vena arterialis to the lung, whence, after having been attenuated, refined, and mingled with air, it is brought by the arteria venalis to the left ventricle, a fact which no one until now has referred to in words or recorded in his writings — quod nemo hactenus azit animadvertit aut scriptum reliquit — I add, except Servetus. Our author now proceeds to describe the arrange- ment of the great vessels connected with the base of the heart, two of these pertaining to the right side of the organ, two to the left. On the right are the vena cava and pulmonary artery , 1 on the left the aorta and pulmonary vein. “ But you are not to think,” he proceeds, “ as many do, that the vena cava arises from the heart ; for it does not really enter the heart, as has been erroneously maintained. It is only enlarged and cleft opposite the heart, and adheres, as it were, to the orifice of the right ventricle, so that the pulmonary artery is to be 1 I shall continue henceforward to designate the vessels by their modern names, the old ones being more or less apt to breed confusion. 90 COLUMBUS. regarded as a continuation of the vena cava, which arises from the liver, and in the foetus is seen continued into the left sinus of the heart. As the vena cava has its source in the liver, so has the pulmonary vein its origin in the heart. The function of the pulmonary artery is to take blood to the lungs for their nourish- ment, and also that it may undergo a change in them for the sake of the heart. It is only when the foetus is born that the communication between the vena cava and the left sinus of the heart is closed ; for then only does the heart assume its proper function.” The modern reader will not, I imagine, greatly approve either of all the anatomical statements or physiological conclusions of Realdus Columbus ; although there is a passing reference to one, if not rather to two, important truths in what is said above. I allude to the change undergone by the blood in the lungs, a fact first noticed by Servetus ; and to the assumption by the heart of its proper office at the moment of birth when the child begins to breathe — another point to which Servetus also directs par- ticular attention, as he thought it was at this moment that the soul was imparted. “ When the heart dilates,” proceeds Columbus, “ it draws natural blood from the vena cava into the right ventricle, and prepared blood from the pulmonary vein into the left ; the valves being so disposed that they collapse and permit of its ingress ; but when the heart contracts, they become tense, and close the apertures, HIS PHYSIOLOGY. 9i so that nothing can return by the way it came. The valves of the aorta and pulmonary artery opening, on the contrary, at the same moment, give passage to the spirituous blood for distribution to the body at large, and to the natural blood for transference to the lungs .” 1 Columbus, we have seen, denied muscularity to the heart, so that it is rather hard to imagine what he could have understood when he speaks of its contract- ing. Ascribing the piilsific power of the arteries to the spirit they contain, as he does, it is obvious that they did not beat from the shock of the heart. The heart, in short, is left by Columbus, as by the old physiology, with its diastole as the efficient element in its activity, and doubtless also with the spirit as the immediate cause of this. Columbus arrogates to himself, and has often had conceded to him, the honour of having first proclaimed the passage of the blood from the right to the left side of the heart by the way of the lungs. But in this we know that he was anticipated by Servetus ; and in other important particulars of which he makes mention, he is not only not in advance of the Spaniard but decidedly in arrear of him. Neither Servetus nor Columbus was aware that the foetal heart acted precisely (diversity of structure 1 “ Idcirco, quando dilatatur cor, sanguinem naturalem a vena cava in dextrum ventriculum suscipit ; necnon ab arteria venosa sanguinem paratum una cum aere in sinistrum ; [ita ut] sanguis spirituosus exiens, per totum corpus funditur, sanguisque naturalis ad pulmones delatus est.” 92 COLUMBUS: taken into account) as that of the adult. The rapid rhythmical pulse of the foetal heart was overlooked by them both, as it was by their age, having been first particularly observed by Harvey. Did we substract all that Columbus had from Galen among the older anatomists, from his immediate pre- decessors among the moderns, — from what is to be found in the Christianismi Restitutio of Servetus in especial, we should find that he had no title to originality of any kind. I therefore come to a totally different conclusion from the eloquent Perpetual Secretary to the French Academy of the Sciences, M. Flourens, on the merits of Columbus in connection with the pulmonary transit of the blood. I do not, like him, see “ the animated description of Columbus as everywhere impressed with the seal of originality ; on the contrary, I have had the conviction forced on me, that Columbus had all that is new in his account of pulmonary matters from Servetus. It is impossible, at the present time, to say whether or not a copy of the Christianismi Restitutio had found its way to the north of Italy in those early days. If the book was ever really to be had in Geneva, as has been said , 2 it is more than probable that a copy was sent by 1 “ J’ai cru voir partout impreint dans la description animde de Colombo le cachet de l’originalitd et de Pinvention.” (Hist, de la Decouverte de la Circul. du Sang, 2me ed., p. 248.) 2 By Mosheim, in his Ketzergeschichte, although I do not believe that it was. It cannot be shown that more than five or six copies of this book were ever taken from the bales in which the whole impression was packed. HAD HE READ SERVETUS? 93 one of the Italian refugees there domiciled, to a friend in his native country. The epistle addressed by Melanchthon to the Senate of Venice, in 1536, warn- ing that august assembly of the presence among them of Servetus’s book on Trinitarian Errors, and Paul Gaddi’s letter to Calvin in 1553, 1 urging the Reformer to take pen in hand and confute the “ Satanic Servetus,” as he calls the pious man whose purpose it was to restore Christianity from its Papal corrup- tion to something like its pristine simplicity and purity. All we know, in a word, makes it probable that as Servetus’s views had numerous adherents in northern Italy, and there were many Italians — physicians and men of letters — in Geneva at the date of the trial and judicial murder, that a copy of the Christianismi Restitutio was sent to some one in Venice or Padua, and that Columbus had access to so much of it, at all events, as refers to matters physio- logical. This seems demonstrated, in some sort, by the similarity of the terms in which the Italian anato- mist sets forth the “ new ” and, as he says, “ until now unpublished views ” he has to communicate, with the language used by Servetus in announcing his dis- coveries and inductions. I place the passages from the Christianismi Restitutio and the De Re Anatomica side by side, so that the reader may judge for him- self : — 1 See the writer’s work, “ Servetus and Calvin : a History of an im- portant Epoch in the Early History of the Reformation.” Lond., 1877. 94 COLUMBUS Michael Servetus (1553). “ Per inspirationem in os et nares est vere inducta anima ; inspiratio autem ad cor tendit. Spiritus vitalis [enim] ex aere inspirato et subtilissimo sanguine componitur ; in sinistro cordis ventriculo suam originem habet, juvantibus maxime pulmonibus ad ipsius genera- tionem. . . . Generatur ex facta in pulmonibus mixtione in- spirati aeris cum elaborato subtili sanguine, quam dexter ventriculus cordis sinistro communicat. Fit autem communicatio haec non per parietem cordis medium ut vulgo creditur, sed magno artificio a dextro cordis ventriculo, longo per pulmones ductu, agitatur sanguis subtilis ; a pulmonibus praeparatur, flavus efficitur, et k vena arteriosa in arteriam venosam transfunditur. In ipsa arteria venosa inspirato aeri miscetur, expiratione a fuli- gine repurgatur, atque itk tandem k sinistro cordis ventriculo totum mixtum per diastolem attrahitur, apta supellex ut fiat spiritus vitalis. Quod ita per pulmones fiat com- municatio et praeparatio confirmat magnitudo insignis venae arteriosae quae nec talis nec tanta facta esset, nec tantam a corde ipso vim puris- simi sanguinis in pulmones emit- teret ob solum eorum nutrimentum, nec cor pulmonibus hac ratione serviret. . . . Ergo ad alium usum effunditur sanguis a corde in pulmonibus hora ipsa nativitatis et tarn copiosus. Item, h pulmoni- bus ad cor non simplex aer sed mixtus sanguine mittitur per arte- riam venosam : ergo in pulmonibus Realdus Columbus (1559). “ Est autem praeparatio et gene- ratio spiritum vitalalium qui post modum in corde magis perficiun- tur. Aerem namque per nares et os inspiratum suscipit, pulmo vero aerem ilium una cum sanguine miscet qui a dextro cordis ventri- culo profectus per arterialem venam deducitur. Vena enim haec arte- rialis, praeterquam quod sanguinem pro sui alimento defert, adeo ampla est ut alius usus gratia deferre pos- sit. Sanguis hujusmodi ob assi- duum pulmonem motum agitatur, tenuis redditur et una cum aere miscetur et praeparatur, ut simul mixti sanguis et aer per arteriae venalis ramos suscipiatur, tan- demque per ipsius truncum ad sinistrum cordis ventriculum de- feratur : deferuntur vero tarn belle mixti atque attenuati ut cordis exiguus prater labor supersit, ut illas per ope arteriae ahorti per omnes corporis partes distribuat. . . . Vena arteriosa magna est satis — immo vero multo major quam necesse fuerit si sanguis ad pulmones supra cor exiguo inter- vals deferendus duntaxat erat. Scribunt in hoc anatomici harum usum esse ut aerem alteratum ad pulmones ferant idque refrigerant fumosque nescio quos capinosos excipere a sinistro ventriculo pro- fectos. Ego vero sentio arteriam venalem factam esse ut sanguinem cum aere a pulmonibus mixtum afferat ad sinistrum cordis ven- triculum. Quando dilatatur cor sanguinem a vena cava in dextrum ventriculum suscipit, nec non ab AND SERVETUS. 95 fit mixtio. Flavus ille color k pul- monibus datur sanguini spirituoso, non a corde. “ Ille itaque spiritus vitalis h sinistro cordis ventriculo in arterias totius corporis deinde transfun- ditur.” arteria venosa sanguinem paratum una cum aere in sinistrum ; dum coarctatur cor [e contrh], aditum spirituoso sanguini exeunti, qui per universum corpus funditur, san- guinique naturali ad pulmones delato.” 1 1 Turning to Douglass’s Bibliographia Anatomica, I see that I have been anticipated in my challenge of Columbus’s originality as to what he says on the pulmonary transit and its influence on the blood. Douglass says : “ Servetum conjectandi locus est Columbum haec ab eo hausisset.” (Op. sup. cit., p. 1 1 5, Ed. 2nd. Lugd. Batav., 1734.) EUSTACHIUS. Eustachius (Bartholomeus) was born at San Severino, some time in the early part of the sixteenth century, and died as Professor of Anatomy at Rome in the year 1574. After Vesalius, Eustachius is deservedly regarded as the most eminent among the restorers of the science he did so much to advance, making us, among other matters, acquainted with the passage from the throat to the internal ear, and observing particularly the process or fold of the lining membrane of the right auricle of the heart between the orifice of the vena cava and the auriculo-ventricular inlet, which in the foetus directs the blood of the inferior cava coming from the placenta through the foramen ovale into the left auricle. Eustachius defends Galen against Aristotle, in regarding the liver, not the heart, as the source of the blood. It is he also who makes so much of the reciprocal attractions exerted by the several organs and tissues for their proper secretions and the nourishment they require and obtain from the blood of the veins. The liver attracts chyle from the intestines by the mesen- HIS PHYSIOLOGY. 97 teric veins ; the bones, the brain, the muscles attract the nourishment they demand from the vena cava and its branches. The renal veins would not transmit urine to the kidneys were it not specially attracted by these organs, &c. It is more reasonable, he thinks, to maintain that the veins, in turn, are possessed of a certain attractive power — -facultas tractoria — than with Erasistratus to say that they are mere inert conduits and are filled like skins or bladders. The arteries are also credited with an attractive faculty of the same kind ; those which are furnished to the mesentery, as he says, attracting and preparing the chyle, not otherwise than do the corresponding veins. The heart requiring a thicker blood for its nourish- ment than the lungs, receives its nutrient vein from the vena cava before the blood has entered the right ventricle. That Eustachius discovered the thoracic duct is certain, but having only observed it in the horse, he seems to have thought it peculiar to this animal ; so that, beyond describing it particularly, as he saw it there, he gave no further heed to the matter. “In horses,” he says, “ from the great venous trunk of the left side of the neck, behind the root of the internal jugular vein, there is sent off a certain large shoot or branch, which, besides having a semilunar valve at its orifice, is full of a white and watery humour. Not far from its origin it divides into two parts, but these soon unite again into one, which, distributing no H 9 8 E US TA CHIUS. branches, passes the diaphragm on the left side of the vertebrae, and proceeds downwards to the middle of the loins, where, having become enlarged, it is embraced by the aorta, and ends obscurely in a manner not yet well seen by me.” 1 Eustachius appears not to have been one of fortune’s favourites, for he lived and died very poor. After overcoming a world of difficulties, and spending his all on a series of anatomical plates, which were out of the engraver’s hands as early as the year 1552, he found himself unable to meet the expenses of printing and publication. They were only brought to light and published by Lancisi under the title of Tabulae Anatomicae, at Rome, so late as the year 1714. 1 “ Itaque, in his animalibus ab hoc ipso insigni trunco sinistro juguli, qua posterior sedes radicis venae internae jugularis spectat, magna quaedam propago germinat, quae praeterquan quod in ejus origine ostio- lum semilunare habet est etiam alba et aquei humoris plena. Nec longe ab ortu in duas partes scinditur, paulo post rursus coeuntes in unam, quae, nullos ramos diffundens, juxta sinistrum vertebrarum latus, penetrato septo transverso, deorsum ad medium usque lumborum fertur ; quo loco latior effecta magnamque arteriam circumplexa, obscurissimum finem, mihique adhuc non bene perceptum, obtinet.” (Opusc. AnaL De Vena sine pari, Antigram, xiii.) AMATUS LUSITANUS. Amatus Lusitanus was a native of Portugal, as his designation implies; one of the physicians of Jewish descent whom the Peninsula supplied for so many ages to the rest of the civilized world. Having left his native country, he settled at Ragusa in Dalmatia, and engaged successfully in the practice of his pro- fession ; but bigotry, intolerance, and persecution being in the ascendant during the reign of Philip II. of Spain, Amatus, as a Jew of some repute, had to fly from his new home on the approach of the ruthless Duke of Alva to the Venetian States at the head of his army, and seek safety elsewhere. This he seems not to have found until he reached the town of Salonica in European Turkey, where he lived to the end of his days, usefully engaged against the host of ills that flesh is heir to, and undisturbed by the Turk, more tolerant to the Jew, in those days, than the Christian. This physician requires a passing notice from us, inasmuch as he enjoyed an extensive reputation in his day, and alludes to “ the influence of the valves which exist in the blood-vessels and elsewhere than at H 2 IOO AMATUS LUSITANUS. the roots of the aorta and pulmonic artery .” 1 He combats Vesalius, who has said that in pleurisy blood is always to be taken from the right arm, maintaining that it ought to be let from the arm of the side on which the pain is experienced ; his objection to Vesalius’s dictum being made on the ground that the branch of the vena azygos which gives rise to the intercostal veins, and so supplies the immediate seat of the disease, cannot be unloaded save from a vein on the same side of the body as that whence the supply comes, because of the valve at the root of the vena sine pari. 1 Curationum Medicinalium Centuriae quatuor, p. 84. Basil, 1556. Fol. FALOPPIUS. Faloppius (Gabriel) of Modena; born 1523, died at Padua 1563. Professor of anatomy in the University of Pisa, first, he was translated to that of Padua in succession to Vesalius, but scarcely enjoyed his eleva- tion to the more distinguished chair for a period of two years. His whole professional life indeed was short ; for he died when he was only thirty-nine or forty years of age ; nevertheless, he is honourably remembered as a great anatomist, and his name is still familiar to us as the discoverer of the open- mouthed conduits leading from the ovaries to the uterus. Faloppius shows himself at all times so adverse a critic of Vesalius, that he seems to have been animated by something like personal hostility towards him. Faloppius had for many years been engaged obscurely, but usefully, as prosector in the anatomical theatre of Padua, and probably looked to the Professor’s chair as his rightful inheritance when Vesalius was appointed over his head. More than this, Vesalius being engaged in seeing his great work through the press at 102 FALOPPIUS. Basle in 1541 and the early part of 1542, Faloppius appears to have acted as his substitute for a term ; and as “ two stars keep not their orbit in one sphere,” smothered dislike broke out at length into the open enmity which is unhappily transmitted to us in the writings of Faloppius. 1 More given to discover defects than beauties, not only in the works of Vesalius but in those of his con- temporaries generally, Faloppius does not fail to notice what Amatus Lusitanus has said about a valve at the root of the vena azygos ; and as the discussion shows how little the function of the valves was understood by the greatest anatomists until after the time of Harvey, it is worth our while to consider the subject somewhat closely. “Amatus,” says Faloppius, “ asserts that there are membranulce or ostioli at the origin of the vena azygos like those at the orifices of the cardiac vessels, which permit the ingress of the blood but oppose its egress ; the ostioli in question having been pointed out to him by Jo. Bapt. Cananus, the distinguished anatomist.” Faloppius declares, however, that he had searched in vain for a valve at the root of the vena azygos in all the subjects he dissected. He is even of opinion that Amatus had not understood Cananus ; and if the experiment that is quoted as illustrating the action of the valve be truly reported, it seems certain that he did not. “If a pipe,” says Amatus, “be introduced 1 Observationes Anatomies. Venet., 1562. HIS PHYSIOLOGY. 103 into the upper part of the vena cava and blown into, the whole of the vessel, along with the vena sine pari, will be inflated ; but if the vena sine pari be divided below, a pipe inserted into it, and air blown towards the vena cava, this vein will very certainly {promt dubio ) not be inflated ; because the air of the vena sine pari will not be permitted to pass by the oper- culum at its root. But if air will not pass, how much less could blood ? ” When Faloppius tells us that he searched in vain for the valve or valves in question, he plainly challenges the truth of their existence ; but he does not advert to their only possible function did they occur. Were there really a valve at the root of the vena azygos, its action would be exactly the reverse of that said to be ascribed to it by Cananus, and assented to by Amatus : blowing into the cava from above, no air would enter the azygos ; blowing into the azygos from below, the cava would be distended. But the veins, until the days of Harvey, were the distributors of the nutrient blood to the body ; and no real obstacle to its course could be thought of as possible. The valves were there indeed, but their office was only to control the rate, not to prevent the flow, of the blood from trunks to branches . 1 1 The credit of Cananus as discoverer of the valves of the veins appears to rest entirely on this report of the Portuguese Amatus, like that of Sarpi in the same direction on the statement of Fulgenzio. Professor Sharpey informs me that he read through Cananus’ rare book entitled “Musculorum corporis liumani picturata dissectio” (Ferrara, 104 FALOPPIUS. 1 543), in the library of the city in which it was published, some years ago, and that in it there is not a word on the valves of the veins / The same excellent authority informs me that he discovered a copy of the Cananus bound up with a number of very ordinary pamphlets among the books of the Hunterian Museum of Glasgow, so that it can now be consulted without going quite so far as Ferrara. It is somewhat singular that one in general so critically exact as Haller should be found speaking of Cananus as the inventor valviilarnm ve 7 iosarnm. And he was not without the opportunity of perusing the book in which common report says the discovery is announced, for he speaks of having had two copies of it for inspection. (Conf. Bib. Anat., Tom. i. sub voc. Cananus.) SARPI. Sarpi (Paul), of the order of the Servites, one of the most eminent of the host of eminent men his country has produced, was born at Venice in the middle of the first half of the sixteenth century. Educated for the Church and entering the priesthood, he joined the order of the Servites in the year 1566. A man of great natural talent and vast learning, Sarpi was also what was much rarer in those days, one of the freer spirits of the world, and in consequence fell under the suspicion of heresy. But he was wary as well as wise ; of irreproachable life, and regular in outward observance, nothing tangible on the score of religion could be brought against him. He did not the less escape the mortal enmity of the Hierarchs of the Church of Rome, for having come to the aid of his native city in its differences with them and their aggressive head, Pope Paul V. In such mortal despite was he held by the Roman Pontiff and his advisers, that nothing short of his life was held forfeit sufficient for the stand he enabled his country to make against their encroachments. Unassailable on io6 SARPI. public and legal grounds, assassination was the means adopted for getting rid of the formidable enemy. In an open street of Venice, accordingly, he was way- laid by a band of hired assassins, and stretched for dead on the pavement with as many as fifteen terrible wounds, each of itself as it seemed a death to life. Against all hope, however, after a struggle protracted over many months, he gradually recovered, and lived for years to do further good and influential work against Papal tyranny and aggression. It is not of the patriot or friar, however, that we have here to speak, but of the anatomist ; for he has been repeatedly credited with having preceded Fabricius of Aquapendente in his knowledge of the valves of the veins, and Harvey in his discovery of the circula- tion of the blood. In the published works of Sarpi, which I have searched through, there is not a word on either the valves of the veins or the circulation of the blood. It is his friend and biographer, Fra Fulgenzio,who informs us that he was aware of the existence of these appendages, and from them had inferred the circulation. This state- ment has of course been repeated by all the subsequent biographers of Sarpi and historians of the circulation. Happily we have lately had a translation by a lady 1 from the original MS. of Fulgenzio, preserved in the archives of Venice, so that we can now judge of the 1 “ The Life of Paul Sarpi, from Original Sources.” By Arabella G. Campbell. Lond., 1S69. 8vo. HIS LIFE AND VIEWS. 107 grounds on which the reports of Sarpi’s anatomical acquirements and conclusions have been circulated. “ There are many eminent and learned physicians,” says Fulgenzio, “still living, who know that it was not Fabricius of Aquapendente but Fra Paolo Sarpi who, considering the weight of the blood, came to the con- clusion that it would not continue stationary in the veins without there being some barrier adequate to retain it, and which by opening and shutting should afford the motion necessary to life. Under this opinion he dissected with ever greater care and found the valves. Of these he gave an account to his friends in the medical profession, particularly to l’Aquapendente, who acknowledged it in his public lectures, and it was afterwards admitted in the writings of many illustrious men.” In the life of Sarpi by Francesco Griselini, appended to an edition of the Father’s works which I have con- sulted, the new biographer gives essentially the same story, but improves upon his predecessor Fulgenzio; and it were easy to quote another and yet another of the prejudiced persons, who on hearsay evidence, and in absolute ignorance of the subject they write about, yet think themselves entitled to pronounce definitively on the merits or demerits of the men whose lives they misrepresent. Nor is the statement of Fulgenzio and his followers all that has been urged for the illustrious defender of his country’s rights against Papal aggression. Pietro io8 SARPI. Gassendi, a more notable man than any of Sarpi’s bio- graphers, in his Life of his friend Peiresc , 1 informed him on a certain occasion that “ William Harvey, an English physician, had lately published an excellent book on the course of the blood in the body ; and among other arguments in favour of his views had appealed to the valves of the veins of which he had heard something from d’Aquapendente, but of which the real discoverer was Sarpi the Servite. On this he, Peiresc, desired to be furnished with the book, and to have an oppor- tunity of examining the valves of the veins, the pores of the septum, denied by Harvey, and various other matters of which I myself will satisfy him.” In this way it comes that haphazard reports get transformed into statements of facts, and honour well won in one direction is given in another in which it is altogether undeserved. We have, therefore, no evidence to show that Sarpi discovered the valves of the veins, and very certainly he knew no more of the circulation of the blood than his contemporaries of Padua and Pisa. Vita viri illustri Claudii de Peiresc. Paris, 1641. 4to. ARANTIUS. Arantius (Jul. Cses.) 1 of Bologna, in the University of which he was professor. Born 1530, he died 1589, and was one of the best anatomists of his age, having made many interesting observations in the science he pro- fessed, some novel, and others in correction of accredited errors. He insisted particularly on the imperviousness of the septum ventriculorum, and maintained that even if it were porous there was no reason why the blood should not percolate from the left to the right, as well as from the right to the left ventricle. We have the name of Aranzi enshrined in our anatomical nomenclature. H e was the first who showed how carefully the valvular apparatus of the heart was completed by the addition of the little bodies like millet seeds which fill the triangular space that would otherwise have been left vacant by the meeting of the semi-lunar valves which guard the origins of the pulmonary artery and aorta. 2 1 De humano fostu liber. Venet., 1571. Ejusdem Anatomicarum observationum Liber, ac de Tumoribus, nunc primum editus. 4to, min. Venet., 1595. 2 “ In cordis etiam particulis illud videtur observatione dignum : quod scilicet in medio circumferentiae janitricum membranarum quae Aortae et Venae arterialis orificii praeficiuntur, cartilagineum corpusculum, grani panici imaginem referens, magna ex parte sit oppositum.” (Obs. Anat., cap. 33. I IO ARANTIUS. Arantius also speaks particularly of the valve which guards the orifice of the coronary vein ; but he is not in advance of Fabricius of Aquapendente in his appre- ciation of the valves of the veins in general ; their office, according to him, being to secure the heart against refluxes of blood, such as might be apt to occur in consequence of the incessant motion of the organ. RUINJ. Ruini (C). Recent Italian writers are by no means agreed among themselves as to which of their countrymen the honour of having discovered the cir- culation of the blood is to be assigned. They are only at one in this — that it does not belong to Harvey. Professor Ercolani of Genoa, for example, is of opinion that Carlo Ruini, a gentleman of Bologna and an early writer on the veterinary art, anticipated Cesalpino, to whom the majority of his countrymen give the glory. In the school of Veterinary Surgery of Bologna, Ercolani has had a tablet affixed in honour of Ruini, with the following inscription : — A CARLO RUINI, SENATORE BOLOGNESE. Che primo Farte veterinaria scientifico, e primo rivelo la Circolazione del Sangue, Questa scuola murata 1’anno MDCCCLXIX., Giambatista Ercolani . Dedicava, Intitolava. Ruini is known in the Republic of Letters by the handsome volume he published on the “ Anatomy and I 12 RUIN'! . Diseases of the Horse .” 1 After a somewhat careful perusal of so much of the work as refers to the san- guiniferous system, I am utterly at a loss to imagine on what grounds Ruini could ever have been spoken of as the discoverer of the circulation of the blood. To Ruini the liver is the chief organ in which the blood is engendered. The vena portae collects nutri- tive material from the stomach, and brings it to the liver, whence it is distributed to the rest of the body for its nourishment . 2 Describing the ventricles of the heart, he says : “ The function of these ventricles is specially to qualify the blood, to engender the vital spirit, and to nourish the lungs. Of the left ventricle the duty is to receive the blood already in so far disposed ; to convert part of it into spirit, and to send on the remainder with the spirits by the arteries to all parts of the body except the lungs, in order that they may participate in the heat that gives life.” A passage which the reader will be at no loss to interpret in conformity with the Galeni- cal physiology of the age. Ruini shows himself well acquainted with the valves of the heart and their action. The auricles he thinks are for the purpose of easing the vena cava and pul- 1 Del’ Anatomia e delle Malattie del Cavallo. Bologna, 1590. Fol. Of which there is a fine copy in the British Museum. 2 II fegato, membro principale, nel quale si genera il sangue, de cui tutte l’altre parti si nutriscono. . . . L ’officio della vena porta e de por- tare il nutrimento del ventricolo al fegato, e d'inde per alcune rami dis- tribuirlo per alcune parti del corpo. (Op. cit ., p. 142.) HIS PHYSIOLOGY. 113 monary vein, which would else have withstood indiffer- ently the vigorous attraction and propulsion of the blood by the ventricles. The pulmonary artery, arising from the base of the heart on the right, and the pulmonary vein from the broad part of the heart on the left, Ruini believes are both alike distributed to the lungs ; the function of the pulmonary artery being to take the light and spumous blood to them from the right ventricle for their nourishment ; that of the pulmonary vein to carry air from them to the heart, and at the same time to conduct away the fuliginous vapours engendered by changes effected in the blood by the air that has been drawn into the left ventricle during its dilatation, this being due to the native heat. The pulmonary vein, has, however, a further office to perform, viz., to supply to the lungs a sufficiency of the subtilized spirituous blood of the left ventricle. The function of the lungs is, as usual, to take in and prepare — but in an arbitrary sort of way — fresh air in quantity sufficient to temper the excessive heat of the heart . 1 But all this only shows Ruini on a level with his contemporaries ; and when we find that with Galen he has the veins distributing the nutrient blood to the body, it is obvious that he could have had no idea other than of a to-and-fro motion of the nutrient or venous, 1 Si temperi il souverchio suo calore ; et habia donde ad ogni suo piacere, possa pigliare l’aere et far le suoi officii. I RUIN I. 114 and of the spirituous orarterial blood, in their appropriate vessels. In one of the many engravings with which the work is illustrated, there is a drawing (Plate I., Book III.), in the explanation of which the letter P refers to the branch of a vein, proceeding, if I recollect rightly, from the subclavian, which “ nourishes the four superior intercostal spaces — una vena che nutrisce le quattro in- tercostali di sopra ; ” and in Plate 1 1 . of Book V., which represents the venous system, G refers to “ the coro- nary veins which nourish the heart — le vene coronali che nutriscono il cuore Professor Valentin of Zurich could never, I should imagine, have seen the Anatomia del Cavallo of Ruini, or he would not have expressed himself as he does in his work on the “ Physiological Pathology of the Heart,” 1 in which he says : “It appears on the whole that in 1553 Servetus was acquainted with the pul- monary circulation, and that Ruini, in 1598, aware in all probability of the hints of Caesalpinus, clearly and distinctly proclaimed the systemic circulation on theo- retical grounds.” How he reconciled this magisterial conclusion with what follows, it is not for me to say. “ Caesalpinus, however, had not freed himself from the to-and-fro motion of the blood in the great vessels, and had perhaps nothing more than an indistinct foreboding of the greater circulation.” ( ! ) To Servetus I, too, unreservedly assign a knowledge 1 Versuch einer physiologischen Pathologie des Herzens. Leips., 1866. HIS PHYSIOLOGY. 1 1 5 of the pulmonary transit. But of Ruini I say that he had no more knowledge of the systemic circulation than Csesalpinus and others of his contemporaries. Misled by Ercolani, the Professor of Zurich’s language in reference to Ruini, is much to be regretted. C7ESALPINUS. C.esalpinus (Andrea) of Arezzo was born in 1519, and died at Rome in 1603, at the advanced age of eighty-four. This distinguished philosopher, physician, and naturalist, after the usual elementary and initiator)’ studies, occupied the chair of Medicine and Botany in the University of Pisa for some considerable time ; but his reputation for learning and professional skill extend- ing, he received a call to Rome, where, as one of the staff of the Colleggio della Sapienza, he continued for many years to teach the branches of medical science that had already won him such fame at Pisa. Caesal- pinus appears to have engaged besides in the active duties of his profession ; and holding the responsible post of physician to the reigning Pope, Clement VIII., he was a person of mark and consideration in the eternal city. The work in which Caesalpinus presented himself to the world was entitled “ Peripatetic Questions — a 1 Ouaestionum Peripateticarum Libri quinque. Florent., 1 57 1 . Ed. 2nda, cum Ouaestionum Medicarum Libris duobus, nunc prim. Edit. Venet., 1593. I have never seen the first edition, but the second, though a scarce book, is accessible in the British Museum and Royal College of Surgeons. HIS LIFE AND WORKS. 117 series of learned disquisitions on the leading principles of the Aristotelian Philosophy, which he, little in ac- cordance with the views of educators and hierarchs in the Church of Rome, presented as hostile rather than favourable to its doctrine and discipline. Challenged with heresy, and even with inculcating atheism, he excused himself by declaring that the conclusions arraigned were none of his, but belonged to the Stagy - rite, and that, for his own part, he disclaimed them entirely. Happily for him his apology was accepted ; the ecclesiastical authorities of the country not insist- ing, as a rule, on the most rigid orthodoxy from learned men provided they but kept their opinions to them- selves, — a compromise in virtue of which Caesalpinus was permitted to live on, not only unmolested, but in honour, under the shadow of the Vatican, to the end of his days. The book of “ Peripatetic Questions,” however, is not all on subjects of Philosophy. Incidentally it contains a good deal of speculative physiological matter, that has led various writers, critics, and patriotically dis- posed persons, to credit its author with having known the circulation of the blood in the sense in which it was first proclaimed to the world by Harvey. Bayle appears to have taken the lead in this assumption ; but he was not an anatomist, and, with all his erudition and critical acumen, not so well qualified to decide on phy- siological as on moral, theological, and historical mat- ters. In the copy of “ The Dictionary ” I possess — i iS CAES A LPINUS. the English version of 1710 — I find these words under the heading of Caesalpinus : “ We should deprive Caesalpinus of a very precious glory if we did not say that he knew the circulation of the blood ; the proofs of it are so plain that they cannot be eluded by any cavil.” The passage upon which this sweeping and very definite, but erroneous, conclusion is founded, is that in which Caesalpinus, speaking of the pulmonary transit of the blood from the right to the left side of the heart, makes use of the misleading word circulation. Every one who is not a mere tyro in physiology, however, knows that nothing more can be implied by the word than is proclaimed in other terms by Ser- vetus, Columbus, and others, contemporaries of Caesal- pinus ; in whose day the passage of the blood, in prin- cipal part at least, from the right to the left side of the heart by the pulmonary artery and vein, had come to be acknowledged as a canon in physiology. The word circulation is, in fact, misapplied by Caesalpinus. “ Conversion (i.e. circulation), says Aristotle, is motion from itself into itself — conversio est motus qui fit ex sese in idem ; but motion in the straight is from itself into another — motus autem per Rectam est qui ab sese in aliud .” 1 Now the motion from the right to the left side of the heart is not circular but direct. It was not, in fact, as a physiologist that Caesalpinus was known to his peers. In so far as we can discover 1 De Naturali auscultatione, lib. viii. cap. 8. HIS PHYSIOLOGY. 119 he seems never to have devoted himself particularly to anatomical inquiries, and was a cabinet rather than an experimental physiologist. There is very little reference to anatomy in his works, and I do not think that there is one anatomical experiment adduced in illustration of a physiological conclusion, — unless, indeed, the arm bound by the bleeding fillet be ac- cepted for something of the kind. It was as a botanist that Csesalpinus shone before his age ; and there in- disputably with right ; for he was the first who pro- posed a natural arrangement of the vegetable kingdom on the basis of affinity of structure ; — the parts of fructification and their product, the seed, being the foundations on which his classification is reared. Had Csesalpinus devoted himself to anatomy, he would, probably, with his philosophical training, have seen matters more truly than he did ; have expressed him- self more clearly than he does; and we should then by possibility have had to award him those higher physio- logical honours that have of late been so persistently but, I believe, erroneously claimed for him by his countrymen. To Csesalpinus, following Aristotle, always his master in philosophy, and Galen, his guide in physio- logy when not opposed to the Stagyrite, the heart is the chief organ of the body. It is the one on which all the others most immediately depend, and that in which the blood, joint product of the intestinal canal and the liver, attains its final perfection, and becomes, 120 CAES A LP IN U S. at once, the proper nutriment of itself and of the body. The heart is, therefore, to be thought of as giving origin not only to the veins and arteries, but also — in agreement with Aristotle — to the nerves. The liver, nevertheless, has a certain precedence in the work of blood-making, and also in the business of alimenting the body ; for Csesalpinus does not gainsay Galen when he speaks of the liver giving rise to two great veins, — the porta and cava, which are continuous with one another. Of these the vena portae is that by which alimentary matter is brought to the liver from the stomach and intestines ; whilst the vena cava, drawing concocted blood from the liver, distributes it by its branches to all parts of the body . 1 On emerging from the liver the vena cava accord- ingly sends one branch downwards to nourish the lower parts of the body, and another upwards, which, before reaching the heart and superior parts, distributes branches to circumjacent organs — to the diaphragm and pericardium amongst others ; — and this would not happen were not the blood elaborated by the liver endowed with alimentive properties. The liver, con- sequently, is possessed of a primary nutrient faculty — vim altricem primo possidet hepar. Moreover, were the blood prepared in the heart alone, there would be 1 “ Nam ex eo (hepate, videlicet), egrediuntur venae duae quarum una est alteri continua, ea scilicet quae Portae Jecoris appellatur, unde fertur ex ventriculo et intestinis alimentum in Jecur; altera, Cava appellatur, quae ex Jecinore sanguinem coctum haurit ac caeteris corporis partibus distribuit.” (Qu. Per, v. 3, p. 116A) HIS PHYSIOLOGY. 12 1 another vein for the reception of the concocted blood ; it would not have to return (regredi) by the same vein ; and that it cannot revert from the heart to the vein is shown by the way in which the three mem- branulae are disposed at the orifice of the vena cava, permitting ingress into the ventricle, but regress in nowise . 1 Caesalpinus, consequently, although with Aristotle he makes the heart the source of the blood and blood- vessels, does not differ from Galen in viewing the liver as the primary organ of the haemapoesis, and the vena cava proceeding from it as the general distributor of what he calls the auctive blood. The office of the veins, says Caesalpinus, elsewhere, is this : “that they should carry blood to all the parts of the body for their 1 “ Vena enim cava ex hepate egrediens ramum unum deorsum dis- tribuit ad partium subjectarum nutritionem, alterum sursum qui prius- quam in cor ingrediatur alios ramos circumstantibus partibus impertitur, ut septo transverso et pericardio, quod non fieret nisi sanguis in hepate prasparatus vim alendi possidet. Insuper si in corde perficeretur sanguis altera esset vena quae coctum sanguinem reciperet, non per eandem regredi oporteret. Ac vero nec regredi ex corde in venam signum est : quia ostio venae cavae tres membranulae coaptatae sunt ita ut conceditur ingressus sanguini in cor, egressus autem nequaquam.” (Quest. Peri- patet., lib. v. qu. 3, p. 117a.) The meaning of the above is made obscure by the first use of the word regredi. Taken as a whole, however, the paragraph can only signify, that had the heart been essential to give the blood the whole of the properties required, another vein than the cava would have been provided to carry the perfected fluid to the parts. As there is no such vein, however, the vena cava cannot terminate in the heart ; it only communicates with the organ at a tangent (in the manner described by Columbus), supplying it with the blood that is required for impregnation with heat and the generation of spirit, and then continuing its course to nourish the upper extremities and the head, as, indeed, we find it stated immediately in the text. 122 C/ESALPINUS. nourishment ; for these are nourished by the blood alone. Therefore it is that nature has instituted the hollow veins for this special duty, and that, like rivulets, they run throughout the body .” 1 Need I add that he who has the hollow veins as distributors of the blood for the nourishment of the body, can have no conception of the Harveian Circulation ? The whole of the natural hepatic blood, however, has not gone by the vena cava beyond the heart to nourish the head and upper extremities. A certain quantity of it, thick, crude, and intensely hot, has entered the large, excessively hot right ventricle, from which, not being permitted to regurgitate by the arrangement of the valves, it is transferred to the left ventricle, whence, purified and tempered, it passes on to the aorta . 2 But the transference is not effected exclusively in the old Galenical fashion, by percolating the septum. It takes place mainly by way of the lungs, the blood passing from the pulmonary artery to the pulmonary vein, between which vessels free anastomotic commu- nication is presumed ; cold air being, at the same time, imparted to the blood by the divisions of the trachsea 1 “ Hanc esse venarum utilitatem ut omnes partes corporis sanguinem pro nutrimento deferant ; etenim membra omnia solo sanguine aluntur ; propterea cavas natura procreavit venas dedita opera, ut instar rivulorum per corpus excurrent.” 2 “ Ex dextro ventriculo cordis amplissimo et calidissimo, vena cava sanguinem crassiorem in qui calor intensus est magis, ex altero autem ventriculo , sanguinem temperatissimum ac syncerissimuni habente egre- ditur aorta ex lateri sinistro (Q. P., lib. v. 3, p. n8a.) HIS PHYSIOLOGY. 123 which run side by side with the pulmonary veins, but have no communication with them by open mouths as Galen believed . 1 “ With this circulation of the blood from the right to the left ventricle by way of the lungs, everything discovered by dissection is in complete accordance ; for as there are two vessels ending in the right ventricle, so are there two ending in the left. Of the two, however, one only in each intromits, the other emits, the valves being so arranged as to secure this result.” 2 We have thus, according to Caesalpinus, two kinds of blood ; one concocted sufficiently by the liver to give it alimentive qualities ; another more fully elabo- rated by the heart in view of higher properly vitalizing powers. Differing essentially, these severally required containing channels in harmony with their qualities. Hence the two orders of vessels, — veins and arteries. The hepatic blood, coarse and thick, could be readily confined within the thin diaphanous veins, but the car- diac blood, subtle, attenuated, and spirituous, required 1 “ Idcirco pulmo per venam arteriis similem ex dextro cordis ventriculo fervidum hauriens sanguinem, cumque per anastomosim arteriae venali reddens, quae in sinistrum cordis ventriculum tendit, transmisso interim aere frigido per asperae arteriae canales quae juxta arteriam venalem protenduntur, non tamen osculis communicantes, ut putavit Galenus, solo tactu temperat.” (Ib.) 2 “ Huic sanguinis circulationi ex dextro cordis ventriculo per pulmones in sinistrum ejusdem ventriculum, optimd respondent ea quae ex dissec- tione apparent. Nam duo sunt vasa in dextrum ventriculum desinentia, duo etiam in sinistrum. Duorum autem unum intromittit tantum, alterum educit, membranis eo ingenio constitutis.” (Ib.) 124 CJESAL PINU S. the dense, close-grained arteries to prevent its finer parts from escaping before it reached the organs on which it conferred heat and vital endowment. As there are two kinds of aliment, says Caesalpinus, elsewhere — nutritive and auctive — so are there two orders of vessels ; the veins supplying nourishment, the arteries giving vital endowment . 