[78] 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 passeport.” (1. c. 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 shrinking 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 may sometimes wish to shorten it. Such requests as Harvey may be presumed to have made to Scarborough, are frequently enough preferred to medical men: it is needless to say that they are never granted.
[79] On the Tablet placed in Hempstead church to Harvey’s memory are inscribed these words:
GULIELMUS HARVEIUS,
Cui tam colendo Nomini assurgunt omnes Academiæ;
Qui diuturnum sanguinis motum
Post tot annorum Millia,
Primus invenit;
Orbi salutem, sibi immortalitatem
Consequutus.
Qui ortum et generationem Animalium solus omnium
A Pseudo-philosophiâ liberavit.
Cui debet
Quod sibi innotuit humanum Genus, seipsam Medicina.
Sereniss. Majestat. Jacobi et Carolo Britanniarum
Monarchis Archiatrus et charissimus.
Collegii Med. Lond. Anatomes et Chirurgiæ Professor
Assiduus et felicissimus:
Quibus illustrem construxit Bibliothecam,
Suoque dotavit et ditavit Patrimonio.
Tandem
Post triumphales
Contemplando, sanando, inveniendo
Sudores,
Varias domi forisque statuas,
Quum totum circuit Microcosmum,
Medicinæ Doctor et Medicorum,
Improles obdormivit,
III Junii anno salutis CIƆIƆCLVII, Ætat. LXXX.
Annorum et Famæ satur.
[80] The will of Harvey is without date. But was almost certainly made some time in the course of 1652. He speaks of certain deeds of declaration bearing date the 10th of July, 1651; and he provides money for the completion of the buildings which he has “already begun to erect within the College of Physicians.” Now these structures were finished in the early part of 1653. The will was, therefore, written between July 1651, and Febraury 1653. The codicil is also undated: but we may presume that it was added shortly before Sunday the 28th of December 1656, the day on which Harvey reads over the whole document and formally declares and publishes it as his last will and testament in the presence of his friend Henneage Finch, and his faithful servant John Raby.
[81] Lib. ix, cap. xi, quest. 12.
[82] De Locis Affectis., lib. vi, cap. 7.
[83] De Animal. iii, cap. 9.
[84] De Respirat. cap. 20.
[85] Bauhin, lib. ii, cap. 21. Riolan, lib. viii, cap. 1.