HARVEY AND EXPERIMENTAL OBSERVATION 45 



best portrait of Harvey, since the one painted by Jansen, 

 now in possession of the Royal College of Physicians, is 

 believed to be the best one extant. The picture reproduced 

 here shows a countenance of composed intellectual strength, 

 with a suggestion, in the forehead and outline of the face, of 

 some of the portraits of Shakespeare. 



An idea of his personal appearance may be had from the 

 description of Aubrey, who says : " Harvey was not tall, but of 

 the lowest stature; round faced, with a complexion like the 

 wainscot ; his eyes small, round, very black, and full of spirit ; 

 his hair black as a raven, but quite white twenty years before 

 he died; rapid in his utterance, choleric, given to gesture," 

 etc. 



He was less impetuous than Vesalius, who had published 

 his work at twenty-eight ; Harvey had demonstrated his ideas 



* c? * 



of the circulation in public anatomies and lectures for twelve 

 years before publishing them, and when his great classic on 

 the Movement of the Heart and Blood first appeared in 1628, 

 he was already fifty years of age. This is a good example for 



> * * 



young investigators of to-day who, in order to secure priority 

 of announcement, so frequently rush into print with imperfect 

 observations as preliminary communications. 



Harvey's Writings. Harvey's publications were all great ; 

 in embryology, as in physiology, he produced a memorable 

 treatise. But his publications do not fully represent his 

 activity as an investigator; it is known that through the 

 fortunes of war, while connected with the sovereign Charles I 

 as court physician, he lost manuscripts and drawings upon 

 the comparative anatomy and development of insects and 

 other animals. His position in embryology will be dealt 

 with in the chapter on the Development of Animals, and he 

 will come up for consideration again in the chapter on the 

 Rise of Physiology. Here we are concerned chiefly with his 

 general influence on the development of biology. 