1 We thus see that Caesalpinus had not got beyond the old Galenical principle of the veins as distributors of the natural alimentive blood, and of the arteries as channels of the elaborated nutritive or spirituous blood ; each distinct in itself and only intercommunicating in the course of their distribution by hypothetical anas- tomoses, in order that each might participate in the other’s qualities. As we proceed we shall find that the whole physiological system of the philosopher of Arezzo consorts and fits in with these inherited ideas ; and, doing so, it necessarily follows that he was in- capacitated from attaining to the conception of any- thing more than a to-and-fro motion of the two kinds of blood in their respective channels. Coming after such anatomists as Vesalius, Faloppius and Columbus, we might have imagined that Caesalpinus would have had an adequate knowledge of the imper- viousness of the septum and the action of the cardiac valves. But he is not independent enough to accept 1 “ Cum enim duo sunt genera alimenti, nutritivum et auctivum, duo etiam sunt genera vasorum, venae scilicet et arteriae. Venae enim alimen- tum suppiditant, arteriae spiritum flammae.” (Ou. Perip., v. 3, p. 1 17b et 123&) HIS PHYSIOLOGY. 125 without reservation the truths which the structures proclaim. Some portion of the blood, he thinks, still sweats through the septum, and the valves do not close the orifices of the heart completely. Galen, we know, had the valvular apparatus of the heart acting imperfectly to permit of the escape of fuliginous vapours by the breath. Columbus derided the idea of these fuliginous vapours ; and in so much he is followed by Csesalpinus ; but the imperfect action of the valves is retained by him from his older and more authoritative master for another reason : It was no longer a small quantity of blood that passed by the septum from the right to the left ventricle ; but a copious stream that took its way by the pulmonary artery and vein. The motion of the venous and arterial blood, however, being of a to-and-fro kind, it was necessary to guard against exhaustion of the veins on the one hand, of infarction of the arteries on the other ; and this Csesalpinus appears to have believed was secured by regurgitation, now to this side of the heart and again to that. It is only in this view that what he says of the imperfect action of the cardiac valves, and of the constitution of the mitral valve in particular, can be interpreted. The orifice of the aorta, even, he thinks is only “ closed against the motion of the spirit, lest by its abundance the native heat of the heart should be suppressed ; and the orifice of the vena cava is protected against motion out of the heart, lest its flame should be 126 C/ESA LPINUS. extinguished by the quantity of aliment flowing in upon it .” 1 What the precise meaning of the above may be is, perhaps, questionable ; but such language consorts in nowise with the conception of a continuous motion of the blood — alternately venous and arterial — in a circle throughout the body ; and every modern physiologist knows that imperfection of the valvular apparatus of the heart makes such a thing impossible. What prac- tical physician in these days would listen to the man who should maintain that imperfect action of the valves of the heart was a beneficent arrangement of nature ? Csesalpinus’s total misunderstanding of the action of the heart might seem of itself to strip him of every title that has been advanced for him as having divined the circulation of the blood. “ We are not compelled,” he says, “ to have the valves of the educing vessels [the pulmonary artery and aorta] close with the dilatation of the heart ; for it does not dilate that it may attract ; neither is there any danger of regurgitation from the arteries to the heart ; for the motion takes place from the veins to the heart, the heat attracting the aliment, and, at the same time, from the heart to the arteries, the same motion opening both orders of orifices — those of the veins 1 “Jure igitur arterise magnas ostium adversus motum spiritus in cor clauditur, ne ejus copia suffocetur calor. Venae autem ostium adversus motum ex corde obsistit, ne cordis flamma copia alimenti extinguatur.” (O. P., lib. v. p. 123^.) HIS PHYSIOLOGY. 127 into the heart, those of the arteries out of the heart .” 1 The effect of the diastole according to Caesalpinus, therefore, is : not closure of the semilunar valves of the efferent arteries and patency of the tricuspid and mitral valves ; neither is that of the systole to close the tricuspid and mitral valves and open the semilunar valves of the pulmonary artery and aorta — they all shut up and fly open together ! The diastole of the heart does not even, as in the accredited physiology, attract the blood into its cavities ; it is the heat acting on the accession of aliment, that is the attracting power ; and the heart, from the active agent in any possible movement of the blood, is left with no special duty but that of churning and giving the fluid its final per- fection ! Caesalpinus finds renewed occasion in his Medical Questions to speak of the distribution of the blood and spirits to the body ; and has additional matter which helps us accurately to gauge the extent of insight he could have had into the real nature and motion of the blood. “ In animals,” he says, “ we see aliment brought by the veins to the heart as to the laboratory of the native heat, and having there '“Non cogimur membranas vasorum educentium claudere in cordis dilatatione ; non enim dilatatur ut attrahat ; nec ullum imminet pericu- lum ne transumptio fiat ex arteriis in cor ; motus enim fit ex venis in cor, caliditate alimentum trahente, simul autern ex corde in arterias ; idem enim motus utraque oscula aperit — venae scilicet in cor, cordis autem in arterias.” (Qu. Per., lib. v. p. 123m) 128 CjES A L PIN US. acquired its final perfection, distributed by the arteries to the whole body by the agency of the spirit which is there engendered from the same alimentary matter .” 1 This has been seized upon in an especial manner by the friends of Csesalpinus, as showing that he under- stood the circulation of the blood ! But they then speak in ignorance or forgetfulness of the old physi- ology. Caesalpinus says no more, in fact, than did his master Galen, by whom the spirituous blood of the left ventricle was believed to be borne by the arteries to every part of the body — these communicating by anastomoses with the veins to supply them with spirit, which they would else have been without, and receiv- ing in turn from the veins the nourishment they required — a conclusion summed up by the philo- sopher of Arezzo in the words I have already quoted : Vents alimentum suppeditant , arteries spiritum flammcs. There are yet many statements in the peripatetic questions of Csesalpinus, that ought to satisfy every candid inquirer that he had no idea of the circulation of the blood as it was proclaimed by Harvey. How, for instance, shall we understand what he says of the cease- less supplies of aliment and flame which he presumes to flow into the heart by the veins, with a commensu- rate efflux of spirit by the arteries, which would make 1 “ Nam in animalibus videmus alimentum per venas duci ad cor tanquam ad officinam caloris insiti, et adepta ibi ultima perfectione, per arterias in universum corpus distribui, agente spiritu, qui ex eodem alimento in corde gignitur.” (De Plantis, L. i, C. 2, p. 3.) HIS PHYSIOLOGY. 129 any contraction of the heart and arteries impossible ? 1 Or how connect a meaning with what follows : “ As the strength of animals depends on a certain moderate tension of their several parts, were the extreme ori- fices of the vessels larger, the fire, [the spirit] would then flow more freely, indeed, but the vessels would be unduly relaxed ; were they smaller, the tension of the vessels would be greater, but there would then be risk of suffocation, the openings not sufficing for the efflux of the fire . 2 By the light of the old physiology we can, indeed, attach a certain meaning to such language ; but it is without sense when taken in connection with the con- ception of a ceaseless flow of the blood in a circle throughout the body. Assuming, as he does, a continuous motion of the blood from the heart by the arteries to all parts of the body because of the continuous generation of the spirit, “ the blood,” says Caesalpinus, “ bears along with it at the same time the nutritive aliment, and from the veins draws to itself the auctive aliment by the inoscula- tions which the Greeks call anastomoses .” 3 How, we 1 “ Si continua est alimenti suppeditatio et flamma continua, continuus quoque erit effluxus spiritus per arterias : hoc autem existente nunquam fiet cordis aut arteriarum contractio.” (Qu. Per., lib. v. p. 123^.) 2 “ Quoniam autem animalium robur in mediocri quadam partium tensione consistit, si quidem extrema vasorum oscula ampliora fuissent, liberius quidem ignis efflueret, sed vasa laxa nimis forent ; si vero angus- tiora essent, tensio quidem vasorum fieret, sed suffocationis periculum immineret, cum non sufficerent meatus ad ignis effluxum.” (Qu. Per., lib. v. p. 125a.) 3 “ Motus igitur continuus a corde in omnes corporis partes agitur, K 130 CrESALPTNUS. might ask, should Caesalpinus have missed the oppor- tunity here so obviously presented, to speak of the continuous transfusion of the blood from the filamentous arteries to the corresponding filamentous veins ? It was because he had no idea that anything of the kind took place. All he says, however, is in entire conformity with the Galenical idea of the two kinds of blood and the two orders of vessels, giving and taking reciprocally, the veins receiving spirit from the arteries, the arteries drawing aliment from the veins. The blood-vessels distributed to the various organs of the body, according to Csesalpinus, ended there — they resolved themselves into the several tissues. “ Aristotle,” he says, “ tells us that the nerves are nothing more than terminations of the aorta ; some of its branches ending in the brain and there assuming the nature of nerve ; others ending in the inferior parts and members of the body . 1 The nerves, as they con- sist of a multitude of delicate tubes, may in fact be split lengthwise ; for the minute blood-vessels end in straight fibres constituting nerves — navi venules in fibris rectis desinunt nervos constituentes!' But if the nerves be the terminations of the aorta, how should so much of the blood which the vessel con- quia continua est spiritus generatio. . . . Simul autem alimentum nutritivum fert, et auctivum ex venis elicit per osculorum communionem quem Graeci anastomosim vocant.” (Ou. Per., lib. v. 3, p. 123a.) 1 “ Nihil enim alittd est nervus guam extrema aorta j alia qmdem in capite , id est in cerebro , naturam nervi occupantia , aha autem cuxa wins partes , id est circa crura etarticulos totius corpoiis.” (Ou. Per.,v. 3, p . 1 20 b.) HIS PHYSIOLOGY. ?3 r tained as was not required to animate the parts return to the heart ? How but by the way it came — flowing now from trunks to branches, and then from branches to trunks. To enforce his idea of the arteries ending in nerves, Caesalpinus even makes the vessels of the right side cross to the left, with a view to account for the fact that injury to one side of the head is often followed by paralysis of the opposite side of the body ; x an assumption by which we learn that, according to Caesalpinus, the properties of the nerves depended entirely on the access of the spirit conveyed to them by the blood of the arteries. The brain itself has rather a singular function ascribed to it in the crude physiology of our author. “ The finer parts of the blood,” he says, “ being subli- mated by the heat of the heart, would be dissipated and lost, were there not a means provided for its refrigeration. It is with good reason, therefore, that nature has placed the cold, moist brain in the upper part of the body, seeing that it is the property of heat to ascend, and that those creatures which have the highest temperature have also the greatest mass of brain — man in especial" ! With such fancies we are not to be surprised when we find Caesalpinus actually comparing the brain of man to the alembic of the chemist, the upper part of which is kept cool by 1 “ Arterise dextri lateris nervos constituunt sinistri, et e converso.” (0. Med., ii. 2 , 10 .) K 2 132 C/ESALPINUS. means of cold water! (Quaest. Peripat., v. p. 120 & 1 21). When we meet with matter like this in the work of the great philosopher of Arezzo, and turn to the Exercises of Harvey, we see that it is not for our know- ledge of the circulation of the blood alone that we stand indebted to him. He brought reason and common sense into the whole field of physiology, which was nothing less than a chaos to the most advanced anatomists and learned philosophers of the age in which he taught and wrote. The principles upon which blood-letting was to be practised, enable us on new grounds to judge of the claims that have been advanced for Caesalpinus as discoverer of the general circulation. The Fifth Question of the second Book of the Medical Ques- tions is headed “ Particular diseases require the section of particular veins.” “ It is by no means matter of indifference,” he says, “ from whence blood is taken in treating diseases. In epistaxis from the right nostril, for example, the inner branch of the veins of the right arm is to be selected, inasmuch as it is derived from the lower part of the jugular vein, and so communicates with the veins of the heart. “ But why, say some, the need of any such specifica- tion, seeing that the vena cava can be unloaded from the veins of either the right or left arm ? To this I reply first : that the vena cava, although it be one , has nevertheless branches that proceed from it right and HIS PHYSIOLOGY. 133 left, like the roots of a tree. Secondly, I say, the veins conjoin with the arteries by inosculation in such a way, that when a vein is opened it is the blacker venous blood that issues first, and the more florid arterial blood that follows, as commonly happens .” 1 That is to say : although all the veins communicate, still, as the great venous trunks throw off the branches which supply particular parts with their nourishment, the disease of each part is to be most immediately attacked by opening the vein which supplies it. But he, I need hardly observe, who has the veins as distri- butors of nutrient blood to the body could have had no suspicion of the Harveian Circulation. And what are we to understand by the mode of con- junction between the veins and arteries being such that it is the darker venous blood which escapes first, and the brighter arterial blood which follows when phle- botomy is practised ? Had Csesalpinus really freed himself from an idea akin to that of Erasistratus, who believed that as the arteries contained air or spirit, whilst the veins contained blood, when an artery was wounded the spirit escaped as a prelude to blood flowing into it by its anastomoses with a neighbouring vein ? In the same way precisely, would it seem, does the modern physiologist believe that after the black blood proper to the vein opened by the phlebotomist 1 “ Vence cum arteriis adeo copulari osculzs, ut , vena secta, primum exeat sanguis venalis nigrior, deinde succedat arterialis flavioi ', ut plerumque contingit.” (Qu. Med., lib. ii., qu. 5, p. 212a.) 134 C\'ESA LPINUS. has escaped, the bright blood of a neighbouring artery finds a way into it by the anastomoses by which spirit is usually imparted ! I have myself bled both men and women very many times, but can aver that I never saw the stream when arrested to be less grimy than it was when it began to flow ; nor, when two cups were used, that the blood in the second was more florid than that in the first. Or is what has just been said due to our author’s misconception of Hippocrates’ observation on the animal bled to death by dividing an artery ? The florid blood of the artery, says the father of physic, then flows first ; the darker blood of the vein follows. And this within narrow limits is true ; for respiration having ceased in articulo mortis , the last few beats of the heart propel dark, not florid blood. But Csesal- pinus, adopting the statement in a converse sense, makes the bright blood of the artery follow exhaustion of the dark blood of the vein. There is more on the subject of bloodletting, in connection with inflammation of the spleen in par- ticular, which accords with what has just been said, but which it would be tedious to criticize at greater length. o And now we approach the topic that has been paraded more than all else said by Caesalpinus, to show that he had anticipated Harvey, viz. : d he swelling of the veins of an extremity when a bandage is so HIS PHYSIOLOGY. 135 applied as to obstruct the flow of the blood within them. “It is especially worthy of investigation,” says Caesalpinus, “ why, when a bandage is applied to an extremity, the veins swell beyond and not on this side of the obstruction, as all are aware when about to perform phlebotomy. The opposite of this, however, ought to happen if the motion of the blood through- out the body proceeds from the viscera ; for the passage being blocked, onward progress would then be prevented, and the swelling of the veins ought to occur on this side of the obstruction, not beyond it. Now is the difficulty here encountered solved by Aristotle when writing on Sleep (cap. iii.) he says, ‘Whatever is evaporated is of necessity sent else- where, and is then reversed and turned back like Euripus ; but the hot in animal bodies must needs ascend ; once in the upper region, however, much of it is reversed and brought downwards .’ 1 But the true explanation is as follows : The passages of the heart are guarded by nature in such a way that there is free intromission from the vena cava into the right ventricle, from whence there is an outlet to the lungs by the vena arteriosa. From the lungs, again, there is 1 “ An solvitur dubitatio ex eo quod scribit Aristoteles de somno cap. 3, ubi inquit : Necesse enim quod evaporatur aliquo usque impelli, deinde converti et permutari sicut Euripum ; calidum enim cujusque animalium ad superiora natum est ferri ; cum autem in superioribus locis fuerit, multum simul iterum revertitur, ferturque deorsum.” (Ou. Med., lib. ii., qu. 1 7, p. 234.) 136 CsESALPTNUS. another ingress to the left ventricle by the arteria venosa, from whence there is an outlet by the aorta ; the valves at the mouths of the vessels being so placed that they prevent retrogression. By this it comes to pass that there is a kind of perpetual motion from the vena cava by the heart and lungs into the aorta, as we have explained in our Peripatetic Questions . 1 “ As in waking-hours, however, the movement of the native heat is outwards to the organs of sense, whilst in sleep it is inwards to the heart, we are to conclude 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, that 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 ; and it is during sleep that the native heat passes from the arteries to the veins by their inosculations called anastomoses, and from them to the heart. But as the undulatory flow of the blood — sanguinis exundatio — to the superior parts, and its ebb — retrocessus — to the inferior parts, like Euripus, is manifest in sleeping and waking ; so is the kind of motion in the part of the 1 “ Pro cujus loci explicatione illud sentiendum est : cordis meatus ita a natura paratos esse ut ex vena cava intromissio fiat in cordis ventricu- lum dextrum, unde patet exitus in pulmonem ; ex pulmone praeterea alium ingressum esse in cordis ventriculum sinistrum, ex quo tandem patet exitus in aortam, membranis ad ostia vasorum appositis ut impe- diant retrocessum. Sic enim perpetuus quidam motus est ex vena cava per cor et pulmones in arteriam aortam, ut in Ouestiones Peripateticas explicavimus.” (Qu. Med., lib. ii., qu. 17, p. 234.) HIS PHYSIOLOGY. 137 body to which a fillet is applied, or in which a vein is obstructed in any other way, not a matter of obscurity. For as rivulets swell in the direction towards which they are wont to flow when their course is obstructed, so does the blood perchance revert to its source at the time, lest it should be cut off and perish .” 1 But how shall “ the kind of perpetual movement from the heart to the aorta,” of which Caesalpinus speaks above, consort with the reciprocating periodical efflux and afflux to superior and inferior parts that follows ? Or what is there, after all, in the so- called explanation which really does nothing more than repeat the to-and-fro euripus-motion of Galen, with the Aristotelian modification that relegates it to the periods of sleeping and waking, and so takes from it any possible significance it could ever have had ? And does his reference to the reason why streams obstructed overflow their banks, help our philoso- pher out of the maze in which he is entangled ? 1 “ Cum autem in vigilia motus caloris nativi fiat extra, scilicet ad sensoria, in somno autem intra, scilicet ad cor, putandum est in vigilia multum spiritus et sanguinis ferri ad arterias, unde enim in nervos est iter ; in somno autem eundem calorem per venas riverti ad cor non per arterias, ingressus enim naturalis per venam cavam datur in cor, non per arteriam. Transit enim in somno calor nativus ex arteriis in venas per osculorum communionem quam anastomosin vocant et inde ad cor. Ut autem sanguinis exundatio ad superiora et retrocessus ad inferiora instar Euripi manifesta est in somno et vigilia, sic non obscurus est hujusmodi motus in quacunque parte corporis vinculum adhibeatur, aut alia ratione cum occ'luduntur vena;. Cum enim tollitur permeatio intumescunt rivuli qua parte fluere solent. Forte recurrit sanguis eo tempore ad principium ne intercisus extinguatur.” (Qu. Med., lib. ii., qu. 17, p. 234.) CrESALPINUS. 138 Streams certainly do not revert to their sources when obstructed, but overflow in directions opposed to these ; and the source of the blood, according to Cmsalpinus, being the heart, the comparison of the obstructed stream overflowing its banks is not quite apposite to the swelling of the obstructed veins beyond the bandage. Had Caesalpinus surmised that the swelling was due to the continuous influx from the capillary arteries to the capillary veins, and from these to their branches and trunks, here was another oppor- tunity he would not have missed to explain himself, and so to solve the riddle. But as he had no concep- tion of anything of the kind, he passes on, leaving the matter the enigma he found it, and satisfying us that he had no more definite conception of the reason why the veins of the arm bound by the bleeding fillet became turgid beyond the obstruction, than the most ignorant phlebotomist of his day. Nor is Caesalpinus helped out of his difficulty by what he says on “ the passage out and in of the native heat during sleep from arteries to veins, and from thence to the heart by the communion of their orifices, called anastomoses .” 1 There is here no question of a passage of blood, but of native heat, another name for 1 Somnum et vigilium fieri calore nativo intus et extra vergentej i.e., During the hours of sleep the native heat tends inwards ; during those of watching it flows outwards ; a conclusion, were it even the blood and not the heat associated with it of which Caesalpinus speaks, which would still be incompatible with the ceaseless transfusion of the whole mass of blood from the arteries to the veins in the course of a very few minutes as demonstrated by Harvey. HIS PHYSIOLOGY. 139 vital spirit ; and the anastomoses are the Galenical provision whereby the veins receive from the arteries, and the arteries from the veins throughout their course, as well as by their extremities, that in which they are severally deficient : spirit or heat in the one case, nutrient faculty in the other. The ideas involved do not in fact differ from those of Csesal- pinus’s physiological master Galen, modified by his more immediate preceptor Aristotle. The to-and- fro motion in both orders of vessels is maintained ; but the times or periods in which the flux and reflux take place, instead of being continuous as with the Coan sage, are referred to the hours of sleeping and watching by the Stagyrite and his follower. N either are we brought in any better way to see that Caesalpinus had a true conception of the motion of the blood in the body by what he says of the pheno- mena that accompany attacks of epilepsy and angina suffocativa. The sense of suffocation in these cases, he tells us, “ is owing to no interception of the veins themselves, but to the interception of those things which are carried by the veins to the head, because of their importance and excellence.” 1 The material stoppage, however, is of the blood in the veins ; this much is certain ; and 1 “ Non efficit autem suffocationem quaelibet venarum interceptio ; sed si ese intercipiantur quae feruntur ad caput propter magnitudinem et praestantiam. (Qu. Med., lib. ii., qu. 17, p. 234^.) 140 C/ESALPINUS. the jugular veins must consequently have been seen by him as the channels whereby from trunks to branches the excellent and important things (heat and spirits, heat especially —omnis enim virtus in calore consistit ) are carried from the heart to the brain. But he who sees the veins as conduits to the parts of the body, whether it be of blood or spirits, can have no conception of the arteries as sole afferents, of the veins as sole efferents of the blood, and so no idea of the motion of the vitalizing fluid in a circle, as first announced and demonstrated by Harvey. Caesalpinus, as said, was not a practical anatomist, and no more than a speculative physiologist. He often appears to be mentally at war with thoughts sug- gested by what he sees himself, in face of the defec- tive physiology of his age. Everything of an anatomi- cal nature in the Peripatetical Questions is to be found in Vesalius and Columbus ; and so little had their author any true idea of the physiology of the san- guiferous system, in spite of all that his friends of to-day have said for him, that in his latest work , 1 written but the year before his death, he has still the vena cava proceeding from the liver, and distributing the alimentum auctivum for the maintenance of the bodily parts, and supplying the heart with the material of the alimentum nutritivum for distribution by the arteries . 2 1 Praxis Universae Artis Medicae. Tom. ii., Rom., 1602-3. 2 Vena cava ramos in 1 totum corpus dispergit, ut simul cum arteriis universas partes nutriant. (Op. cit., T. ii., p. 281. Ed. Venet., 1680.) HIS PHYSIOLOGY. 141 There, too, he actually compares the four vessels issuing from the heart for the distribution of the blood to the body, to the four rivers flowing out of Paradise to irrigate the four quarters of the world ! 1 Caesalpinus, to conclude, was unfortunately fettered by Aristotle and Galen, and by the subserviency to authority he had imbibed from the educational system of his country. Caesalpinus was not an original and certainly not an independent thinker, or he would have interpreted matters otherwise than he does, and, it may be, have even attained to what I have charac- terized as the Great Induction. But this he did no more than any one of his teachers, so that it was reserved for another, son of the freer atmosphere of England, philosopher, scholar, and reasoner like himself, but vastly better anato- mist, and indisposed to bow submissively to any authority save that of nature. Referring to the most learned and competent, judicious and impartial critic of his age — Albert Haller, let us say in fine that : “ It is not to Csesalpinus because of some few words of doubtful meaning, but to Harvey, the able writer, the laborious contriver of so many experiments, the staid propounder of all the arguments available in his day, that the immortal glory of having discovered the circulation 1 “ Distribuitur sanguis in quatuor venas — scilicet cavam et aortam, arteriam venalem et venam arteriosam, — totum corpus irrigat instar quatuor fluminum ex Paradiso prodeuntium.” (Ib., lib. i., cap. i.) 142 C/ESALPINUS. of the blood is to be assigned.” 1 Nevertheless, on the 30th of October, 1876, in the Hall of the University of Rome, in presence of the Minister of Public Instruc- tion, the Professors and a numerous and distinguished assembly, a marble bust in honour of Ceesalpinus was unveiled to public view, with the following inscription on a tablet underneath : — ANDREW CAESALPINO domo Aretio Archiatro eximio Solertissimo Naturae investigatori Quod in Generali Sanguinis Circulatione Agnoscenda ac demonstranda Caeteros antecesserit Plantas nondum in Species distributas Primus ordinandas susceperit Rerum plurimarum impeditam Intelligentiam Explicuerit Universam Morborum doctrinam Magno cum plausu in hoc Archigymnasio tradiderit Sodales Medici et X viri Archigymnasio moderando Honoris et Memoriae causa III pridie calend. Octob. MDCCCLXXVI. 1 “ Adparet non Casalpino , ob paucas aliquas et obscuri sensus voces , sed Harvejo , numerosissimorum experime7itor7im laborioso auctori, graviqne scriptori argu77ie7itoru77i 077iniu7ii qua; eo avo profe7Ti pote7'a7:l immortalc77i gloria .771 inventi circuitus sa7igumis debcrid (Elementa Physiologiae, vol. i., lib. iii., Sect. 3, § 32.) FABRICIUS. Fabricius (Hieronymus). Born at Aquapendente in 1537, Fabricius received his medical education at Padua, and after a term of engagement as anatomical demonstrator, succeeded Faloppius, who had been his master, in the chair of Anatomy, to which at a later period was added that of Surgery, the branch of the healing art in which Fabricius greatly distinguished himself. Among the works of Fabricius, that on the valves of the veins 1 is the one which especially interests us. In this he speaks as if he believed he had been the first to observe these Ostiola, and informs us that he discovered them when dissecting in the year 1674, prior to which date he says they had escaped the notice of anatomists. “ Who, indeed,” he proceeds, would have thought of finding membranes and ostiola within the cavities of the veins of all places else, when their office of carrying blood to the several parts of the body is taken into account ?” 2 “ The ostiola never- ' De Venarum Ostiolis. Petav., 1603. 4to. 2 “ Quis enim unquam opmatus fiusset intra venarum cavitatem repe- riri posse membranulas et ostiola? cum cum pnzscrtim venarum cavitas quce ad deferendum sangidnem i?i corpus universiim erat comparata libera , ut libere sanguis permeare futura cssetP (Op. cit. ad initium.) 144 FABRICIUS. theless were necessary,” as he thinks; “and we may therefore safely say that they were contrived by the Almighty Maker of all things, to prevent over-disten- sion of the veins .” 1 They are therefore found in greatest number in the veins of the extremities, because of the violent motions to which they are there exposed ; the effect of which is that a great degree of heat is excited in them, and the blood, by reason of the increased heat, is attracted and flows towards the extremities in excessive quantity .” 2 To prevent over-distension, however, was not the most important duty the valves of the veins had to perform ; their chief business was, in fact, so to retard the flow of the blood in the vessels as to give the several parts or tissues time and opportunity to appropriate the kind of nutriment they required. Nothing of a valvular nature, on the contrary, was wanted in the arteries. They were not liable to distension, owing to the thickness and strength of their coats ; neither did the blood need to be delayed in them, as the flux and reflux in their canals went on perpetually . 3 1 “ Procul dubio tuto possumus dicere ad prohibendam venarum disten- sionem fuisse ostiola a summa Opifice fab?'icatad (Op. cit.) 2 “ Procul dubio vi caloris excitatus sanguis ad artus in tanta copia fluxisset atque attractus fluisset (Ib.) 3 “ Erat profecto access aria ostiolorum constructio in art man vcnis, ut scilicet sanguis ubique catenas retardetur, quatenus cuique particulcc aliment o fruendi congruum tempus detur. Arteriis autem hcec ostiola non fuere necessaria j neque ad distensionevi pi'opter tunica crassitieni a.c robur , neque ad sanguinem remorandum j quod sanguinis flux us refluxusque in arteriis perpetuo flat.” (Ib.) HIS PHYSIOLOGY. ! 45 The reason why the vena cava and great veins of the neck are generally without valves, is because the brain, heart, lungs, liver, and kidneys require the very freest supply of aliment ; and, as being the organs most immediately essential to life, admit of no im- pediment to its access. If we do find valves at the root of the jugular vein, it is to the end that the blood should be checked when we stoop or lie down, and not be poured like a river in overwhelming quantity upon the brain . 1 That the valves retard the blood in the manner described, says our author, is readily shown by an attempt to rub an extremity downwards ; “ You will then see the course of the blood intercepted and plainly retarded by the ostiola.” Among the many illustrative drawings given by Fabricius of the valves in all parts of the body, he has the arm bound as for bleeding, with the turgid veins and the seats of the valves indicated by the slight elevations noticeable here and there; precisely as we find it in Harvey. But the purpose of the two writers was different ; Fabricius’s object being simply to show that there are valves inthe veins, Harvey ’sto prove that they made any flow of the blood from trunks to branches impossible. The most important anatomical fact given to the world between the ages of Servetus and Harvey, which 1 “ Ea ad sangninem detinendiwi ne in declivi capitis situ , in cerebrum instar fluminis irruat atque in eo plus justo cumulaturl (lb.) L 146 FA BRICIU S. should have influenced ideas on the motion of the blood, was unquestionably that of the existence of valves within the veins by Fabricius of Aquapendente. But, strange as it now seems to us, his demonstrations of the ostiola in his lectures, and the wider announce- ment of their existence through the publication of his Book, had no influence on the physiological ideas either of himself or his age. Fabricius of Aquapendente, however, was at once the most learned and the most honoured anatomist of his day. Created a Cavaliere di San Marco, by the Senate of Venice ; presented with a gold chain as a badge of their respect ; ordered to have precedence of the other professors, and in his old age pensioned by the State for the good service he had done ; he is yet, by the most recent Italian writer on the discovery of the circulation, acknowledged “ not to have had even the most remote idea of a circulation of the blood." 1 If this be true, who among his contemporaries could have been better informed ? The extracts I have given from the “Tractatus de Venarum Ostiolis,” present, I believe, a faithful picture not of the ideas of Fabricius only, but of his age ; and seem to me, when scanned without prepossession, to settle the question as to the state of knowledge on the subject of the circulation in the nearest possible proximity to the epoch of Harvey. 1 “E notissimo del resto che Fabrizio non ebbe la piu lontano idea di una Circolazione del Sangue.” (Ceradini, Oualche appunti storico- critiche, &c., p. 148.) HIS PHYSIOLOGY. 147 Had a motion of the blood by the arteries from the heart as the impelling power, returning to it by the veins in a ceaseless round, been even surmised, it could not possibly have been unknown to Fabricius of Aquapendente, and he “ having not the most remote idea of such a thing,” it was also necessarily unknown to his contemporaries . 1 The Italian anatomists, to the end of the sixteenth century and beyond it, were the servile followers of Aristotle and Galen. They lacked the independence of mind that lets men see things as they are — the intellectual introspection that combines and deduces, the poetical vision “ That bodies forth the forms of things unseen,” and gives new truths to the world. 1 Caspar Hoffman, who persistently opposed Harvey, was his fellow- student at Padua. Can we suppose that he, too, another of the most distinguished anatomists of the day, overlooked that in the writings of Caesalpinus which now meets certain modern, prepossessed, and indif- ferently informed critics with something like noonday distinctness, but is quite invisible to those who do not read what is said with the light supplied by Harvey ? Let me add what Haller says : Voces Cassalpini, per semiseculum publicatas, neminem ad verum agnoscendum movisse, sedne quidem Hieronymum Fabricium viam aperuisse ad intelligendam veram valvularum venarumque functionem. (Biblioth. Anat., T. i., p. 365.) L RUDIUS. Rudius (Eustachius), born at Belluno about the middle of the sixteenth century, after the usual elementary studies, received his medical education at the Univer- sity of Bologna. Soon after his reception as Bachelor of Medicine, he settled as Physician in Venice, where he by-and-by acquired such a reputation for learning, devotion to his profession, and skill in the treatment of disease, that on the anatomical chair in the University of Padua falling vacant in 1599, through the retire- ment of Fabricius of Aquapendente, he was promoted to it by the Senate of Venice, the patrons of that distinguished school of medicine. Rudius, however, seems to have been looked on by his colleagues as among the number of the weaker brethren, and the wisdom of his election to a chair that had been filled by Vesalius, Faloppius, Columbus and Fabricius to have been questioned. So much we gather from the Preface of the work he published shortly after his appointment, 1 by way apparently of vindicating his competency to the place, and the dis- 1 De naturali et morbosa Cordis constitutione. Venet., 1600. 4to. AS ANATOMIST. 149 cretion of the Senators of Venice who had installed him. It seems to have been presumed by his un- friends, that he who but a few years before had pub- lished a great folio volume of between twelve and thirteen hundred pages in close set small type , 1 must needs have exhausted himself — it was hardly possible to imagine that he could have anything more to say than he had already said. And truly, when we com- pare the quarto which he now produced with the one he wrote twelve years before , 2 and the chapter on the same subject in the great folio, published in the intermediate time, it looks as if he had not been judged amiss ; for the latest production is but an iteration of its predecessors ; the same views in nearly the same words being everywhere conspicuous. It was on the score of his anatomy, however, that Rudius was particularly challenged ; everything that had the slightest smack of novelty or interest in his new book on “ Natural and Diseased Conditions of the Heart” being declared to have been taken from Columbus. He quotes Columbus oftener than once, indeed, in his text, and had no thought apparently of borrowing without acknowledgment of his indebted- ness ; but the taunt of his enemies led him to retort, and say that Columbus had himself had all that was newest and most notable in his De Re Anatomica 1 De humani corporis affectibus dignoscendis, curandis, &c., Libri. iii. Fol. Venet, 1590-95-97. 2 De virtutibus et vitiis Cordis. Venet., 1587. 4to. RUDIUS. 150 from Michael Servetus ! Fresh from the study of Servetus, I was led to look narrowly into this, and with the result that is already before the reader. The question we have now to deal with, therefore, is not whether Rudius borrowed from Columbus, or Columbus drew from Servetus, but whether Harvey took his idea of the general circula- tion of the blood, as has been said by a recent writer , 1 from Eustachio Rudio. To decide on the likelihood of this, Rudius’ ideas on the anatomy and physiology of the heart and sanguiferous system will serve as sufficient guide. “ The heart,” says Rudius, after Columbus, “ is not muscular in its structure. It gives rise to the arteries, and is the source of the fervent spirituous blood ; the pulsation of the organ being specially instituted in order that the innate heat should neither be unduly dissipated, nor suffered to accumulate in excess. The diastole of the heart, he declares, draws in air from the lungs, elaborates the subtle blood, tempers the innate heat by means of the air, and obtains materials for the engen- derment of the spirits. The systole , again, expels fuliginous matter from the blood, and distributes ener- gizing heat to all parts of the body through the arteries ; the ceaseless dilatations and contractions of the heart being mainly instrumental in producing the vital spirit. 1 Prof. Zechinelli, of Genoa, in his work, Delle Dottrine sulla Strut- tura e sulle Funzioni del Cuore £ delle Arterie, &c., Disquisizione. Genoa, 1838. HIS PHYSIOLOGY. 151 Plato is quoted by Rudio as his authority for con- cluding that the office of the heart is to distribute the spirituous blood by the arteries ; the liver being left with its old Galenical duty of supplying alimentive blood by the veins. The current in the veins, he says, is not rapid and forcible as it is in the arteries ; on the contrary, it is sluggish ; and the reason why the veins do not pulsate is because the blood they contain has not the hot and spirituous nature of that of the arteries. To Rudio, in conclusion, as to the older physiologists, the heart is the source and seat of the emotions and passions— love and hate, hope and fear, courage and anger, &c. It is abundantly obvious, therefore, that Rudio had nothing in the shape of anatomical knowledge that is not to be found in Galen, Vesalius, or Columbus ; and, when narrowly looked into, that he, moreover, like others who write on what they do not perfectly understand, occasionally interprets the more modern authorities amiss. Rudio was a man of much learning, but still helplessly bound in the fetters of Galen. There is hardly a page of the great volume I have adverted to that does not show repeated references to the “ divus homo.” Rudio was in fact a pathologist and practical physician ; not by taste and training an anatomist and physiologist. But the Venetian Sena- tors, whom he treated successfully for their ailments, did not doubt that he was competent also to teach anatomy to the students of Padua. 152 RUDIUS. The man who was thus so poorly provided with anatomical and physiological knowledge has, never- theless, been paraded as having been mainly instru- mental in the education of Harvey. On the strength of Harvey’s having spoken of the heart as the “Sun of the Microcosm,” and of Charles I. as the “ Sun of his Kingdom,” in the dedication of his book on the motions of the heart and blood, Professor Zechinelli, because Rudius has also said that the “ heart was the sun of the microcosm, and ruled the body as a king rules his realm,” will have it that Harvey not only stole the familiar metaphor, but based the whole of his induction on grounds supplied him by the mis- placed professor of Padua! That Harvey was acquainted with Rudio’s writings, heard him lecture, and may even have known him personally, if the student may be presumed to know the professor, I make no doubt. I even think that Harvey has Rudio in his eye, in one passage of his “ Exercises ; ” but it is to keep clear of him, or to set him right in his physiology. So essentially do the two men differ in their interpretation of the phenomena they witness, that even when they make use of the same language, the meaning they attach to it is different. I there- fore dismiss the claims advanced for Rudius as having in any conceivable sense anticipated Harvey, as unworthy of further consideration. He had still the two kinds of blood flowing to and fro in their appro- priate channels ; the one dedicated to the nourishment HIS PHYSIOLOGY. 153 of the parts, and supplied by the liver ; the other possessed of vitalizing powers, and flowing from the heart. The septum ventriculorum was pervious, and the pulmonary artery drew air into the left ventricle of the heart. Yet has this man been credited with having known the circulation of the blood ! CHAPTER II.— SECTION I. HARVEY. Harvey (William), the immortal discoverer of the Circulation of the Blood, was the eldest son of Thomas Harvey by his second wife Joan Halke, both of Folkestone in Kent, where he was born on the ist of April, 1578. 1 Of the parents of Harvey little is known. His father, in our printed accounts, is always designated gentle- man, 2 and must have been in easy circumstances, inas- much as, though he had a numerous family, consisting of a daughter by his first wife, and seven sons and two daughters by his second, he was able to start all his sons in life in a manner that implies the possession of considerable wealth. William, the firstborn, adopted the profession of medicine. Five of his brothers — Thomas, Daniel, Eliab, Michael, and Matthew — were merchants, and not merchants in a small and niggardly 1 The birthday in some of the lives is stated to be the 2nd of April, for no better reason apparently than that All Fools’ Day should not lose its character by giving birth to a great man. Harvey, I believe, was bom on the ist of April. 2 In the register of William Harvey’s matriculation at Cambridge his father is styled Yeoman Cantianus — Kentish yeoman. HIS PARENTAGE. 1 5 5 way — non tenues et sordidi, as Dr. Lawrence has it in his “ Life of Harvey,” 1 but of weight and substance — magni et copiosi, trading especially with Turkey and the Levant, then the main channel through which the wealth of the East flowed into Europe. The Harveys were undoubtedly men of consideration in the city of London, and several of them, in the end, became pos- sessed of ample independent fortunes . 2 The son whose name does not appear in the list given above was John, the immediate junior to William. He, too, was a man of note in his day, having been one of the King’s receivers for Lincolnshire, having sat as member of parliament for Hythe, and for some time held the office of king’s footman, — an office of more dignity than the title, as we apprehend it, might seem to imply. Of the sisters, Sarah died young ; of the others nothing is known. 1 Prefixed to the Latin edition of Harvey’s Works published by the Royal College of Physicians, in two vols. 4to, 1766. 2 To show the esteem in which the Brothers Harvey were held, I may mention among other things that Ludovic Roberts dedicates his excellent and comprehensive work, entitled “ The Merchant’s Mapp of Commerce ” (Folio, London, 1638), to “ The thrice worthy and worshipful William Harvey, Dr. of Physic, John Harvey, Esq., Daniel Harvey, Mercht., Matthew Harvey, Mercht., Brethren, and John Harvey, Mercht., onely sonne to Mr. Thomas Harvey, Mercht., deceased.” The dedication is quaint, in the. spirit of the times, but full of right-mindedness, respect- fulness, and love for his former masters and present friends, in which relations the Harveys stood to Roberts. Thomas Harvey died in 1622, as appears by his monumental tablet in St. Peter-le-Poore’s Church, in the city of London. Eliab and Daniel lived rich and respected, the former near Chigwell, co. Essex, the latter at Combe, near Croydon, co. Surrey. Michael Harvey retired to Longford, co. Essex. Matthew Harvey died in London. HARVEY. 156 Great men in many well-authenticated instances have certainly had noble-minded women for their mothers. We have not a word of the period to aid us in estimating the mental and moral constitution of Harvey’s father; but the inscription on his mother’s monumental tablet in Folkestone Church assures us that she, at least, was a woman of such mark and like- lihood, that it was held due to her memory to leave her moral portrait to posterity in these beautiful words, penned, it may be, by her illustrious eldest son : — “ A.D. 1605, Nov. 8th, died in y e 50th yeere of her age, Joan, Wife of Tho: Harvey. Mother of 7 Sones & 2 Daughters. A Godly harmles Woman : A chaste loveing Wife : A charitable quiet Neighbour : A co'fortable friendly Matron : A provident diligent Huswyfe : A careful te'der-harted Mother. Deere to her Husband ; Reverensed of her Children ; Beloved of her Neighbours; Elected of God. Whose Soule Rest in Heaven, her Body in this Grave: To Her a Happy Advantage; to Hers an Unhappy Loss.” Mural inscriptions may not always be authorities implicitly to be relied on ; but we unhesitatingly accept everything as part of our faith that goes to the credit of William Harvey’s mother. At ten years of age, Harvey was put to the grammar- school of Canterbury, having, doubtless, already im- bibed the rudiments of his English education at home under the eye of his excellent mother, and in some neighbouring school for the young. In the grammar- school of Canterbury he was initiated into a knowledge of the Latin and Greek languages — the routine practice then as now ; and there he seems to have remained EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION. 157 until he was about fifteen years of age. At sixteen he removed to Caius-Gonvil College, Cambridge, 1 where he spent from three to four years in the study of classics, dialectics, and physics ; such discipline being held spe- cially calculated to fit the mind of the future physician for entering on the study of the difficult science of medicine. At nineteen (1597) he took his degree of B.A. and quitted the University. Cambridge, in Harvey’s time, was a school of logic and divinity rather than of physic. Then, even as at the present day, the student of medicine obtained the principal part of his professional education from another than his alma mater. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, France and Italy boasted of medical schools of higher repute than any in Europe ; and to one or other of these must the young Englishman who dedicated himself to physic repair, in order to furnish himself with the lore that was indispensable in his vocation. Harvey chose Italy; and Padua, about the year 1598, numbering such men as Hieronymus Fabricius of Aquapendente, Julius Casserius, and Jo. Thomas Minadous among its professors, Harvey’s preference of that school was well founded. There it was, under these and other able masters, that Harvey drank in the elementary knowledge which served him as foundation for the Induction that has made his name 1 “ Gul. Harvey, Filius Thomas Harvey, Yeoman Cantianus, ex Oppido Folkston, educatus in Ludo Literario Cantuar. ; natus annos 16, admissus pensionarius minor in commeatum scholarium ultimo die Mai, 1 593.” (Regist. Coll. Caii Cantab. 1593.) i 5 8 HARVEY. immortal ; for we take nothing from his glory when we own that, but for the professional education he received at Padua, Harvey would, in all likelihood, have passed through life, not undistinguished, indeed, but without having his name associated for all time with one of the most admirable and useful inferences ever given to the world — the General Circulation of the Blood. “ Our natures are subdued By that we work in, like the Dyer’s hand and morally and mentally we are what we are in virtue of the constitution we have from our parents, the influence of our surroundings, and the education we receive. Italy should have no jealousy of Harvey as discoverer of the circulation. She it was who fashioned him to that which his happier genius fitted him to become. Thousands of her own children, and the children of other lands, had sat before Harvey on the benches of the Anatomical Theatre of Padua ; hundreds sat with him there ; but he alone of all was privileged by partial Nature’s fiat to put to interest the lessons of his teachers, to divine the goal to which ever accumulating facts were pointing, and through them to conquer immortality for himself. Having passed four years at Padua, Harvey, then in the twenty-fourth year of his age (1602), obtained his diploma as doctor of physic, with licence to practise and to teach arts and medicine in every land and seat of learning. Having returned to England in the course of the same year, and submitted to the requisite forms, he EARLY PROFESSIONAL LIFE. 159 also received his doctor’s degree from the University of Cambridge; and then coming to London, and taking to himself a wife in his six-and-twentieth year, he entered on the practice of his profession. History is all but silent in regard to the woman of our great anatomist’s choice. We only know that she was the daughter of a physician of the day, Dr. Lancelot Brown, and that Harvey’s union with her proved child- less. He himself mentions his wife incidentally as having a remarkable pet parrot, which must also, if we may infer so much from the pains he takes in specifying its habits and accomplishments, have been a favourite of his own. 1 In 1604, Harvey joined the College of Physicians, his name appearing on the roll of candidates for the fellowship in that year ; and three years afterwards, 1607, the term of his probation having passed, he was duly admitted to the distinction to which he aspired. We do not now lose sight of Harvey for any length of time during many years. In the beginning of his career, he was probably occupied, like young physi- cians of the present day, among the poor in circum- stance and diseased in body, taking vast pains without prospect of pecuniary reward, but actuated by the ennobling sense of gathering knowledge and light- 1 See On Generation, p. 186. That Harvey outlived his wife is certain from his will, in which she is affectionately mentioned as his “ deare deceased loving wife.” She must have been alive in 1645, the year in which Harvey’s brother John died, and left her ^50. i6o HARVEY. ening the sum of human misery ; carried away, uncaring personal respects, by that love of his profession which distinguishes every true votary of the science of medicine. Harvey, however, had not only zeal, talents, and accomplishments ; he had, what was no less needful to speedy success, powerful friends, united brothers, with the will and the ability to push him forward in the line of life he had chosen. In the beginning of 1609, we find Harvey making suit for the reversion of the office of physician to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, then held by Dr. Wilkenson ; and backing his application by such powerful missives as the king’s letters recommendatory to the governors of the house, and producing testimonials of competency from Dr. Adkinson, President of the College of Phy- sicians, and others, his petition was granted, and he was chosen physician in future of the Royal Hospital of St. Bartholomew. Dr. Wilkenson having died in the course of the year, Harvey was appointed first to discharge the physician’s duties ad interim, and by-and- by formally elected to the vacant office, on the 14th of October. In his new position Harvey must have found ample scope for gaining tact and experience in the practical details of his profession — although St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in his day appears to have borne a nearer resemblance to the dispensary of these days than to the Hospital, as we now understand the term. Harvey was at this time in his thirty-second year; and brought HE LECTURES ON ANATOMY. 161 before the public at so suitable an age, in an office of such responsibility, he must soon have risen into notice and attained to practice as a physician. Harvey, indeed, appears subsequently to have been physician to many of the most distinguished men of his age ; to name but two among others, to the Lord Chancellor Bacon, and Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel. In the year 1615, Harvey, then thirty-seven, was happily chosen to deliver the lectures on anatomy and surgery at the College of Physicians, founded by Drs. Lumley and Caldwall ; and it is to be presumed that in the course which commenced in the month of April of the following year, he gave an exposition, more or less complete, of the views on the general circulation of the blood, with which his name is now inseparably connected. Long years had indeed been labouring at the birth which then first saw the light ; civilized Europe, ancient and modern, had been slowly contributing and accumulating materials for its pro- duction ; Harvey at length appeared, and the idea took fashion in his mind and emerged like Pallas in panoply from the brain of Jove. The Circulation, it would seem, continued to form one of the subjects in the lectures on anatomy, which Harvey delivered for many years afterwards at the College of Physicians ; but it was not till 1628 that he gave his views to the world at large in his great work in little compass, entitled “An Anatomical Disquisition on the Motion of the Heart and Blood in M HARVEY. 162 Animals,” 1 having already, as he tells us in his Preface, for nine years and more, gone on demon- strating the subject before his learned auditory, illustrating it by new and additional arguments, and freeing it from objections raised by the skilful among anatomists. The small MS. volume, bearing the date 1616, con- taining notes for his lectures and other memoranda, which was known to exist but had been long missing through misplacement, has happily been lately re- covered, and shows us that he was already possessed of the essential elements of his induction. This precious relic, like many other relics, is some- what hard to interpret. It is a jumble of Latin and English, with ever-recurring abbreviations that puzzle conjecture and sometimes defy assured interpretation ; written, besides, in a hand so cramped and scratchy as here and there to try the best skill of the decipherer. I have spent hours over it, but with little gain. The small portion which Dr. Sieveking had photographed, with Mr. Bond’s interpretation of the hieroglyphs, will be found reproduced farther on. Would it not be worthy of the Royal College of Physicians of London to have the entire volume deciphered and published ? We might perchance follow the growth of the“ Idea of the Circulation,” in the mind of the writer — the “ Idea ” which I have been tempted to think he brought with 1 Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis in Animalibus. 4to. Francof. ad Moen., 1628. PHYSICIAN TO JAMES I. AND CHARLES /. 163 him from Padua, still in the germ or but half evolved, and only moulded into the wonderfully complete and perfect shape in which it saw the light six-and-twenty years after he returned to his native country. Some few years after his appointment as their lecturer by the College of Physicians, Harvey must have been chosen one of the physicians extraordinary to the reigning sovereign, James I. The fame of the new views on the motions of the heart and blood, we need not doubt, had reached the wide-open ears of King James at an early date ; and this of itself, to lay no stress on the powerful city interest of the illustrious anatomist, might suffice to ensure him such a mark of distinction as that just named. Of the precise date of his appointment as physician extraordinary to the king we are not informed ; but in a letter of James still extant, bearing date the 3rd of February, 1623, it is spoken of as a thing that had taken place some time back ; for in this letter Doctor Harvey is charged in common with the physicians in ordinary, with the care of the kings health, and he is further guaranteed the rever- sion of the office of physician in ordinary to the king whenever, by death or otherwise, the office should become vacant. To the promised dignity, however, Harvey did not attain for some time — not indeed until after the demise of James, and when Charles I. had already occupied the throne of his father for five or six years. Harvey may now be said to have become rather M 2 HARVEY. 164 closely connected with the Court ; but whether this connection proved advantageous to him as a philoso- pher and physiologist may fairly be questioned. The time and service which the Court physician must necessarily give to royalty and greatness interfere materially with the leisure and privacy that are indispen- sable to research and meditation. But Harvey, who appears to have been a man of singular self-possession, not to be diverted from his purpose by trifling or merely ceremonial considerations, always speaks of his sovereign, Charles I., in terms of unfeigned love and respect ; and everything leads us to believe that Charles in turn loved and honoured his physician. The sovereign seems even to have taken something like a special interest in the inquiries of the physiologist ; to have had several exhibitions made of the punctum saliens in the embryo chick, and to have witnessed the dissections of some of the does which he placed at Harvey’s disposal whilst the anatomist was prosecuting his inquiries into the subject of generation. Whatever the defects in Charles’s public and political character, untruthful and treacherous as he was, he must still be admitted to have been a man of elegant tastes, and of amiable temper and refined manners in private life. It was certainly worthy of the prince who appreciated, whilst he commanded, the talents of a Vandyke and a Rubens, that he also prized and encouraged the less brilliant, but not less useful genius of a Harvey. Harvey, as physician, must now have been at the PROFESSIONAL LIFE. 165 zenith of his reputation ; he was physician in ordinary to the king, and we have seen him in the same rela- tionship to some of the foremost men of the age. His general practice, too, must have been extensive, and, if we look at the sum he is stated to have left behind him in money, his emoluments large. But he had not any lengthened harvest for all his early pains ; his connection with the Court by-and-by came in the way of his continuing to improve his position ; and then, grievous to . relate, the appearance of the admirable “ Exercise on the Motions of the Heart and Blood ” gave a decided check to his professional prosperity. John Aubrey tells us he had “ heard him (Harvey) say that after his book on the ‘ Circulation of the Blood ’ came out, he fell mightily in his practice ; ’twas believed by the vulgar that he was crack-brained, and all the physitians were against him .” 1 Writing many years afterwards, when the cause, particularly indicated above, had conspired to make Harvey’s practice less, Aubrey informs us further, that “ though all of his profession would allow him to be an excellent anatomist, I never heard any that admired his therapeutique way. I knew several practitioners in this town that would not have given threepence for one of his bills (prescriptions), and [who said] that a man could hardly tell by his bills what he did aim at .” 2 So has it mostly been with 1 Aubrey, “Lives of Eminent Persons.” 2 vols. 8vo. London, 1813. 2 lb., vol. ii. p. 383. HARVEY. 1 66 those who have added to the sum of human knowledge ! The empiric under the title of the practical man, in his unsuspecting and unsuspected short-sightedness, sets himself up and is accepted as arbiter where there is doubt or difficulty — purblind himself, he sways the still blinder multitude. He who laid the foundation of modern physiological science lost his practice for his pains, and the routineer, with an appropriate salve for every sore, a pill and potion for each particular ache and ail, would not give threepence for one of his pre- scriptions ! did not admire his therapeutique way ! ! and could not tell what he did aim at ! ! ! Ignorance and presumption have never hesitated to rend the veil that science and modesty, all in supplying the means, have still owned their inability to raise. If Harvey faltered, who of his contemporaries could rightfully presume to walk secure ? And yet did each and all of them, unconscious of the darkness, tread their twilight paths assuredly, whilst he, the divinity among them, with his eyes unsealed, felt little certain of his way. So has it still been with the world’s appreciation of medical science, and many a lusty stride in knowledge must yet be made before it can be other- wise. The first interruption to his ordinary professional pursuits and avocations which Harvey seems to have suffered through his connection with the Court, occurred in the beginning of 1630, when he was engaged “ to accompany the young Duke of Lennox in PROFESSIONAL LIFE. 167 his travels beyond seas.” 1 It must have been in anticipation of such a removal from London, that Harvey had already, in December 1629, resigned his office of treasurer to the College of Physicians, which he had filled for several years. Of the course of Harvey’s travels with the Duke of Lennox we have not been able to gain much informa- tion. Their way leading them to the Continent, it may have been on this occasion and in this company that he visited Venice, as we know from himself that he did in the course of one of his journeys. Harvey however, must have been in England again in 1632 and 1633; for in the former year he was formally chosen physician to Charles, and in the latter we find his absence, “ by reason of his attendance on the king’s majesty,” from St. Bartholomew’s Hospital complained of by the surgeons of that institution, and Dr. Andrews appointed by the governors as his sub- stitute, but “ without prejudice to him in his yearly fee or in any other respect.” 2 Such considerate treatment 1 James Stuart, Fourth Duke of Lenox, subsequently created Duke of Richmond. He was a staunch Royalist, filled more than one lucrative office about the court of Charles I., subscribed largely to the Royal cause in money, and was a principal attendant on the body of Charles after his execution to the entombment at Windsor. (Vide “ Records of Harvey,” by Sir James Paget.) 2 Vide “Records of Harvey from the Journals of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital,” by Sir James Paget. 8vo. London, 1846. Harvey, on his appointment to attend the Duke of Lennox, applied to have Dr. Smith chosen his substitute ; but the governors proved recusant : “ It was thought fit that they should have further knowledge and satisfaction of the sufficiency of the said Mr. Smith;” and they very shortly after- wards gave Dr. Andrews, first, the reversion of Harvey’s office, and by-and-by they formally appointed him Harvey’s deputy or substitute. HARVEY. 168 satisfies us of the esteem in which Harvey was held. In the early part of 1633 Charles determined to visit his ancient kingdom of Scotland, for the ostensible purpose of being crowned King of Scots, upon which occasion we may presume that Harvey accompanied him as his physician. But the absence of the Court from London was not of long duration ; and in the early autumn of the same year we find Harvey again at his post in St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, engaged in his proper province, and propounding divers rules and regulations for the better government of the house and its officers, 1 which of themselves give us an insight into the state of the hospital, as well as of the relative positions of the several departments of the healing art nearly two hundred and fifty years ago. The doctor’s treatment of the chirurqeons in these rules is sufficiently despotic, it must be owned ; but the chirurgeons in their acquiescence showed that they merited no better usage. The only point on which they proved restive, indeed, was the revealment of their secrets to the physicians — a serious require- ment in days when every man had his nostrums, and felt fully justified in keeping them to himself. But surgery in the year 1633 had scarcely as yet shown sufficient titles to independent existence. The surgeon of those days was but the servant of the physician ; the dignitary then applied to his famulus when he 1 Vide Sir J. Paget’s publication already quoted, p. 13. PROFESSIONAL LIFE. 169 required a wen removed, or a limb lopped, or a broken head plastered ; though Harvey it seems did not feel himself degraded by taking the knife in hand or practising midwifery. 1 The insensate rivalry that long existed between physicians and surgeons, and between both physicians and surgeons against the practitioner of obstetrics, has now happily come to an end. From the year 1633 Harvey appears to have devoted much of his time to attendance upon the king and retainers of the Court, so that we have little or no particular information of his movements for several years. We know, however, from Aubrey, that he accompanied Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, whose physician he was, in his extraordinary embassy to the Emperor, in the year 1636. 2 In the course of this journey, Harvey had an opportunity of visiting several of the principal cities of Germany, and of making the acquaintance of many of the leading medical men of the time. The place from which he 1 Vide his procedure for the removal of a sarcocele (“ On Generation, ’’ p. 254.) “ My Lady Howard had a cancer in her breast, which he did cut off and sear.” (Aubrey, “ Lives,” p. 386.) He speaks of having been called to a young woman in labour in a state of coma (“ On Generation,” p. 534) ; and in another place (lb., p. 437) he says, in connection with the subject of labour, “ Haud inexpertus loquuor.” Vide also p. 545, where he passes his fingers into the uterus and brings away “ a mole of the size of a goose’s egg ;” and p. 546, where he dilates the uterine orifice with an iron instrument, and uses a speculum, &c. The references here are to the edition of the “Works of Harvey” prepared for the Sydenham Society by the writer, and published in 1847. 2 The embassy left England on the 7th of April, and returned about Christmas of the same year. Vide Crowne’s “ True Relation,” &c., 4to, London, 1637, and a letter from Harvey, farther on in the present volume. HARVEY. 170 dates his letter to Caspar Hoffmann, viz., Nuremberg, in the month of May, 1636, has not been noticed ; but his presence with the Earl of Arundel at once accounts for it; and we therefore see that Harvey’s offer to demonstrate to the distinguished professor of Nurem- berg the anatomical particulars which made the general circulation of the blood a necessity was no vain boast, made at a distance, but a substantial pro- position in presence of his opponent, which there is tradition at least to assure us he was called upon to fulfil. Harvey is reported to have made a public demonstration of his anatomical views at Nuremberg, satisfactory to all present save Caspar Hoffmann him- self ; to whom, as he still continued to urge objections, the futile nature of which we in these days can readily understand, Harvey is further related to have deigned no other answer than by laying down the scalpel and retiring — conduct in complete conformity with the character of the man which indisposed him to contro- versy. 1 On his return to England, in the winter of 1636, Harvey must have resumed his place near the person 1 Schlegel (P. M.) De Sanguinis Motu Comment., 4to, Hamb., 1650, informs us in his Preface, that, whilst living with Hoffmann in 163S, he had sedulously tried to bring him to admit the circulation ; Schlegel goes on to say, however, that it was in vain, and indeed that Harvey himself had failed to convince him : “Neque tantum valuit Harveus, vel coram (i.e., in his presence) cum sahitaret Hoffmannum in itinere Germanico, vel literis,” &c. The old man, nevertheless, seems not to have been altogether deaf to reason ; Schlegel had hopes that he would have yielded at last, had he but lived a little longer : “ Nec dubito quin concessisset tandem in nostra castra.” PROFESSIONAL LIFE. 171 of the sovereign, and by-and-by, as in duty bound, accompanied him on his first hostile expedition into Scotland in 1639, when matters, however, were happily accommodated between the King and his Scottish sub- jects, whom he had driven to take up arms in defence of their religious liberties. Harvey, as physician to the person, may be further presumed to have been with Charles on his march towards the Border in the following year, so memorable in the annals of English history, when the war with the Scots was renewed, when the king’s authority received the first check at the battle of Newbury, and when Charles, returning to his capital after his defeat, encountered the still more formidable opposition of the English Parlia- ment. Harvey may now be said to have become fairly involved with the Court. From the total absence of his name in the transactions of the times, it is never- theless interesting to observe how completely he kept himself aloof from all the intrigues and dealings of the party with which he was connected. He must have held himself exclusively to the discharge of his professional duties. In the course of these he doubt- less attended Charles in his third visit to Scotland in the summer of 1641, when the arts of diplomacy were essayed, with little better effect than the weight of prerogative in the first, and the force of arms in the second visit. On returning to London in the autumn of the same 172 HARVEY. year, Charles brought matters to a crisis between him- self and his English subjects, in the persons of their representatives, and nothing soon remained for him but to unfurl his standard and proclaim himself at war with his people. This was accordingly done in the course of the ensuing summer. But the Parliament did not yet abandon a seeming care of the Royal Person, and Harvey informs us himself, that he now attended the king, not only with the consent, but by desire, of the Parliament. The battle of Edge Hill, which followed, and in which the sun of fortune shone with a partial and fitful gleam upon the royal arms, is especially interesting to us from Harvey having been present in the field, though he took no part in the affair, and seems indeed to have felt very little solicitude either about its progress or its issue, if the account of Aubrey may be credited. “ When King Charles,” says Aubrey, “ by reason of the tumults, left London, he (Harvey) attended him, and was at the fight of Edge Hill with him ; and during the fight the Prince and Duke of York were committed to his care. He told me that he withdrew with them under a hedge, and tooke out of his pockett a booke and read. But he had not read very long before a bullet of a great gun grazed on the ground neare him, which made him remove his station .” 1 The act of reading a book pending a battle, the result of which was greatly to influence his master’s fortunes, certainly 1 “ Lives, &c.,” vol. ii., p. 379. PROFESSIONAL LIFE. 1 73 shows a singular degree of coolness and absence of interest in military matters. Harvey’s own candid character, and the confidence so obviously reposed in him when he was intrusted with the care of the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York, forbid us to interpret his behaviour into lukewarmness or indifference ; but Harvey, throughout his whole career, shows himself to have been a most peacefully disposed man : he never had the slightest taste for literary controversy, and was only brought reluctantly in later years to reply to one of the many who had opposed his views. In his indifference about the fight of Edge Hill he, however, lets us know that he was not “ Of those who build their faith upon The holy text of pike and gun, And prove their doctrine orthodox By apostolic blows and knocks.” With his fine understanding and freedom from party and sectarian views of every kind, he probably saw that an appeal to arms was not the way for political right to be elicited, or for a Sovereign to settle matters advantageously with his Subjects. Harvey had certainly no turn for politics ; 1 and, 1 The author of the “ Life of Harvey” in the “General Dictionary, Historical and Critical” (folio, Lond., 1738), the original of all our other lives of Harvey, is certainly in error when he recognizes Harvey as the type of the physician who takes part in the Dialogue of Hy. Neville’s Plato Redivivus, and assumes that he “relieved his abstruser studies by conversations in politics.” In a third edition of Neville’s work I find it stated that the physician who really did so was Dr. Lower, an acknow- ledged Liberal partisan in politics. 174 HARVEY. referring to Aubrey again, we find the fight on Edge Hill hardly ended before our anatomist had crept back into his den, and become absorbed in the subjects that formed the proper business of his life. “ I first saw him (Harvey) at Oxford, 1642, after Edge Hill fight,” says our authority, “ but was then too young to be acquainted with so great a doctor. I remember he came several times to our college (Trin.) to George Bathurst, B.D., who had a hen to hatch eggs in his chamber, which they opened dayly to see the progress and way of generation.” The zealous political partisan could have found no leisure for researches like these in such stirring times as marked the outbreak of the civil war in England ; the politician had then other than pullets' eggs to hatch. The king’s physician, to say nothing of the man now famous as author of a new doctrine on the motions of the heart and blood, was sure to find favour with the high church dignitaries of Oxford ; and we accordingly observe that, besides being every- where handsomely received and entertained, Harvey had the honorary degree of Doctor of Physic con- ferred on him. Oxford, indeed, after the king and court had been driven from the metropolis, which was wholly in the hands of the popular party, became the head-quarters of the royal army and principal residence of Charles for several years. And here Harvey seems to have quietly settled himself down and again turned his attention to his favourite subjects. Nor was the PROFESSIONAL LIFE. 175 honorary distinction of doctor of physic from the university, which has been mentioned, the only mark of favour he received. Sir Nathaniel Brent, Warden of Merton College, yielding to his natural bias and favouring the popular party, forsook Oxford when it was garrisoned by the king, and began to take a somewhat active part in the proceedings of his friends ; coming forward in especial as a witness against Arch- bishop Laud, on the trial of that dignitary. Merton College being now left without a head, upon the suggestion, as it is said, of the learned antiquary and mathematician, John Greaves, and in virtue of a letter from the king, Harvey was elected warden some time in the course of 1645. This appointment was doubt- less merited by Harvey for his constant and faithful service to Charles ; but it may also have been bestowed in some measure as a retort upon the Parliament, which, the year before, had entertained a motion for the supercession of Harvey in his office of physician to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. 1 Harvey, however, did not long enjoy his new office or its emoluments ; for Oxford having surrendered to the Parliamentary forces under Fairfax the following year, Harvey, of course, resigned his charge, and immediately afterwards 1 Feb. 12, an. 164!. “ A motion this day made for Dr. Micklethwayte to be recommended to the warden and masters of St. Bartholomew’s hospital, to be physician, in the place of Dr. Harvey, who hath with- drawn himself from his charge, and is retired to the party in arms against the Parliament.” (“Journals of the House of Commons,” iii. 397 -) 176 HARVEY. betook himself to London. Sir Nathaniel Brent, on the contrary, returned to Oxford ; and the star of the Parliamentarians being now in the ascendant, Merton College was not slow to reinstate its old Presbyterian warden in the room of its late royalist head. 1 From the date of the surrender of Oxford (July, 1646), Harvey followed the fortunes of Charles no longer. Of his reasons for quitting the service of his old master we know nothing. He probably felt anxious for repose ; at sixty-eight, which was Harvey’s age, a man begins to find that an easy-chair is a fitter resting-place than the bare ground, a ceiled roof more 1 I find a kind of obloquy commonly thrown on the memory of Nathaniel Brent for what is styled his desertion of Charles ; but he never deserted Charles ; he never belonged to him. Brent, forsooth, had received knighthood at the royal hands in former years ; but knight- hoods were sometimes forced upon men in those days for the sake of the fees, and often as means of attaching men of mark and likelihood. The truth is that Brent, who was a profound lawyer and scholar, as well as a traveller, was greatly attached to Archbishop Abbott, who had patronized and advanced him through the whole course of his life. In the differences that took place between Abbott and Archbishop Laud, in common with all moderate men, Brent naturally sided with his friend, led to do so, however, not by blind attachment only, but by natural constitution of mind, which appears to have abhorred the notion of a theocracy in the civil government of England, and to have been unfitted to comprehend the divinity that some conceive to hedge a king and to inhere in despotism. Brent was, in fact, a man of such note, that Charles had tried to win him to his party many years before by various attentions and the free gift of knighthood ; but this was in times when men were not required to take a side — when they stood naturally neutral. When the time came that it behoved him to show under what flag he meant to fight, Brent was not wanting to his natural bias and to independence. He therefore left Oxford when it was taken possession of by the royal forces, among other adherents of the popular cause, and was simply true to his principles, in nothing false to a patron or benefactor. RETIRES INTO PRIVATE LIFE. 1 77 suitable covering than the open sky — prospects which a continuance of the strife held out. Harvey, besides, as we have seen, had no stomach for contention in any shape or form, not even in the literary arena ; and he now probably resolved to follow the advice he had for- merly given to his young friend Charles Scarborough, “ to leave off gunning,” 1 and dedicate himself wholly to more congenial pursuits. And then Charles had long made it apparent, even to the most ardent of his adhe- rents, that no faith was to be put in his promise, no trust to be reposed in his royal word. The wise old man, verging on the age of threescore years and ten, doubtless saw that it was better for him to retire from a responsible office, now become both irksome and thankless, and seek privacy and leisure for the remainder of his days. These Harvey found await- ing him under the roof of one or other of his affec- tionate brothers — now in the house of Eliab in the City, or at Roehampton, or at Rolls Park in Essex, and then in that of Daniel, in the “ suburban ” village of Lambeth, or at Combe, near Croydon, in Surrey, in each of which Harvey had his own apart- ments. The Harveys appear to have been united from first to last in the closest bonds of brotherly love, 2 and to 1 “ Prithee leave off thy gunning and stay here ; I will bring thee into practice.” (Aubrey, Op. cit., p. 381.) 2 On the monumental tablet of Thomas, the first of the brothers who died, in the church of St. Peter’s-le-Poore, the mottoes, doubtless sup- N i7« HARVEY. have had a common interest in many of their under- takings ; Eliab, as we shall see, employing the capital which his brother William must have accumulated before the civil wars broke out, to such purpose, that the doctor actually died a rich man. With his brothers, then, retreating now to the “ leads ” of the house in the heart of the metro- polis, now to the “ caves ” of the one at Combe, did Harvey continue to pass his days — but not in idleness ; for the work on “ Generation,” with the subject of which we saw him busied at Oxford several years before, to say nothing of professional calls, must have found him in ample occupation. Nor was the love of ease so great in William plied by a surviving member of the family, show this feeling. The inscription is as follows : As in a Sheafe of Arrows Vis unita fortior. The Band of Love The Unitor of Brethren. Here lyeth the body of Thomas Harvey, Of London, Merchant, Who departed this life The 2nd of Feby. An. Dom. 1622. (StoVs “ London,” third edit., fol. Lond., 1633.) John Harvey, Esq., who died in 1645, left his brother William’s wife ^50. Eliab Harvey attended particularly to his brother William’s pecuniary interests ; and William at his death returned Eliab’s kindness by making him his residuary legatee. THE WORK ON GENERATION. 179 Harvey, even at the age of seventy-one, if we may credit some of the accounts, as to hinder him from again visiting the Continent, and making his way as far as Italy, a journey in which it is said he was attended by his friend, the accomplished scholar and gentleman, Dr. Ent. 1 In the beginning of 1651 appeared the second of Harvey’s great works, that, namely, “ On the Genera- tion of Animals.” 2 In this publication we have abun- dant proof of our author’s unabated industry and devo- tion to physiological science ; and in the long and admirable letter to P. M. Schlegel, of Hamburg, written shortly after the appearance of the work, satisfac- tory evidence of the integrity of Harvey’s faculties at the advanced age of seventy-three. The year after the publication of the work on “ Generation,” i.e. 1652, when Harvey was looked up to by common consent as the most distinguished anatomist and physiologist of his age, the College of Physicians came to the resolution of placing his Statue in their Hall, then occupying a site at Amen Corner ; and measures being immediately taken in conformity with this purpose, it was carried into effect by the end of the year, when the statue, with the follow- 1 This rather arduous undertaking in those days was accomplished, according to Aubrey, about the year 1649. But I have found so much to excite doubt in Aubrey’s Notes, that I greatly suspect the accuracy of his statement about this journey to Italy. 2 De Generatione Animalium. 4to. London, 1651. N 2 i8o HARVEY. ing complimentary inscription on the pedestal, was displayed : — GULIELMO HARVEIO Viro monumentis suis immortali Hoc insuper Collegium Medicorum Londinense posuit. Oui enim Sanguini motum ut et Animalibus ortum dedit, Meruit esse Stator Perpetuus. 1 Harvey, in acknowledgment, it may have been, of the distinguished honour done him by his friends and colleagues, appears about this time to have commenced the erection, at his own cost, of a handsome addition to the College of Physicians. It was, as Aubrey in- forms us, “ a noble building of Roman architecture (of rustic work, with Corinthian pilasters), comprising a great parlour, a kind of convocation house for the fellows to meet in below, and a library above. On the outside, on the frieze, in letters three inches long, was this inscription : Suasu et cura Fran. Prujeani, Praesidis 1 This statue perished with the building, in the great fire of London in 1666, and seems not to have been replaced when the hall was rebuilt, on or near its old site. The hall of the present College of Physicians is not graced, as was the old one, in Harvey’s time, but there is a rough stone statue of Harvey on the one side and of Sydenham on the other, with Linacre in the middle, under the porch of the building, in Pall Mall East. The only other sculptures of Harvey that I know of are busts, one in the theatre of the College of Physicians, the other on his monu- ment in Hempstead Church, but of dates posterior to their subject ; the one in the College of Physicians being after the portrait by Jansen in the library, by a sculptor of the name of Scheemakers, undertaken at the expense of the truly noble Dr. Mead, by whom it was presented to the College in the year 1730. ELECTED PRESIDENT, BUT DECLINES. 1 8 1 et Edmundi Smith, elect, inchoata et perfecta est haec fabrica, An. mdcliii.” Nor was Harvey content merely to erect the building ; he, further, furnished the library with books, and the museum with numerous objects of curiosity and a variety of surgical instru- ments. On the ceremony attending the inauguration of this handsome addition to the College, which took place on the 2nd of February, 1653, a sumptuous entertainment was provided by the donor, at which he received the president and fellows, and made over to them, on the spot, his whole interest in the structure. Dr. Prujean, the president of the college, going out of office, as usual, at Michaelmas the next year (1654), Harvey was unanimously chosen to fill the vacant chair. Having been absent when the election took place, a deputation proceeded to his apartments to apprize him of the honour his colleagues had done themselves and him, and to say that they awaited his answer on the following day. Every act of Harvey’s public life that has come down to us is marked 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 among the physicians of England ; but the concerns of the college, he proceeded to say, were too weighty to be intrusted to one like him, laden with years and infirm in health ; and if he might be acquitted of arrogance in presuming to offer HARVEY. 182 advice in such circumstances, he would say that the college could not do better than reinstate in the autho- rity which he had but just laid down, their late president, Dr. Prujean, under whose prudent management and fostering care the affairs of the college had greatly prospered. This noble counsel had fitting response : Harvey’s advice being adopted by general consent, Dr. Prujean was forthwith re-elected president. The College of Physicians was justly proud of its great associate, and Harvey, in his turn, was un- doubtedly attached to the college. Here, indeed, as lecturer on anatomy and surgery, he had first pro- pounded the views that had won him such distinguished honour in his lifetime, and have left his name as a deathless word on the lips of men ; here he consorted with his nearest and dearest friends, receiving from all those marks of respectful consideration that were so justly his due ; and here, in fine, the first place among the first men of his profession had been tendered to him and gratefully declined. To a mind like Harvey’s, with the opportunity afforded him of making so grace- ful a concession, the foremost place was certainly a higher distinction unaccepted, than it would have been enjoyed. The excuse for declining the office of Presi- dent was not merely personal : it was not alone that he was an old man, infirm in health, and incompetent for so great a trust ; but the affairs of the college had greatly thriven under the prudent management and constant care of the late president, and it was no more ENDOWS THE COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS. 183 than right that he who had but just laid down should be re-established in the authority he had used so well. Harvey, I have said, was childless ; his wife, though we have not the date of her death, he had certainly lost by this time. His sole surviving brother, Eliab, was rich ; his nephews were prosperous merchants, and on the road to independence and the titles which several of them afterwards acquired. Harvey, there- fore, determined to make the College of Physicians not only heirs to his paternal estate, worth, at that time, ^56 per annum, but to bestow it on them in free gift during his life. This purpose he carried into effect by a formal instrument, which he presented to the college in the month of July 1656 ; the special provisions in the deed settling one sum, by way of salary for the librarian, and another, for the delivery of a solemn oration to be given annually, in commemoration of those who had approved themselves benefactors to the college, and, by extension, who had added aught to the sum of medical science in the course of the bygone year. 1 It were needless to say, that it is this Com- 1 There is some information on the life of Harvey in the inscription upon the copper-plate which was attached to his portrait in the old College of Physicians. I give it somewhat shortened, anxious to set before the reader every authentic word of his day that was uttered of Harvey : GULIELMUS HARVHIUS, Anglus natus, Gallise, Italian, Germanise hospes, Ubique Amor et Desiderium, Ouem omnis terra expetisset Civem, Medicinas Doctor, Coll. Med. Lond. Socius et Consiliarius, Anatomes, Chirurgiseque Professor. HARVEY. 1 84 memorative Oration which secures the pleasant gather- ing that year by year so worthily links the Old with the New in the College of Physicians of London. Having thus accompanied Harvey over so much of the way in his mortal career, let us, before proceeding further, briefly advert to his Writings, to the influence they had in the republic of letters during his lifetime, to the fruits they have borne since his death, and to the impression they are calculated to make on the mind that holds communion through their means with the mind that dictated them so many years ago. — The intellectual endowment of a man necessarily appears in his writings ; but it is not always that from them a true conception of his general character can be formed. Harvey, however, though in his long life he accom- plished but a fraction of his literary designs, has yet left us enough in what he did, from which to form an esti- Veritatis studens magis quam gloria, Hanc tamen adeptus Industria, sagacitate, successu nobilis Perpetuus sanguinis aestus Circulari gyro fugientis, seque sequentis, Primus promulgavit mundo. Nec passus ultrh mortales sua ignorare primordia, Aureum edidit de ovo atque pullo libram. Rem nostram angustam auxit, Paterni Fundi ex asse haeredem collegium dicens ; Unde Bibliothecario honorarium suum, suumque Oratori Ouotannis pendi. Sic postquam satis sibi, satis nobis, satis glorias, Amicis solum non satis, nec satis patriae, vixerat, Coelicolum atria subiit Jun. iii, MDCLVII. ON THE HEART AND BLOOD. 185 mate of him not only as a philosopher and physiologist, but, it may further be said, as a man ; for ever and anon we light upon words in his works that give us assur- ance of his generous, upright, and truly noble nature. Let us take a survey of his writings, then, before winding up our account of his life with such personal notices as we gather from his contemporaries, or the inferences we make from his acts and written words. SECTION II. THE EXERCISES ON THE MOTION OF THE HEART AND BLOOD. Harvey’s great work, though by no means the largest in bulk, is the one on the “ Motion of the Heart and Blood.” It has been said, happily, by a recent critical writer, that “ men were already practising what Bacon came to inculcate” — Induction upon Data carefully collected and considered ; and it would not be easy to adduce a more striking example of the way in which ultimate rational truth is reached by a succes- sion of inferences from cognizable facts, than is con- tained in Harvey’s Exercise on the “ Motion of the Heart and Blood.” Had Bacon written his Novum Organum from Harvey’s work as a text, he would scarcely have expressed himself otherwise than he has HARVEY. 1 86 done, or given different rules for philosophizing than those which will there be found enforced in practice . 1 In his introduction, and by way of clearing the ground, Harvey briefly exposes the views of preceding physiologists, ancient and modern, in regard to the motions of the heart, lungs and blood, to the origins and functions of the veins and arteries, the meaning of respiration, &c. — in short, he gives the accredited physiology of the thoracic viscera, with comments which show it a mass of unintelligible and irreconcil- able confusion. There is room, therefore, for another interpretation of the phenomena observed, consonant with reason and anatomical fact, and susceptible of demonstration by the senses. When he first essayed himself to comprehend the motions of the heart, and to make out the meaning of these from the dissection of living animals, he found the subject so beset with difficulties that he was almost inclined to say with Fracastorius, that the motions of the heart and their purpose could be comprehended by God alone . 2 By 1 The Novum Organum appeared in 1620. Though Harvey’s work was not published till 1628, he had already developed his subject in 1615, and there is every reason to believe had actually written the Exercit. de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis before 1619. It has sometimes been made subject of question why Harvey sent his work for publication to Franckfort-on-the-Main, instead of seeing it through the press himself in London. It must have been done with a view to its getting more speedily known in the Republic of letters ; Franckfort, in 1628, being the great centre of the book trade. 2 Fracastorius (Hieron). (Opera Omnia. Lugdun., 1591.) The passage here referred to by Harvey must, I presume, be the following : — “ Ad priorem dilatationem sequitur attractio aeris novi, a quo refrigeratur cor ; ad constrictionem vero sequitur expulsio ejusdem aeris calefacti et ON THE HEART AND BLOOD. 