Eminent doctors: Their lives and their work; Vol. 1 of 2

by G. T. Bettany

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Life of Thomas Linacre. By J. Noble Johnson, M.D. London, 1835.

[2] “Of Englishe Dogges:” 170 Strand, W.C.

[3] “Epidemics of the Middle Ages.” Sydenham Soc. Publ. London 1844.

[CHAPTER II.]
WILLIAM HARVEY AND THE CIRCULATION OF THE BLOOD.

“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.”

If the man who discovered a new material world deserves immortality, equally meritorious is he who revealed a new world of activity, and promulgated the first true conception of the ceaseless round of vital processes. As Dr. Parkes says in his Harveian Oration, 1876, “When any one examines into this discovery of Harvey’s, and gradually recognises its extraordinary importance, he cannot but be seized with an urgent wish to know how the mind which solved so great a problem was constituted; how it worked and how it reached, not merely the probability, but the certainty, of a grand natural law.... There was no accident about it—no help from what we call chance; it was worked out and thought out, point after point, until all was clear as sunshine in midsummer. Nor had it been anticipated.”

William Harvey, eldest son of Thomas Harvey and Joan Halke, was born at Folkestone in Kent, on the 1st of April, 1578, and that his parents were in easy circumstances may be judged by the fact that five of his brothers became substantial London merchants. Of his mother it is recorded on her monumental tablet that she was “a careful, tender-hearted mother, dear to her husband, reverenced of her children, beloved of her neighbours.” Her eldest son, after some years’ education at Canterbury, was entered at Gonville and Caius College in 1593, where he remained till 1597, when he left the university with the B.A. degree, and betook himself to Padua. This renowned university then boasted among its professors Fabricius, the anatomist, whose influence upon Harvey was evidently remarkable. After five years, Harvey obtained his doctorate in medicine, couched in terms of the utmost praise of his astonishing ability, memory, and knowledge, and returned to England. He was admitted to the same degree at Cambridge, and settled in practice in London, marrying the daughter of Dr. Launcelot Browne in his twenty-sixth year—a union which proved childless.

Having become a candidate for the Fellowship of the College of Physicians in 1604, he was admitted in 1607 after due probation; and we find him in 1609 seeking the reversion of the physiciancy to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, gaining the king’s letters recommendatory, and producing such testimonials from the President of the College of Physicians and others that he was chosen before the vacancy occurred, and on the death of Dr. Wilkinson was appointed to the office, October 14, 1609.

Harvey now rapidly advanced in general favour as a physician, and in 1615 was appointed Lumleian Lecturer at the College of Physicians, an office then held for life. His first lectures were given in April 1616, and in this and subsequent years he gradually unfolded the novel views on the heart and the circulation of the blood which he was acquiring, and which he published in 1628. The novelty of his views does not, however, consist in the idea that the blood actually moves in the vessels. This was known before, and Shakespeare gives expression to a current conception in the passage at the head of this chapter. Servetus, in 1553,[4] had asserted that the blood finds access from the right side of the heart to the left through the lungs, thus explaining the intermixture in the heart of the two kinds of blood appropriate to arteries and veins respectively. For a long time the partition between the ventricles was believed to be perforated like a sieve, so that a mixture of venous and arterial blood could take place. But this had been completely disproved by Berengarius and Vesalius. Consequently the two kinds of blood, according to this view, after meeting in the head, thorax, and abdomen, returned to the heart by the way they came, for a fresh supply of the exhausted or enfeebled spirits on which the principal functions of the body depended. Servetus, it is true, asserts a communication between the pulmonary artery and veins; but he particularly declares that “the vital spirit has its origin in the left ventricle, the lungs assisting especially in its generation,” and that “it is engendered from the mixture that takes place in the lungs of the inspired air with the elaborated subtile blood which the right ventricle of the heart communicates to the left.” The extent of his knowledge is further shown by his statement that “the blood is mixed in the pulmonary vein with the inspired air, and by the act of expiration is purified from fuliginous vapours, when having become the fit recipient of the vital spirit, it is at length attracted by the diastole.” Still very great credit is due to the man who first declared that “the crimson colour is imparted to the spirituous blood by the lungs, not the heart.”

