HARVEY'S WORK 65 



or, at least, a new application of the old nomenclature. 

 The test was specially applied in the case of the lesser 

 circulation, when the old arterial vein became the new 

 pulmonary artery, and the old venal artery became the 

 new pulmonary vein. 



It is a change that Harvey himself foresaw, for he asks : 

 " Why does not the arterial vein pulsate seeing that it 

 should be numbered among the arteries, and why does the 

 venal artery have no pulse [though it is a vein] ? It is 

 because the pulse is the impulse of arterial blood." 



" Why do the arteries have coats so much thicker and 

 stronger than those of the veins ? Because they have to 

 sustain the shock of the impelling heart and the blood that 

 bursts forth therefrom." 



" Why has the so-called arterial vein the structure of 

 an artery, and the so-called venal artery the structure of 

 a vein ? Because in function and constitution and every- 

 thing else the former is in fact an artery, and the latter is 

 in fact a vein." 



But almost in the last words in his book the great in- 

 vestigator returns again to Aristotle, with whom he started. 

 The imposing Aristotelian scientific system was at that 

 very moment tumbling about the ears of the philosophers, 

 destroyed by Galileo. But Harvey ends as he began, 

 relying on Aristotle for what, even in those days, was an 

 antiquated and demonstrably false view of the heart and 

 its place in the animal economy. 



" Are we to agree the less with Aristotle," he asks, 

 ' in regard to the sovereignty of the heart ? Or, on the 

 other hand, are we to inquire whether it receives sense 

 and motion from the brain, and blood from the liver ? and 

 whether it be the origin of the veins and of the blood ? 

 They who affirm these latter propositions against Aristotle, 

 overlook, or do not rightly understand . . . that the heart is 

 the first part which exists, and that it contains within itself 



5 