187 degrees, however, by repeating his observations and giving more concentrated attention, he at last discovers a way out of the labyrinth, and a means of interpreting satisfactorily all that had previously appeared so com- plicated and so obscure. Hence the occasion of his writing, and such the burden of the Introduction and first chapter of his work. This ground we have ourselves gone over in our introduction ; so that we have no occasion to follow our author in his elaborate demonstration of the un- tenable nature of the older physiological assumptions, almost all of which had reached him with little change and small addition from the days of Aristotle and Galen. The chest of a living animal having been laid open and the pericardium removed, says Harvey, proceeding to his own views of the motions of the heart and blood, the heart is seen to be alternately in action and at rest ; three principal incidents being then to be noted. Firstly, it becomes erect, strikes the chest, and gives a beat. Secondly, it is constricted in every direction — it has become notably shorter and narrower. Thirdly, grasped by the hand it is then felt to be an exceedingly firm body. From these facts we conclude simul fuliginum multorum : quae quidem beneficia cognita a Deo et natura sunt, non autem cordi.” (“ Pars prima,” p. 63.) If it be so — and I find no other in the book which it seems likely Harvey could have had in his eye — it appears to have been the purpose served by the attraction of air and its expulsion, along with fuliginous vapours, rather than the motions of the heart, which puzzled Fracastoro. HARVEY. that the action of the heart is essentially of the same nature as that of the voluntary muscles, which become hard and condensed when they act ; the effect, in respect of the heart, being to lessen its bulk in every direction, to thicken and solidify its walls, and to diminish the capacity of its cavities, whereby it is made apt to expel the charge of blood it contained. The intrinsic or proper motion of the heart, therefore, is the systole ; not the diastole, as hitherto imagined, when the organ is simply passive, yielding to the blood that flows into it from the veins, and having no power of expansion in itself, like the bellows of the black- smith. The motions of the arteries again, are wholly depen- dent on the action of the heart. At the moment of its contraction, when the wall of the chest is struck, the arteries are distended by the wave of blood that is thrown into them and a beat or pulse is felt ; facts in consonance with which the blood is seen to spurt in jets from a wounded artery synchronously with the beat of the heart. In the heart of a living animal attentively considered, two distinct motions are to be observed ; one, of the auricles ; another, of the ventricles, these succeeding each other rhythmically, the briefest possible pause occurring between them, — the contraction of the auricles having precedence, that of the ventricles following, “ like the two clacks of a water bellow, ’ as Harvey has it in his note-book of 1 6 1 6 ; so that if the ON THE HEART AND BLOOD. 189 point of the heart be cut off, blood is seen to spurt from the ventricles upon each contraction of the auricles. From this we learn that the ventricles do not fill in virtue of any attractive power of their own, but from having blood thrown into them by the action of the auricles. In the heart of an animal when moribund, the ven- tricles are observed to cease beating sooner than the auricles, the left always giving in before the right, which, indeed, may be seen to flutter feebly when all else is still. Life, therefore, appears to linger longer in the right auricle than in any other element of the heart, — even as in the incubated egg, a reddish palpi- tating point, which is gradually developed into the auricle, is the part of the future chick which first by its motion gives signs of life, as in the adult creature it is the last to die. By the reciprocating dilatations and contractions of the auricles and ventricles, there is, consequently, an alternate reception and delivery of blood — reception by the auricles from the veins, delivery from them to the ventricles ; reception in turn by the ventricles from the auricles and delivery by them to the arteries, with the accompanying sensible pulse of the heart and efferent vessels. The fact of the pulmonary artery and pulmonary vein proceeding from the heart and losing themselves in the lungs, which was so great a puzzle to the old physiologists, with their natural blood for nutrition and their spirituous blood for heat and HARVEY. 190 vital endowment, was no enigma to Harvey with the one blood alternately dark and florid — dark whilst venous before passing through the lungs, florid after this whilst in course of transmission by the aorta and its subdivisions to minister to the requirements of the body. With his predecessors Harvey speaks at one time of the blood being transmitted through the lungs for the purpose of attaining its final perfection ; at another of having its heat damped down or mitigated ; and at yet another, of its possibly acquiring rather than losing heat through exposure to the inbreathed air. He, consequently, delivers himself doubtfully on this important subject ; he has not made up his mind upon it, and so refers to a treatise he intended to publish on the question, which, unhappily, never ap- peared. Harvey is next at considerable pains to show that from the structure of the several parts of the heart — the arrangement of the valves at its orifices, &c., the blood must necessarily pass in a ceaseless stream from the right to the left side of the organ by way of the lungs. Until the “Exercise on the Motion of the Heart and Blood ” appeared and settled the question for ever, this, although acknowledged by one or two of his predecessors, was really a moot point with the majority of them, the very latest and most accomplished of them all, Andrea Cesalpino, as we have seen, still maintaining that the blood passed, in part at least, from ON THE HEART AND BLOOD. 19 1 the right to the left ventricle by filtration through the interposed septum. Approaching the consideration of the quantity of blood that might pass through the heart by the arteries to the veins in a given interval of time, and the necessity of its circular motion in view of the amount proclaimed, Harvey now apologizes for what he finds himself forced, as it were, to say on the sub- ject, which, indeed, is “ of so novel a character, that he fears he may even have mankind for his enemies. His trust, however, is in the love of truth and the candour that inhere in cultivated minds ” — words which deserve more careful consideration than they have ever received from the writers who maintain that the Circulation of the blood was even imagined, much less demonstrated, by any one of Harvey’s predecessors. There cannot, indeed, be a question that the “ Exercise on the Motion of the Heart and Blood ” took the anatomical world by surprise ; for the business of its leaders during a generation and more was to controvert the fact that was therein proclaimed, as an absurdity, not to ascribe it to this one or to that as an honour. Revolving in his mind, then, what the quantity of blood might be that was transmitted by the heart, and in what interval of time its passage must be effected, “ seeing that such an amount as presented itself could not be furnished by all the ingesta in the shape of meat and drink, without the veins on the one hand being drained, and the arteries on the other getting 1 9 2 HARVEY. filled to bursting, unless the blood should find its way from the arteries into the veins as fast as it was thrown by the heart into the arteries, and so return to the right ventricle whence it had started ; “ / began to think',' he says, “ whether there might not be a motion in a circle, as it were." Then it was that the great truth flashed upon him ; then it was that he saw that the blood, forced incessantly by the action of the left ven- tricle into the arteries and distributed by them to the body at large, must necessarily return by the veins to the right side of the heart ; from thence be poured by the pulmonary artery into the lungs, reach the left auricle and ventricle by the pulmonary vein, be pumped again into the aorta and its branches, to return again and again to the heart and run the round as before. “In this way it is,” says the great physiologist, “ that all parts of the body are nourished, cherished, and quickened by the warm, spirituous, more perfect, and truly alimentive blood ; which then, cooled by contact with the parts, and become effete, returns to its sovereign, the heart, as its source, there to recover its pristine state of excellence, to receive a fresh infusion of native heat, to be impregnated anew with spirits, again to go forth replete with life-giving power, and all this accomplished by the action of the heart alone.” What an immense advance is this on all that had ever been said before on the motion of the heart and ON THE HEART AND BLOOD. 193 blood ? There is nothing to compare with it in simplicity and comprehensiveness in the whole range of antecedent anatomical literature. Well might the late eloquent Perpetual Secretary to the Academy of Sciences of Paris, M. Flourens, speak as he does of the “ Exercise on the Motion of the Heart and Blood,” as “ a little work of no more than a hundred pages, but the very best book we have in physiology.” 1 To Harvey the arteries and veins only differed because of their distinct mechanical destinations ; an artery being the vessel which carries the blood from the heart to the extreme parts of the body ; a vein, the vessel which brings it back from the periphery to the centre ; the artery thicker, stronger, resilient, as having to bear the shock of the heart, and help forward the successive waves ; the vein thinner, and inelastic in its coats, having to support the weight of the column of blood returning to the heart. How much this swerves from the old, and, until Harvey’s day, still accredited fancies about the diversity of structure between veins and arteries being destined to meet diversity in the subtlety, heat, charge of spirits, and other imaginary adjuncts to the several kinds of blood acknowledged, need not be said. In the old physiology we have seen the motions of 1 “ Ce petit livre de cent pages c’est le plus beau livre de Physiologie.” Hist, de la Decouv. de la Circulation du Sang. 2me ed. The original of Harvey’s “ Anatomical Exercises ” is all comprised in seventy-two pages small 4to. O 194 HARVEY. the heart and blood presumed to be intimately con- nected with the food consumed : a wave of alimentary matter reaching the heart, the heart responded by a beat. But Harvey showed that the ingesta can have no immediate part in all that takes place, and, the moment of eating and drinking discarded, that they are utterly inadequate to account for the mass of blood which passes through the heart in a given interval of time. On making trial of the matter, Harvey found either ventricle of the human heart, to hold upwards of two ounces of fluid. Were the blood in the body to be estimated at ten pounds, and two ounces assumed as the quantity projected by each contraction of the heart, eighty beats would suffice to make it complete a circuit through the body ; so that were the beats at the rate of sixty in a minute, less than a minute and a half would suffice to effect one complete revolution. “ Did the heart eject but two drachms of blood on each contraction, and the beats in half an hour were a thousand,” says our author, “ the quantity expelled in that time would amount to twenty pounds and ten ounces ; and were the quantity an ounce, it would be as much as eighty pounds and four ounces. Such quantities, it is certain, could not be supplied by any possible amount of meat and drink consumed within the time specified. It is the same blood, consequently, that is now flowing out by the arteries, now returning by the veins ; and it is simply matter of necessity that the blood should ON THE HEART AND BLOOD. 195 perform a circuit, or return to the place from whence it went forth.” What a revelation was this to the world ! How does Harvey stand out peerless among all the goodly men — anatomists, physiologists, physicians, of his great age ! Overlooking the field of their common inquiries, he evokes harmony out of discord, order out of chaos, and presents the world with a new and pregnant truth . 1 The admirable use which Harvey constantly makes of comparative anatomy in his works, is all his own. Here, indeed, he stands by himself, the Aristotle of the modern world. None of the great Italian anatomists, his predecessors and teachers, appear to have practised dissection of the lower animals to any extent, or to have thought of gathering physiological conclusions, 1 The quantity of blood in the human body has been variously esti- mated, I believe generally in excess of the truth. Muller (“ Physiology,” by Baly) speaks of as many as 20 pounds having been collected from the body of a corpulent executed criminal, and of 10 pounds lost by a woman in a fatal hemorrhage after parturition. I cannot think the report in either case correct. I had lately two sheep carefully slaughtered by my intelligent butcher and the blood collected. Each of the sheep weighed within a fraction of 104 pounds avoirdupois, and the blood obtained from the one was 5 pounds 2 ounces, from the other 5 pounds 4 ounces. A fine bullock in prime condition, weighing 832 pounds, slaughtered with every precaution to secure accuracy, yielded exactly 38 pounds of blood, not an ounce having been lost. If we assume the weight of the human body at from 8 to 12 stones, jockey weight — i.e., from 112 to 168 pounds — and think of the effect produced by the abstraction of 16 or 20 ounces of blood from an individual in health, how should the vascular system of a man contain at any moment 20 pounds of blood? From 8 to 10 or 12 pounds would probably be nearer the mark. O 2 196 HARVEY. from the variety of structure there to be discovered. They may have inspected a live dog occasionally to see the action of the heart and the peristaltic motion of the intestines ; but comparative anatomy in its proper sense was a book unopened by them. Not so by Harvey. To him the world of organisation was the ample page from which he read and had the better part of all he knew. “ If a live snake be laid open,” says Harvey, “the heart will be seen pulsating for an hour or more, con- tracting and propelling its contents, becoming of a paler colour in the systole when it empties itself, of a deeper hue in the diastole when it is filled. In this animal the vena cava enters the heart at its lower part, and the aorta leaves it at the upper part. Now, if the vein be taken between the finger and thumb, or seized by the dissecting forceps a little way below the heart, and the incoming current of blood be there- by arrested, you will see the part which intervenes between the obstruction and the heart fall empty, and the heart itself become smaller and of a paler colour than it was before ; beating more slowly too, as if it were about to die. But the impediment to the flow of blood being removed, instantly the colour, the size, and the motion of the heart, are restored. If, on the contrary, the artery, instead of the vein, be compressed, the part between the obstacle and the heart immediately becomes inordinately distended, of a deep purple or livid colour, and at length so much ON THE HEART AND BLOOD. 197 oppressed that it looks as though it would burst ; but on the obstruction being removed, everything returns forthwith to its pristine state. Here, therefore, we have evidence of threatened death from two opposite causes — extinction through deficiency, and suffocation through excess.” Who before Harvey, unless we go back to Galen, ever illustrated, or thought of illustra- ting, physiological inferences in such ways as these ? We have no difficulty in finding an excuse for the contempt the great experimental physiologist is said to have expressed for the neoterics . 1 “ That the blood enters a limb by the arteries and returns from it by the veins,” continues our author, “is readily proved experimentally: If a. ligature be thrown about the upper part of an arm — one who is lean and has large veins being the best subject for the trial — and quickly drawn as tightly as it can be borne, it will be found that the arteries do not pulsate beyond the obstruction, whilst they throb violently and appear preternaturally distended above it. The hand under these circumstances, retains its natural appear- ance ; although if the binder be kept on even for a minute or two, it will begin to look livid and to fall in temperature. But if the bandage be now slackened a little — be brought to the state of medium tightness used in blood-letting — the hand and arm will immediately become suffused, and the superficial veins show themselves tumid and knotted, the pulse at the 1 Conf. Aubrey, op. cit. I9§ HARVEY. wrist in the same instant beginning to beat as it did before the application of the bandage. “ The difference in the effect of the tight and of the medium bandage therefore is this : The tight bandage not only obstructs the veins but the arteries also ; whereby it comes to pass that the blood neither comes nor goes in the member. The medium bandage, again, obstructs the veins, the more super- ficial among them especially, whilst the arteries, lying deeper, being firmer in their coats and forcibly injected by the heart, are not obstructed but 'Continue conveying blood to the limb. Whence follows the unusual fullness of the veins, and the necessary inference that the blood flows incessantly outwards from the heart by the arteries and ceaselessly returns to it by the veins.” These facts, familiarly known to the vulgar phlebotomist, were wholly overlooked in their bearing on the motion of the blood by the learned physiologists of the age of Harvey. The illiterate barber-phlebotomist, with his sign of the fillet- bound pole which has now all but disappeared from among us, was aware that if his bandage were some- what tight, the blood, though it spurted out with force at first, soon ceased to flow ; in which case he slackened his fillet a little, and the stream then poured out amain. We have seen the lame and impotent con- clusion to which the latest and greatest of Harvey’s predecessors came, when he attempted to explain the phenomena he witnessed. Enigmas to the mighty ON THE HEART AND BLOOD. 199 Stagyrite, as they were to his follower Cesalpino, they were not only none to our independent inductive philosopher, but are adduced by him as physiological necessities in the nature of things. That there is the freest possible communication between the arteries and veins of the animal body is amply demonstrated, as Galen showed, by the fact that both are drained of their contents whether a branch of one or other be divided and suffered to bleed for a sufficient length of time. “ Now,” says Harvey, “ if, when performing phlebotomy, we assume the blood abstracted to represent the quantity that would have flowed naturally through the limb during the time employed in the business, double this to get at so much as would have passed through the other arm, calculate how much more would have gone through the lower limbs, the abdominal viscera, the lungs and the head — we shall, in another way, arrive at something like an idea of the quantity of blood that must leave and return to the heart in a given interval of time, and reach the conviction that its motion in a ceaseless circuit upon itself, as it were, will alone account for the large amount proclaimed by our figures.” The premisses of no physiologist before Harvey could possibly have led him to an induction such as this. In what precedes, we are led by reasoning upon obvious phenomena to conclude, that the blood 200 HARVEY , ; propelled by the heart returns to it again and again by the veins. Happily the structure of the veins makes this conclusion a readily demonstrable truth ; for within them, in those of the extremities especially, there are found numerous loose folds or floating portions of their inner membrane, of a semilunar shape, and having their free edges turned towards the trunks of the vessels. Sometimes single but more commonly double or in pairs, they then arise from opposite sides of the vein, and meet by their free edges when brought into action. The arrangement of these folds is such that, whilst they present not the slightest impediment to the flow of the blood from the smaller to the larger branches, they effectually oppose its motion in the opposite sense, or from trunks to branches. These membranulse, ostiola, or valves of the veins were observed, as we have seen, by more than one of the earlier anatomists — by Sylvius, Eustachius, Paul Sarpi, and others ; but they were first particularly described and figured by Fabricius of Aquapendente, who is generally credited with having discovered them. But neither Fabricius nor any of his predecessors understood their function or their real importance — Cesalpino does not even notice them in his account of the arm bound by the bleeding fillet, and this he would hardly have failed to do had he entertained the ideas of the circulation that have been ascribed to him. The ostiola, by Fabricius and others his contemporaries, were believed merely to retard ON THE HEART AND BLOOD. 201 the flow of the blood in the veins, from the centre to the periphery of the body, so as to give the several parts time to appropriate the nutriment they required ; or they were held to prevent the blood from over- burthening dependent parts by its weight, or even from gravitating entirely into these. In the lower animals, however, there are valves in situations where no effect of gravity from position was to be apprehended. The main duty of the valves of the veins, in a word, is to prevent the blood from flowing from trunks to branches, from central towards peripheral parts : offering no impediment to the current inwards, they obstinately resist efforts to force it outwards, and accurately represent the flood- gates at the mouth of a stream, which give way to the efflux but close against the reflux. This truth, Harvey goes on to say, is readily demonstrated in the arm bound as for blood-letting. The veins are then seen turgid and with knots or swellings at intervals in their course, at the points especially where one branch joins another. The knots in question mark the positions of valves ; a fact which is immediately made manifest if an attempt be made to force the blood in one of the vessels from above downwards by the pressure of a finger. The valve nearest the part below the point of pressure starts at once into action, and can be felt distinctly as a hard, resistant knot. If the pressure be now reversed, the vein being compressed by the point of a finger beyond 202 HARVEY. a valve, the blood within it will then be easily streaked upwards till it passes the valve above, when the part of its canal between this and the point of pressure will not only be emptied, but will so remain whilst the pressure is continued. The pressure below being now withdrawn, the empty vein fills instantly and looks turgid as before. The valves of the veins, consequently, act no other- wise than do the sigmoid valves at the roots of the aorta and pulmonic artery, and as the mitral and tricuspid valves between the ventricles and auricles of the heart : they offer no impediment to the flow of the blood in the direction of their trunks, but oppose effectual barriers to its course towards their branches ; the effect of which is, that the blood poured by the terminal capillaries of the arteries into the initial ON THE HEART AND BLOOD. 203 of the heart as the impelling power in the circulation of the blood ; a conclusion in which it is to be 1 “ Necessarium est concludere circulari quodam motu in circuitu agitari in animalibus sanguinem, et esse in perpetuo motu ; et hanc esse actionem sive functionem cordis quam pulsu peragit, et omnino motus et pulsus cordis causam unam esse.” (Exerc., cap. xiv. ad fin.) capillaries of the veins, can only move in one direction : outward ever from the heart by the arteries, the efferent vessels ; inward ever towards the heart, by the veins, the afferent vessels. In the words of our author, we must therefore conclude that “ THE BLOOD IN THE ANIMAL BODY IS SUBJECTED TO A CERTAIN CIRCULAR MOTION ; THAT THIS MOTION IS INCESSANT ; AND THAT THE PULSE OR CONTRACTION OF THE HEART IS ITS SOLE EFFICIENT CAUSE .” 1 These last words lead Harvey immediately to treat 204 HARVEY. observed he is also wholly original, although with his predecessors he goes on to speak of it, as the “ hearth and home of the native fire, whence warmth and life are dispensed as from a fountain-head to all parts of the body. And that this is so in fact,” he adds, “ I trust no one will now deny.” To all before Harvey, however, the heart was virtually without the power to make available to the body the treasures of which it was presumed to be possessed. How should there be motion without an adequate moving power ? Columbus among the more immediate and influential of the predecessors of Harvey, we have found denying muscularity to the heart. He assumed, with those who had gone before him, in connection with such movement of the blood as he imagined, that an empty sack could fill itself! Even if it could have done so, there would still have been motion inwards only, none outwards ; for the contraction of the ventricles was not always regarded as the power that set the blood in motion. By Galen and his long succession of followers, it was presumed to move as freely from the liver as from the heart, the cause of the motion being in itself, assisted by the heaving of the chest in breathing, and the attractions of the parts for the heat and nourishment associated with the blood contained in the vessels. The rising and falling of the heart were mainly for the purpose of elaborating the blood and engendering the spirits. Harvey put an end to all this by insisting on the ON THE HEART AND BLOOD. 205 proper muscular structure of the heart, and on its sole function as the propelling power in the circular motion of the blood — the power adequate not only to force the tide to the extreme branches of the arteries, but to bring it round by the inosculating twigs of the veins to the source whence it went forth. Let me recall the reader’s attention to the title of Harvey’s book : “An Anatomical Exercise on the Motion of the Heart and Blood ; ” and refer him, if he be still doubt- ful of its author’s title to originality, to the writings of all the anatomists and physiologists who preceded him, for the conspicuous absence of even a single chapter on the subject which it is the special purpose of Harvey’s immortal work to proclaim. And then how does the clear-sighted man, the independent thinker, free himself from all the prevalent ideas on the heart as seat of the emotions and passions of our nature, maintaining as he does, that “ every affection of the mind that is attended with pleasure or pain, with hope or fear, is simply the cause of an agitation which extends to the heart and there induces change from the natural constitution — impairing nutrition, depressing the powers of life, and so engendering disease.” To Harvey the liver played an important, though still a subordinate, part in the process of sanguification. With the older physiologists, giving no heed to the function of the lacteal vessels, or rather, failing to 206 HARVEY. attach the importance to the system which it deserved, Harvey regarded the mesenteric veins as the channels by which the chyle was conveyed from the intestines to the liver, which he speaks of as “ interposed by nature with a view to delay, and concoct within its meandering canals, the cruder matters that would else have reached the heart direct, and perchance have oppressed the vital principle.” Familiar as we know him to have been with the dissection of the lower animals, it is somewhat extraordinary that Harvey should not himself have given more attention to the lacteals, for he had not overlooked them, and he was acquainted with Aselli’s book. The animals he dissected were probably mostly in a state of fasting, when of course the vessels are little conspicuous or even invisible ; he con- sequently saw them not as constant elements in the organization, but as accidents in some sort, and con- nected with the secretion of milk, which he thought was not confined to the mammae alone. Believing, in a word, that there was already sufficient provision in the mesenteric veins for transporting the nutritious element of the digested food from the intestines to the liver, he did not see nature so prodigal of means as to furnish a second set of vessels to meet a purpose already cared for. It is only in the concluding chapter of the “Anato- mical Exercise,” that Harvey enters particularly on ON THE HEART AND BLOOD. 207 the discussion of the number and arrangement of the particular parts of the heart, and after a compre- hensive survey of the organ in the animal kingdom in general, shows its structure harmonious in every respect with the performance of the great function which it has been the burden of all he has already said to proclaim. So complete and exhaustive is the summary here, that little or nothing is left for successors but refinement or comment on his text ; whilst the physiological, pathological and general observations he makes in illustration of his theme, leave us in admiration at once of the industry, the knowledge, and the genius of the man. Harvey is the first who assigned to the auricles their proper function. Relaxing, they are filled from the veins which end in them. Contracting they throw the charge they have received into the relaxing ventricles, and these contracting in turn, propel it into the arteries in correspondence with them. The auricles are in fact a necessary complement to the ventricles, and, like them, are two in number in the more perfect air-breathing animals having a largely developed pulmonary system and high bodily temper- ature ; whilst animals lower in the scale, with vesicular less perfectly developed lungs, or breathing by means of gills, and having a temperature but little raised above the medium in which they live, have no more than a single auricle. The auricles to our physiologist, therefore, are not agents connected with the ventilation 208 HARVEY. of the blood, as they were to his predecessors, but are active instruments, projecting the charge they have received from the veins into the ventricles, by which, in sequence, it is caught on the move, and thrown with force into the artery. And how apt the reference to the tennis player, here introduced, who strikes his ball to best advantage when he takes it on the rebound ! We have found the older physiologists, for certain hypothetical reasons, assuming the mitral valve of the left auricle as weaker and less perfect than the tricuspid of the right. Harvey, on the contrary, sees it as the stronger of the two, and, therefore, better adapted to meet the heavier duty it has to perform : having to resist the greater force of the more powerful left ventricle, it is in reality stronger than the tricuspid valve. Why should an artery differ so much from a vein in the thickness, resilience, and strength of its coats ? We have already had occasion to allude to this, and know the fanciful notions entertained on the matter by the predecessors of Harvey. To him the reason of the difference was obvious enough. It was simply because the artery had to sustain the shock of the impelling heart. “ The nearer to the heart the denser and stronger are the arteries, and ever more do they differ in structure and appearance from the veins ; but in extreme parts — the feet and hands, the mesen- tery, the brain, &c., the two orders of vessels are so ON THE HEART AND BLOOD. 209 much alike, that they cannot be distinguished by the eye.” Harvey, we may venture to say, could hardly be expected to see the heart otherwise than as the source and seat of the heat of the body. The animals that are lowest in the scale of evolution, he thinks, are the coldest, because they have no heart. Of a simple homogeneous nature, they do not require an impeller of nourishment into complex and distant parts. In molluscous animals, however, such as snails and whelks, and in transparent shrimps, a heart can be seen pulsating distinctly enough ; and when we come to insects — bees, hornets, and the like, we also, with the aid of a magnifying glass, perceive something pul- sating, for in them there is variety of organic struc- ture ; but the pulsations occur irregularly, and in the cold even cease entirely. This is the case with those insects, particularly, which hide away in winter and lie defunct as it were, manifesting a kind of vegetable life only. Whether the same thing happens in animals that have red blood, such as frogs, serpents, tortoises, swallows, &c., is a question. The swallow, it may perhaps be held needless to observe, was vulgarly believed in Harvey’s day to hybernate at the bottom of ponds and rivers ; and it seems not to have fallen in his way to question the absurdity. To conclude with this part of our subject, how shall we think too highly of him who descanting on “ nature as ever perfect and divine, doing- nothing in vain, p 210 HARVEY. neither giving a heart where it was not wanted, nor witholding it where its office was required,” goes on to say, “ but by the same stages in the development of every animal , passing through the constitutions of all, I may say — ovum, worm, embryo— it acquires additional per- fection in each." Have we not here the first brief intima- tion of the great Evolution Theory, that has been as a new revelation in the physics of life to our modern world ? SECTION III. RECEPTION OF THE EXERCISES ON THE HEART AND BLOOD. The appearance of Harvey’s Book on the motion of the heart and blood, seems almost immediately to have arrested the attention of all the better minds among the medical men of Europe. The subject was not one, indeed, greatly calculated to interest mere prac- titioners, but anatomists, physiologists, and scientific physicians appear at once to have taken it in hand and canvassed its merits. The conclusions come to in the work, there can be no question, took the medical world by surprise ; it was not prepared for such a proposition as a ceaseless circular movement of one kind of blood, with the heart as the propelling power. As it had been to all the older anatomists, the heart RECEPTION OF THE WORK ON THE HEART. 21 1 was still the source of the native heat, the concocter of the blood, and the laboratory of the vital spirits ; the main cause of the to-and-fro motion of the blood being the attraction of the parts for the nutriment they required, on the one hand ; the attraction of the heart aided by its diastole and the heave of the chest in breathing, on the other. By all the older intellects in possession of the seats of authority, Harvey’s views were regarded as idle dreams ; and it was upon the faith of this conclusion, that their author was set down by them as a mere fanci- ful innovator. No one in those days either claimed for himself or for another so extravagant a notion as Harvey had been reckless enough to enunciate. Ascribed to any respectable member of the medical profession, his immediate business would have been to purge himself of the imputation. In Harveys life- time, and for a good while after, indeed, it was never his title to be accounted the discoverer of the circula- tion of the blood that was matter of question, but the fact of there being any such circulation of the blood as he proclaimed. Two years, in fact, elapsed before anything in contravention of the new doctrine saw the light, and a considerably longer time before aught like credit came to be connected with the discovery, or hints to be thrown out that it was no discovery at all, but an old idea revived. It was only after men had familiarized their minds with the novel truth that they began to find a circular motion of the blood announced 212 HARVEY. in quarters where nothing of the kind had ever been suspected before — in Hippocrates and Galen, in Ser- vetus, Colombus, Sarpi, Caesalpinus, anywhere, every- where but where alone it was to be found — the “ Anatomical Exercises on the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals ” by William Harvey. When opposition to his great Induction arose, it was not at first from any of the more mature anato- mists of Europe. Their minds were made up on the matter ; the thing was absurd and there an end ; nothing more need be said on the subject. It pro- ceeded from a young physician, Primerose by name, of Scottish descent, but French by birth and education. Primerose had been a pupil of Joannes Riolanus, Professor of Anatomy in the University of Paris, an inconsistent but determined enemy of Harvey to the end of his days. Primerose had of course listened to his master’s diatribes on the untenable nature of Harvey’s views, and by way of exercising his ingenuity, set himself the task of trying the question, not by fact and experiment, but by texts from the ancients and such precepts as he had imbibed from his teacher. The essay of Primerose 1 may therefore be briefly charac- terized as a defence of the physiological ideas of Galen against the innovations of Harvey ; and is remarkable for everything rather than a spirit of can- dour in pursuit of truth. It abounds in obstinate 1 Entitled Exercitationes et Animadversiones in Librum Harvei de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis. 4to. London, 1630. RECEPTION OF THE WORK ON THE HEART. 213 denials, sometimes of what may be called perversions, of statements involving matters of fact ; and in its whole course appeals not once to experiment as a means of investigation. Harvey, having in the preliminary chapter of his work demonstrated the notions which it was Prime- rose’s purpose to reassert and defend to be in contra- diction with reason and experience,, deigned him no reply ; he could not think of going over the ground he had already trodden and shown to be utterly barren, in the hope of convincing such an antagonist. yEmylius Parisanus , 1 a physician of Venice,, was the next to assail the Harveian doctrine of the circulation, and still on the old grounds — the authority of Galen and the ancients generally. Parisanus per- ceived Harvey’s views as directly contravening an hypothesis to which he had committed himself, namely, that the spleen was the organ of sanguification and furnisher of nutriment to the heart, and so may have been led to enter the lists against the new opinions. But he proved a most flimsy antagonist. Ignorant of some of the commonest points of anatomy, and fre- 1 In his work entitled Lapis Lydius de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis. Folio. Venet. 1635. In an edition of his “Refutation” to which I have had access, published at Leyden in 1639, the number of pages to which it extends is 267 in small 4to. Harvey’s Exercitationes are all comprised in 72 pages of the same sized sheet ! It is an out-and-out defence of all the indefensible propositions of the old physiology ; and three paragraphs in succession, contradictory to as many self-evident propositions, commence thus : “ Bone Deus ! Deus Optime ! Deus plusquam Optime ! ” 214 HARVEY. quently misinterpreting the writer he combats, ex- pressing himself in a style the most elaborately involved and obscure, it is often difficult even to guess at his meaning. Like his countryman of the poet, Signor Gratiano, he Speaks an infinite deal of nothing ; more than any man in all Venice : his reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in tw r o bushels of chaff ; you shall seek all day ere you find them ; andwdien you have them they are not worth the search.” Had not Dr. Ent, in his “Apology for the Circulation,” given the name a place on his title-page, Parisanus’ opposition would scarcely have merited mention here. Nearly at the same time with Parisanus, Caspar Hoffman, the learned professor of Nuremberg, attracted attention to himself by his writings, as well as by his teaching, on the motion of the blood. A follower of Galen, like all but every other anatomist of erudition in his day, Hoffman had, nervertheless, freed himself in so far from the authority of his master as to have acknowledged the passage of the blood by the pulmonary artery and vein from the right to the left side of the heart instead of by the septum, and modified the idea of the mere to-and-fro motion of the blood in its respective vessels, by likening it to what Ave see in a lake ruffled by the wind. The veins, how- ever, in conformity with the physiological \de\\ r s of the day, he still held to be the special conduits of the nutrient blood ; the arteries the channels of the \fital spirits. RECEPTION OF THE WORK ON THE HEART. 215 Having referred to the views of Harvey on the motion of the blood in the course of his discussion, Hoffman, besides being personally known to Harvey, for they were fellow-students at Padua, was a person- age of such note that Harvey thought it not consistent with his dignity to allow the observations of the N uremberg professor to pass without notice — ail the more, as he saw that he had been misunderstood, and, as he thought, unfairly represented. Hence the spirited letter of our anatomist to Caspar Hoffman which has happily reached us. The opinion which the learned professor of Nurem- berg is pleased to entertain of him personally, says Harvey, is highly gratifying to him, but he cannot conceive how Hoffman should have come to imagine that he had ever accused Nature of folly or error, and spoken of her as a clumsy and inefficient artificer, whilst making the blood return again and again to the heart in order to be reconcocted, only to grow effete as often in the body, thereby needlessly spoiling the perfectly made blood for no end but to find herself in something to do ! But where or when anything of the kind is said, or was ever even imagined by him who has lost no opportunity of expressing his admiration of the wisdom and aptness of Nature, he is at a loss to conceive, and is indeed not a little disturbed to find such things charged against him. He has purposely omitted, he says, to speak of the concoction of the blood, as well as of the final cause of its motion ; but 2l6 HARVEY. he engages to show his correspondent, with occasion serving, everything he affirms in respect of the circula- tion. If this be declined, he beseeches his friend not to derogate from what is due to an honourable man not altogether foolish, who has had experience in such matters for a long series of years, and concludes thus characteristically: “Farewell and beware! act by me as I have done by you. What you have written I receive as uttered in all candour and kindness ; and be sure in writing to me in return that you are animated by the same sentiments.” The letter purports to be dated from Nuremberg, May the 20th, 1636 ; the date of the reception I should imagine, rather than of the writing, for the letter could hardly have been written to Hoffman from the city where he was resident. We know, in fact, that Harvey took the opportunity, whilst in attendance on the Earl of Arundel, to visit Hoffman at Nuremberg and give him a demonstration of his views from the subject, but unhappily in vain ; Hoffman continued uncon- vinced ; although, if we may trust Schlegel, he did show signs of yielding towards the end of his long life. The next personage of any note who took it on him to criticise the conclusions of Harvey was Joannes Vesling, 1 professor in the University of Padua, one of 1 Vesling’s Letters are comprised in his Observ. Anatom, et Epist. Med. ex schedis posthumis h Th. Bartholin. Edit. Svo, min., Hag. Com., 1640; i2mo, Hafn., 1644. RECEPTION OF THE WORK ON THE HEART. 217 the best anatomists and botanists of the age. From the two letters he addressed to Harvey in 1637 we conclude that Harvey must have been personally acquainted with Vesling, and paid him a visit when in attendance on the Duke of Lennox during his conti- nental tour. Vesling begins his first letter by regretting the so speedy departure of his visitor. He had read what Primerose had had to say against the circulation ; but it was mostly pointless and did not touch the matter — - imbellia pleraque et sine ictu. He had also seen Parisanus’s lucubrations on the subject. “He is bolder, but in many respects more objectionable — proterve magis attamen , in quamplurimis turpius .” “ The pugnacious old man,” he continues, “ strives beyond question with vain fancies and portentous paralogisms of his own creating.” Vesling says that he has himself profited immensely by all that Harvey had said on the heart ; and the subject of generation having, as it seems, come up during their inter- course, he speaks of having resided for some time in Egypt, and made a particular study of the develop- ment of the chick in ovo, for which the hatching ovens of the country gave him ample opportunity. One of the great difficulties he experienced in accepting Harvey’s views, was the remarkable differ- ence between the colour of the arterial and venous blood. It did not seem possible to him that the fluid which was of a bright crimson in the arteries 218 HARVEY. could ever have been the dark-coloured fluid of the veins . 1 In the second letter to our anatomist, however, in reply to one received from him, Vesling says that he has now had many of his doubts cleared away, and concludes in this complimentary fashion : “It will be kindness in you to enlighten us with your better light, and thereby make it easier for us to follow in the onward path you tread.” Vesling must have had Harvey in high esteem. In a letter to Licetus, written about the same time, he expresses himself thus to his friend : “ Did you but hear our Harvey you would acknowledge this celestial cycle of the blood and spirits, issuing from the left chamber of the heart, entering the arteries, and from the arteries returning to the right sinus by the veins (!)” 2 But the principle of the circulation was not now to meet either with simple, and that mostly tacit, assent, or with more openly expressed dissent ; the mind that 1 This was, indeed, one of the grand obstacles the Harveian doctrine had to encounter in the first instance. Had not the work of Servetus been so summarily burned by Calvin, it would probably by this time have been overcome. Physiologists would have learned that the florid colour was due to a change effected in the blood during its course through the lungs ; although it is not even now generally known that there is less difference in colour between venous and arterial blood in the height of summer than in the depth of winter in temperate countries, and that the difference within the tropics all but disappears. Vide Dr. John Davy’s “ Researches, Anatomical and Physiological,” and what is said further on, under the head of Lower, on the subject. 2 “ Harveium nostrum si audis, agnosces ccelestem sanguinis et spiritus ingressus ex arteriis per venas in dextrum cordis sinum.” (Conf. Fortunii Liceti : De quaesitis per Epistolas a Claris viris responsa, part, vii. Bonon. et Utin., 1640-50.) RECEPTION OF THE WORK ON THE HEART. 219 had seized and worked the theorem to a rational de- monstration was no longer to be left alone against the world in its defence. The celebrated philosopher Rene Descartes adopted Harvey’s views, and power- fully influenced opinion in their favour through his works ; though he was still in some things, as we see immediately, under the influence of the old physiology. “ There is always a greater heat in the heart,” he says, “than in any other part of the body. It is such that a few drops of blood entering it, promptly dilate, as do so many other fluids when they fall drop by drop upon a hot plate. But for an explanation of the reason why the blood of the veins is not exhausted by passing continually into the heart, I must refer to the work of an English physician, to whom belongs the honour of having first shown that the course of the blood in the body is nothing less than a kind of perpetual move- ment in a circle .” 