Servetus was, however, ignorant of the force by which the blood is impelled into the arteries, and the contractile functions of the heart were unknown. The ventricle was believed to dilate from some undiscovered cause, and thus to suck in the purified “spiritus vitalis.” But Servetus’s explanation, whatever it was worth, occurred in a theological work, the issue of which led to the author’s death at Calvin’s persecuting hands, and the work remained unknown—for Calvin carefully burnt every copy possible—until 1694, when Sir Henry Wotton disinterred it.

Realdus Columbus, the associate of Dr. Caius at Padua, had in 1559 published a treatise containing some advanced views, showing that the blood once having entered the right ventricle from the vena cava, cannot return in consequence of the opposition of the tricuspid valves, and he further perceived the effect of the pulmonary valves; but he still held the idea that the blood had to be converted in the lungs into a kind of spirit, and looked upon the liver as the fountain-head of the blood. Finally, he denied the muscular structure of the heart.

Cæsalpinus added to this some more complete idea of the greater circulation, but he knew nothing of the valves in the veins, and held to the belief that there were two kinds of blood, one for the growth, another for the nourishment of the body. He imagined that it was only during sleep that the veins become distended while the pulsations of the arteries become moderated. He had no idea of the connection between the emptying of the arteries and the filling of the veins, nor of the heart being the cause of the blood’s movement.

Fabricius, Harvey’s teacher of anatomy, had made such a distinct step in advance in discovering the valves of the veins and the effect they must have, that it is quite astonishing that he should not have proceeded farther. But the fact is, that without the microscope as developed in after years,[5] it was impossible to solve a multitude of questions satisfactorily, and we may rather marvel that Harvey was able to achieve so much with the means at his disposal. The principal means he employed to this end was undoubtedly the vivisection of animals.

Chapter i. of his celebrated treatise on the Motion of the Heart and the Blood (Frankfort, 1628) begins emphatically, “When I first gave my mind to vivisections, as a means of discovering the motions and uses of the heart, and sought to discover these from actual inspection, and not from the writings of others, I found the task so truly arduous, so full of difficulties, that I was almost tempted to think, with Fracastorius, that the motion of the heart was only to be comprehended by God.[6]

“At length, and by using greater and daily diligence, having frequent recourse to vivisections, employing a variety of animals for the purpose, ... I thought ... that I had discovered what I so much desired, with the motion and the use of the heart and arteries....

“These views, as usual, pleased some more, others less; some chid and calumniated me, and laid it to me as a crime that I had dared to depart from the precepts and opinions of all anatomists.... At length, yielding to the requests of my friends, that all might be made participators in my labours, and partly moved by the envy of others, who, receiving my views with uncandid minds and understanding them indifferently, have essayed to traduce me publicly, I have been moved to commit these things to the press.... Finally, if any use or benefit to this department of the republic of letters should accrue from my labours, it will perhaps be allowed that I have not lived idly, and, as the old man in the comedy says:—

‘For never yet hath any one attained

To such perfection, but that time, and place,

And use, have brought addition to his knowledge;

Or made correction, or admonished him,

That he was ignorant of much which he

Had thought he knew; or led him to reject

What he had once esteemed of highest price.’

“So will it, perchance, be found with reference to the heart at this time; or others, at least, starting from hence, the way pointed out to them, advancing under the guidance of a happier genius, may make occasion to proceed more fortunately, and to inquire more accurately.”

In the second chapter, after a vivid description of the behaviour of the heart, he thus declares its muscular nature. “The motion of the heart consists in a certain universal tension—both contraction in the line of its fibres, and constriction in every sense. It becomes erect, hard, and of diminished size during its action; the motion is plainly of the same nature as that of the muscles when they contract in the line of their sinews and fibres; for the muscles, when in action, acquire vigour and tenseness, and from soft become hard, prominent, and thickened: in the same manner the heart.”...

“These things, therefore, happen together or at the same instant: the tension of the heart, the pulse of its apex, which is felt externally by its striking against the chest, the thickening of its parietes, and the forcible expulsion of the blood it contains by the constriction of its ventricles.”

