PREFATORY NOTE
The writings of William Harvey, as published by him, and the letters published as part of his works, are all in Latin. The passages from Harvey's works which appear in English in the present paper are in part translations by the late Dr. Willis, with changes, sometimes considerable, by the present writer. In large part, however, the translations from Harvey are not even based upon Dr. Willis's work, but have been made by the present writer directly from the original Latin. Naturally he assumes responsibility for whatever he prints in English to represent Harvey's words; and to attempt, in print, a more minute discrimination between his own work as a translator and that of Dr. Willis would be tedious and unprofitable. Whoever may wish to make such discrimination may readily do so, however, as, in the present paper, a reference is made by page and line in the case of each translated passage, not only to the Latin text of Harvey's Opera Omnia, published by the Royal College of Physicians of London in 1766, but also to Willis's English translation thereof, published by the Sydenham Society in 1847, and entitled "The Works of William Harvey, M.D." Such references to the Sydenham Society's edition are indispensable for another purpose, viz.: in order that to each translated passage from Harvey in the present paper a context in English may readily be given by the reader.
It has seemed best that the various references to Harvey's Latin text should be made to that of the easily accessible Opera Omnia rather than to that of the rarer first editions of the several treatises. In the case of the passages quoted from the treatise De Motu Cordis et Sanguinis in Animalibus and from the treatise De Generatione Animalium, the Latin of the Opera Omnia has been collated by the present writer with that of the first editions. The first editions of the Exercises to Riolanus and of the various letters have not been accessible to him.
Much use has here been made of Harvey's private lecture notes, first published in 1886 by the Royal College of Physicians of London.
All the passages (except those from the Scriptures) quoted in the present paper from writers other than Harvey have been translated into English by the present writer directly from the original Greek text or the original Latin text, as the case may be.
JOHN G. CURTIS.