1 Two years after Descartes’ adhesion, Roger Drake, a young English physician, had the credit of appear- ing under the auspices of Jo. Walrnus, a distinguished Leyden professor, as an advocate of the Harveian views ; and nearly at the same time, H. Regius (Henri Leroy) came forward at Utrecht with a series of theses in support of the doctrine of the circulation. Ten years, however, had not abated Primerose’s enmity to Harvey’s conclusions ; for on the appearance of these academical essays, he showed himself again in the field Discours sur la Methode. Cinquieme partie. 163 7. 220 HARVEY. as the opponent of their authors, publishing distinct animadversions upon each of them in the course of the year . 1 Regius (Leroy), a man of less mind and informa- tion than Drake, if we may conclude so much from their works, was in turn, not slow to encounter Primerose ; 2 and the spirit in which he did so, as well as the temper and taste of the reply which Primerose, true to his con- troversial nature, very soon produced , 3 may, to a certain extent, be gathered from the titles of their several pro- ductions, which are given below. Still more illustrious advocates of the Harveian cir- culation presented themselves in Werner Rolfink , 4 pro- fessor of anatomy at Jena, and a second time in Descartes. Rolfink, from his position and popularity, had immense influence in disseminating the new doctrine over Europe by his teachings ; and Descartes, under the aegis of his powerful name, was no less effective by recurring to the subject in his writings. Opposed in his advocacy by Plempius, professor of Louvain, Descartes made himself still more thoroughly master of the question, and when he next appears as its advocate, which he does by and by, he even appeals ’ Animadversiones in J. Walaei (Drake) Disputationem quam pro Cireulatione Sanguinis proposuit. 4to. Amst., 1639. Animad. in Theses quas pro Circular Sang. Hen. Regius proposuit. qto. Leidae, 1640. 2 Spongia qua eluuntur sordes Animad. quas Jac. Primirosius advers. Theses, &c. edidit. 4to. Leidae, 1640. 3 Antidotum adversus Spongiam Venenatam Hen. Regii. 4to. Leidte, 1640. 4 Epist. duae ad Th. Bartholinum de Motu Chyli et Sanguinis. Svo. Leid. 1641. RECEPTION OF THE WORK ON THE HEART. 221 to the experiments he had made on living animals in support of his convictions and conclusions . 1 The controversy on the circulation had been carried on up to this time abroad rather than at home ; Harvey seems speedily to have won over to his side all the men of his own country who, by their education and acquire- ments, might have been fitted to array themselves against him : his lectures at the College of Physicians had apparently satisfied his contemporaries that his doctrine of the motions of the heart and blood was an irrefragable truth. But now one of Harvey’s own countrymen made his appearance as vindicator of the circulation from the misrepresentations and misappre- hensions of its adversaries. This was Dr., afterwards Sir George, Ent, an excellent scholar, a respectable anatomist, conversant with physical science generally, a gentleman by his position and profession, acquainted with all the leading men of letters and science of his time, and in particular, enjoying the friendship of William Harvey. Ent’s work is entitled “ An Apology for the Circulation of the Blood, with a reply to Himylius Parisanus .” 2 In his letter to Harvey, which stands in front of his work, Ent lets it appear that he was anxious to come before the world as an advocate of the circula- tion, and had first thought of making Primerose the 1 Epist. Cartesii. 4to. Amst. 1668. 2 Apologia pro Circuitione Sanguinis, qua respondetur yEmylio Parisano. 8vo. Lond., 1641. 222 HARVEY. object of his animadversions, but as this opponent had already been very effectually dealt with by Leroy, he preferred taking Parisanus to task, the rather as in dealing with him he could also controvert Primerose where it was necessary. — Ent’s Apology is a learned, though perhaps a somewhat pompous and pedantic book ; still the writer shows both wit and fancy in hand- ling his antagonist, and has always learning enough and to spare in discussing his subject. “ Nothing, indeed,” to quote Dr. Lawrence , 1 can be more unlike than Parisanus and Ent ; and it is not wonderful, therefore, that one utterly ignorant of physical science, confronted by one thoroughly conversant therein — that one, with- out power of utterance, opposed by one gifted with eloquence — that one, sluggish and inert, in the hands of one active and full of energy, should be effectually vanquished and overcome.” We may imagine, nay, we may be certain, that Harvey was not unacquainted with Ent’s purpose to appear as the advocate of his discovery, nor with the Apology before it saw the light, for the two men were on terms of confiding friendship. Having remarked on the appearance of certain academical dissertations in defence of the circulation, we perceive the apostles of all new truths, the younger members of society, at their proper work. Were there not successive generations of men, the intellectual life of the world would stand still. The death of the individual was not merely a necessary condition to the 1 Harvei vita, ad cap. Operum. London, 1766. RECEPTION OF THE WORK ON THE HEART. 223 enjoyment of life by successive generations, but essential also to the onward progress of mankind. No man who had attained to the age of forty years, it is said, ever adopted the doctrine of the circulation ; it had to win its way under the safeguard of the Drakes and Leroys, in other words, of the youthful and un- prejudiced spirits of the age. Twenty years after the publication of the Exercitatio Anatomica de motu Cordis et Sanguinis, Joannes Riolanus the younger w T as delivered of his Encheiri- diumAnatomicum (8vo. Lugd. Batav., 1648) in which he makes a sorry attempt to supplant the Harveian views by others of his own, so incongruous, contradictory, and improbable, that we are irresistibly led to form an indifferent estimate of the mind that could have con- ceived them. To us, now-a-days, it looks something like condescension on the part of the great English anatomist when he noticed such a tyro in animal physics as the French professor here approves himself. Harvey could hardly have felt any real respect for the illogical and prejudiced mind of Riolan ; but the En- cheiridium had been presented to him by its author ; he was in want of an occasion for a further develop- ment of his views, and so he seized on the Parisian anatomist, respectable from his position in the leading university of France, and made him his placard bearer. 1 1 The title of Harvey’s reply — or rather replies, for there are two — is as follows : Exercitationes duas Anatomicas de Circulatione Sanguinis, ad Joann em Riolanum, Filium. Cantabrigias, 1649. 224 HARVEY. Harvey, moreover, was personally acquainted with Riolan, who had accompanied Mary de Medicis to England on the visit she paid her daughter, the queen of Charles I. ; an occasion on which the two men are stated to have had several conversations on the subject of the circulation, to the burden of which Riolan when face to face with the propounder, made no objec- tions. Riolan is by no means totally opposed to a circula- tion of the blood ; he would only have it limited to certain regions into which he arbitrarily divides the body ; in each of which it goes on independently of the others. “ Harvey, and his advocate, Walaeus,” he says, “ will have it that the whole of the blood passes from the right to the left side of the heart by way of the lungs, denying any transmission by the septum medium, so that it circulates through the body within an hour or two. But this I do not acknowledge, and I shall show the impossibility and inconvenience of anything of the kind.” The vena cava, Riolan thinks, may take its origin from the heart ; but the vena portae certainly arises from the liver. There are two kinds of blood in these vessels, moreover, although both are elaborated in the liver — dnplicem sanguinem in istis venis contineri, quam- vis in hepate uterque elaboratin' ; one of the kinds being required by the porta, the other by the vessel which, rooting in the liver, proceeds as the vena cava to the heart. The blood of the portal system he maintains RIOLAN'S OPPOSITION. 225 does not circulate at all ; it has only a flux and reflux within its containing vessels. The blood brought to the right ventricle of the heart by the vena cava reaches the left ventricle by passing through the septum ; “ but I do not deny,” he continues, “ that in a violent agitation the blood may also be delivered to the left ventricle by way of the lungs, whence it would pass to the aorta for distribution to the body, reach the larger veins of the extremities which communicate with the arteries by means of anastomoses, and so get back to the right ventricle of the heart. In this way a circulation of the blood would be effected by a continual flux and reflux, even as the stones of a flour-mill are set in motion by water or the wind.” Such was the physiology of the man who in his day was accounted the greatest anatomist of his country ! SECTION IV. HARVEY REPLIES TO RIOLAN AND DEVELOPS HIS OWN VIEWS. Before proceeding to speak of the Encheiridium Anatomicum, Harvey says : “ I have first to dispose of certain observations that bear on the Circulation of the Blood as discovered by me. Scarce a day has passed since the birth of my Circulation of the blood that I have not had something said to me for good or Q 226 HARVEY. evil of my discovery.” This, I think, is the only place in his works in which Harvey speaks of himself as the Discoverer of the circulation of the blood ; and we observe that he makes no mention of any one disputing his title to the discovery. Neither, indeed, was there for long years any serious question of this. The reality of the thing was that which was then in debate. Harvey was welcome to his discovery if he could prove it true ; and it was as the iconoclast and innovator, rather than the promulgator of a novelty, that he was opposed in his day : a fact that ought to weigh for much with those who at the distance of two centuries and more show themselves so eager to give the honour of his discovery to any one but its author. Writing in the middle of the year 1642, Thomas Bartholin, still expresses himself as not fully satisfied of the truth of the circulation ; and Olaus Wormius and Fort. Licetus, addressing Bartholin in the following year, cannot make up their mind to part with the two kinds of blood. “ Have we it not demonstrably shown,” says Wormius, “ that the blood in the arteries differs from that in the veins — differs in substance, colour, subtlety and all other properties ? Bethink you, I pray, whether the blood of the arteries can possibly be that which we find in the veins.” (Epist. Bartholini, Cent. I). Harvey’s criticism of Riolan is of much less inte- rest to us now than that he has to say of himself on many points of his own subject not touched on in his REPLIES TO RIOLAN. 227 original treatise ; the first of these discussed being the anastomoses of the one system of vessels with the other — of the aorta and its endings with the vena cava and its beginnings. He says quite candidly, “ I have never succeeded in tracing any connection between the arteries and veins by a direct anasto- mosis of their orifices ; neither in the liver, spleen, lungs, kidneys or any other viscus, is such a thing to be seen ; and by boiling I have rendered the paren- chyma of these organs so friable that it could be shaken like dust from the fibres, so that I could follow every capillary filament distinctly. I can therefore boldly affirm that there is neither any anastomosis of the vena portae with the cava, of the hepatic arteries with the hepatic veins, nor of these with the biliary ducts.” Here we find Harvey at fault. He did not see — possessed no means of seeing, and certainly had recourse to no procedure by which he could have traced — the transition, by continuity of their canals from arteries to veins, and so he boldly but errone- ously concludes that nothing of the kind exists. Harvey’s idea, as we gather from other parts of his works, was this — that the arteries ended (by open mouths we must presume) in the areolae of the tis- sues they supplied, and that the veins, arising in the same manner, drank up the blood, having done its office, that had been shed for the nutrition and vital endowment of the parts. Q 2 228 HARVEY. With the means of investigation at his disposal we can readily understand how the great anatomist should have failed to discover the true mode of communication between the two orders of vessels. And what a spectacle would have met the ravished sight of William Harvey had he only been possessed of a lens of sufficient power, and bethought him of looking through it at some diaphanous part of a living animal — the mesentery of the frog or the web of its foot, the newt’s tail or the bat’s wing! But he appears to have had no “ magnifying glass ” that was more than the “ reading glass ” of the present day, so that the beautiful spectacle of the actual circulation was denied him. Harvey, strangely enough, says nothing of injec- tions as a means of investig-atinof the transition from arteries to veins ; yet we cannot suppose that he was unacquainted with the Isagoge of Jacobus Sylvius; and injection discreetly used, is competent to solve the question. If a young animal, a kitten or puppy be drowned in hot water, the chest laid open imme- diately, the ventricles pierced and the blood allowed to escape, a soft tallow injection can be readilv pushed through the whole of the vascular system, filling the arteries and returning by the veins to the right side of the heart. The mesentery is then seen covered with a network of capillaries, the arteries turning insen- sibly into veins without any of the interstitial effusion which Harvey believed to be the medium of commu- DEVELOPS HIS VIEWS. 229 nication between the one element of the vascular system and the other. That the blood sent from the heart by the arteries was the blood that returned to it by the veins was, nevertheless, held by Harvey as among the cardinal elements in his system ; it was the mode in which the two orders of vessels communicate that was left by him unsolved. The solution came, however, in due course ; though not until more than thirty years had elapsed after the circulation of the blood had been published to the world. Marcellus Malpighi of Crevalcuore, better furnished with aids to vision than Harvey with his “ magnifying glass,” had the happi- ness first to “see the blood circulating.” He was also the first modern comparative anatomist in succession to Harvey who used the microscope in investigating the minute structure of the parts com- posing the animal body, and was thereby privileged to see much that Harvey had no means of seeing. It is in his Epistolse duse de Pulmonibus (Bologna, 1661) that Malpighi speaks of having observed the circulation of the blood in the lung of the frog ; but the fact is more particularly described in the Opera Posthuma (Lond. 1697), from observations on the mesentery of the same animal, in which he says he had no difficulty in following the current from the larger to the smaller twigs of the arteries, from these to the finer filaments of the veins, from which larger and larger branches were reached until the HARVEY. 230 trunk of the vena cava was seen terminating in the heart . 1 Malpighi’s observations are both interesting in themselves, and highly important as having brought the circulation of the blood within the sphere of ocular demonstration. Harvey assumed, and may without reservation be said to have demonstrated, the circular motion of the blood as a necessity in the nature of things ; Malpighi presented it as a sensible fact, and was the first, as I have said, who saw the blood circulating. In Harvey’s second Disquisition to Riolan we find numerous particulars connected with the nature and quantity of the blood and its mode of progression taken up afresh and more fully illustrated ; but what is said on these heads hardly interests us in the present day, although they were very necessary to be advanced and insisted on when the reply was written, ' Born in 1628, Malpighi died at Rome in 1694. First appointed to a medical chair in the University of Bologna, like so many of the Italian professors, he was drafted in succession from one rival school to another, having taught at Pisa next, and in return, at Bologna, then at Messina, in Sicily, where he seems to have been very unhappy, back to Bologna, and finally to Rome ! A man of much ingenuity and indomitable industry, Malpighi appears to have had a peculiar aptitude for making enemies of almost all his contemporaries. Whether it was that as the original observer he showed himself too persistently the repudiator of accredited physiological notions, as the innovator, the troublesome person, always flaunting his discoveries in the face of his professional brethren, I do not know, but think it likely, for there is a strong spice of egotism in the biographical notice he gives of himself as introduction to his Opera Posthuma, published by the Royal Society of London, of which Malpighi was a fellow. DEVELOPS HIS VIEWS. 231 The different colours of arterial and venous blood, which we might have expected Harvey to have known through Columbus, following Servetus, as being due to its exposure to the air in the lung, he ascribed to the straining it underwent in the capillary vessels of the organ ; an erroneous conclusion to which the absolute similarity in point of colour between the venous and arterial blood of the foetus, which must have been observed by Harvey, may possibly have contributed. The function of the lungs during foetal life being in abeyance, no blood passes through them by the pulmonary artery and vein, and so there is no straining. The child born after a tedious labour is apt not to begin breathing at once. Its body is then dusky and its lips are of a deep purple, the funis still continuing to pulsate vigorously. But anon the infant makes an effort, fills its lungs, cries aloud, and in the same instant the body is suffused with a rosy blush, the lips become of a bright crimson, the pulse of the cord fails, and independent existence is assumed. Passing to the consideration of what is commonly said concerning vital and other spirits, which engaged so much attention and played such important parts in the systems of the old physiologists, Harvey says : “ Opinions are so various and conflicting on the nature of these and the state in which they exist in the body — whether as distinct from the blood and solids, or conjoined with them — that they serve as a 232 HARVEY. common refuge for ignorance. At a loss to account for anything they observe, those of limited informa- tion bring the spirits into play upon all occasions, like indifferent poets who are always thrusting the gods upon the stage as means of unravelling the plot and bringing about the catastrophe.” Neither upon this barren subject need we enter more particularly, but conclude, with our reasonable author, that “ as the spirits are variously designated, so are they to be taken as signifying faculties or causes of action in the living body, not as incorporeal, aerial or adventitious substances distinct from the parts or organs with which they are presumed to be associated, any more than is the flame of a lamp distinct from the vapour of the oil that is on fire, or aqua vitae from brandy.” On the subject of the calidum innatum or native heat, of which and its inherence in or association with one or another of their hypothetical spirits his predecessors and contemporaries had so much to say, Harvey is very brief. He, indeed, does not, any more than they, know how or whence the heat is derived ; but he sees clearly that it is most intimately connected with the arterial blood, and flows as one body with this . 1 “ When our hands, our feet, or our ears have got 1 The origin of the heat of the animal body, and the significance of the respiration, with which it had begun somehow to be connected, still continued enigmas to Haller and all the leaders of medical science towards the close of the bygone century. In the section on respiration of the Elementa Physiologias we find the great Gottingen professor, after saying (§ 275) that the breathing of an animal cannot be interrupted for ON THE NATIVE HEAT. 233 chilled, and are stiff, insensible and deadly pale or livid, the veins leading from them being at the same time shrunken, the members recover their flexibility, sense and natural colour through the influx of some- thing that makes them tingle, when the outer cold is changed for the shelter of the house or the warmth of a fire ; and this something is hot arterial blood from the heart, the vehicle as it were of renovated life.” Harvey has little to say to objectors to his views on the score of their possible utility. Our first duty, he thinks, is to inquire whether a thing is or is not, before asking wherefore it is, and what is its use ? And to those who object to what he advances because it disturbs long accredited notions, he replies : “ Facts cognizable by the senses wait on no opinions, and the doings of nature bow not to antiquity ; there is more than a very few minutes without causing death, adding, “ But the 7 ese is not the same as the necessity of an act,” and then asking (§ 278) if it be possible that the heat of the blood can arise from the breathing ? But the air is much colder than the blood ; (§ 279) so may not the heat be acquired by the friction and compression which the blood suffers in its passage through the lungs ? Or (§ 282) is not the blood rather cooled by the air of the lungs ? and is it not for this that they who are engaged in laborious work cry out for cold air ? That the blood must lose heat in the lungs is obvious, seeing that the air, taken in cold, is returned hot ; but that this is not the purpose of respiration is plain ; for no one has found the right ventricle of the heart warmer than the left. Were the blood cooled by the cold air taken into the lungs, it would reach the aorta still colder than it went into them, which is not the fact. All the heat it must have lost was, therefore, recovered.” So much from the greatest and most learned physiologist of his age, in anticipation of the better knowledge we now possess through the progress of chemical science. 234 HARVEY. nothing, indeed, more ancient nor of higher authority than nature. It were fruitless, moreover, elaborately to discuss the consequences and the advantages or disadvantages likely to follow to physiology and other parts of medical science from the discovery of the circulation of the blood, until it has been acknow- ledged as an established fact. The flood of light that breaks in on me through its means, however, is such,” he goes on to say, “ the aid it affords in interpreting so many problems and resolving so many doubts ; in detecting the causes of so many slighter and more serious diseases and su£orestinor means for their cure, that it will be my business in a separate treatise to be entitled ‘ Medical Observations,’ to lay matter before the reader that shall be worthy of the gravest consideration.” Harvey complains that his views have never been opposed on the ground of an appeal to facts. “ The Circulation of the Blood,” he says, “has now been before the world for many years, illustrated by proofs cognizable to the senses, and confirmed by numerous experiments ; but no one has yet attempted opposition to it on the ground of ocular testimony. Empty asser- tions, baseless arguments, captious cavillings, and contumelious epithets 1 are all that have been levelled ag-ainst the doctrine and its author. But even as the waves of the Sicilian sea, excited by the blast, which 1 Harvey was actually called Quack — Circulator, by some of his opponents. CAUSE OF THE HEART’S ACTION. 235 dash against the rocks around Charybdis, and hiss and foam, tossed hither and thither, are they who oppose sophistical and false reasoning to the evidence of the senses.” SECTION V. HARVEY DISCUSSES THE CAUSE OF THE HEART’S ACTION AND MOTION OF THE BLOOD. It is only in this Second Disquisition to Riolan that Harvey redeems the promise he makes in his first work to speak of the Cause of the motion of the Heart and Blood. The systolic action of the heart we know to be the moving power in his system ; but then what causes the systolic action of the heart ? Harvey is less happy in his attempt at explanation here than he always shows himself in the sphere of observation and inductive reasoning. He even falls under the influence of the old physiology, from the shackles of which he generally appears so free. But it is not for long ; he speedily sweeps away the hypothetical cobwebs that have threatened for a moment to entangle him. Here, however, it is that Harvey proceeds to say that “ the blood, collected in the vena cava at the base of the heart, increasing in temperature through the intrinsic heat of the organ and becoming attenuated, swells and expands like bodies in a state of fermenta- 236 HARVEY. tion ; the effect of which is, that the auricle, becoming distended, and then contracting in virtue of its pulsific power, delivers its charge to the right ventricle.” In the original Exercise there is not a word of the blood getting attenuated and swelling like dough in a baking trough. But the lapse is only momentary ; recovering himself immediately, Harvey gainsays what he has but just said, and declares that “he does not agree with the opinions commonly entertained on the Virtues and Causes of the Motions of the Heart ; he does not believe that the blood has its powers, properties, heat and motion as gifts of the heart. The cause of the dia- stole, he says, is not the same as that of the systole ; and the diastole, which necessarily precedes the systole, is not due to the presence in the blood of anything “of a vaporous or aereal nature.” Neither does he think that the act is connected with any external agency, but is owing to “ an internal principle under the control of nature !” This is vague enough, truly, and the great observer, the inductive reasoner on the ground of fact, shows that he is now groping in the dark, and leaves us to attach any meaning we please to his words. Refer- ring to the honourable mention Descartes has made of him — and it may be that it is what Descartes has said “ on the swelling of some fluids when they fall drop by drop on a hot plate ” which has led him now to speak as he does — but criticizing the conclusions of the philoso- pher on the diastole and systole of the heart, Harvey CAUSE OF THE HEART’S ACTION. 2 37 objects to the diastole being taken as significant of a state of activity, when it is really one of passiveness. Neither auricles nor ventricles expand like bellows by any inherent dilating power of their own ; but being soft and flexible they are filled by the blood flowing into them from the veins with which they are in com- munication, in the same way precisely as the fingers of a glove are distended when it is blown into by the mouth — the illustration he had originally adduced. Harvey, therefore, abandons what he had said on the puffing up of the blood as the initiatory cause of the auricular and ventricular diastole. But the problem started — the cause of the heart’s action, and so of the blood’s motion, is of the rarest interest, and physiologically of the last importance. It will not be put aside without further effort to find its solution. Harvey, therefore, proceeds to say : “ The heart is by no means to be thought of as a kind of chauffer or kettle communicating heat to the blood contained within it. Instead of receiving heat, the blood rather communicates heat to the heart, as it does to all parts of the body ; for the blood is truly the hottest element in the body ; the heart itself being furnished with the coronary artery and vein to the end that it may have warmth imparted to it. The native or innate heat I therefore regard as the common instrument of every function — as prime cause of the pulse ( i.e . of the heart’s systole) among the number.” Somewhat alarmed by the definiteness of this con- 238 HARVEY. elusion, we might imagine, he immediately adds apo- logetically : “ But this I do not mean to state absolutely ; I only propose it by way of thesis and it is in connection with the subject now before us, that w r e have Harvey, by-and-by, advancing the proposition that “ the heat of the blood is engendered by the influ- ence of the air : ” “ The soul, the life, the power to assume independent existence is acquired by the foetus when it begins to breathe,” says Servetus : “ It is as if heat were enkindled within the feetus by the influence of the air,” says Harvey . 1 Harvey’s predecessors, then, had the innate heat as an important agent in the animal economy ; but to them, even with the hint given by Servetus as to its possible source, it was not heat simply, a constituent of the blood and bodily functions, as it is to Harvey ; it was a hypothetical entity apart from the organism, a vital principle, a something in rather than of the blood. In his assumption of heat as the moving power in the animal organism, Harvey, therefore, again meets us as the Seer ; for although neither he nor his age knew aught of the correlation and conservation through mutual convertibility of the imponderables or great cosmic forces, he is still prophetic of the future. Acknowledging as many now do that the Sun through its heat transformed to motion is the power that impels the Planets in their orbits and gives so many of their 1 “ On Generation,” p. 530 of English translation. CAUSE OF THE HEART’S ACTION. 239 states and properties to the things of the inorganic world, we are ever more assuredly referred to the same great centre as efficient cause of the phenomena we witness in the world of organization. That which is the source of Motion in the Universe, we need not hesitate to acknowledge as the source of motion in each and all of its individual parts ; for our modern philosophy recognises none but general, eternal, all- pervading Laws. Heat passing from a hotter to a colder medium, then, is transmuted into mechanical effect or work in the world of brute matter ; into vital effect or work in the world of matter organized. With the heat of the sun stored in the fuel consumed by the steam engine turned into motion, we have the hundreds or thou- sands of foot-pounds of available power set free, with transference in space at an approach to planetary speed. With the heat of the sun the air of the atmosphere and the mineral contents of the soil arrested by plants, we have the wonderful evolution of life in union with organic structure and unconscious sensibility ; and, with the same great force stored in the food appropriated by animals, represented by the blood and tissues of their bodies, consumed and turned into motion, we attain at length to Muscular Con- tractility, Glandular Secretion, Conscious Sensibility, Moral Emotion and Understanding. Life in the aggregate then meets us in its highest manifestation — man — as motion due to the action of oxygenated blood 240 HARVEY. upon the elementary tissues of which the organism is composed, ceaseless consumption of itself and of these being implied. Hence the necessity of ever fresh supplies of fuel to the engine, of food to the animal ; the fuel appearing as mechanical motion in the one, the food as vital motion in the other. It may scarcely be necessary to speak of the con- ditions indispensable to such transmutation of the initiatory heat-force. Suffice it to say that the heat must disappear if motion is to appear. The high- pressure engine would stand still in an atmosphere of its own temperature ; the condensing engine would not give a stroke without its cold chamber. There could then be no conversion of heat into mechanical motion. In the same way precisely, the animal body, in an atmosphere in which it could lose no heat, would necessarily suffer arrest of all motion, or die. In speaking thus of heat as the cause of vital motion, I would beg- to be understood as meaning to say, that I believe it to be the immediate agent in the phenomena we witness in animal bodies. How it is so, how it came to be so, we do not know. But we can say with Harvey, speaking of generation, that “ he who derives it from the same Eternal and Omnipo- tent Deity, on whose nod the Universe itself depends, takes the right and pious view of the matter. Nor do I think,” he continues, “ that we are greatly to dispute about the name by which this First Agent is to be called — whether it be God, Nature, or the Soul CAUSE OF VITAL MOTION. 241 of the Universe — all still intend by it that which is the beginning and the end of all things ; which exists from Eternity, which is Author or Creator, is Omni- present, and not less in the single and several operations of natural things than in the infinite Universe.” In so far as sensible phenomena help to a conclusion we might perhaps be emboldened to say that the imme- diate cause of the heart’s contraction is the contact of the blood poured into it with the diastole. Thus an animal killed by decapitation and having the chest laid open, the heart is seen pulsing feebly for a few seconds, and then ceasing whilst the animal is held erect. But the body being inclined and the blood contained in the veins of the abdomen and lower extremities made to flow to the heart, its action is immediately restored, and continued until the supply of blood is exhausted. SECTION VI. TRANSFUSION OF THE BLOOD FROM ARTERIES TO VEINS, AND THE IMBIBING POWER OF THE VEINS. In speaking thus of the cause of the motion of the heart, the doctrine of the circulation would neverthe- less not be complete. That there must be ceaseless transfusion of blood from arteries to veins, Harvey demonstrated to be a physical necessity ; but, as we R 242 HARVEY. have seen, he did not know precisely how it was ac- complished, and he certainly erred when he affirmed that it was not by continuity of canal between the two orders of vessels, as shown by Malpighi, who had the good fortune first to see the capillary arteries pouring their tide into the capillary veins, and these in turn transferring it to the venous trunks. But even with the addition of this important fact, all is not yet complete. The arteries are canals bringing supplies of nourishment to the tissues, and the veins conduits carrying back so much of the vitalizing fluid as is not wanted for their growth and maintenance. Still within the vessels, however, the tissues can have no advantage from the nutriment they contain. The matured, most perfect portion of the blood — the plasma — must transude the walls of the arteries and bathe the tissues immediately before they can select from it the elements they require for their growth, nutrition, repair, secreting faculty, or vital en- dowment. Such transudation, we must presume, is readily effected by the force of the heart putting the coats of the arteries on the stretch. Then does the finer portion of the blood transude the walls of the arteries, and bone, muscle, skin, glandular parenchyma, nerve and brain select that which each requires for the maintenance of its structure and the performance of its function ; the heat, engendered by the molecular and chemical changes that now take place in the blood and tissues, being at the same instant dissipated TRANSFUSION FROM ARTERIES TO VEINS. 243 and turned into motion, with the marvellous results briefly hinted at above. Nor are all the processes dependent on the access of arterial blood yet accomplished. The plasma, the vitalizing pabulum of the organism, has been presented immediately to the parts, and they have appropriated so much of it as they require for their maintenance and their functions ; but so much as was not required for these, and the molecules that have been replaced by the fresher matter appropriated, have to be re- moved, and either renovated by the action of the air in the breathing apparatus, or thrown out of the system in the shape of carbonic acid by the lungs, of bile by the liver, and of urea by the kidneys. The question that now presents itself is, therefore, this : How is the plasma shed from the arteries, having done its office and replete with sordes, to get back into the current of the circulation ? By the absorbing faculty of the veins, is the answer ready at hand. But in virtue of what do the veins acquire the absorbing power they possess in such perfection ? Secretion by cell-formation, as we know the process to go on in glands, would enable them to attract with every requisite degree of rapidity the fluids effused into the tissues amid which they run. But the veins are not secreting vessels ; they have not the cell-elements of glands in their structure ; they are mere membranous canals for returning to its source the blood that has been sent from the heart by the arteries. Like animal r 2 244 HARVEY. membranes in general, however, with the requisite conditions in presence, the veins are well disposed to imbibe ; the one condition necessary to this end being that their contents shall in some trifling degree be more dense than the fluids which bathe the tissues around them. Now among other elements of the complex animal organism, is the system of minute but ever active sweat glands embedded in the skin, the sole function of which appears by the latest researches to be to secrete, and by tiny ducts that end on the surface to pour out, pure water. The fluid thrown off by the sweat glands actually consists of nothing but water, the o'5 to 1,2, or 3 per cent, of saline and sebaceous matter, mingled with epithelial scales, being mere accidental ingredients easily traced to their sources. In the ratio, however, in which the blood sent to the sweat glands loses water, is the current that leaves them more dense than it was in the arteries which supplied them, and with the loss of so much water comes the absorbing faculty of the veins. In the sweat glands, then, I believe, we have an apparatus whose special function it is to secure the conditions necessary to the ceaseless interchange of the elements or materials without which life could not be continued. Without a provision of the kind we discover in the sweat glands, absorption by hetero- geneous attraction of the fluid shed from the o arteries for the nutrition of the body, could not when spent find its way back into the veins, so that vital ABSORBING POWER OF VEINS. 245 action of every kind would necessarily cease — if indeed, in the higher organisms, it could ever have begun . 1 But the action of the sudoriparous glands we must presume can only extend to the veins of the more superficial parts of the body. The veins of the deeper lying parts also require a power of the like kind ; and this I find supplied them by the widely dis- tributed system of lymphatic vessels. These possess in themselves the proper elementary structure of secreting glands : they are tubes with the power of cell-formation in their interior, — the power in virtue of which they secrete lymph, the fluid appropriate to them. The lymphatic vessels do not in fact differ in essential constitution from the tubuli of the kidney, testis, salivary or milk glands ; but their function being required over extensive areas, it is only here and there, as in the mesenteric and conglobate glands, that they are found coiled and packed together in masses, with a special parenchyma interposed. Elsewhere they run in single strands amid the deeper structures, commmencing in cul de sacs, and canals everywhere of about the same calibre, never in minute capillaries in the way the arteries end and the veins begin. Secreting a fluid specifically lighter than venous blood — for the lymph, like the sweat, consists of from ninety-four to ninety-eight, or more, per cent, of pure 1 See the writer’s work on “ The Sudoriparous and Lymphatic Glandular Systems,” published in 1868, re-issued (Williams and Norgate) in 1877. 246 HARVEY. water, they give the deeper veins, in virtue of the condensation effected in the blood within them, the faculty of imbibition which they possess in so eminent a degree. In the work above referred to (p. 41) I ventured to surmise from the singular amount of disturb- ance that ensues in the system generally upon any implication of the serous membranes, that they sup- plied means for a large extension of the lymphatic vessels. And the most recent histological inquiries do in fact show the serous membranes of the body to be elements in the lymphatic system. Paved on their free aspects by a layer of flattened nucleated cells, every here and there, between the junctions of these, certain stomata are observed, analogous I apprehend in all respects to those of the intestinal villi. As in the villi, these stomata are surrounded by rings of minute cubical cells, which lead either directly or by short canals into underlying lymphatic vessels, lined with cells of the same description as those characteristic of the lymphatic vessels in other parts of the body. The stomata in question are in truth nothing less than commencements of lymphatic vessels, not pouring out, but secreting inwards. In accomplishing the processes which constitute animal life, we have, therefore, two great factors at work. First — the transmutation of heat-force into life-force by simple dissipation effected through the CORRELATION OF FORCES. 247 colder medium by which the organism is surrounded ; the excessive influence of this being guarded against by clothing, its approximate insufficiency (within narrow limits unhappily when most required) by evaporation from the surface. Second — the molecular and chemical changes wrought in the tissues by their ceaseless composition and decomposition through con- tact with the plasma of oxygenated blood, the removal of this, when spent, being effected by the absorbing power of the veins, acquired, as I maintain, by the agency of the sudoriparous and lymphatic systems of glands. We then see these hitherto enigmatical systems brought into intimate relationship with the ultimate act of the animal organism — the conservation of its tissues with their inherent special powers ; and farther, understand the more immediately fatal, or more remotely serious, consequences that ensue from dis- turbance or destruction of their functions, — of that of the skin especially, whether it be from chill or excessive heat, from scalding, covering the body with an imper- vious varnish, gilding or applying matters that act chemically upon it. More than this, and of greater importance because of the wider application of the principles involved, we are at no loss to divine the cause of the unhealthiness of so many intertropical countries, where the mean temperature ranges between eighty and ninety, and the day temperature mounts to ninety-six or ninety-seven degrees Fahr., the atmosphere being at the same time all but saturated 248 HARVEY. with moisture. Man is then on the verge of circum- stances in which by his nature he cannot live. In an atmosphere of his own temperature at saturation point, he must necessarily die ; for there were then no transmutation of heat-force into motion or life- force, and no molecular interchanges effected by the contact of oxygenated blood with organic tissue . 1 Having disposed of Riolan’s Encheiridion in his two disquisitions, and illustrated and confirmed his own views by many additional arguments, observations, and experiments, Harvey, in the few words in which he speaks of his “ Medical Observations,” gives us a glimpse of what we lost when his papers were de- stroyed by the mob, in the early part of what is called the Rebellion. “In my Medical Anatomy,” he says, “ from the many dissections I have made of the bodies of persons worn out by serious and strange diseases, I mean to relate how and in what way the internal organs were changed in size, situation, structure, figure, consistency and other sensible qualities from their natural characters and appearances, and to what various and remarkable affections they led. For even 1 See my work quoted above, p. 59. Were it within the scope of my work to go farther into physiological and pathological matters, thus brought briefly into the foreground, I should feel it my duty, as it would be my pleasure, to refer particularly to the exhaustive work of Dr. J. Bell Pettigrew, “ The Physiology of the Circulation of the Blood,” &c. (8vo., Edinb., 1876), and to discuss the subject of malaria and its influence ; I beg, however, to refer again to my brochure on the sweat-glands and lymphatic vessels, p. 51, et seq. REFERS TO HIS MEDICAL OBSERVATIONS. 249 as the dissection of healthy and well-constituted bodies contributes essentially to the advancement of philosophy and sound physiology, so does the inspection of diseased and cachectic subjects powerfully assist philosophical pathology.” This was precisely the course which Morgagni followed and happily lived in some considerable measure to achieve ; it is that also which it has been the business of modern pathology, through the illustrious line of the Baillies, Laennecs, Andrals, Louis, Cruveilhiers, Carswells, Richard Brights, Riolans, Rokitanskys, and many others, to render ever more and more complete. Returning to our history, we find that Riolan did not fail to reply to Harvey j 1 but without adducing a sin- gle fact calculated either to put himself in the right, or to prove his critic in the wrong. He even misunder- stands Harvey at times ; and shows himself nettled at the present which the English anatomist makes him of a “ Third Circulation ” — that, namely, through the heart, in addition to the two he has himself imagined. “ This third circulation,” says Riolan, “is an absurdity ; for the vessels of the heart draw blood from the larger circulating vessels beyond or near the organ ; consequently, not from its ventricles ; so that there can be no third circulation, nothing being taken from the heart or returned to it.” But whence, we may 1 Responsio ad duas exercitationes anatomicas postremas Gulielmi Harvei de Circulatione Sanguinis. Paris, 1649. And in Opusc. Anat. Paris, 1652. 250 HARVEY. ask, comes the coronary artery, and whither tends the coronary vein ? The circulation through the heart, adduced by Harvey, is in fact an epitome in little of the circulation through the body in great. Riolan’s doctrine of the circulation scarcely found a single abettor and never bore fruit. It stood a barren ear amidst the lusty harvest that soon sprang up and overspread the lands from the seed sown by Harvey. Riolan, nevertheless, turning his unbelief of the truth into a faith, went on teaching his untenable doctrine to the end of his days ; but so completely had physio- logical opinion changed ere long, that the Administra- tion interposed, with a view to give what had come to be seen as the truth a chance of being heard, and inaugurated a second Chair of Anatomy at the Jardin du Roi. The occupant of this was Pierre Dionis , 1 a distinguished surgeon and accoucheur as well as an able anatomist. A younger man than Riolan, and committed to no theory of his own on the motion of the blood, but open to the truth and free to own his convictions, Dionis proceeded forthwith, to the delight of the students who flocked to his lectures, to teach anatomy in conformity with the new doctrine of the H arveian Circulation. 1 Anatomie de l’homme suivant la Circulation du Sang et les Nou- velles Decouvertes. Paris, 1690. Svo. 251 SECTION VII. HARVEY’S VIEWS BEGIN TO BE GENERALLY ACCEPTED — DE BACK, SCHLEGEL, WALRUS, PECQUET, BARTPIOLIN, LICETUS. Harvey must now, indeed, have seen his views assured of general reception at no distant date. In the course of the same year in which he himself answered Riolan, Dr. de Back, of Amsterdam, published his work on the Heart , 1 which is written entirely in harmony with the Harveian principles, and Riverius, Professor of Medicine in the University of Montpellier, publicly defended and taught the circulation of the blood. 2 The following year, Paul Marquard Schlegel, of Ham- burg, produced his commentary on the Motion of the Blood , 3 in which he addresses himself particularly to a refutation of Riolanus, whose scholar he had been, and at the same time shows himself so thoroughly at home in the general question, that he is able to throw further confirmatory light on many of its elements by new and ingenious experiments and considerations. Harvey must have been pleased with Schlegel’s work, which is indeed a most able and exhaustive 1 De Corde. Amst., 1649. In English, i2mo. Lond., 1653. 