In further chapters he establishes separately, and in a masterly manner, the facts that the pulse in the arteries depends on the contraction of the ventricles; that when the left ventricle ceases to contract, the pulse in the arteries also ceases; that the two auricles contract together, and also the two ventricles together, but the ventricles following the auricles in a certain rhythm; that the heart accomplishes a transfusion of the blood from the veins to the arteries; and that the blood sent into the lungs from the right ventricle passes through the porous structure of the lungs and back to the left ventricle.

In his eighth chapter, Harvey feels himself to be bringing forward considerations of so novel a character, that “I tremble,” he says, “lest I have mankind at large for my enemies, so much doth wont and custom, that become as another nature, and doctrine once sown and that hath struck deep root, and respect for antiquity influence all men: still the die is cast, and my trust is in my love of truth, and the candour that inheres in cultivated minds.” He found it impossible to account for the constant influx of blood into the arteries, and the return of blood to the heart, unless there was “a motion, as it were, in a circle.” And he shows by calculations of the quantity passing through the heart in an hour, that it is much more than the whole body contains, and that there is no way except by communications taking place from arteries to veins in every part of the body. Finally, he clearly shows how the valves in the veins promote the return of blood to the heart.

Throughout the whole of this treatise considerations from comparative anatomy, from the phenomena of human diseases, and from natural philosophy, are thickly interspersed, and imagery of the most suggestive character is called into requisition; the whole forming a treatise that every scientific man might well read, and that no doctor should consider himself fully educated without having attentively perused. In a subsequent letter to John Riolan the younger, Professor of Anatomy in the University of Paris, Harvey lays down—in opposition to those who repudiate the circulation because they cannot see the efficient nor final cause of it, and who exclaim, Cui bono?—the fundamental scientific axiom, “Our first duty is to inquire whether the thing be or not, before asking wherefore it is.” Again, “He who truly desires to be informed of the question in hand, and whether the facts alleged be sensible, visible, or not, must be held bound, either to look for himself, or to take on trust the conclusions to which they have come who have looked; and indeed there is no higher method of attaining to assurance and certainty.”

Everything that Harvey wrote shows him to have been pre-eminently an example of the scientific mind, that which submits everything to the test of experiment and observation. Anatomy he professed to learn and teach, not from books, but from dissections, not from the positions of philosophers, but from the fabric of Nature. In the introduction to his Treatise on Generation he praises the “more excellent way” of those “who, following the traces of nature with their own eyes, pursued her through devious but most assured ways till they reached her in the citadel of truth. And truly in such pursuits,” he goes on, “it is sweet not merely to toil, but even to grow weary, when the pains of discovering are amply compensated by the pleasures of discovery. Eager for novelty, we are wont to travel far into unknown countries, that with our own eyes we may witness what we have heard reported as having been seen by others, where, however, we for the most part find that the presence lessens the repute. It were disgraceful, therefore, with this most spacious and admirable realm of nature before us, and where the reward ever exceeds the promise, did we take the reports of others upon trust, and go on coining crude problems out of these, and on them hanging knotty and captious and petty disputations. Nature is herself to be addressed; the paths she shows us are to be boldly trodden; for thus, and whilst we consult our proper senses, from inferior advancing to superior levels, shall we penetrate at length into the heart of her mystery.”

True and scientific as the Treatise on the Heart and the Circulation was, or rather because it was so true and scientific, its publication gave a decided and severe check to Harvey’s professional prosperity. It was believed by the vulgar, says Aubrey, that he was crack-brained. Writing many years after the publication, Aubrey says that though he was allowed to be an excellent anatomist, nobody admired his therapeutic methods. It was said by practitioners that they could not tell by his prescriptions what he aimed at. Yet he continued well in favour with the court, and with numerous persons of distinction. Having become Physician Extraordinary to James I. in 1618 or earlier, he was in 1623 promised the reversion of the office of Physician in Ordinary when a vacancy should occur. But his accession to this post only took place in 1630 under Charles I.[7]

