“Item, I give all my chamber furniture, tables, bed, bedding, hangings which I have at Lambeth, to my sister Dan and her daughter Sarah. And all that at London to my loving sister Eliab and her daughter or my godson Eliab as she shall appoint.
“Lastly, I desire my executor to assign over the custody of Will Fowkes after the death of my niece Mary Pratt, if she happen to die before him, unto the sister of the said William, my niece Mary West.
“Thus I have finished my last Will in three pages, two of them written with my own hand and my name subscribed to every one with my hand and seal to the last.
“Wil. Harvey.
“Signed, sealed and published as the last will and testament of me William Harvey in the presence of us Edward Dering. Henneage Finch. Richard Flud. Francis Finche.” A codicil is added to the will making certain rearrangements of the bequests, rendered necessary by the deaths and marriages of some of the recipients. Amongst others, “All the furniture of my chamber and all the hangings I give to my godson, Mr. Eliab Harvey at his marriage, and all my red damask furniture and plate to my cousin Mary Harvey.” “Item, I give my best velvet gown to Doctor Scarborough.
“Will. Harvey.”
The entry of the issue of probate upon this will runs thus in the books at Somerset House:—
“May 1659. The second day was proved the will and Codicil annext of Dr. William Harvey, late of the parish of St. Peter’s Poore, in London, but at Roehampton in the County of Surrey, deceased, by the oath of Eliab Harvey, the brother and sole executor, to whom administration was committed, he being first sworn truly to administer.” This entry seems to set at rest the doubt that had been expressed as to the exact place of Harvey’s death, for Aubrey with his customary inaccuracy in detail stated that he died in London.
William Harvey may perhaps be compared more fitly with John Hunter than with any single scientific man who either preceded or followed him. Harvey laid the foundation of modern medicine by his discovery of the circulation of the blood. Hunter laid the foundation of modern pathology, not by any single and striking discovery, but by a long course of careful observation. Harvey, like Hunter, was a careful and competent observer; both were skilled anatomists, both were ardent pathologists, both were comparative anatomists of a high order. By singular ill fortune we have lost the records of many years of careful work done by each of these great men. Harvey’s work was destroyed or scattered by the violence of the times in which he lived, and we can only be grateful that so much is spared to us; Hunter’s work was lost irrevocably by the crime of his trusted assistant and brother-in-law. Harvey, like Hunter, was choleric, but his nature was the more lovable, though each had the power, innate in every great teacher, of attaching to himself and enrolling in his work all sorts of unlikely people. The collecting or acquisitive spirit was equally developed both in Hunter and Harvey, but the desire for knowledge was less insatiable in Harvey.
The influence of breeding and education is nowhere more marked than in these two great men, otherwise so nearly allied. Harvey’s knowledge is always well within the grasp of his intellect. He can formulate it, often in exquisite language, and it is so familiar to him that he can afford to use similes and images which show him to be a man of wide general education. He thinks clearly so that his unerring conclusions are drawn in a startlingly easy manner. Yet he was often hampered by the theories of the ancient philosophical schools of medicine. Hunter’s knowledge was gigantic, but it was uncontrolled. His thoughts are obscure and so ill expressed that it is often difficult to discover what he would say. His conclusions too are sometimes incorrect and are frequently laboured, yet the advance of knowledge in the hundred years and more which separated him from Harvey afforded him many additional data.