2 A candour for which he was by and by summoned by an adherent of the old school to resign his chair ! 3 De Sanguinis Motu Commentarius. 4to. Hamb., 1650. 252 HARVEY. criticism of the whole subject of the circulation ; for he by and by sends the German author a copy of his own book “ On Generation,” with an admirable letter, which has happily been preserved. Another writer who had great influence in spread- ing a knowledge of Harvey’s views was Jo. Walaeus, 1 Professor of Leyden. After having ventilated the subject through the inaugural dissertation of Roger Drake, of which mention has already been made, he came forth in his own name in two excellent epistles addressed to Thos. Bartholin. In these he gives his assent almost without reservation to everything Har- vey has advanced ; and his letters, calling others into the field, particularly his correspondent Bartholin, and Fortunius Licetus, of Bologna, 2 a copious letter writer, who went at great length into the question, North and South were amply supplied with information on the new and important discovery of the great English anatomist. The students of 1628 and 1630, althpugh educated in unbelief of the circulation, had, by this time come into possession of some of the professorial chairs ; and, truth being ever victorious in the end, the young pro- fessors, having escaped from leading-strings and made enquiry for themselves, were now proclaiming the better faith through greater knowledge that had sprung up within them. Harvey had himself received the 1 Epistolae duae de Motu Sanguinis et Chyli ad Thom. Bartholinum. iamo. Leid., 1652. 2 Ue Ouassitis per Epistolas a Claris Viris responsa, Fortunio Liceto Authore. Part. vii. Bonon. et Utin., 1640-50. GENERAL ACCEPTANCE OF HIS VIEWS. 253 seeds of his discovery in Italy ; but she was slow to recognize him whom she had so powerfully contributed to form, as she has of late been the most forward of all in her mistaken attempts to rob him of his title of Discoverer. It was not, in fact, until 1651, that Har- vey’s views were in any way recognized beyond the Alps, when Trullius, a Roman professor, expounded and taught them, much about the same time as Pec- quet of Dieppe, 1 Bartholin of Copenhagen, 2 and Walaeus of Leyden, 3 men of original mind, of learn- ing and research, gave in their adhesion to the new doctrine, and spread it far and wide by their teaching and writings. The victory of the circulation may be said to have been finally won when Plempius, of Louvain, the old antagonist of Descartes on the sub- ject, retracted all he had formerly written against it, convinced of its truth, as he so candidly informs us, by the very pains he took to satisfy himself of its erron- eousness, and publicly proclaimed his conversion : “ Primum mihi hoc inventum non placuit,” says the worthy Plempius — “ This discovery did not please me at all at first, as I publicly testified both by word of mouth and in my writings ; but by and by, when I gave myself up with firmer purpose to refute and ex- pose it, lo ! I refute and expose myself, so convincing, not to say merely persuasive, are the arguments of 1 Experimenta nova Anatomica, sup. citat. 2 Anatomia ex Casp. Bartholini Parent. Instititut. ad Sanguinis Circulationem tertium Reformata. 8vo. Leid., 1651. s Epistolae duae, sup. citat. 254 HARVEY. the author : I examine the whole thing anew and with greater care, and having at length made the dissection of a few live dogs, I find that all his statements are most true.” 1 From the first promulgation of the doctrine of the circulation, thus far its progress towards ultimate general acceptance can scarcely be said to have been interrupted for a moment. The hostility of the Prime- roses and Parisanuses and Riolans never interfered with it in fact ; the more candid spirits were rather led to make inquiry by the lucubrations of these weak and inconsistent opponents, who all, in the catastrophe of their discomfiture, hastened the triumph of the truth. If men’s minds were ever in danger of being led astray, it was only for an instant, and not so much through the opposition of enemies, as by an erroneous generalization, which a short interval of time sufficed to correct. Csecilius Folius, a young physician of Venice, having met with one of those abnormal in- stances of pervious foramen ovale in an adult, imme- diately and without looking farther, jumped to the con- clusion that the anomalous structure he had lighted on was natural, and that the blood passed in all cases by the route he proclaimed, from the right to the left side of the heart. In the inaugural dissertation 2 in which Foli pub- 1 Plempii Fundamenta Medicinas, fol., Lovan., 1652, p. 128. 2 Sanguinis a dextro in sinistrum Cordis Ventriculum defluentis facilis reperta via. Fol. Venet., 1639. ACCEPTANCE OF HIS VIEWS. 255 lished the discovery he had made, he shows himself a strenuous defender of the ancients generally — of Galen in particular. “ Galen,” he says, “ knew that the veins anastomosed with the arteries ; for it mattered not whether you divided one or other of these vessels, the animal still bled to death.” Galen, he therefore concludes, must have known of the circulation, and Harvey in his opinion only revived a piece of know- ledge that had fallen into oblivion . 1 The engravings with which Foli illustrates his work show a small opening in the partition between the two sides of the heart, into which nothing larger than a probe could be passed, and by which, presuming the ventricles to act with like force — i.e., force commen- surate with the resistance they have severally to over- come — not a drop of blood could have found its way, whether from right to left or from left to right. Many Italians received with favour the account which Foli gave of his discovery ; and the natural philosopher, Gassendi, having about the same period had another instance of the kind which Foli encountered shown to him, concurred with this writer in his views, and by a variety of arguments and objections, strove to damage, and did temporarily damage, the Har- veian doctrine . 2 But this was only for a brief season ; 1 “ Quam quidern sententiam de sanguinis circulations, oblivioni tradi- tam, disputationi revocavit Gulliehnus Herveus, vir sane perspicaci ingenio suvimoque virhite prceditusl (Fol. 8b.) - Gassendi, De Septo Cordis pervio, which will be found published in a collection by Severinus Pinseus. umo. Leid., 1640. 256 HARVEY. for Domenic de Marchettis 1 by-and-by showed that Foli had mistaken an extremely rare occurrence for a general fact ; and that if the foramen ovale, pervious, might afford a passage from the right to the left side of the heart in one case, closed, it would suffer no such transit in thousands of other instances. Gassendi, moreover, by getting still more out of his depth, soon afterwards showed that familiarity with general physics did not imply any sufficient knowledge of anatomy, nor give the power of reasoning sagely on subjects of special physiology ; so that in his eagerness to assail Harvey he did injury in the end only to his own re- putation. In short, Harvey in his lifetime had the high satisfaction of seeing his discovery generally re- ceived, and inculcated as a canon in most of the medi- cal schools of Europe. He is, therefore, one of the few — his friend Thomas Hobbes says, he was the only one within his knowledge — “ Solus quod sciam ,” 2 who lived to see the new doctrine which he had pro- mulgated victorious over opposition and established in public opinion. 1 D. de Marchettis, Anatomia. 8vo. Padova, 1652. 2 Elementa Philosophic. Proemium. 257 SECTION VIII. USE OF HARVEY’S DISCOVERY : FONTENELLE. We have had Harvey, when forced with evident reluctance to allude to the good that might accrue from his discovery, speaking of the flood of light that poured in upon him through its means ; but this subject, lying outside of that on which he was imme- diately engaged, he contents himself by referring to his Medical Observations for its particular considera- tion, and concludes in these words : “ I shall always be ready to listen to whatever is objected to me by good and learned men — nay, I shall even be grateful to any one who will take up and discuss the subjects that have engaged me.” With what has been added by the present writer on some of these — on the cause of the heart’s motion, on the transmutation of heat-force into life-force, following the physicists of the day, and on the essen- tially vital function of the sudoriparous and lymphatic systems of glands from himself, he ventures to believe that many physiological and pathological phenomena yet unexplained, may be satisfactorily interpreted ; whilst hygienic principles are suggested, the importance and far-reaching significance of which cannot be over- s 258 HARVEY. estimated. Let us, therefore, yield in nowise to the suggestion which Monsieur Fontenelle, one of the lively writers of the last century, puts into the mouth of Erasistratus in his Dialogues des Morts, 1 viz., that the discovery of the circulation of the blood will have no influence on the rate of human mortality. Let us rather maintain that, as it is the foundation on which the Physics of animal life in its higher manifes- tations repose, so is it also the starting-point from which advances may be made adequate not only to take from the adverse influences to which life is exposed, but greatly to enlarge the sphere of those which tend to its conservation, in the forefront of 1 “ Eras. You do indeed tell me strange things! What! the blood circulates in the body ? — the veins bring it to the heart from the extremi- ties, and from the heart it enters the arteries to proceed to the extremities, from which it returns by the veins as before ? “ Harv. I have shown that such is the fact by so many experiments that no one now doubts it. “ Eras. We were all in the wrong, then, long ago ; but I suppose you think your discovery very useful ? “ Harv. Certainly, I do. “ Eras. Tell me, then, how it comes that we see so many dead men joining us here below every day? “ Harv. Oh ! if they die, that is their affair ; it is no fault of the doctors. “ Eras. But the circulation of the blood — those conduits, those reser- voirs, and all you know about them, do not serve to keep folks alive ? “ Harv. We have not yet, perhaps, had time to know all the uses the discovery may be put to ; we shall learn more by and by. “ Eras. Take my word for it, there will be no change. “ Harv. Yet it would be singular if, in knowing the nature of man better, we did not also learn to cure diseases better. “ Eras. Very good; but for my part, I fancy that the discovery of a new conduit in the animal body or a new star in the sky is of much the same importance in so far as the life of man is concerned. Make what discoveries in anatomy you may, men will go on dying all the same.” THE LACTEAL VESSELS. 259 which stands the maintenance of the bodily health, not to be understood in all its elements, in all its dependencies, without the most perfect knowledge of every organ and function that constitute the complex Organisms of which Life is at once both Cause and Effect, in connection with the cosmical agencies amid which they exist. SECTION IX. THE LACTEAL VESSELS. ASELLI. PECQUET. T here is an important element in the vascular system, though it has no immediate part in the circulation of the blood, that must not be passed without notice by us — all the more as Harvey’s failure to recognize its significance and real impor- tance has afforded his detractors an opportunity to call his character for candour and liberality into question. This is the system of lacteal vessels, with the discovery of which Aselli, as having been the first to describe them particularly, is fairly enough credited, although its trunk at all events had been already spoken of by Bartholomaeus Eustachius, and others. Aselli, Professor in the University of Bologna, was born at Cremona in 1580, and died in 1626, when no more than forty-six years of age. We learn from him- self that he discovered the lacteal veins accidentally, 26 o HARVEY. whilst dissecting the body of a dog to show some friends the course of the recurrent nerve in 1622, although the important fact was not made publicly known until five years afterwards. 1 When Aselli saw the lacteals first, he took them for nerves ; and it was only on puncturing one of them, and seeing the milky fluid which escaped, that he discovered them to be vessels. Aselli, however, failed to follow them through the mesenteric glands — called pancreas Aselli — to their true terminations, in a common duct. Prepossessed by the idea of the liver as the organ of the haemapoesis, he represents them erroneously in the wood-cuts with which his work is illustrated, as ending on the concave aspect of the great abdominal viscus ; the vessels depicted being probably lympha- tics running from the liver, not lacteals proceeding to it. There could be no question about the existence of the new order of vessels on the intestines and mesen- tery of the dog and other inferior animals ; but were 1 In his work entitled De Lactibus seu venis lacteis, quarto vasorum mesaraicorum genere novo invento, Dissertatio, cum figuris. Mediolani, 1627, 4to. The work, published posthumously, besides the figures printed in colours, is illustrated by a fine engraved portrait of the author. His discovery was very speedily generally known, however, this being greatly due to the liberality of Claude Nicolas de Peiresc, one of the better samples of the great French seigneurs of the old regime. Inter- ested in science and delighting in the converse of learned men, Peiresc appears to have entertained the natural philosopher Gassendi in his castle. Informed by Gassendi of the publication of Aselli's work, Peiresc forthwith ordered a number of copies, which he presented in quarters where he believed the new truth announced would receive the attention it deserved. ASELLI. PECQUET. 261 they also elements in the anatomy of man ? Aselli had doubtless looked for them and missed them in the bodies of those who had died of ordinary disease, and he could not well have a living subject for examination, although temptation of the kind used to be thrown in the way of the old anatomists. We have no intimation, however, that Aselli ever thought of satisfying his scientific curiosity by dissecting a man alive ; but he provided an unhappy wretch condemned to death, with a hearty meal a few hours before his execution, and on laying open the abdomen soon after this, the milk white veins were immedi- ately conspicuous upon the bowels and mesentery, a quantity of their contents being farther collected for examination, to the great satisfaction of himself and friends . 1 Thus far and no further did the discovery of the lacteals go in the hands of Aselli ; its completion was reserved for the greater perseverance and higher anatomical skill of Pecquet, the anatomist who followed Aselli in the investigation of the newly discovered system of vessels. J. Pecquet of Dieppe, an accomplished physician and skilful surgeon, was the first French writer of note who accepted the circulation of the blood without reserve, and made himself honourably known to the world at large as demonstrator of the course and termination of the lacteal vessels and thoracic duct. Aselli, as we have seen, observed the lacteals on the intestines and 1 Gassendi, in Vita Peirescii, p. 283. 262 HARVEY. mesentery, and, erroneously, made them end in the liver. Pecquet traced them from the intestines to the mesenteric glands, and from these into a common sac or reservoir which he designated receptaculum chyli, from whence he lost them not again from sight, until, united into a single slender conduit, he saw it terminate at the point of the junction between the jugular and subclavian veins. Pecquet of Dieppe and Schlegel of Hamburg were in truth the two anatomists who entered most fully into the spirit of the great Harveian discovery. They would prove it for themselves and make trial of the principles it proclaimed. Hence their honourable position, the one — he of Hamburg — as the accom- plished expositor and illustrator of Harvey’s doctrine of the circulation ; the other — he of Dieppe — as discoverer of an important anatomical fact, and the first to apply one of the great principles involved in the Harveian induction. “ Having exposed the artery and accompanying vein in the leg of a dog,” says Pecquet, “ and punctured the vein, blood of course immediately followed ; but tightening the ligature that had been passed round the artery, lo ! the stream from the vein ceased forthwith. Slackening the ligature, however, again it burst forth as before. . . . Now if the blood flows outwards only by the arteries, did we tie the vessel which supplies a limb about to be amputated, the operation might be performed without loss of blood. No sooner imagined than put to the proof. I tie the DETRACTION FOLLOWS DISCOVERY. 263 crural artery of the dog, avoiding the vein, and ampu- tate the member a little beyond the ligature. Only a few drops of blood escaped from the divided veins ; but there was no hemorrhage.” 1 SECTION X. ENVY AND DETRACTION FOLLOW THE DISCOVERER. Harvey’s views, then, were admitted ; the circulation of the blood, through the action of the heart, was ac- knowledged as an established fact ; but envy and de- traction followed in the wake of recognition. The circulation of the blood as announced, it was said, was undeniable, but the merit of arriving at it was little — the way having been amply prepared for the conclusions finally attained ; the fact was of no great moment in itself ; and the discovery none of Harvey’s making. Let us look as impartially as we may at each of these statements. 1 Experimenta nova Anatomica. Accedit de motu Sanguinis Disser- tatio. Paris, 1641, p. 28 et seq. Dr. Morison, of Paris, a correspondent of Harvey, must have sent him Pecquet’s book, the perusal of which, he says, has given him much pleasure. He greatly commends the author “ for his assiduity in dissection, for his ingenuity in contriving new experiments, and for the shrewdness he evinces in the remarks he makes upon them.” “ With what labour do we attain to the hidden things of truth, when we take the averments of our senses as the guide which God has given us for attaining to a knowledge of his works ! ” (“ Correspond- ence of Harvey,” English version of Works, pp. 595 et seq.) 264 HARVEY. They who deny the originality of Harvey’s induc- tion, all but invariably confound a motion of the blood in the arteries and veins, with the idea of its con- tinuous motion in a circle throughout the body. We have seen, however, that even from the most ancient times and by common consent, a certain motion of the blood — generally of a to-and-fro kind — had been recognized. It is as old as Aristotle, Hippocrates, and Galen, at all events ; and is referred to in various passages of their works by unprofessional writers — by the great observer of his own age in particular, the depository of the popular science of all preceding ages — Shakspeare. Brutus, addressing Portia, says : “ You are my true and honourable wife, As dear to me as are the ruddy drops That visit my sad heart ; ” language not more touching and beautiful than physio- logically correct. And again, with more of involu- tion and ellipsis, yet with a meaning that is unmis- takable, Warwick, by the bedside of the murdered Gloster, proceeds, — “ See how the blood is settled in his face ! — Oft have I seen a timely-parted ghost, Of ashy semblance, meagre, pale, and bloodless, — Being all descended to the labouring heart, Who, in the conflict that he holds with death, Attracts the same for aidance 'gainst the enemy ; Which with the heart there cools, and ne’er returneth To blush and beautify the cheek again — — But see, his face is black and full of blood,” &c. These passages have actually been cited, to prove that Shakspeare was not unacquainted with the circu- ENVY AND DETRACTION FOLLOW HIM. 265 lation ; and there have not been wanting some 1 who have even argued that Shakspeare had his knowledge direct from the fountain-head — from Harvey himself, with whom, for several years at least, he was contem- poraneous . 2 The passages quoted above are referred to all the more willingly, from their having preceded the teach- ing of Harvey by a few years only ; but Shakspeare doubtless referred to nothing more than the current opinion that the blood was in motion within the heart and vessels, particularly the veins. In ancient times, indeed, we have seen in our general survey that the veins were regarded by anatomists, as by the vulgar they are still esteemed, the principal or proper blood vessels of the body. Until Harvey had taught and written, no one imagined that the florid blood of the arteries had ever been the dark blood of the veins ; and Servetus’s hint in explanation of that which might cause the change being overlooked, the world had to wait nearly a hundred and twenty years before the suggestion of the gifted Spaniard was demonstrated as a truth. This was happily accomplished at last by 1 Thomas Nimmo, Esq., of New Amsterdam, Berbice : “ On a passage in Shakspeare’s Julius Caesar.” “ The Shakspeare Society’s Papers,” vol. ii. p. 109. 2 Shakspeare died in 1616, the year when Harvey began to lecture at the College of Physicians. “Julius Caesar,” first printed in the folio of 1623, is believed to have been written between 1603 and 1607 ; but Harvey settled in London in 1604, so that he and Shakspeare may very well have been acquainted — let us hope that they were — but we can quote no authority for saying that they ever met. 266 HARVEY. Richard Lower, an English physician (born, 1631 ; died, 1691), no unworthy successor of Harvey himself, whether in the field of practical anatomy or of letters ; for he was a zealous anatomist, and his little book on the heart, 1 replete as it is with interesting observations and experiments, is a masterpiece both in matter and manner. Lower proved irrefragably by experiment that the florid colour of the arterial blood was not due to any influence exerted on it by the action of the heart, or the straining it suffered in the lungs. Opening the chest of a live dog, he showed first that the blood of the pulmonary artery was as dark as that of the vena cava ; and, when the windpipe was tied, that the flow from a branch of the aorta was no longer crimson, but dark as that which fed it. On releasing the trachea, however, or blowing up the lungs with bellows, the crimson colour immediately returned. The florid hue, was, therefore, due to the air of the atmosphere inspired. 2 Had Lower’s work been better known, there needed to have been no subsequent discussion as to the fact whether the heart possessed nerves or not, for they 1 Tractatus de Corde ; item de Motu et colore Sanguinis, et de Chyli in eum transitu. i2mo. Lond., 1669. 2 “ Quare sanguinem, in suo per pulmones transitu, aerem haurire, ejusque admixtioni floridum suum colorem omnino debere maxime vere- simile est ; postquam autem, in habitu corporis et viscerum parenchy- matis, aer rursus a sanguine magna ex parte avolavit atque per poros corporis transpiravit, sanguinem venosum, illo privatum, obscuriorem et nigriorem illice apparere, rationi pariter consentaneum est.” (Ib., p. 170.) WHAT IS DISCOVERY ? 267 are described particularly and even figured, accom- panying its arteries and penetrating its muscular sub- stance. If not the first to suggest the transfusion of blood as a means of saving life jeopardized from hemorrhage, Lower was certainly the first who showed how the thing could be effected, putting it in practice as he did from one dog to another. Altogether Richard Lower was an honour to English anatomy, and his name, connected as it is with the thickening of that part of the right auricle which intervenes between the orifices of the superior and inferior vena cava — the tubercu- lum Loweri , let us hope, will keep it ever green in our memory. SECTION XI. WHAT IS DISCOVERY ? — WHAT ARE HARVEY’S MERITS AS A DISCOVERER ? — DR. WM. HUNTER. Few for some ages, and none among ourselves until a relatively recent period, were found blind enough or inconsequent enough to call in question Harvey’s merits as a discoverer. But as one man of unde- niable eminence in his profession has led the way in doing so in this country, and his example has since been followed by various continental, particularly Italian, writers, it may not be held irrelevant if we look into the matter somewhat particularly. 268 HARVEY. Discovery is of several, more especially of two kinds : one, sensuous, connected with simple percep- tion ; another, rational or inductive — the former an act of consciousness through an impression made on one or more of the senses ; the latter a conclusion come to by the higher powers of the understanding dealing with data acquired through the senses. We look through a telescope, for example, and see a star which no one else had seen before ; we note the fact, pro- claim it to the world, and so become the discoverers of a new star. The merit here is not surely of the highest order, though the added fact may be highly important. One of the planets, again, — Uranus, the outermost of those known at the time, is subject to such per- turbations in its orbit, that, to compose exact tables of its whereabouts at particular moments is found im- possible. These perturbations are referable to none of the known perturbing causes. Two distinguished astronomers and mathematicians, acting simultaneously but independently, on a hint thrown out by a gifted woman — Mary Somerville, presume the influence of an exterior but unknown perturbing cause— another planet, perchance, with an orbit outside the orbits of all the known planets, and make trial of the suggestion. Assuming the ascertained perturbations as elements, they combine these under the guidance of knowledge and reason, and after long and laborious calculations, say at length : If the cause suggested be well founded, WHAT IS DISCOVERY? 269 there or thereabouts must it exist ; and lo ! on turning the far-seeing tube to the point in space that had been indicated, there, in verity, gleams a new world, then first seen of man though launched from some incalculably remote epoch in eternity to circle on the verge of the system whereof the sun is centre, and they who bade us look are hailed as discoverers in the highest sense of the word. Who will venture to dispute the merit here ? Truly man does show the divinity within him when he uses his faculties— God- like in themselves — in such God-like fashion. But Harvey’s merit, to our mind, is of the self-same kind in another sphere. The facts he used were generally known to his predecessors for a century or more, and were referred to every day by teachers and contemporaries. Yet did no one, mastering them in their connection, rising superior to groundless hypo- theses and accredited ideas, draw the inference that now meets us as irresistible, until the master-mind of Harvey gave it shape and utterance. To our appre- hension, Harvey was as far above his fellows as the eye of poetic intelligence that exultingly absorbs the glories of the starry sky and the green earth is above the mere physical sense that distinguishes light from darkness. Dr. John Barclay, a fervent admirer of Harvey, whose name he never mentioned without the epithet immortal, has put the question of Harvey’s merit both happily and eloquently ; and it gives me pleasure after 270 HARVEY. sixty years since I heard it spoken, to quote the passage from the writings of my old master in anatomy. “ The late Dr. Hunter,” says Dr. Barclay , 1 “has rather invidiously introduced Harvey along with Copernicus and Columbus, to show that his merit as a discoverer was comparatively low. But what did Copernicus and what did Columbus ? Not in pos- session of more numerous facts than their contem- poraries, but endowed with nobler and more vigorous intellects, the one developed the intricate system of the heavenly bodies, and the other discovered an un- heard of Continent. And was it not in the same way, by the exertion of superior intellect, that Harvey made his immortal discovery ? I know not what has happened in the world unseen ; but if I may judge from the records of history and the annals of fame, the spirit of Bacon, the spirits of Columbus, Coperni- cus and Newton have been rejoiced to welcome and associate with the kindred spirit of Harvey.” Let us look a little more particularly at what Dr. Wm. Hunter has to say on the subject of merit in discovery, and try his conclusions by the test of rational criticism. The three great discoveries of modern times, says Dr. Hunter, were the Western Hemisphere by Columbus, the Constitution of the Solar System by Copernicus, and the Circulation of the Blood by Harvey. But to these the like degree of honour, he 1 “ On the Arteries,” Introduction, p. ix. DR. WILLIAM HUNTER. 271 thinks, does not attach ; the discovery of Columbus standing in his opinion, in the first rank, that of Copernicus in the second, and that of Harvey, which he says, “must rank comparatively low,” in the third. This estimate is open to challenge ; and asks it all the more as Hunter shows himself animated by some- thing like hostility to Harvey, and is inconsistent in what he says of him at one time with what he says at another. With the spirit of depreciation dominant, Dr. Hunter proceeds : “ None of Harvey’s writings show him to have been a man of uncommon abilities but then the sense of Harvey’s true greatness, prevailing, he uses these words : “ Harvey, as appears by his writings, was certainly a first-rate genius for sagacity and application, and his name is deservedly immortal.” (!) Where he acquired most honour, how- ever, Dr. Hunter is tempted to think that he deserved least. “ So much had been discovered by others,” Dr. Hunter continues, “ that little was left for Harvey but to dress it up into a system. The singular struc- ture of the parts concerned in the circulation so evidently proclaims the fact, that there seems to have been nothing more required than laying aside gross prejudices and considering fairly some obvious truths. It is indeed amazing that this discovery was left for Harvey ; seeing that he was near a hundred years after Vesalius and the great anatomists who flourished in so many of the medical schools of Europe. And what is still more astonishing is this : that Servetus 272 HARVEY. first, and Columbus afterwards, had both given the circulation through the lungs, which we reckon at least three quarters of the discovery ; and Caesalpinus, many years before Harvey, published all that was wanting in Servetus to make the circulation complete. But Providence meant to reserve the honour for Harvey, and would not let men see what was before them, nor understand what they read.” In all this Dr. William Hunter only shows himself not above the mass of ill-informed and vulgar critics of Harvey’s merits. What he speaks of as “gross prejudices ” were none such to those who entertained them, but sacred truths ; and it is only by the light which he himself has from Harvey that he is privileged to see aright all that they saw awry, and to interpret truly what they read amiss. Providence we may be well assured was perfectly indifferent as to who should discover the circulation of the blood ; but he who did in the end discover the great truth was surely something other,— greater and nobler, than all the goodly men who had preceded him for thirteen centuries and more. Truly we think he was ; and in our estimate of the rank due to the three great discoverers of the modern world, we do not hesitate to place Harvey beside and on the higher level with Copernicus. Their subjects differ in magnitude, in grandeur, indeed ; but the mental powers that guided them alike to their conclusions were of the same order, and the character of the data on which their indue- HIS ORIGINALITY. 2 73 tions rested was analogous. The great discovery of Columbus, on the contrary, was the product of imagina- tion rather than of understanding, of hypothesis rather than of induction or the exercise of man’s noblest attribute— Reason. Harvey’s discovery, like that of Copernicus, was of the rational or inductive, therefore of the higher kind, and made in virtue of his superior endowment with intellectual power. Dr. William Hunter, in his diatribe against Harvey, forgets how irksome and ungrateful is reasoning to the mass of mankind ; how much less disposed they are to be quit of their errors than to hug them ; and that physiology was one of the lazy-beds on which men laid them down longest contentedly to dream. The world had to wait for its Harvey as well as its Copernicus, Columbus and Luther, before it could be roused to the consciousness that there lay a way before as well as one behind it. SECTION XII. HARVEY’S ORIGINALITY. HE QUOTES NO AUTHORITIES. There is yet another matter that requires a passing notice at our hands. Harvey has often been reproached of late with his failure to quote prede- cessors in the field of discovery which he made so completely his own as, in the minds of his countrymen T HARVEY. 274 at least, to have dwarfed and made unconspicuous all who had gone before him. But the charge is easily met : Harvey had from no one that which he gave to the world as his own. He was not the historian of opinions, but the propounder of a new and unheard-of doctrine. Our teachers do but supply the tools wherewith we work the mine that is within us. Excuses have, therefore, been very unnecessarily offered for Harvey on the score referred to. He may not, it has been said, have read the works of Servetus, Csesalpinus, and the others from which he has been accused of borrowing without acknowledg- ment. But Harvey was a highly educated physician, and certainly familiar with everything that had been written on anatomy, from Aristotle and Galen down- wards. Why then makes he mention of so few of them in the discussion of his subject ? He who reads the Exercises on the Motion of the Heart and Blood will be at no loss for an answer. It was simply because that which he had himself to advance was not in their works. With the exception of the new truth of the pulmonary transit announced by Servetus and made generally known by Columbus, whom Harvey quotes, there is little or nothing on the heart and blood in the writings of his more immediate predecessors that is not in Aristotle, Galen, and Vesalius, or, if not there, that is otherwise than erroneous in fact. But no mind however vigorous, no imagination however fertile, ever worked to purpose that did not borrow HIS ORIGINALITY. 275 largely from the intellectual stores of bygone times, as well as from those collected by its own experience and observation . 1 And what says Harvey himself ? — reply enough, as it seems, to all cavil on the score of his neglect of predecessors. “ I had no purpose to swell this treatise into a great volume by quoting the names and opinions of anatomists, or to parade the strength of my memory, the extent of my reading, and the amount of my pains ; because I profess both to learn and to teach anatomy from dissections, not from books ; from the fabric of nature, not from the dicta of philosophers. I would not, indeed, appear to contend with the ancients for any honours that are theirs, and I do not think it seemly to dispute with the moderns, or to enter into controversy with those who have excelled in anatomy and been my teachers. Striving after truth alone, I give all my labour, all my toil, that I may contribute something that shall be agreeable to the good, profitable to the learned and useful in the literary world.” 2 Harvey, as privileged, uses all that was known to his predecessors from the older writers, but arrogates 1 Daubeny, “ Lecture on Education at Royal Institution, 1855.” 2 “ Non ex libris sed ex dissectionibus, non ex placitis philosophorum sed fabrica naturae discere et docere Anatomen profitear. Turn quod neque e veteribus quemquam debito honore defraudare, neque e pos- terioribus quemquam irritari aequum censeam aut moliar. Neque cum iis qui in anatomicis antecelluerunt et me docuerunt manus conserere aut dimicari honestum puto . . . sed solam veritatem sector, et omnern, turn operam turn oleum, eo contuli ut aliquid bonis gratum, doctis commodum et rei litterariae utile in medium proferre possim.” (Dedic. ad Exercit. Anat. de motu cordis, &c., pp. 8, 9.) T 2 276 HARVEY. nothing to himself on the score of the one great modern addition made to physiological knowledge — the pulmonary transit. He uses the important fact as a truth, co-ordinate with the new truth he has himself to proclaim ; as a middle and necessary link in the chain of his induction, not as it had hitherto been seen — a ring at either end of a to-and-fro movement of the two kinds of blood in the arteries and veins. SECTION XIII. ON THE GENERATION OF ANIMALS. In our account of Harvey’s public career we found him busy with the subject of Generation at Oxford in 1642 ; but he had certaintly turned his attention that way at a much earlier date. One of the great causes of his regret, as expressed to Dr. Ent, for the destruction of his papers during the civil war, was the loss of his Observations on the Generation of Insects, which must have been reduced to form some years previously — probably even before his engagement to accompany the Duke of Lennox on his continental travels. And then we know that his notes on the gestation of the hind and doe were made in the quieter and more palmy days of the first Charles, before the differences between him and the nation had come to the arbitrament of arms. ON GENERATION. 2 77 It is likely that Harvey occupied a good deal of his leisure in writing and arranging his work on the Generation of Animals after quitting the service of Charles in 1646. His practice at this period was not extensive, and he passed much of his time in the country. He appears to have been somewhat indis- posed to publish this work, and only to have ventured it out of his hands with reluctance. Without the solicitations of Ent, indeed, it would certainly have been left unpublished during his lifetime. Ent, how- ever, succeeded in carrying off the prize which his illustrious friend had showed him, and lost no time in getting it into types, taking on himself the task of correcting the press, and sending it forth according to his own ideas in fitting form, with a frontispiece, and a highflown dedication to the President and Fellows of the College of Physicians. Ent’s account of his interview with Harvey on the occasion of obtaining his consent to the publication, though highly theatrical, is still extremely interesting. Saluting the great anatomist, and asking if all were well with him, Harvey answers, somewhat impatiently as it seems : “ How can it be, whilst the Commonwealth is full of distractions, and I myself am still in the open sea ? And truly,” he continues, “ 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 it has so turned out, that this life of obscurity, this vacation from public business 278 HARVEY. which causes tedium and disgust to so many, has proved a sovereign remedy to me. And truly,” he proceeds, “ the examination of the bodies of animals has always been my delight ; for I have thought that we might thence not only obtain an in- sight into the lighter mysteries of nature, but there perceive a kind of image or reflex of the Omnipotent Creator himself. The whole earth now lies open before us, and the zeal of our travellers has made us familiar not only with other countries, and the manners and customs of their inhabitants, but with the animals, the vegetables, and the minerals also that are met with in each. And, indeed, there is no nation so barbarous which has not discovered something for the general good that had been overlooked by more civilized com- munities. But shall we imagine that nothing will accrue to science from such advantages as we now possess, or that all knowledge was exhausted in the earlier ages of the world ? If we do, the blame most certainly attaches to our indolence, nowise to all-boun- tiful nature.” When Ent proceeds to say that the learned world, admiring his genius and aware of his industry, was eagerly looking for other works at his hands, and for further information on the subject of his studies, the fervid spirit of the poet-discoverer appears forthwith in the reply : “Would you be the man,” said Harvey, smiling, “ who should recommend me to quit the peace- ful haven, where I now pass my life, and launch again ON GENERATION. 279 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, 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.” By-and-by, however, he produces his “ Exercises on the Generation of Animals,” and though he makes many difficulties at first, urging, among other things, that the work is incomplete, as containing nothing on the generation of insects, Ent, nevertheless, prevails in the end, and receives the papers with full authority, either speedily to commit them to the press, or to delay their publication to a future time. Ent set about his office of midwife, as he has it, immediately, and the following year (1651) saw the birth of the work on Generation. Neither physiological nor microscopical science was sufficiently advanced in Elarvey’s time to admit of the production of an enduring work on a subject so abstruse, and involving so many particulars as Generation. On the doctrine of the circulation the dawn had long been visible ; Harvey appeared and there was day. On the subject of animal reproduction, on the contrary, all was darkness two centuries ago. The very instruments indispensable to the investigation of the subject were as yet either unknown, or of powers inadequate to bring the most indispensable facts within cognizance of the senses. Harvey probably did as much as any man 28 o HARVEY. living could have accomplished when he wrote. He announced the general truth : Omne animal ex ovo ; he showed the cicatricula of the egg as the point where the reproductive process begins, and corrected numerous errors into which his predecessors in the same field of inquiry, Aristotle and Fabricius, had fallen ; he further pointed out the path of observation and experiment as the only one that could lead to satisfactory results in the investigation of a subject which gradually presented itself as one of natural history ; and, it may be added, by his wanderings in the labyrinth of metaphysical physiology, he did enough to warn another from attempting to tread such barren ground again. In his work on the Heart and Blood, Harvey had the main elements of his Induction, either as matters cognizable to sense, or as necessary products of reason, and he used them at once and for ever in so masterly a way that he left little for addition either by himself or others. Secure of his footing here, he could dispense with vital spirits and other inscrutable agencies, and leave “ adequate and efficient causes ” and other metaphysical phantoms, on one side — it was physics he was dealing with, and as physician he was at home. With the information we now possess, we see clearly how indifferently the physiologist in the middle of the seventeenth century was weaponed for encountering such a subject as animal generation ; a Leeuwenhoek and a De Graaf, a Spallanzani and a Haigton ; a Wolff, ON GENERATION. 281 Purkinje, Von Baer, Valentin, Rudolph Wagner, Bischoff, Muller, Newport, Nelson, and Rawson, had successively to appear, before the mere facts of the subject could be known ; and a Schleiden and Schwann were further wanted as interpreters of the most material processes observed, before they could be understood : the comprehensive doctrines of cell- formation and evolution 1 were still in the womb of time when Harvey lived. No wonder, therefore, that the great physiologist of his age meets us as one puzzled at times rather than enlightened by what he sees ; and contrary to his former wont, eking out the lack of positive knowledge by wordy disquisitions on topics where certainty is unattainable. It is curious, moreover, to find Harvey, in his treatise on generation, not entirely escaping the pitfall of which he was well aware, and shunned so successfully in his earlier work. In the “ Exercises on the Heart ” he sets out with the assurance that the whole of the notions of the ancients on the heart and blood, where not absolutely untenable, were yet ever 1 Johannes Muller, holding up the work of Schleiden and Schwann to his students, proclaimed it the Bible of the physiologist, characterizing at the same time the Frog as his friend ! By the act of our sage legis- lators, however, we are now liable to a heavy fine if, in our efforts to wring from nature some of her secrets, we put a frog or a toad or a stray cur to death without a special license to set about such nefarious proceedings ! How would Harvey have sped in his researches if he had had an act of parliament to tie his hands ? Anatomists are not in- quisitors, taking delight in torture to get at opinions ; but scrutators of the Laws of Life, the discovery of one of which were cheaply bought by the sacrifice of a whole hecatomb of the lower animals. 282 HARVEY. questionable ; and then, taking Nature for his guide, his experience and observation, his tact and judgment, never suffer him to stray from the path that leads to the goal of truth. In the book on Generation, on the other hand, he begins by submitting himself in some sort to the guidance of Aristotle and Fabricius. Assuming the ideas of the former as premisses, and the facts of the latter as topics of discussion or dissent, he then labours on, endeavouring to find Nature in harmony with the Stagyrite, or at variance with the professor of Padua — for, in spite of many expressions of respect and deference for his old master, Harvey seems sometimes to delight in finding him in the ■wrong. Finally, so overmastered is he by scholastic ideas, that he winds up some of his views upon animal reproduction by presenting them in the shape of logical syllogisms. The age of Harvey, then, was not competent to produce a lasting work on generation — it was still an undertaking beyond the range of possibility. Yet has Harvey written a remarkable book ; one that teems with interesting information, and presents the author to us in the character of the elegant writer, the scholar, and the poet as well as the discoverer— if, indeed, poet and discoverer, though variously applied, be not identical terms. Besides the points already referred to, as immediately connected with his subject, we here find Harvey anticipating modern surgery, by applying a ligature to the main artery of a tumour ON GENERATION. 283 which he wished to extirpate, and so making its sub- sequent removal possible with little loss of blood. Here, too, we find him, a century and a half before his contemporaries, in a rapidly progressive period in the history of human knowledge, throwing out the first hint of the true use of the lungs as generators of the bodily heat. Hitherto, as we have seen, the lungs had been regarded as surrounding the heart for the purpose of ventilating the blood and tempering or moderating its heat, the heart being viewed as the focus or hearth of the innate heat ; and Harvey himself often uses language in harmony with these ideas ; but in one instance, the lightning of genius, giving him a momentary glimpse of the truth, he says, “ Air is given neither for the cooling nor the nutrition of animals ; ... it is as if heat were rather enkindled within the foetus [at birth] than repressed by the influence of the air .” 1 Had Harvey possessed this idea at an earlier date, and pursued it as he did that of the blood never moving but in one recurrent course in the veins, he would at least have prepared the way for another grand discovery in physiology : demonstrating the erroneousness of the prevalent physiological notions on the use of the lungs, he would have led the van in the investigation of their proper office, or even antici- pated Lavoisier in explaining the origin of heat in the animal body. But this was an impossibility at the “ On Generation,” p. 530 of English translation. 