Harvey became Treasurer of the College of Physicians in 1628, but resigned this office and also procured the appointment of a deputy at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in 1630, when he was commanded by the King to attend the young Duke of Lennox in his travels on the Continent. Having returned from this expedition, in 1632 he was sworn in Physician in Ordinary for his Majesty’s household, and in 1639 we find a letter in the Lord Steward’s office, giving orders for settling a diet of three dishes of meat a meal with all incidents thereunto belonging upon Dr. Harvey. But later on, in 1640, the King when at York makes another arrangement, devoting £200 a year to Dr. Harvey, the three dishes of meat probably not having been readily forthcoming just then. In 1632-3 a deputy had again to be appointed at St. Bartholomew’s; in 1636 he was required to accompany the Earl of Arundel on his embassy to the Emperor of Germany. This gave him an opportunity of personally explaining the circulation to various eminent physicians in the principal German cities. On one of these occasions, at Nuremberg, we find it recorded that Harvey gave a public demonstration of the circulation, which satisfied all except Caspar Hofmann.[8] Returning to England, Harvey accompanied Charles I. in his expeditions, such as that to Scotland in 1639; and we may remark that, being in such close proximity to the royal person, he contrived very skilfully not to become involved in court intrigues, his best protection being his devotion to his medical and physiological investigations.[9] Even when war had broken out, Harvey became in no way obnoxious to the Parliament, for he tells us himself that he attended the King not only with the consent but by the desire of Parliament. In this way Harvey was present on the very field at the battle of Edgehill.

“During the fight,” says Aubrey, “the Prince and Duke of York were committed to his care. He told me that he withdrew with them under a hedge, and took out of his pocket a book and read. But he had not read very long before a bullet of a great gun grazed on the ground near him, which made him remove his station.” We cannot but admire the coolness and serenity of mind which could thus occupy itself with reading in the midst of carnage, having evidently no sort of belief in, or vocation for, the employment of force in the arbitrament between opposing opinions. Accompanying Charles to Oxford, he found congenial society, and was incorporated Doctor of Medicine on the 7th December, 1642. “I first saw him at Oxford,” says Aubrey, “1642, after Edgehill fight; but was then too young to be acquainted with so great a doctor. I remember he came several times to our college (Trinity) to George Bathurst, B.D., who had a hen to hatch eggs in his chamber, which they opened daily to see the progress and way of generation.”

Thus we see Harvey continuing engaged in that study of the mysteries of reproduction and development to which he devoted so many years and so many toils. He must have commenced his studies on this subject at least early in Charles’s reign.

In 1645, while the King and his physician still remained at Oxford, Sir Nathaniel Brent having quitted Merton College, of which he was Warden, and taken the Covenant, Harvey was appointed Warden in his place by virtue of a royal mandate. He had indeed lost more than his time in following the royal fortunes, and deserved any reward the King could bestow upon him. At the close of the sixty-eighth section of his treatise on Generation Harvey says, “Let gentle minds forgive me if, recalling the irreparable injuries I have suffered, I here give vent to a sigh. This is the cause of my sorrow: whilst in attendance on his Majesty during our late troubles and more than civil wars, not only with the permission but by the command of the Parliament, certain rapacious hands stripped not only my house of all its furniture, but what is subject of far greater regret with me, my enemies abstracted from my museum the fruits of many years of toil. Whence it has come to pass that many observations, particularly on the generation of insects, have perished, with detriment, I venture to say, to the republic of letters.”[10]

The Wardenship of Merton was not long Dr. Harvey’s, for when Oxford surrendered to the Parliamentary forces in July 1646, he quitted the university and returned to London, and Sir Nathaniel Brent was reinstated in his former position. Nothing has been ascertained of the reason for Harvey’s cessation of personal attendance on the King at this period, but it is certain that he took refuge in the homes of his brothers, each of whom, whether in the City, at Lambeth, at Roehampton, or at Combe, kept special apartments reserved for him. It is most pleasing, indeed, to note the great brotherly affection existing in this family. The earliest of them to die, Thomas Harvey, in 1622, has the following inscription on his monumental tablet. “As in a Sheaf of Arrows. Vis unita fortior. The Band of Love the Uniter of Brethren.” Thus, leaving his financial concerns in charge of his brother Eliab, William devoted himself, at the age of sixty-eight, more fully to his researches on Generation, which his friend Dr. Ent extracted from him at Christmas 1650.

