50 BIOLOGY AND ITS MAKERS 



fully grasped the idea of the movement of the blood in a 

 complete circuit. 



Servetus, in his work on the Restoration of Christianity 

 (Rest it ut io Christ ianismi, 1553), the work for which Calvin 

 accomplished his burning at the stake, expressed more 

 clearly than Galen had done the idea of a circuit of blood 

 through the lungs. According to his view, some of the blood 

 took this course, while he still admits that a part may exude 

 through the wall of the ventricle from the right to the left 

 side. This, however, was embodied in a theological treatise, 

 and had little direct influence in bringing about an altered 

 view of the circulation. Nevertheless, there is some reason 

 to think that it may have been the original source of the ideas 

 of the anatomist Columbus, as the studies into the character 

 of that observer by Michael Foster seem to indicate. 



Realdus Columbus, professor of anatomy at Rome, ex- 

 pressed a conception almost identical with that of Servetus, 

 and as this was in an important work on anatomy, published 

 in 1559, and well known to the medical men of the period, 

 it lay in the direct line of anatomical thought and had greater 

 influence. Foster suggests that the devious methods of 



CJ*^' 



Columbus, and his unblushing theft of intellectual property 

 from other sources, give ground for the suspicion that he had 

 appropriated this idea from Servetus without acknowledg- 

 ment. Although Calvin supposed that the complete edition 

 of a thousand copies of the work of Servetus had been burned 

 with its author in 1553, a few copies escaped, and possibly 

 one of these had been examined by Columbus. This as- 

 sumption is strengthened by the circumstance that Columbus 

 gives no record of observations, but almost exactly repeats 

 the words of Servetus. 



Caesalpinus, the botanist and medical man, expressed in 

 1571 and 1593 similar ideas of the movement of the blood 

 (probably as a matter of argument, since there is no record 