284 HARVEY. time : chemistry, in Harvey’s day, mostly in the hands of adepts and charlatans, transmuters of metals, searchers after the philosopher’s stone and the elixir of life, could have no attraction for the clear intellect of the demonstrator of the circulation of the blood. No wonder, therefore, that Harvey “did not care for chymistrey,” or that “ he was wont to speak against the chy mists.” What Aubrey says on this head ( 1 . c. p. 385) is but another proof of Harvey’s sagacity. Harvey could show himself in advance of his age by questioning its opinions on the office of the lungs ; but the state of chemical science in the middle of the seventeenth century did not admit of his doing more. He, however, well knew the vivifying force of heat : he saw it as the immediate agent in the production of living sentient beings, and the mainspring in the mechanism of the automatic animal body. If Harvey’s work, then, went little way in solving the mystery of Generation, it proved, nevertheless, a great incentive to the prosecution of the subject, parent as it has been of the long array of works and papers that have brought us to the ultimate fact of the penetration of the micropyle of the ovum by the spermatic cell, but leaving us as much in the dark as ever how such a process should be indispens- able to the production of a new creature— how two distinct organic germs or cells, detached from the organisms that produced them, each impotent in itself, should yet by their union acquire the power to com- ON GENERATION. 285 mence a series of transformations that end in the development of a being capable of assuming indepen- dent conscious existence for a day, for a year, for a hundred years or more ! But it was not in the sphere of science only that the work on Generation proved influential. The practice of midwifery and the treatment of uterine diseases was in a terribly backward state when H arvey wrote ; so that the appended chapters on Parturition, the Membranes, the Placenta, the Umbilical Cord, and Conception were positive revelations that speedily bore fruit of the most valuable kind. In my Life of Harvey for the Sydenham Society I showed that he must have practised midwifery, and by his superior knowledge found remedies for states that were the despair of the ignorant midwives of the day. Although making no pretensions to rank as a treatise on practical midwifery, Harvey’s work “On Generation” might nevertheless be spoken of as the first book on the subject written by an Englishman, so full are its later chapters of new and valuable suggestions. Dr. Aveling 1 quotes the w r orks of Percival Willughby, a distinguished surgeon of the period, to show in what esteem Harvey was held in this long neglected but most responsible portion of the general medical practitioner’s business. “ Hee sheweth in the first place,” says Willughby, “ what to observe and how to deliver a woman labouring in a naturall birth. And in difficult births and abortive births, and 1 “ Memorials of Harvey,” by J. W. Aveling, M.D. 8vo. Lond., 1875. 286 HARVEY. where the foetus is dead, hee maketh mention how to perform the work by the child’s feet. In his workes he wisheth midwives not to bee too busy at the first approaching labour, by striving to hasten or promote a sudden or quick birth ; but willeth them patiently to wait on nature, to observe her ways, and not to disquiet her, for that it is the sole and onely work of nature.” Harvey, indeed, shows us plainly that he was partial to this branch of his profession, and meets us here as the practitioner more, perhaps, than in any other part of his writings. The short piece on the “ Anatomy of Thomas Parr ” is interesting in itself, and, in giving us a glimpse of Harvey’s style of pathological reasoning, confirms us in our faith in the great physiologist as a practitioner of medicine. If knowledge will not help, how shall the want of it avail ? Whether Harvey believed in the great reputed age of Parr — 157 years — it is im- possible to say from anything that appears in his report. I imagine that he did not. SECTION XIV. CORRESPONDENCE. THE LACTEAL VESSELS. ABSORPTION OF THE CHYLE. Tile letters of great men generally serve to make us more intimately acquainted with them than without CORRESPONDENCE. 287 such aid we could have become. This is more especially the case as regards letters written in the ease and confidence of private friendship. It is greatly to be regretted that so few of this description should have come down to us, and that not one of them is in English ; for the letter to Dorchester, published by Aveling, is not to a friend, but to one in authority. Those addressed to Giovanni Nardi, how- ever, show us what an affectionate and elegant mind Harvey possessed ; how mindful he appears of former kindnesses to himself and to those that were near to him ; how anxious that he should be cherished in the memory of his friends, even as he cherishes them in his own ! The other letters we possess are mostly upon physiological topics ; though the one addressed from Nuremberg to Caspar Hoffmann may, perhaps, be held an exception ; for in this letter the manly and indepen- dent character of Harvey displays itself conspicuously. In the very city the home of the Nuremberg professor, he challenges him to the proof. “If you would see with your own eyes the things I assert of the circulation, I promise to show them to you with the opportunity afforded me ; ” and we have seen that Harvey had the occasion he craved, when he accom- panied the Earl of Arundel in his embassy extraordi- nary to the Emperor in 1636, and may have been one of the party of which three members were barbarously murdered on their way from Nuremberg to Ratisbon, 288 HARVEY. as Crowne 1 informs us. Hence the solicitude which Hollar, the artist, who also accompanied the ambas- sador, informs us the Earl of Arundel expressed for his physician’s safety : “For he would still be making of excursions into the woods, making observations of strange trees, plants, earths, &c., and sometimes like to be lost ; so that my lord ambassador would be really angry with him, for there was not only danger of wild beasts, but of thieves .” 2 The burden of the lon^ and able letter to Schiedel of Hamburg, is still the Circulation ; and the one addressed to Morison, with the two to Horst, treat of the discovery of the receptaculum chyli and thoracic duct by Pecquet. It has been held unworthy of Harvey’s greatness that he refused his assent to the special office — not, as often said, to the existence — of the lacteal system. But no one can apply himself to all things. Harvey had his own work laid out for him, and the lacteals were not a part of it. Subsidiary to the maintenance of the organism, the lacteals have in truth nothing to do with the mechanism of the circulation : the fluid within them is the pabulum of the blood. Aselli’s book on the Lacteal Veins 3 was even published the year before Harvey’s “ Exercises on the Heart and Blood,” and may or may not have been seen by our physiologist before his own work appeared. In any 1 “ A True Relation,” &c., p. 46. 2 Aubrey, op. cit., p. 384. 3 De Venis Lacteis. 4to. Milan, 1627. CORRESPONDENCE. 289 case it was not calculated to influence his views on the motion of the blood ; but that he failed to perceive the importance of the discovery announced, and did not examine it more particularly, though it cannot fairly be spoken of as a flaw in his scientific character, may still be regretted — and this the more when the extension and additional significance which the newly found system of mesenteric vessels acquired through the discovery of the thoracic duct by Pecquet, and of the lymphatics of the body by Bartholin, are considered. Harvey excuses himself for his neglect to look narrowly into the subject of the lacteal veins on the score of his advanced age and his infirm health. He feels himself incompetent, he says, to enter on the examination of so extensive and delicate an anatomical question. In entire consistency with his candid nature, however, and in striking contrast with his own opponents on the circulation, he nowhere denies the existence of the new lacteal vessels. He had in fact observed them himself in the course of his dissections, before the appearance of Aselli’s book ; and it is the nature of the fluid they contain, not their reality, that he questions. Never once does he oppose the authority of his name to the investigation of the truth. On the contrary, he says that he states his objections “not as being obstinately wedded to his own opinion, but that he may show what can be urged in opposition to the advocates of the new idea.” “Nor, do I doubt,” he adds, “but that many things u 290 HARVEY. now hidden in the well of Democritus, will by and by be drawn up into day by the ceaseless industry of a coming age.” 1 That the fluid in the lacteal vessels is chyle, product of the food digested, there can be no question ; but we are somewhat puzzled, even in the present day, to know how it gets into them. By the cell-forming process now acknowledged to constitute the act of secretion, say modern physiologists. But the contents of the lacteals are not derived from the blood, like every other secreted fluid in the animal body ; they consist largely of fat globules and protein, matters obtained immediately from the intestines. The process of cell-formation, whereby the lacteals are charged is, in truth, altogether peculiar. It would seem as if the cells must grow over the chyle with which they are in contact in the intestinal villi, and, arrived at maturity, shed their contents into the canals which they form in virtue of their ceaseless develop- ment in whorls— the process whereby the pore apparent on the point of each intestinal villus is produced. In harmony with the all-pervading laws of nature, animals, it would appear, finally obtain their nutritive juices in the same way as plants : the primary cells of the root spongioles of these grow over the nutritive matters they encounter in the ground, and so enable the rootlets to make their way through the stiffest soils, not by boring into them, but by additions succes- 1 First Letter to J. D. Horst. THE LACTEAL VESSELS. 291 sively made to their extremities. Permanent in the radicles of the vegetable, the cells of the intestinal villi burst inwardly and disappear as fast as they are produced, so that there is no elongation of the structures connected with which they have their origin. The lacteals, however, do appear to have been an anomaly to Harvey. He had made up his mind that the nutritive element of the blood passed from the intestines with the blood of the mesenteric veins, to percolate the liver and undergo elaboration there before reaching the heart. It is in his letter to Dr. Morison of Paris (April, 1652,) that he says he had “ observed these white canals even before Aselli’s book appeared, but for various reasons could not bring himself to believe that their contents were chyle.” Finding a milky fluid in various parts of the body of young animals, in the thymus especially, in the mesenteric glands, and in the breasts of new-born infants, he imagined that the fluid contained in the lacteals was merely milk — -purum putum, lac — like that of the proper milk ducts of the mammae, which he speaks of as “ lacteal veins.” The slender calibre of the thoracic duct, was another of the points which seemed to Harvey to argue against the likelihood of its being the possible conduit of the amount of nutriment required by the body for its support. How, moreover, should so small a vessel suffice to convey the quarts of acidulous water which persons drink at the springs, and micturate u 2 292 HARVEY. again in ever so short a time ? Harvey, doubtless, explained the phenomenon by ascribing it truly to the absorptive powers of the gastric veins, which drink up the fluid, pour it into the vena portae, from whence, passing through the liver, it reaches the vena cava, the heart, the aorta, and the emulgent arteries, from the blood of which it is eliminated by the specific action of the kidney. Harvey was further thrown off the scent as to the real import of the lacteal vessels by their seeming absence in numerous instances : they were not always visible in the animals he dis- sected ; neither did he observe them on the stomach at any time ; and so he erroneously concluded that they did not exist as a constant element in the bodies of the higher animals. In his second letter to Horst (July, 1656) Harvey returns to the subject of the lacteals. Conceding all honour to Pecquet and others for their search after truth, he apologises again for his own inability to follow them. Far stricken in years, and more and more afflicted with indifferent health, he is forbidden to enter on the discussion of novel subtleties, or to offer himself as an umpire in the question that has arisen. “ It is in vain,” he says in the concluding letter we have from him to Vlackveld (April, 1657), the very year of his death, “ that you apply the spur and urge me at my present age, not mature merely, but declining, to gird myself for any new investigation. I consider myself now entitled to my discharge from duty ; but THE LACTEAL VESSELS. 293 it will always be a pleasant sight to me to see dis- tinguished men like yourself engaged in this honour- able arena.” The noble Harvey! And here let me refer to Thomas Bartholin’s kind and appreciative apology for our anatomist’s neglect of the lacteals, appended to the work in which he himself comes before us as dis- coverer of the lymphatic system. Addressing the same Horst who had been Harvey’s correspondent, Bartholin proceeds : “ I do greatly wonder that that great man, William Harvey, should suffer himself to be swayed by the ancients here, and, despising the lacteals, be found advocating the old mesenteric system. He appears to be so much occupied with his circulation of the blood that he fails to attach adequate importance to the chyliferous veins. But so it is : the good Homer sometimes nods ; and Harvey perhaps thinks he has done enough for his honour, and added sufficiently to anatomical science by his immortal discovery of the circulation. I would not, therefore, be thought of as uttering a word against the great anatomist whose works I have always held in the highest estimation. I cannot help thinking, neverthe- less, that had he but given the necessary attention to the matter, or even have trusted his eyes alone, he would have judged differently of these vessels, and not denied that the fluid they contain is chyle, or thought it was milk, as I understand him to say in his letter to you. 294 HARVEY. “ But I drop my pen, dipped in milk, not in gall, as I trust you will see, and even excuse me for pre- suming to criticize so great a man, chosen by nature herself as one of her most favoured sons ” 1 Laudatus a laudato ! Let all who have lately carped at Harvey’s title, two centuries and a half after the tongues of the great men we quote were mute, take example from the illustrious discoverer of the lym- phatic system, and henceforth cease from their unworthy clamour. Specimens of Harvey’s handwriting are extremely rare. A man in his position must have written many letters in his lifetime ; but few of them have been preserved ; no more than nine being found in the collected edition of his works published by the College of Physicians in 1 766 ; and to these only one or two have since been added. The one we owe to Dr. Aveling, 2 who had it from the Bodleian Library, is plainly written from abroad and addressed, as Dr. Aveling believes, to Mr. Secretary Dorchester, sometime in the year 1631, when Harvey was in attendance on the Duke of Lennox during his travels. The burden of the letter is to petition that he — Harvey — be retained in his office of Physician to the Royal Household, and that Dr. Bethune or Dr. Chambers may be appointed to perform its duties during his absence, instead of Dr. Metzler, who 1 De Lacteis Thoracis, &c. 3 “Memorials of Harvey,” 1875. LETTERS. 295 appears to have been brought in ; “ the King’s Majesty having declared to him that no prejudice should arise to him through his attendance on the Duke.” In the course of this letter Harvey speaks of “the miseryes of the Cuntreys we have passed. I can only complayne that by the waye we could scarce see a dogg, crow, kite, raven, or any bird or any thing to anatomise ; only sum few miserable poeple the reliques of the war and the plauge, where famine had made anatomies before I came. It is scarce credible in soe ritch, populous, and plentiful cuntreys as these weare, that so much misery, desolation, poverty, and famine, should in soe short a time be as we have seen. I interpret it well, yt will be a greate motive for all heare to have and procure an assurance of a settled peace. It is time to leave fighting when ther is nothing to eate, nothing to be kept and gotten, and the same partyes robb one the other if they but get out of sight. “Your hon. humble servant, “Will. Harvey.” It would be difficult to sum up in fewer words the desolation that waits on war — and such a war as that on the traces of which Harvey and his party were following! — the Thirty Years War, from which Ger- many, after more than two centuries, has hardly yet recovered. How characteristic of the man, too, in 296 HARVEY. his own special sphere — there was not even anything to anatomise ! The letter to Vlackveld was written the very year — even within a few weeks of the writer’s death. His friend must have been urging him to say something on the subject of the lacteal and lymphatic vessels, then en g a gi n g a g reat deal of the attention of anatomists. But he informs his correspondent that the application of the spur is all in vain. He feels his right to demand his release from duty ; yet would he be ever honourably considered by his contemporaries, and begs his friend Vlackveld to love him to the last. By permission of the President and Censors of the College of Physicians, I am privileged to add one more to the short tale of Harvey’s Letters ; and as it is at once of a friendly and properly professional character, I think it must prove interesting. The letter is addressed to Dr. Baldwin Harney, an able physician in his day, and a somewhat intimate friend of Harvey. It was lately discovered by Dr. Munk, the worthy Harveian Librarian to the College, whilst casually turnine over a volume of MS. letters addressed to o Harney, and is to the following effect. “ Vir doctissime, humanissime, mihi carissime ! “ Faemina videatur mihi tamen ex aem-i relatione, qua habitu et victus consuetudine (salvo tuo judicio), esse a passione colica eaque calida et biliosa. Esto LETTERS. 297 quod antehac evacuatur fuit pix, tamen jam subesse vel hippocondrii vel regione epigastrica apostema haud credo ; tactu enim aliquid percepissem vel tumidum vel tensum. Laudo itaque tuum de sanguinis missione judicium ; plethoricum ejus corpus liberaliori victui dabitum, calidum, robustum et assuetum id postulat ; laudo praeterea evacuationem cum pillulis Chologogis, addit : Euphorbii Qft, multum enim praestat in sedandis doloribus cholicis. Laudo frequentum usum pulveris ex ebore et calcaneo cervi. Reliqua tuo relinquo consilio. “Vale, mi amantissime, “ Tuus ex anima, J an - T 9- “ Gul. Harveius.” 1 1 “ Most learned, humane, and dear Sir ! “ The woman appears to me, from her own account and her mode of life (with deference to your judgment), to be affected with a cholic passion of a hot and bilious nature. Suppose it was pitchy stuff that was formerly discharged, still I do not believe that there is any imposthume in the hypochondriac or epigastric region ; I should else have detected either some enlargement or some tension there. I therefore approve of your decision as to blood-letting ; the plethoric body of the patient, accustomed to generous diet, hot, robust, and vigorous, requires it. I also commend purging by the Chologogue Pills, with half a scruple of Euphorbia added ; this medicine having an excellent effect in sooth- ing colic pains. I also advise the frequent use of the powder of ivory and calcaneum cervi. Everything else I leave to your discretion. “ F arewell, my very dear Sir, “ Yours with all my heart, “ Wm. Harvey.” Jan . 19. 298 SECTION XV. THE NOTE-BOOK OF 1616, AND ORIGIN OF THE IDEA OF THE CIRCULATION. I have already had occasion to refer to Harvey’s memorandum book of 1616, of which a small but characteristic portion was selected and interpreted for Dr. Sieveking by Mr. Bond, the learned keeper of the MSS. in the British Museum. This fragment Dr. Sieveking had photographed, and shewed to his auditors when he delivered the Harveian Oration of 1877. Failing myself to discover any other equally inter- esting paragraph in the note-book, I too have had it photographed from the original, but upon wood, and carefully cut, so as to present the reader at once with an enduring fac-simile of the handwriting of Harvey, and of the earliest record we have from himself of his great discovery ; the original and interpretation being as follows : — HANDWRITING. 299 “ . Wd Constat per fabricam cordis sanguinem per pulmones in aortam perpetuo transferri — as by two clacks of a water bellow to rays water. “ Constat per ligaturam transitum sanguinis ab arteriis ad venas. “ Unde A [demonstratur] perpetuus sanguinis motus in circulo fieri pulsu cordis. “ An ? hoc gratia nutritionis, an magis conserva- tionis sanguinis et membrorum per infus. calidi, vicis- simque sang, califaciens membra frigifactus, a corde calefit .” 1 1 Rendered thus by Dr. Sieveking : “ WT. By the structure of the heart it appears that the blood is continually transfused through the lungs to the aorta — as by the two clacks of the water ram for raising water. 300 HARVEY. I have also said that I had spent some time over this Note-book with little profit, though more than anxious to read it. For I had often made it a ques- tion with myself, how much of his Induction Harvey brought away with him from Padua, and how much he worked out from his own dissections, experiments, and reflections after his settlement in London ? The date on the binding of the note-book anticipates by three years that at which Harvey himself informs us he had been used to propound his views on the circu- lation to his learned auditory at the College of Physi- cians, and its pages might, I imagined, be expected to show advances from lower to higher levels in thought and conclusion. The hieroglyph wi, conspicuous on the woodcut, and of frequent occurrence throughout the book, seems, indeed, to mark particular passages as containing matter which Harvey considered as new and specially his own. The existence of valves in the veins is generally believed to have been that which led Harvey to sur- mise that their use was possibly other than his dis- tinguished teacher Fabricius imagined : They did not merely retard the flow of blood in the vessels, but, “ It is shown by ligature that there is a perpetual motion of the blood from arteries to veins. “ Whence A it is demonstrated that there is a perpetual motion of the blood in a circle, effected by the beat of the heart. “ Ouery : Is this for the sake of nutrition ; or rather for the preservation of the blood and the members by the infusion of heat ; the blood, cooled by warming the members, being warmed in turn by the heart?” ORIGIN OF THE IDEA OF THE CIRCULATION. 301 opposing effectual barriers to its accredited motion from their trunks to their branches, made any to-and-fro motion within them impossible. In a paragraph of his work “ On the Final Causes of Natural Things,” the Hon. Robert Boyle says : “ I remember when I asked our famous Harvey in the only discourse I had with him (which was but a while before he dyed) : What were the things that induced him to think of a Circulation of the blood ? he answered me, that when he took notice that the valves in the veins of so many parts of the body were so placed that they gave free passage to the blood towards the heart, but opposed the passage of the venal blood the contrary way ; he was invited to imagine that so provident a Cause as Nature, had not placed so many valves without design ; and no design seemed more probable than that since the blood could not well, because of the interposing valves, be sent by the veins to the limbs, it should be sent through the arteries and return through the veins whose valves did not oppose its course that >> 1 way. This, in so far as external testimony goes, might be held conclusive. Yet do Boyle’s words convey no very assured sense : “ it seemed more probable that since the blood could not well be sent to the limbs by the 1 “A Disquisition about the Final Causes of Natural Things, by the Hon. Robert Boyle. With an Appendix on some Uncommon Observa- tions about Vitiated Sight.” (8vo, min., Lond., 1688.) 302 HARVEY. veins, it should be sent through the arteries and return by the veins.” And when we turn to Harvey himself, in his works we nowhere find that he approaches his subject from the quarter now particularly indicated. There was, in fact, nothing but physiological error connected with the valvular elements of the sangui- ferous system until after Harvey wrote ; with this soli- tary exception Fabricius of Aquapendente’s discovery of the Ostiola venarum neither helped himself, his contemporaries, nor the generation that came after him to any more sensible interpretation of their true import and necessary influence. Harvey seems to me to have escaped the whole of the perplexities involved in the old physiology touch- ing the office of the cardiac valves and the meaning of the motions of the chest in respiration, by attacking the problem of the motion of the blood from a quarter that takes no note of the valvular apparatus whether of the heart or veins. The quantity of blood that must pass through the heart in a given interval of time he found by computation to be such that its motion in a circle throughout the body became a necessity in the nature of things, without any reference to the means by which it was effected. This, as we have seen, is the starting point in the “ Anatomical Exercitation ” from which the goal is reached ; and in the earlier Note-book it is the perpetual passage of the blood from the heart through the lungs to the aorta, and the liga- ture of the artery supplying a limb, that proclaim the ORIGIN OF THE IDEA OF THE CIRCULATION. 303 transit from the arteries to the veins. It is on this that the significant A of the Note-book leads up to the con- clusion — to wit : that there is a ceaseless motion of the blood in a circle effected by the beat of the heart. In so far as we may judge by contemporary litera- ture, there was not even a thrill in the air of Padua either during the student lifetime of Harvey there, or for a generation after him, that could have hinted at such a thing as a continuous circle of the blood, alternately florid and grimy, as it passed from the arteries to the veins. “ As there are two kinds of aliment, so are there two orders of vessels ; ” 1 and the heart, the foun- tain head of the blood, and so necessarily giving rise to the veins and the arteries, distributes the kind of blood appropriate to the requirements of the several parts ; no otherwise, indeed, than does the “prudent father of a family, who gives the best of the food to his children, that of an inferior quality to his servants, and that of least value to domestic animals .” 2 Such is the con- clusion of the most accomplished of all the contempo- raries of Harvey. The youthful graduate of Padua, therefore, whilst he brought the germ of his induction away with him from Italy, must, as said above, have worked out the problem it suggested to a solution by his dissections, experi- 1 Cum igitur duo sunt genera alimenti, duo etiam genera vasorum in iis [animalibus] quae perfectiora sint. (Caesalpinus : Ouoest. Peripat. Lib. v., Ou. 3, p. 1 17.) 2 Perinde ac Paterfamilias prudens qui in cura rei familiaris optimum cibum dat liberis, deteriorem servis, vilissimum sociis animalibus. (Ib.) 304 HARVEY. ments, and reflections after his settlement in England. As we meet with it in the portion of the memorandum book of 1616 we have before us, the idea had long passed the embryo state. The two leading paragraphs of our quotation proclaim the advanced inquirer, as does the third the important conclusion at which he had already arrived : the ligature of the artery finally proving the passage of the blood from the arteries to the veins, and its ceaseless motion in a circle in virtue of the beat of the heart. SECTION XVI. HARVEY’S CHARACTER AND PERSONAL APPEARANCE, HIS LAST ILLNESS, DEATH, AND BURIAL. We have taken occasion from time to time in the course of our narrative, to glance at the mental and moral constitution of Harvey, mainly on the ground of inference from his bearing on particular occasions, and from what appears in his writings. Happily we have in addition a few particulars from the pen of a contemporary, John Aubrey, 1 which, though perchance they do not harmonize in every respect with the facts in his public life and the portrait he gives us of himself 1 “ Letters and Lives of Eminent Persons.” 2 vols. Svo. London, HIS PERSONAL APPEARANCE. 305 through his works, are nevertheless so interesting, that they cannot be left unnoticed. “In person,” Aubrey informs us, “ Harvey was not tall, but of the lowest stature ; round faced ; olivaster (like wainscot) complexion ; little eye, round, very black, full of spirit ; his hair black as a raven, but quite white twenty years before he died.” The fine portrait we have of Harvey by Cornelius Jansan, in the library of the Royal College of Physicians, and the engraving after it, in bust form, by W. Faithorne, a contemporary of Harvey, correspond in all respects with this account; the temperament is nervous-bilious ; the forehead com- pact and square, and of greater width than usual between the temples ; the expression highly intellec- tual, contemplative, independent and manly. “In temper,” Aubrey says, “ he was like the rest of his brothers, very choleric, and, in his younger days, he wore a dagger, as the fashion then was, which he would be apt to draw out upon every occasion ” — by way of gesticulation, doubtless, to lend force to his words ; for in his public and literary life, Harvey showed everything but the nature that would have led him to use a dagger : he seems, indeed, at all times to have had his temper under entire control. The way in which he himself speaks of the robbery of his apart- ments and the destruction of his papers, has nothing of acrimony in it. With the opportunity presenting itself to him, too — as when he sends Nardi the book on the troubles in England — he is not tempted to utter x 3°6 HARVEY. even a splenetic word against the party which had been all along opposed to his friends, and by which he had himself suffered severely. Harvey was, probably, a marked man by the Parliamentarians, but he gave them no occasion to interfere with him. Harvey appears not to have esteemed the fair sex very highly. He would say, that “ we Europeans knew not how to order or govern our women, and that the Turks were the only people who used them wisely surely a regretable saying on the part of our ana- tomist; for the woman is but the other, and oftentimes the better, half of the man. It is savagery or barbar- ism that treats womankind as either a slave or play- thing. But, indeed, if Aubrey may be trusted, Harvey did not think much of mankind in general ; he was wont to say, that “ man was but a great mischievous baboon.” Harvey, however, married young, speaks affectionately of his wife, and in his age seems still to have thought that the old man was best tended by the hand of a woman not too far stricken in years . 1 Harvey, in his own family circle, must have been affectionate and kind— characteristics of all his brothers — who appear to have lived together through their lives in perfect amity and peace. But our Harvey’s sympathies were not limited to his imme- diate relations : attachment, friendship, was a marked ingredient in his nature. His will from first to last is o 1 Vide Aubrey, op. cit. p. 381. HIS CHARACTER AND FORTUNE. 3°7 a piece of beautiful humanity, and more than one widow and helpless woman is there provided for. He had no child of his own to whom he could have made his memory dear, but he was anxious to live in the minds of his sisters-in-law and of his nephews and nieces, whose legacies are mostly given to the end that they may buy something to keep in remembrance of him. To Dr. Ent he was much attached, and besides his bookcases, there are “ five pounds to buy a ring.” Dr. Scarborough, who also stood high in Harvey’s favour, has his “silver instruments of surgery and his best velvet gown.” We cannot fancy that Harvey was at any time very eager in the pursuit of wealth. Aubrey tells us that, “ For twenty years before he died, he took no care of 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 him- self.” The effect of this good management was that Harvey lived, towards the end of life, in easy circum- stances. Having no costly establishment to maintain, for he always resided with one or other of his brothers in his latter days, and no family to provide for, he could afford to be munificent, as we have seen him, to the College of Physicians, and at his death he is reported to have left as much as ^20,000 to his faithful steward and kind brother Eliab, who always meets us as the guardian angel of our anatomist in a material point of view. Honoured be the name and the x 2 308 HARVEY. memory of Eliab Harvey for his good offices to one so worthy ! Though of competent estate, in the enjoyment of the highest reputation, and trusted by two sovereign Princes in succession, Harvey never suffered his name to be coupled with any of those lower-grade titles that were so freely conferred in the time of both the First and Second Charles. When we associate Harvey’s name with a title at all, it is with the one he won for himself from his masters of Padua : by his contempo- raries he is always spoken of as Doctor Harvey ; we in the present day rightly class him with our Shakspeares, and our Newtons, and speak of him as Harvey. Harvey, indeed, had no love of ostentation. The very buildings he erected in connection with the College of Physicians, at Amen Corner, were built “ at the suggestion and under the auspices ” of others. Harvey’s mind was largely imbued with the imagin- ative faculty : how finely he brings in the classical allusion to “ the Sicilian sea, dashing among the rocks around Charybdis, hissing and foaming and tossed hither and thither,” in illustration of those who reason against the evidence of their senses. And then what o unbounded confidence he has in Nature, and how keenly alive he is to her perfections in every sphere : Nature has not been sedulous to deck out animals only with ornaments ; she has further thrown an infinite variety of beautiful dyes over the lowly and insensate herbs and flowers. HIS MENTAL PECULIARITIES. 309 In Harvey the religious sentiment must have been active. He evinces true and elevated piety through the whole of his work on Generation, and seizes every opportunity of giving utterance to his sense of the immediate agency of the divine in Nature. With the ancient philosophers he appears to have regarded the universe and its parts as actuated by a supreme and all-pervading Intelligent Will, and so to have arrived at the pantheistic idea familiar to many of the highly cultivated of his age. He was a great admirer of Virgil, whose works were frequently in his hands, and whose religious philosophy seems also to have been the same as his own. The following beautiful and oft- quoted passage of his favourite author may be said to embody his ideas on this subject, as they appear repeatedly in the course of the work on Genera- tion : — “ Principio coelum ac terras camposque liquentes, Lucentemque globum lunse, Titaniaque astra, Spiritus intus alit, totarnque infusa per artus Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet.” — The heavens and earth, and ocean’s liquid plains, The moon’s bright orb, and the Titanian stars, Are fed by intrinsic spirits : deep infused Through all, mind mingles with and actuates the mass. SEneid. The same idea being repeated in other words in the fourth Georgic. “ Deum namque ire per omnes Terrasque tractusque maris coelumque profundum. Hinc pecudes, armenta, viros, genus omne ferarum, 3io HARVEY. Quemque sibi tenues nascentem arscessere vitas ; Scilicet hue reddi deinde ac resoluta referri.” F or God is in and over all — In earth and ocean, and in heaven above ; Whence flocks and herds, mankind and all that breathe, Receive at birth their feeble fleeting life, And dying give it back to whence it came. Upon the pure Theistic or pantheistic notions of antiquity, however, Harvey engrafted faith in Christianity, in harmony most probably with the views of Faustus Socinus, like his great contem- poraries Milton, Hobbes, Lord Herbert of Cherbury, and others. In connection with the subject of the “ term of utero-gestation,” he adduces what he holds to be the highest recorded example as the rule, and speaks of “ Christ, our Saviour, of men the most per- fect.” In his Will he further “ most humbly renders his soul to Him that gave it, and to his blessed Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus.” Harvey was ever inquisitive into natural things and natural phenomena. When he accompanied the Earl of Arundel, we have seen that he would still be wandering in the woods, making observations on the strange trees, herbs, creatures, and minerals he encountered. His industry in collecting facts was unwearied, and the accuracy with which he observed appears in every page of his writings ; though we sometimes meet him amiably credulous in regard to the observations of others, — as in that instance where he suffers himself to be imposed upon by the traveller’s THE FIRST MODERN COMPARATIVE ANATOMIST. 31 1 tale of the “ Genus humanum caudatum ” — the race of the human kind with tails ! Harvey was the first great modern comparative anato- mist ; in other words, he was the first physiologist the modern world produced, who by superiority of natural endowment was led to perceive the relations between the meanest and the highest of created things, and who made the simplicity of structure and of function in the one, a means of explaining the complexity of structure and of function in the other — the principle that underlies the great Idea of Evolution. “ Had anatomists,” he says, “ only been as conversant with 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.” It were needless to say that Harvey makes frequent and most effectual use of his knowledge of comparative anatomy in his earlier work ; and if the reader will turn to the one on Generation, and peruse what is said on the subject of “ parts not essential to the being of the individual,” and then visit the Hun- terian Museum in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, he will find that the great comparative anatomist and physiologist of the eighteenth century had a herald in the great compara- tive anatomist and physiologist of the seventeenth. Aubrey makes particular mention of Harvey’s having “ often said that of all the losses he sustained, no o- r ief 312 HARVEY. was so crucifying to him as the loss of his papers (containing notes of his dissections of the frog, toad, and other animals, particularly insects,) which together with his goods in his lodgings at Whitehall, were wrecked and plundered at the beginning of the rebellion.” Harvey’s store of individual knowledge must have been great ; and it was only towards the very end of his life that he flagged in his anxiety to learn more. He, however, 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.” Aubrey says “ he understood Greek and Latin pretty well, but was no critique, and wrote very bad Latin. The Circuitus Sanguinis was, as I take it, done into Latin by Sir George Ent, as also his booke de Generatione Animalium ; but a little booke, in i2mo, against Riolan (I thinke), wherein he makes out his doctrine clearer, was writ by himself, and that, as I take it, at Oxford." 1 Aubrey, in his gossiping, is doing injustice both to the scholarship and the candour of Harvey. He heard or knew that Harvey wrote an indifferent hand, and this forsooth he turns into writing indifferent Latin. Everything points to the year 1619 as the period when the book De Motu Cordis et Sanguinis (Aubrey does not even know the title ! ) was written ; Ent, born in 1603, then a lad of -sixteen, had never in all likelihood even heard of Harveys name ; 1 Aubrey, p. 383. HIS CLASSICS. 3i3 very certainly he had no knowledge of anatomy, and when the work came forth at Frankfort in 1628, he was scarcely emancipated from the leading-strings of his instructors. The Exercises on the Heart are at least as well written as the Disquisitions to Riolan, which Aubrey cites as specimens of Harvey’s own latinity. And then our authority evidently speaks at random in regard to the time and place when these essays were composed. Harvey never resided at Oxford after 1646, and Riolan’s Encheiridium Anatomicum, to which Harvey’s two Exercises were an answer, did not appear till 1648! Harvey’s reply could not have been written by anticipation. It came out at Cambridge the year after Riolan’s work — in 1649. With regard to the work on Generation, again, had Ent received it in English and turned it into Latin, this fact would certainly have been stated ; whereas, there is the positive information that he only played the midwife’s part, and overlooked the press. More than this, from what Ent says, it is evident that the printer worked from Harvey’s own MS. “As our author writes a bad hand,” says Ent, “ which no one without practice can easily read, I have taken some pains to prevent the printer committing any very grave blunders through this, — a point which, I observe, has not been sufficiently attended to in a small work of his (The Exercitatio ad Riolanum) which lately appeared.” 1 This settles the question both as to the 1 See the Epistle Dedicatory to the work on Generation. 314 HARVEY. language and the writer, and puts Aubrey out of court as worthy of credit on the subject. Harvey was a man of the most liberal education, and lived in an age when every physician wrote and conversed in Latin with ease at least, if not always with elegance. Harvey’s Latin is generally easy, never inelegant, and not unfrequently copious and imaginative ; he never seems to feel fettered by the language he is using. Harvey, if eager in the acquirement of knowledge, was also ready at all times to communicate what he knew, “ and,” as Aubrey has it, “ to instruct any that were modest and respectful to him. In order to my journey (I was at that time bound for Italy) he dictated to me what to see, what company to keep, what bookes to read, how to manage my studies — in short, he bid me go to the fountain head and read Aristotle, Cicero, Avicenna, and did call the Neoteri- ques s — t-breeches.” 1 Harvey was not content merely to gather know- ledge ; he digested and arranged it under the guidance of the faculties which compare and deduce. “He was always very contemplative,” pursues Aubrey, “ 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. At the house at Combe, 1 Aubrey, p. 3S3. HIS INTELLECTUAL POWERS. 315 in Surrey,” which by the way appears to have been purchased of Mr. Cockaine, as well as the mansion in the city, “ 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 treated the principal bodily ailment with which he was afflicted (gout) somewhat in the same manner. The fever of the mind being subdued by the application of cold air to the body at large, the fever in the blood, induced by gout, was abated by the use of cold water to the affected member : “He would then sitt with his legges bare, though it were frost, on the leads of Cockainediouse, putt them into a payle of water till he was almost dead with cold, and betake himself to his stove, and so ’twas gone.” 1 Harvey, besides being physician to the king and household, held the same responsible situation in the families of many of the most distinguished nobles and men of eminence of his time — amono- others in o that of the Lord Chancellor Bacon, whom Aubrey informs us, “ he esteemed much for his witt and style, but would not allow to be a great philosopher. Said he to me, ‘ He writes philosophy like a Lord 1 Ibid., p. 384. 3 1 6 HARVEY. Chancellor’ — speaking in derision.” The philosopher of fact cared not for the philosopher of prescription ; he who was dealing with the Things, and through his own inherent powers exhibiting the Rule, thought little of him who was at work upon Abstractions, and inculcating the rule from the use he saw others making of it. Bacon has many admirers, more eulogists than readers, I apprehend ; and there are not wanting some in these present times who hold, with his illustrious contemporary, that “ he wrote philosophy like a Lord Chancellor.” Harvey was also acquainted with all the men of letters and science of his age — with Hobbes, Dryden, Cowley, Boyle, and the rest. Dryden, in his metrical epistle to Dr. Charleton, has these lines, of no great merit or significance : — “ The circling streams once thought but pools of blood, (Whether life’s fuel or the body’s food,) F rom dark oblivion H arvey’s name shall save.” Cowley is more happy in his Ode on Dr. Harvey : — “ Thus Harvey sought for truth in Truth’s own book — Creation — which by God himself was writ; And wisely thought ’twas fit Not to read comments only upon it, But on th’ original itself to look. Methinks in Art’s great circle others stand Lock’d up together hand in hand: Every one leads as he is led ; The same bare path they tread, A dance like that of fairies, a fantastic round, With neither change of motion nor of ground. Had Harvey to this road confined his wit, His noble circle of the blood had been untrodden yet.” HIS FRIENDS. 317 Cowley and Harvey must often have encountered ; both had the confidence of the king, but in very dif- ferent ways : Cowley lent himself to the privacies and intrigues of the royal family and its adherents, for whom he even consented to play the base part of spy upon their opponents. He was also the cypher-letter writer, and the decypherer of the royal correspondence, and thus mixed up with all the plots and proceedings of the court party, by whom he must have been, as matter of course, despised, as he was subsequently neglected. Harvey was a man of another mould, composed of a better clay ; and it gives us a high sense of his independence and true nobility of nature, that in the midst of faction and intrigue he is never found asso- ciated with aught that is unworthy of the name of man in his best estate. The war of party and the work of destruction might be going on around, Har- vey, under a hedge, and within reach of cannon shot, was engaged with his book ; or in the chamber of his friend Dr. Bathurst, rapt in contemplation of the mysteries of Generation ! Harvey appears to have possessed, in a remarkable degree, the power of persuading and conciliating those with whom he came in contact. In the whole course of his long life we hear nothing either of personal enemies or personal enmities. “ Man,” he says, “comes into the world naked and unarmed, as if 318 HARVEY. nature had destined him for a social creature, and ordained that he should live under equitable laws and in peace ; as if she had desired that he should be guided by reason rather than be driven by force.” The whole of the opposition to his new views on the circulation was got up at a distance ; all within his own sphere of any note, where not of his way of thinking, were silent. His brethren of the College of Physicians appear to have revered him. The congre- gated fellows must have risen to their feet by common consent as he came amon^ them on the memorable o occasion after they had elected him their president, an honour which he so gracefully declined. Among other tastes or habits which Harvey had, Aubrey informs us that “ he was wont to drink coffee, which he and his brother Eliab did before coffee- houses were in fashion in London .” 