Dr. Ent, addressing the President and Fellows of the College of Physicians, writes an introduction to this work, in which he gives us a pleasing view of Harvey in his retirement. He says: “Harassed with anxious, and in the end not much availing cares, about Christmas last, I sought to rid my spirit of the cloud which oppressed it by a visit to that great man, the chief honour and ornament of our college, Dr. William Harvey, then dwelling not far from the city. I found him, Democritus like, busy with the study of natural things, his countenance cheerful, his mind serene, embracing all within its sphere. I forthwith saluted him, and asked if all were well with him. ‘How can it,’ said he, ‘while the Commonwealth is full of distractions, and I myself am still in the open sea? And truly,’ he continued, ‘did I not find solace in my studies, and a balm for my spirit in the memory of my observations of former years, I should feel little desire for longer life. But so it has been, that this life of obscurity, this vacation from public business, which causes tedium and disgust to so many, has proved a sovereign remedy to me.’” An extended conversation is recorded, in which Harvey discourses in his wisest vein on the value of the interrogation of nature in every possible way. Dr. Ent informed him that the learned world were eagerly looking for his further experiments. Harvey rejoined, “You know full well what a storm my former lucubrations raised. Much better is it oftentimes to grow wise at home and in private, than by publishing what you have amassed with infinite labour, to stir up tempests that may rob you of peace and quiet for the rest of your days.” He at last produced the treatise on generation of animals, and Dr. Ent urging him to publish it both in consideration of his own fame, and the public benefit, and offering to see it through the press, the author consented to its publication at once or at some future time. Dr. Ent was exultant, feeling, like another Jason, laden with the golden fleece. “Our Harvey,” he says, “rather seems as though discovery were natural to him, a thing of ease and of course, a matter of ordinary business; though he may nevertheless have expended infinite labour and study on his works. And we have evidence of his singular candour in this, that he never hostilely attacks any previous writer, but ever courteously sets down and comments upon the opinions of each; and indeed he is wont to say, that it is argument of an indifferent cause when it is contended for with violence and distemper, and that truth scarce wants an advocate.”

This great work, published in 1651, begins by describing the hen’s egg and its development, the doctrine being enunciated that all animals as well as plants are produced from ova. Incidentally, as well as subsequently, observations of great merit and value on reproduction in all kinds of animals are given, and it is clearly shown that instead of containing, from the first, excessively minute but complete animals, eggs at first include extremely simple structures, which by successive and gradual changes come to be like the adults from which they have sprung. It is true that Harvey, with Aristotle, believed that the germs of lower animals could arise out of non-living matter; but it is only in the most recent days that the most elaborate microscopical investigations seem finally to have disposed of this view. The doctrine that the simply constructed germ grows by feeding on non-living matter, converting it into living matter, and gradually transforming it into the form characterising the parent, was a great innovation in Harvey’s age, and it hung fire till Caspar Wolff, in 1759, securely established it. But this has remained till the present century to be made fruitful.

Throughout Harvey’s treatise it is evident how greatly the lack of powers such as those of the microscope crippled the entire investigation, although it is truly wonderful how much was accomplished without its aid. Incidental remarks show the acute mind everywhere tending towards sound procedure, as in tying the main artery of a tumour he wished to destroy; arriving on the brink of a discovery even when its full perception did not come, as when in regard to the lungs he says, “Air is given neither for the cooling nor the nutrition of animals,” contrary to the prevailing notion. But the absence of chemical knowledge in that age prevented his going farther.

His published works only represent a portion of Harvey’s life-work. We find allusions to his “Medical Observations” and “Medical Anatomy,” which, if written, were probably destroyed in the College of Physicians at the Great Fire. In one place Harvey states that in his medical anatomy he meant, “from the many dissections he had made of the bodies of persons worn out by serious and strange affections, to relate how and in what way the internal organs were changed in their situation, size, structure, figure, consistency, and other sensible qualities, from their natural forms and appearances, such as they are usually described by anatomists, and in what various and remarkable ways they were affected. For even 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.” Thus it appears that, had we possessed Harvey’s pathological observations, he would also have merited the title of founder of pathology.

About the time of the publication of the Treatise on Generation, Harvey’s work on the Heart and Circulation was gaining continued and widespread adhesion on the Continent. In Italy, Trullius, a Roman professor; in France, John Pecquet of Dieppe; in Leyden, Thomas Bartholin, were occupied in promulgating Harvey’s views. A notable convert was Plempius of Louvain, who, having given himself up to the refutation of Harvey, found himself compelled to retract when he himself made some experiments on living dogs.

Harvey was constantly solicitous for the welfare of the College of Physicians, before which he continued to deliver the Lumleian Lectures up to 1656. At an extraordinary meeting held on 4th July, 1651, Dr. Prujean, the President, read to the Fellows the following anonymous proposal: “If I can procure one that will build us a library, and a repository for simples and rarities, such a one as shall be suitable and honourable to the college, will you assent to have it done or no?” The offer was of course unanimously and gratefully accepted, but it does not appear at what period it transpired that Harvey was the munificent donor. However, on 22d December, 1652, the college decreed a statue to him, which was executed in his doctor’s cap and gown, inscribed “Viro monumentis suis immortali.” It was not, however, till the 2d of February, 1653-4, that the new building was opened, consisting, as Aubrey tells us, of a noble building of Roman architecture (of rustic work with Corinthian pilasters), comprising a great parlour, a kind of convocation-room for the Fellows to meet in below, and a library above. Harvey was present on the opening occasion, having provided a handsome entertainment, and formally handed over the title-deeds and entire interest in the building in a speech of the utmost benevolence and goodwill. He had contributed not merely the building, but also a considerable library, and many surgical instruments and objects of interest to the museum.

On the 30th September, 1654, Harvey was elected in his absence to the presidency of the college, which, however, he declined on the next day, owing to his age and growing infirmities, and recommending the continuance in office of Dr. Prujean, who nominated him as one of the council, which office he did not refuse. He continued to lecture, although his strength was diminished by severe attacks of gout, but in July 1656 he resigned his lectureship. In taking leave of the college, at a grand banquet which he gave, he presented it with his patrimonial estate at Burmarsh in Kent. One special provision settled a salary for a librarian, and another established what has since been known as the Harveian Oration, delivered yearly in commemoration of benefactors to the college, and now extended to those who have added to medical science during the year.

The long and truly fortunate career of Harvey—for fortunate he must be deemed, who, like Darwin, having enunciated an epoch-making discovery, lived to see it inculcated as a canon—was now drawing to a close. In several of his later letters he expresses his feelings of infirmity. Writing in 1655 to Dr. Horst, at Hesse-Darmstadt, he speaks of “advanced age, which unfits us for the investigation of novel subtleties, and the mind which inclines to repose after the fatigues of lengthened labours.” Later, on the 24th April, 1657, writing to Dr. Vlackveld, at Harlem, he says: “It is in vain that you apply the spur to urge me, at my present age—not mature merely, but declining—to gird myself for any new investigation. For I now consider myself entitled to my discharge from duty.”

Harvey died on the 3d of June, 1657, in the eightieth year of his age, and the Fellows of his college followed his remains far out of the city towards Hempstead, in Essex, where his brother Eliab had a vault. His will is a characteristic document. He thus expresses his Christian faith: “I do most humbly render my soul to Him that gave it, and to my blessed Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus.” Making his brother Eliab executor and residuary legatee, he bequeaths legacies to all his relations with most affectionate expressions: we do not know the date of his wife’s death (she was still living in 1645), but she is here mentioned as “my dear deceased loving wife.” “I give to the College of Physicians all my books and papers, and my best Persia long carpet, and my blue satin embroidered cushion, one pair of brass andirons, with fireshovel and tongs of brass, for the ornament of the meeting-room I have erected.” It seems very probable that these books and papers included some much-regretted observations of Harvey’s, which were destroyed, with the building which he erected and the statue to his memory, in the great fire of 1666. He left £10 to his friend Hobbes of Malmesbury, who describes Harvey as the only one that he knew who conquered envy and established a new doctrine in his lifetime.