1 This was pro- bably a cherished taste with Harvey. In his will he makes a special reservation of his “ coffey-pot ; ” — his niece Mary West and her daughter 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 they had often enjoyed together over its contents — the “cup that cheers, but not inebriates.” In visiting his patients, Harvey “ rode on horseback with a foot-cloath, his man following on foot, as the 1 Op. cit. p. 384. HIS VISITS TO PATIENTS. 319 fashion then was, which was very decent, now quite discontinued. The judges rode also with their foot- cloathes 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 aoree to it.” 1 o Harvey appears to have preserved his faculties unimpaired to the very last. Aubrey, as we have seen, found him perusing Oughtred’s Clavis Mathe- matica, and working the problems, not long before he died ; and the registers of the College of Physicians further assure us that Harvey, when very far stricken in years, still lost little or nothing of his old activity of mind. He continued to deliver his lectures till within a few years of his death, when he was succeeded by his friend Sir Charles Scarborough, and he never failed at the Comitia of the college when anything of moment was under consideration. Accumulating years, however, and repeated attacks of gout, to which he had long been a martyr, at length asserted their mastery over the declining body, and on the 3rd of June, 1657, William Harvey, the great in intellect, the noble in nature, then in the 80th year of his age, finally ceased to be. About ten o’clock in the morning, as Aubrey tells us, on attempting to speak, he found that he had lost the power of utterance — that, in the language of the vulgar, he had the dead 1 Aubrey, ib., p. 386. 320 HARVEY. palsy in his tongue. He did not lose his other faculties, however ; but knowing that his end was approaching, he sent for his nephews, to each of whom he gave some token of remembrance — his watch to one, his signet ring to another, and so on. He farther made signs to Sambroke, his apothecary, to let him blood in the tongue ; but this did little or no good, and by and by, in the evening of the day on which he was stricken, he died; “the palsy,” as Aubrey has it, “giving him an easy passport .” 1 The funeral took place a few days afterwards, and was attended far beyond the walls of the city by a long train of his friends of the College of Physicians, the remains being finally deposited “in a vault at Hempstead, in Essex, which his brother Eliab had built ; he was lapt in lead, and on his breast, in great 1 Aubrey gives a positive denial to “ the scandall that ran strongly against him (Harvey), viz., that he made himself away, to put himself out of his paine, by opium.” Aubrey proceeds : “ The scandall aforesaid is from Sir Charles Scarborough’s saying that he (Harvey) had, towards his latter end, a preparation of opium and I know not what, which he kept in his study to take if occasion should serve, to put him out of his paine, and which Sir Charles promised to give him. This I believe to be true ; but do not at all believe that he really did give it him. The palsey did give him an easie passport.” (p. 385.) Harvey, if he meditated anything of the kind above alluded to, would not be the only instance on record of even a strong-minded man shrink- ing from a struggle which he knows must prove hopeless, — from which there is no issue but one. Nature, as the physician knows, does often kill the body by a very lingering and painful process. In his practice he is constantly required to smooth the way for the unhappy sufferer. In his own case he maybe excused for wishing to shorten it. Such requests as Harvey may be presumed to have made to Scarborough, are frequently enough preferred to medical men : it were needless to say that they are never granted to the extent desired. HIS DEATH AND BURIAL. 321 letters, his name — Dr. William Harvey. ... I was at his funeral,” continues Aubrey, “ and helpt to carry him into the vault.” And there, at this hour, he lies, the lead that laps him showing indistinctly the out- line of the form within ; for he lies not in an ordinary coffin, but wrapt in cerements that surround the body, these being in their turn invested by the lead. So lived, so died one of the great men who, in virtue of the eternal laws that rule the Universe, appear on earth from time to time, to enlighten and to ennoble mankind . 1 1 On the Tablet placed in Hempstead church to Harvey’s memory are inscribed these words : GULIELMUS HARVEIUS, Cui tam colendo Nomini assurgunt omnes Academiae; Qui diuturnum sanguinis motum Post tot annorum Millia Primus invenit ; Orbi salutem, sibi immortalitatem Consequutus. Oui ortum et generationem Animalium solus omnium A Pseudo-philosophia liberavit. Cui debet Quod sibi innotuit humanum Genus, seipsam Medicina. Sereniss. Majestat. Jacobo et Carolo Britanniarum Monarchis Archiatrus et charissimus. Collegii Med. Lond. Anatomes et Chirurgiae Professor Assiduus et felicissimus ; Quibus illustrem construxit Bibliothecam, Suoque dotavit et ditavit Patrimonio. Tandem Post triumphales Contemplando, sanando, inveniendo Sudores, Varias domi forisque statuas, Y 322 HARVEY. Quum totum circuit Microcosmum, Medicinae Doctor et Medicorum, Improles obdormivit III Junii anno salutis MDCLVI1, y£tat. LXXX. Annorum et Famae satur. CHAPTER III. RECENT HISTORIANS OF THE DISCOVERY OF THE CIRCULATION OF THE BLOOD. My work would be incomplete were I not to conclude with a notice of some at least of my predecessors, historians of the Circulation, critics and advocates of one or another to whom the discovery has been ascribed. In exposing the views of the great anato- mists of former times from their works, I have referred incidentally oftener than once to recent writers who believe that in these they detect a knowledge more or less complete of the Circulation. Among the most persistent of all in his advocacy of the claims of Hippocrates to such distinction is Jo. Ant. van der Linden, professor of medicine in the University of Leyden. In a series of no fewer than twenty-seven dissertations published under the names of his students on taking their medical degrees , 1 he has brought together and given his own interpretation to every passage in the writings of the Lather of Physic which he thinks bears upon the question in 1 Jo. Ant. van der Linden. Hippocrates, de Circuitu Sanguinis, Dissertationes xxvii. Lugd. Batav., 1659-63. 4to. Y 2 324 HISTORIANS OF THE CIRCULATION. hand. But I have said enough under the head of Hippocrates on the learned professor’s lucubrations to make it unnecessary for me to take up the subject at any length in this place. I only add, that Van der Linden is totally opposed to Harvey’s title to be accounted the discoverer of the Circulation of the Blood. Advocate as he is of Hippocrates, however, he would not have him enriched to the extent of making every one who came after him his debtor. Harvey had not to go so far back as the days of the Coan Sage for his know- ledge. Van der Linden informs us seriously, that “ he had been told by the learned Dr. Nicholas Oudart that he— Oudart — remembers to have heard Harvey say in the course of a lecture — Hai veium profitentem — that he had had the first idea of the circular motion of the blood from George Heriot the apothecary or jeweller — pharmcicopolos sen gemmarius — of his serene Majesty King James”! Van der Linden, in a word, is of opinion that “ it was not of himself or from his proper studies that Harvey made the inestimable discovery,” but thinks it “ more than likely that he had it either from Sarpi, or Heriot, or Caesalpinus,” — from any one, in short, rather than from himself. (§582 in the series of dissertations referred to.) T. J. Almeloveen, 1 appears to have been inspired by Van der Linden, and may be said to improve on all he finds said by his guide and authority. Almeloveen is 1 Inventa nov-antiqua. Amstelod., 1684. ALMELOVEEN. 325 of opinion that Hippocrates was certainly aware of the great truth commonly ascribed to Harvey. But the old writer whom he credits with the most complete knowledge of the matter is Nemesius Bishop of Emessa, who lived in the early part of the Christian era — on what sufficiency, whether of fact or authority, we have seen. Be this as it may, Almeloveen is still assuredly of opinion that the circulation was perfectly well known to anatomists long before the days of Harvey ; a fact, which he believes Van der Linden to have placed in the clearest possible light. Among later writers Almeloveen names Csesalpinus particularly, and says that “ the Circulation of the Blood is described by him in the plainest terms — sanguinis circuitum planis- simis verbis descripsit,”—2i conclusion in support of which he quotes the passage from the Ouestiones Peri- patetics, in which the swelling of the veins of the arm beyond the bandage is discussed. The discovery of the valves of the veins, and a knowledge of the Circulation, is then ascribed to Paul Sarpi in anticipation of Fabricius, Cssalpinus and Harvey. “ The account of his discovery,” he says, “ is given by Fra Paolo in a book which he wrote whilst on his death-bed at Venice, where it is still preserved in the Library of St. Mark’s.” By the side of all the positive statements thus made, Almeloveen, nevertheless, finds it necessary to offer an apology for the perfunctory and imperfect manner in which he owns that modern writers before Harvey have 326 HISTORIANS OF THE CIRCULATION. spoken of the circulation. “It had been nothing less than waste of time, however,” he concludes, “ had they said much about what was known to all, or to write an Iliad after Homer”! (p. 225.) Such is the way in which men of learning and respectability in every-day life write history when their prejudices are engaged, and they have taken no pains duly to inform them- selves. Dutens (Louis), Rector of Elsdon, Northumberland, author of a work that has had considerable vogue and contains a good deal of entertaining and even useful information. 1 He is less at home, however, on matters pertaining to anatomy and physiology, than on those that have general physical science for their object. On the circulation of the blood he is of opinion that Plato, after Hippocrates, is the first who speaks with any clearness of a circular motion of the blood ; and we have had occasion ourselves to direct attention to the remarkable word peripheresthai of which the philo- sopher makes use. Aristotle also, Dutens believes, had seized the same idea in a more or less definite measure. Dutens has the usual story about Fra Paolo and the valves of the veins ; but nothing else that requires notice at our hands. Walaeus (J.) 2 whom I have had occasion already to 1 “An Inquiry into the Origin of the Discoveries attributed to the Moderns. Tr. from the French.” 8vo, Lond., 1769. 3rd ed.,4to, Lond., 1796. 2 Epistolae duae de motu Sanguinis ad Th. Bartholinum. SPRENGEL. 327 mention incidentally, like so many others, speaks at random when he ascribes the discovery of the valves of the veins to Sarpi, and goes on to say that “ the learned William Harvey taking the hint from him described the circular motion of the blood more accurately, and having added to the arguments for it by new experiments and set the whole subject on a better foundation, published his ‘ Exercises,’ as if the discovery had been all his own.” With how little justice much of this is said we know, since we have had a true account of Sarpi’s ideas. The adverse and unfair criticism of Waley is the more notable as coming from a writer who was well aware of the con- tention that is so apt to arise about priority in discovery. “No one,” says he, “can now publish any- thing, or communicate his views to a friend, but he immediately finds another to detract from his merits, to dispute his originality, and for his labour and pains to find that the only return he has is envy, detraction, and trouble of mind.” Sprengel (Kurt), Professor of botany in the Uni- versity of Halle, born 1766. 1 Sprengel is one of those among the later learned men of whom Germany boasts so many, who has done much to mislead opinion in regard to the Discoverer of the Circulation. Sprengel says, in so many words, that Cesalpino “ was not only aware of the transit of the blood through the lung's o o 1 Geschichte cler Arzneikunde. 7 Biinde, 2te Ausg. Leipz. 1821-28. 328 HISTORIANS OF THE CIRCULATION. from the right to the left side of the heart, but also of its circulation throughout the body . 1 And this,” he continues, “was certainly learned neither from Fabricius nor from Harvey.” Cesalpino most assuredly learned nothing of all he knew on the motion of the blood from Fabricius, whom he pre- ceded as a writer by many years, and from whom, although they were contemporaries, he could have learned nothing of the general circulation, as it was not even dreamt of by the learned professor of Padua ; and to suggest the possibility of his having had his knowledge from Harvey, is more than gratuitous ; inasmuch as he was gathered to his fathers twenty-four years before the Exercitationes de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis appeared. How Sprengel should have com- mitted himself as he does, passes comprehension, when we find him admitting on the very next page that “ Cesalpino acknowledged an ebb and flow in the veins, and therefore shows himself uncertain of his case. Had he started from the discovery of the valves of the veins and been more consequent with himself he would have discovered the Circulation of the Blood !” 2 Cesalpino is therefore credited, first, with the discovery of the circulation, and then referred 1 Audi den grossen Kreislauf der Safte durch den ganzen Korper hat Csesalpino gekannt. Op. Cit. Th. in., S. 89. 2 “ Er spricht doch noch von einer Ebbe und Fluth des Elutes in den Venen, und ist also seiner Sadie nicht gewiss. . . . Entdecker des grossen Kreislaufs wenn er mehr mit sidi selbst iibereinstimmte und wenn er von der Entdeckung der Klappen in den Yenen ausgegangen ware.” Ib., S. 90. SPRENGEL. 329 to as possible discoverer had he known of the valves of the veins or been consequent with himself! But as Cesalpino acknowledged a to-and-fro motion of the blood in the veins, and takes no notice of the valves in their interior — though he could hardly have been ignorant of their existence — it is obvious that he could have had no idea of any circular motion of the blood throughout the body. The distinguished historian of the medical sciences goes on elsewhere to assure us that “ he would not accuse Harvey of having appropriated the discovery of another.” Yet what he says in the first instance amounts to nothing less ; for it were absurd to suppose Harvey unacquainted with the Ouaestiones Peripatetics ; and in what he has next he condemns himself as critic out of his own mouth. Neither Fabricius nor any other contemporary of Caesalpinus read him as does Sprengel. They had no suspicion of a circular motion of the blood, alternately arterial and venous, and it came not into their minds to imagine that Caesalpinus ever hinted at such a thing. Nor does he. Caesalpinus’ physiology of the motion of the heart and blood is the physiology which he and his age inherited from Aristotle and Galen. To ascribe motives, I am well aware, is mostly unbecoming where not reprehensible ; but it is im- possible to overlook the strange indisposition apparent almost from first to last among anatomists and so many men of learning to do entire justice to Harvey. 330 HISTORIANS OF THE CIRCULATION. Was it that they were without a standard by which his singular merit could be measured ? Or was it that they sought by abasing him to exalt themselves — to bridge over the gulf between his greatness and their littleness by striving to make him less than he is ? Highly as I think Servetus is to be honoured in his discovery of the pulmonary transit, I hold that too much stress has been laid on it as pointing directly to the general circulation. Its announcement did so in reality no more than the old transfusion through the septum. The liver was the laboratory and source of the blood, and Galen showed conclusively that the left ventricle and arteries contained blood as well as the right ventricle and veins. Whence in fact could the blood come but from the intestines and liver ? and whether it passed from right to left by filtering through the septum, or by the open passage of the vena arterialis, signified little and affected in nowise its further distribution. Servetus wrote and died in 1553; Columbus made his induction generally known three years later, and Cesalpino, 15 93, speaks of the transfusion from the right to the left ventricle by the objectionable term Circulation. But between 1553 and 162S, three- quarters of a century intervened, the valves of the veins having been made known meanwhile ; yet did no one imagine that there were fewer than two kinds of blood moving to and fro in appropriate canals until Harvey appeared, and proclaimed the heart the moving BARZELLOTTI. 33i power of one blood, alternately dark and crimson, as it flowed in the veins or the arteries. Seventy-five years had, therefore, to elapse before the discovery of Servetus was seen as more than an isolated physio- logical fact ; and he who saw it first in its connection with the great mechanical process in the animal organism was Harvey. Barzellotti (Giacomo), Professor of Medicine in the University of Pisa. In imitation of Fontenelle, whom I have quoted, Barzellotti treats us to a “ Dialogue of the Dead,” 1 in which figure at first Harvey and Caesal- pinus in conference ; and by-and-by Aristotle, Hippo- crates, and Galen, as umpires between the English anatomist and the Italian Aristotelian philosopher on their respective claims to the discovery of the circula- tion of the Blood. Harvey — Professor A rvdo — opens the conversation by excusing himself to Professor Cesalpino for having made no mention of him in the “ Anatomical Exercises on the Heart and Blood,” on the ground of not having properly understood what is said in the Fifth Book of the Peripatetic Questions, and in other parts of the work. Cesalpino replies : That he does indeed complain of Harvey’s having taken the whole honour of the great discovery to himself without once quoting him “ who by facts and arguments of the severest 1 Dialogo sulla scoperta della circolazione del sangue nel corpo umano. (Pisa, 1831.) 8vo, with a portrait of Cesalpino. 332 HISTORIANS OF THE CIRCULATION. logic,” as he says, “ had asserted and described the cir- culation long before Harvey had any idea of it. It was no fault of mine if you did not read what I had written. ” Harvey. — “ Do not be angry, Professor Cesal- pino ; it may be that I have read you amiss. I do not deny that you have shown some knowledge of the cir- culation [the word should be motion] of the blood, but not more or more accurately than Servetus, Colombo, Fra Paolo, and d’Aquapendente my master.” Cesalpino. “ I would rather refer my case to another than appear as judge in it myself.” Aristotle, Hippocrates, and Galen are now intro- duced, and Cesalpino, addressing them as “ Grandi Maestri delle scienze naturali,” proceeds to state his claims to the discovery of the circulation, in opposition to those of Harvey. Hippocrates asks, very per- tinently, as it seems, how it happens that it is only since Harvey came to dwell in Elysium that the question in debate has arisen ? To which he of Arezzo replies, that “ folks in the olden time made less ado about discoveries, and were less interested in ascribing them to their authors. But history is more exacting now, and would have the story of this great discovery so told that the glory of having made it may not be taken from me, from Italy, from Tuscany, from the University of Pisa, even from my native Arezzo, and wrongfully ascribed to Harvey, to England, and to London ! ” In the face of this flourish, another interpretation BARZELLOTTI. 333 will probably present itself to the reader — viz., that no one dreamt of a general circulation of the blood until Harvey’s Exercises appeared. Cesalpino, descanting on the nature and cause of the arterial pulse, now goes on to say : “If I put one hand on my heart, and feel my pulse with the other, I perceive the shock of both at the same moment ; there- fore do both heart and arteries dilate simultaneously a statement which is repeated towards the end of the dialogue (p. 79). Harvey having now said that “ the beat of the heart accords with its constriction, the beat of the arteries with their dilatation — the heart beating with its systole, the arteries beatmg with their diastole ,” Cesalpino replies : “ With all submission to you, I am by no means disposed to admit this doctrine ; and I think I have demonstrated that if the arteries pulsate because dilated by the blood thrown into them, the heart must also pulsate from the same cause.” (!) To show that the blood of the arteries flows into the veins, Caesalpinus proceeds : “ If one of the turgid veins beyond the bleeding fillet be opened, the blood that issues is of a dark colour at first ; but, the flow continuing, the colour changes to crimson” {On. Perip., lib. ii., Ou. 7) ; a false statement, which Barzellotti nevertheless endorses as a truth. But I have shown that Ctesalpinus, speaking as he does, could only have 1 “ Se io metto una mano sul cuore e l’altro sul polso, sono ambe due percosse nello stesso tempo : dunque nel stesso tempo si dilatono.” p. 26. 3 34 HISTORIANS OF THE CIRCULATION. understood that when a vein is emptied of its proper black blood, florid blood from a neighbouring artery then entered it ; precisely as Erasistratus held that when blood was seen to flow from a wounded artery, it was after the spirit it previously contained had escaped. Having given what he calls a precise summary of the modern doctrine of the Circulation as that which was conceived and proclaimed by Ccesalpinus, Barzellotti proceeds in the name of the Aristotelian philosopher : “ And now I hope, O learned Arveo, that you will not think my pretension to this discovery unjust, nor look on me as uncivil, if I complain of you for not having even named me in your ‘ Exercises on the Motion of the Heart and Blood.’” To which the learned Harvey, instead of claiming the account just given as his own, answers : “ Since hearing what you have said, I willingly reconsider the passages to which you refer ; and if you satisfy me that you have really made the discovery you claim, I shall own at once to you, O excellent judges, that I withdraw the claims I have advanced as having discovered the circulation of the blood.” He ventures, however, at this point to inter- pose a trifling objection to the sweeping self-assertion of Caesalpinus, by hinting at what he finds said by him on the efflux of the blood in waking hours and its reflux during the hours of sleep, not unlike Euripus flowing to and fro between Attica and Beotia. It were needless to say, that the defence of the dilemma on the horns of which Caesalpinus now finds BA RZ ELL OTT I. 335 himself, extending over some eight pages of Barzellotti’s book, leaves him no nearer the declaration and demon- stration of the general circulation he claims than when he set out. Aristotle, indeed, interposes, and observes, “ I do not see, my good Cesalpino, how, if the blood moves in a circle incessantly, as you now assert, you can make my comparison of its flux and reflux to Euripus, several times in the course of the day, con- sort with your discovery.” Caesalpinus himself might possibly have found some difficulty in meeting this remark of the Stagyrite ; not so his advocate, who answers for him : “If you but think of the way in which the blood is thrown from the heart by a succession of waves into the arteries, you will see that the com- parison of the motion to that of Euripus is not without a certain propriety ” — an explanation and escape, by changing the meaning of the words employed, which is accepted by the complacent judges, Aristotle de- claring that the comparison of Euripus is not, after all, so much out of character as it appeared at first, (!) Hippocrates being delighted to see an old idea so happily applied to a modern discovery, (!!) and Galen glad to find the analogy adduced all the more reason- able, as in his day folks were rather bent on finding reasons in appearances than in nature and realities. (! ! !) Let us come to the final award, which is delivered by Hippocrates, leaving the reader himself to judge of its fairness ; my own dissent from the foundation in fact of each item adduced being indicated in the 336 HISTORIANS OF THE CIRCULATION. shortest possible way by a mark of admiration, here to be taken as one of negation. Addressing Cesal- pino, the Father of Physic proceeds : “You were the fortunate individual who was first aware of the valves of the heart (!) and of their function at its four outlets. (!) You were the first who declared that the venous mouths of the two ventricles of the heart open and give entrance to the blood, and close again to prevent its reflux. (!) You first maintained that, with the con- traction of the ventricles and the expulsion of the blood they contain, the valves of the arterial orifices close and form an insuperable obstacle to its return. (!) With cogent arguments, you showed that the blood sent to the lungs by the vena arteriosa was not for their nourishment, (!) and that the greater part of it must proceed to the left ventricle of the heart by the arteria venosa, (!) whence, by the aorta, it was delivered to all parts of the body. (!) Finally, you first deter- mined, from the function of the valvular apparatus [of the body], the circulation of the blood from the centre to the circumference, and from this to the centre. (!) I therefore ascribe to you the high honour of having made the admirable discovery in debate, and at the same time regret that Harvey, who has shown that he was acquainted with your works, has made no refer- ence to them, and has not even mentioned your name.” Turning to Harvey, Hippocrates then assigns to him his share in the great discovery. But everything having already been given to Caesalpinus, I think it FLO UR E NS. 337 needless to inflict on the reader the two or three pages of nothings that are left for Harvey. The book of Barzellotti is a curiosity in its way ; prejudice, partiality, and injustice being added to anatomical and physio- logical misconception. Nevertheless, as it has proved an incentive to his countrymen to persevere in the course of unfair criticism they have adopted, it required something more than a passing notice at our hands. Flourens (P.), Perpetual Secretary to the French Academy of Sciences . 1 I have had occasion more than once to refer to M. Flourens as speaking handsomely of Harvey. He had studied the Anatomical Exercises on the motion of the heart and blood ; and with the cultivated taste of the man of letters, did not fail to appreciate the singular merits of that great work in little compass. But he every now and then shows himself distracted by what he finds in writers, prede- cessors of Harvey ; and, deficient in critical perception, not co-ordinating what occurs in one part of their works with what occurs in another and with the physiological ideas of their age, but interpreting- detached passages by the light he has himself, he arrives at erroneous conclusions on the true meaning of what is said. Csesalpinus more than any other writer puts him at fault in this particular. “ Galen, Vesalius, Columbus, and Fabricius,” says M. Flourens, “ all hold that the veins are the channels by which the 1 Histoire de la Decouvdrte de la Circulation du Sang. 2me ed., Paris, 1857. i2mo. Z 33 § HISTORIANS OF THE CIRCULATION. blood is conveyed to the parts of the body for their nourishment. Caesalpinus alone, before Harvey, dared to maintain the contrary, and that which Caesalpinus dared to maintain, was demonstrated by Harvey. 1 But Caesalpinus most certainly maintained nothing of the kind. To him the veins were still the vessels which carried the auctive element to the body ; the arteries those which bore the proper nutrient element. To him, unquestionably, there were two kinds of blood, severally contained in appropriate vessels of different constitution and subserving dissimilar ends, the veins charged with the pabulum of growth — the arteries with that of special nutrition, or life. 2 In his work De Plantis, continues M. Flourens, “ Caesalpinus says : The blood brought by the veins to the heart there receives its final perfection, and is distributed to the body by the agency of the spirit ; ” a passage which is thus commented on. “ The general circulation could not be better conceived nor better defined.” But M. Flourens should have seen that Caesalpinus does no more than repeat the lesson he learned from Galen, who had his spirituous blood distributed to all parts of the body by the arteries, in 1 “ Cesalpin seul avant Harvey a ose dire le contraire, et ce que Cesalpin avait ose dire, Harvey l’a demontre.” Hist, de la Decouvdrte, &c., p. 262, 2me ed. 2 Caesalpinus in one passage pointedly makes the arteries, earning nutritive aliment, draw auctive aliment from the veins through their communications called anastomoses by the Greeks. — “ Simul alimentum nutritivum fert artcria, et auctivum ex venis elicit per osculorum com- munio7iem quam Grceci anastomosin vocant.” FLO UR E NS. 339 order to impart to them the flame of life, whilst it was from the blood of the veins that they obtained the aliment they required. M. Flourens was an adept in writing Eloges ; he had exercised himself less in the domain of criticism, and is ever anything but logical or consistent in what he says, when he strays from his special province. “ I leave,” says he, “ to Servetus and Columbus the pulmonary circulation ; and I collect all the most worthy titles of Caesalpinus to the discovery of the general circulation. Let us raise statues then to these great men ; but for any sake let us not lessen that of Harvey — “ Elevens, elevons sans cesse la statue a ces hommes rares, mais, de grace, ne diminuons pas celle de Harvey.” — But if Servetus, Columbus, and Caesalpinus, have statues as discoverers of the circulation of the blood, Harvey can have none. Let Italy raise a statue to Caesalpinus by all means ; but let it be on his true merits, as a man distinguished above his fellows for intellectual power, as a great physician, and as the founder of the Science of Botany, not as the Discoverer of the Circulation of the Blood. Were Italy, indeed, to raise a statue to the real discoverer of this great truth, she would do no less honour to herself than to Harvey, for she was indeed his nursing mother. And were it of colossal proportions, it would only typify at once the intrinsic moral and mental nobility of the man and his large indebtedness to her for his scientific nurture. z 2 340 HISTORIANS OF THE CIRCULATION. I do not criticise M. Flourens further. His work has a proper scientific character only here and there ; gene- rally it is a gossiping production, written in the charac- teristic lively French style, and entertaining enough. But all he says on the moderns rests on no solid foundation. The only work he could have read with any care appears to have been the Exercitationes of Harvey. Had he done as much by the Ouestiones Peripateticae, weighed the hazy statements there adventured, and contrasted the work of Caesalpinus with that of Harvey in the spirit of impartiality, which I believe to have animated him, he would not at all times have spoken of their authors as he does ; saying yea-nay for Harvey, when yea was the only word ; and yea for Caesalpinus when nay was the award of equity. Tollin (Henri), minister of the French Protestant congregation of Magdeburg, among whose many in- teresting papers on the Life and Works .of Servetus there is one advocating the claims of the gifted Spaniard to the discovery of the circulation of the blood, which requires our particular notice . 1 Had H. Tollin limited the title of his essay to such terms as these : “ Discovery by Servetus of the Pulmonary por- tion of the Circulation,” he would, I apprehend, have arrogated nothing more for his hero than can fairly be claimed as his due. But to suggest that Servetus had any conception of a motion of the blood throughout 1 Die Entdeckung des Blutkreislaufs durch Michael Servet. Svo. Jena, 1876. T0LL1N. 34i the body in a circle is certainly a mistake. Servetus regarded the liver as the organ of the hsemapoesis, the veins as the distributors of the natural nutrient blood to the body, the heart and lungs as the laboratory of vital spirit, and the arteries as the channels by which itwassent to supply the individual parts with their special endow- ments. Servetus spoke of the distribution of the blood to the body in the same sense precisely as his age. Tollin has erred through interpreting the martyr of 1 5 5 3 by the knowledge he has himself in 1876. His survey of the views of Servetus’s predecessors, never- theless, and of the gradually accumulated anatomical facts which, rationally interpreted, led Servetus first to infer the pulmonary transit, and Harvey — not Caesal- pinus — in the end to proclaim the general circulation of the "blood, is fully and effectively presented by the accomplished writer. Tollin and Professor Preyer of Jena, editor of the series in which the “ Entdeckung des Blutkreislaufs von Servet,” by Tollin appears, do not fail to see Columbus’s claim to the discovery of the pulmonary transit as posterior in date to its announcement by Servetus, and derived in all probability from him. Tollin, in his partiality for Servetus, is not, however, like the Italians, always and altogether unjust to Harvey. “The great English physiologist,” he says, “ was not only the first who wrote a book specially devoted to the circulation of the blood ; he was the first also who took clear and comprehensive views of 342 HISTORIANS OF THE CIRCULATION. the organic system of which it is the consequence. A master in vivisection, the contriver of numerous new experiments, Harvey is ever seen to be the greater man the more the envious world of to-day has striven to isolate, to lessen, and to supersede him.” This is just, this is true. But I regret to go on w T ith what follows, for it is neither just nor true. “ The discoverer of the circulation of the blood, however Harvey is not — not of the minor, for that was known to Servetus ; not of the greater, for that was deter- mined by Caesalpinus. It w T as Harvey’s great good fortune to have studied at Padua, where Vesalius and Faloppius and Columbus had taught — where he saw Fabricius demonstrate the valves of the veins, and heard Eustachius Rudius discuss the pulmonic circu- lation to which I add : By neither of whom was THE MOTION OF THE BLOOD IN A GREAT CIRCLE THROUGHOUT THE BODY EVEN IMAGINED, AND STILL LESS DETERMINED, ANY MORE THAN IT WAS DREAMT OF BY ONE OF THEIR AUDITORS, WITH THE SOLITARY EXCEPTION OF THE ENGLISH STUDENT, WlLLIAM Harvey. Less familiar with the old physiology than he would have been had he devoted himself to anatomical studies with the same zeal as he has to theology- and the history of Servetus, I do not hesitate to say that Tollin has been led to give that to Caesalpinus to which he has no claim, and in the same measure to detract from Harvey’s title to that which belongs to CERADINI . 343 him by indefeasible right. It is as discoverer of the general circulation of the blood that Harvey claims our homage ; his vivisections, his experiments, his reasonings were all accessories in illustration of the great truth he divined and gave to the world. Ceradini (G.), Professor of Physiology in the Univer- sity of Genoa. I approached the handsome volume 1 of the learned professor of Genoa with hope, but left it with profound regret. Setting out, as he informs us in his review of the anatomical facts and physio- logical inferences that culminated in the discovery of the circulation of the blood, by imposing on himself the most scrupulous impartiality, and thereby aiding in the redress of what he is pleased to call the injustice of centuries, Ceradini is nevertheless more or less unjust to every one who in modern times had any share in the great result. I venture to think that he does not do entire justice even to his hero, Cesalpino ; for he condones the errors of the philosopher, and, starting from the physiological premisses of the pre- sent day, and blinded by patriotic feelings that should have no part in scientific discussions, credits him with conclusions to which he certainly never came. The first Book of the Appunti Storico-critici is dedicated to Galen. The second, which I think ougTt to have been given to Servetus, the first in modern times who saw the septum ventriculorum as it is — a 1 La Scoperta della Circolazione del Sangue. Appunti storico-critici. Nuova Ed. rifatta ed aumentata. 8vo., Maj. Milano, 1876. 344 HISTORIANS OF THE CIRCULATION. solid — and proclaimed the passage of the blood from the right to the left side of the heart by a lengthened course through the lungs, is devoted to Colombo ; the third has Harvey for its theme; and the fouith , the longest of any, winds up with Cesalpino. The criticism of Galen is thorough, but certainly mistaken where the pulmonary transit is discussed. To Servetus our critic is persistently and glaringly unjust. He will not even allow the man his proper name, but insists that it is Reves, not Servetus, which it is said he only assumed when he became an author. Servetus, he thinks, added nothing to what was already known from Galen, and was altogether a contemptible personage, unworthy to be spoken of beside the great anatomists his contemporaries and successors. I have shown, I trust satisfactorily, how little such criticism applies to the gifted Servetus. If Servetus is unfairly depreciated, Colombo, I believe, is as unduly exalted. In Colombo assuredly there is nothing old that is not to be found in Galen and Vesalius, and nothing new that is not in Servetus. The beautiful volume and good Latin in which Colombo presented himself to the world, I fancy, misled it in some sort as to his real merits as an anatomist. In the Book on Harvey I find with great regret not less an entire misunderstanding of the man and his character, than a persistent indisposition to see the original experiments and inductive reasonings that follow them as more than illustrations of the hazy CERADINI. 345 language and Aristotelian and Galenical imaginations of Cesalpino. The incapacity of the Genoese pro- fessor to appreciate the modest, upright, and truthful nature of Harvey is indeed something extraordinary ; all the more as he is not insensible to the mistake committed by his countrymen Eccellenti and Ercolani in their unworthy attempts to degrade the great English physiologist even below the level of ordinary men . 1 But for Professor Ceradini himself to set the word subterfuge beside the name of Harvey is less to insult the memory of the man who bore it than to discredit him who uses the opprobrious term . 2 To ascribe such motives, moreover, as . he does for their decisions to Malpighi, Baglivi, and Haller, is surely unworthy of the critic and man of letters. These irreproachable observers, forsooth, were moved to credit Harvey with the discovery of the circulation of the blood because they had been elected Fellows of the Royal Society ! 3 1 “Umiliando Harvey a segno da ridurlo quasi alle proporzioni di un uomo commune o anche peggio.” (Ib., p. 156.) 2 In his chapter on the quantity of blood passing by the heart from the veins to the arteries (p. 41, ed. pr.) Harvey says, that what he has to advance is so new and unheard of that he fears he will have the whole world for enemies — Prof. Ceradini’s comment on which, in his own words, is this : “ Nessun dubio che con questi sotterfugi PInglese mirasse ad usurpare il vanto di Scopritore.” (Op. cit. p. 175.) 3 “ Ouesto judizio di Baglivi tradisce o mala fede o ignoranza, &c. — Malpighi ebbe un altro motivo per dissimulare la propria venerazione per Cesalpino : l’anatomo Bolognese — Malpighi, era membro della Societh Reale di Londra ; e il Ragusano — Baglivi, aveva occupatonella stessa Reale Societh il posto vacante per morte del maestro.” (Ib., p. 205.) And of Haller : “ Se fosse trovato nella stessa difficile condizione di Malpighi e Baglivi, cio£ di membro della Reale Accademia di Londra.” (Ib., p. 266.) 346 HISTORIANS OF THE CIRCULATION. Ceradini will have it that “ Harvey founded the whole doctrine of the circulation exclusively as it were on the existence of the valves in the veins.” 1 We have only to turn to the “ Exercises on the Heart and Blood” to see how untrue this is. Harvey has already shown, by numerous anatomical facts, various experiments and irrefragable inferences from these, that a circular motion of the blood throughout the body is matter of necessity , before he even mentions the valves of the veins. It is only so near the end of his work as the thirteenth chapter that we meet with the bandaged arm, the turgid veins, the visible seats of the valves, and the discussion of the necessary influence of these on the flow of the blood. Harvey’s whole thesis may, in fact, be said to be wound up in the im- mediately succeeding chapter, the fourteenth, which is headed, Conchisio demonstrations de Circuitu san- guinis. (P. 58, ed. pr.) Speaking of Harvey’s views of the lacteal vessels, the Genoese professor is equally unjust to the great man he criticises, and dares to say that “ a stain attaches to the character of the English anatomist as the contemner of every discovery not his own ; that he was the most determined opponent of that of Aselli, and alone of all denied the chyliferous and lymphatic vessels, as well as the function of the thoracic duct. 2 1 “ Le valvole nelle vene, sulla quale, quasi esclusivamente, Harvey voile fondare l’intera dottrina della circolazione del sangue.” 2 “ Ouesta macchia del carattere dell Inglese Fra i piu ostinati aversatori di questa scoperta .... Ouesto disprezzo per ogni scoperta CERADTNI. 347 But we know from Harvey himself that he did not deny the existence of the lacteal veins, never opposed Aselli, and had even observed the vessels in question in the course of his dissections before Aselli’s book appeared. It was their office and the nature of their contents that he questioned, not their reality ; as it was the sufficiency of the delicate thoracic duct that made . him pause in assenting at once to the important function assigned to it by Pecquet. With all these misrepresentations, however, Professor Ceradini has not exhausted his jealousy and dislike of Harvey. He would blacken the great anatomist morally yet more, and says, “He died impenitent in 1678, six years after the discoveries of Bartholin.” 1 Is this seemly — is it not indecent ? The use of such language, suggesting thoughts of a far-off historical incident, is as surely reprehensible as it is out of place in a scientific discussion. Ceradini’s conclusion, in few words, is this : that Harvey had no merit beyond that of having furnished a new demonstration and completed in some sort the doctrine of the circulation. 2 How little such a conclusion is borne out by the facts I confidently leave to the decision of every impartial mind. non sua Solo il nega i vasi chiliferi come i linfatici e la stessa funzione del dutto toracico.” (Op. cit. p. 182-3.) 1 “ E muore impenitente l’anno 1678, [1677] sei anni doppo le scoperte di Bartholin.” (Ib.) 2 “Non avesse Harvey altro merito di quello in fuori de averne fornito una nuova dimostrazione e completata in qualche forma la dottrina [della circolazione].” (Ib., p. 184.) 348 CESALPINO AND HARVEY. Without fear of having my statement proved untrue by whosoever will take the necessary pains to master the subject, I maintain that the Harveian circulation of the blood is not in the writings of Cesalpino. Beside the Genoese professor’s summary of Harvey’s merits, I take leave to add mine of Cesalpino’s, and say that, in so far as the circulation of the blood is concerned, Cesalpino s chief merit seems to me to consist in having shown conclusively, by his efforts to harmonize what he saw himself with the accredited views of his age, that the Old Physiology was untenable. This, however, neither he, his contemporaries, nor any one of his successors, for fifty years and more, with the single exception of William Harvey, had the gift to perceive. Writing as historian and critic, not as' controver- sialist, and having already spoken at great length of Cesalpino, I am spared the pains of following Ceradini in his advocacy of the distinguished Aristotelian philosopher as discoverer of the circulation of the blood, and conclude, after the lengthened and careful study I have made of his works, by contrasting some few of what I conceive to be leading features in his physiological conceptions with those of Harvey. i. Cesalpino believed, with Galen, that there were two kinds of blood in the animal body, severally moving to and fro in distinct orders of vessels — arteries and veins — and dedicated to different functions ; the moving power being connected with certain attractions, now on CESALPINO AND HARVEY. 349 this side towards the periphery, now on that towards the centre. Harvey proved that there was but one blood, alternately florid and grimy, borne outwards from the heart as the moving power by the arteries to all parts of the body, returning thence in a ceaseless circuit to the heart by the veins. 2. Cesalpino believed that the arteries and veins were connected with the heart, to the end that the blood they severally contained might receive elaboration, and be impregnated with heat and spirit, by which it became fitted for its different offices. Harvey proved that the arteries and veins were in communication with the heart in order that the blood might be pro- pelled by the muscular power of the organ first through the lungs by the pulmonary artery, there acquire its florid colour and perhaps its heat, reach the left ven- tricle by the pulmonary veins, be pumped by it through the aorta to the body at large, to return from thence, by the veins, lowered in temperature, to the source whence it had set out. 3. Cesalpino imagined that the swelling of the veins when obstructed by a bandage was owing to the attractive force of the heart calling back the blood, lest, being cut off from the source of its heat, it should coagulate and perish. Harvey demonstrated the rising of the veins, so obstructed, to be due to the tide poured in upon their capillary endings from the capillary endings of the arteries. 4. Cesalpino held that the veins and arteries com- 35 ° CESALPINO AND HARVEY. municated throughout their course, by means of the anastomoses imagined by Galen, giving and taking reciprocally as they ran, 1 and ending in the tissues to which they were distributed ; so much of their con- tents as was not required to aliment, to nourish, or to grow into these returning to the heart by the way it came during the hours of sleep. Harvey believed that the arteries ended in the interstices of the tissues, nourishing and vitalizing them ; and all that was not wanted for these ends, passing into the roots of the veins, returned to the heart to begin its course anew ; the two orders of vessels, arteries and veins, having- no anastomotic communications save by their endings in the interstices of the tissues. 5. To Harvey the valvular element of the sangui- ferous system existed simply and solely for the furtherance of the blood in a circle throughout the heart, the lungs, and the body at large. To Cesal- pino it was imperfect in its action at all times, 2 and bore reference to the flow of the vital spirits and native heat, rather than the blood. 3 1 “ Per hos transitus (anastomoses videlicet) arteriae dilatatae ex venis trahunt, contractae, contra, in eas regerunt.” (Galenus de Pulsuum usu, cap. v.) 2 Non cogimur membranas vasorum educentium claudere, &c. — vide p. 127. 3 Jure igitur arteriae magnae ostium adversus motum spiritus in cor, &c., p. 126. Woodfall & Kinder, Printers, Milford Lane, Strand, London. W.C. BY THE SAME AUTHOR. SERVETUS AND CALVIN: A STUDY OF AN IMPORTANT EPOCH IN THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE REFORMATION. 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