“The private character of this great man,” says Aikin, in his Biographical Memoirs of Medicine in Great Britain, “appears to have been in every respect worthy of his public reputation. Cheerful, candid, and upright, he was not the prey of any mean or ungentle passion. He was as little disposed by nature to detract from the merits of others, or make an ostentatious display of his own, as necessitated to use such methods for advancing his fame. The many antagonists whom his renown and the novelty of his opinions excited were, in general, treated by him with modest and temperate language, frequently very different from their own; and while he refuted their arguments, he decorated them with all due praises. He lived on terms of perfect harmony and friendship with his brethren of the college; and seems to have been very little ambitious of engrossing a disproportionate share of medical practice. In extreme old age, pain and sickness were said to have rendered him somewhat irritable in his temper.... It is certain that the profoundest veneration for the great Cause of all those wonders he was so well acquainted with appears eminently conspicuous in every part of his works. He was used to say, that he never dissected the body of any animal without discovering something which he had not expected or conceived of, and in which he recognised the hand of an all-wise Creator. To His particular agency, and not to the operation of general laws, he ascribed all the phenomena of nature. In familiar conversation Harvey was easy and unassuming, and singularly clear in expressing his ideas. His mind was furnished with an ample store of knowledge, not only in matters connected with his profession, but in most of the objects of liberal inquiry, especially in ancient and modern history, and the science of politics. He took great delight in reading the ancient poets, Virgil in particular, with whose divine productions he is said to have been sometimes so transported as to throw the book from him with exclamations of rapture. To complete his character, he did not want that polish and courtly address which are necessary to the scholar who would also appear as a gentleman.”

According to Aubrey, who knew him well, Harvey was not tall, but of the lowest stature; round-faced, olivaster in complexion, with little round eyes, very black and full of spirit, his hair black as a raven, but quite white twenty years before he died. His portrait in the College of Physicians corresponds with this account, indicating a nervous, bilious temperament, and showing a compact, square, wide forehead. The general expression is highly intellectual, contemplative, and manly.

Harvey has the rare distinction of standing at the head of three departments of science in England—comparative anatomy, physiology, and medicine. When these scarcely existed, he evolved them into living form from chaos. The extent of his achievements must be gauged by the extent of the superstructure built upon his foundations. He laid the foundations broad and firm, and practised the true method of science. Notwithstanding Harvey’s infirmities, his mind in old age was characterised by an abiding youthfulness and desire to learn, so that Aubrey found him studying Oughtred’s “Clavis Mathematica,” and working problems not long before he died. He was equally pleased to communicate his knowledge to others, and, as Aubrey relates, “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 books to read, how to manage my studies—in short, he bid me go to the fountain-head and read Aristotle, Cicero, Avicenna.” He was always very contemplative, and was wont to frequent the leads of Cockaine House, which his brother Eliab had bought, having there his several stations in regard to the sun and the wind, for the indulgence of his fancy. At the house at Combe, in Surrey, he had caves made in the ground, in which he delighted in the summer-time to meditate. He also loved darkness, as he could then best contemplate. The activity of his mind would often deprive him of sleep, when he would rise and walk about in his shirt, until he was cooled and could gain sleep. Similarly he treated his attacks of gout; he would sit with his legs bare, even in frost, on the leads of Cockaine House, and put them into a pail of water until he was almost dead with cold, and thus he found his attacks could be moderated.

His great works were, according to the custom of the age, written in Latin; and Dr. Willis, who has translated all of them into English, describes his Latin as generally easy, often elegant, and not unfrequently copious and imaginative—he never seems to feel in the least fettered by the language he is using.

The College of Physicians, says Dr. Munk, possesses some interesting memorials of Harvey, two of which may be mentioned. One the whalebone probe or rod, tipped with silver, with which he demonstrated the parts in his Lumleian Lectures at the college. The other, consisting of six tables of wood, upon which are spread the different blood-vessels and nerves of the human body, carefully dissected out, probably prepared by Harvey himself, and presumed to have been used by him in his lectures. They were presented to the college by the Earl of Winchelsea, one of whose ancestors, the Lord-Chancellor Nottingham, had married the niece of Harvey.