THE CIRCULATION OF THE BLOOD 457 



on the records of that assembly. With Newton and Carlyle, Harvey 

 is in distinguished company as regards the destruction of manuscripts. 

 William Harvey, the eldest of the nine children (seven sons and 

 two daughters) of Thomas Harvey and Joan Halke, was born at Folke- 

 stone on the south coast of England on April 1, 1578. Queen Eliza- 

 beth was at this time on the throne. His father was a prosperous 

 yeoman, and in 1600 mayor of Folkestone. The Harvey family had 

 not been a medical one ; William was the only son who did not go into 

 business. 



There still exists a memorial brass to Harvey's mother in the 

 parish church (St. Mary's) at Folkestone: she was only fifty years old 

 at the time of her death. From a nephew, Daniel Harvey, are de- 

 scended the noble families of Winchelsea and Aylesford. One of 

 William's brothers was called Eliab; he became a Turkey merchant in 

 London and managed his brother's affairs; for, like many geniuses, 

 William was " constitutionally incapable of making a bargain." Eliab 

 managed his money matters so well that William was always quite 

 comfortably off. One of Eliab's descendants was Sir Eliab Harvey, 

 G.C.B., who commanded the Temeraire at the battle of Trafalgar. 



In 1588, when ten years old, Harvey was sent to the King's School 

 at Canterbury, where he remained five years. It is thus perfectly pos- 

 sible that from his home on the English Channel he may have witnessed 

 some of those engagements which led to the overthrow of the Spanish 

 Armada, which occurred in August, 1588. When sixteen years old 

 he entered Gonville and Cams College, Cambridge, on May 31, 1593. 

 The entry is still to be seen in the records of that notable seat of 

 medical learning founded by John Keys, the man who introduced into 

 England from Italy the academic study of anatomy and the dissection 

 of the human body as an essential means thereto. Harvey took his 

 B.A. degree in 1597. As Harvey's father was a man of means, he 

 could afford to send his son to study at the great University of Padua 

 in north Italy, at that time and for long afterwards the most famous 

 of the European schools of medicine. Harvey entered the University 

 of Padua in 1598, and left it as doctor of medicine in 1602. The 

 original of his doctor's diploma is in a glass case in the library of the 

 Eoyal College of Physicians in London. I have had this priceless 

 document in my hand; it is printed in the Latin language on vellum; 

 the margins have been beautifully decorated by some artist in colors 

 which are still perfectly fresh. 



As an undergraduate, Harvey seems to have been a representative 

 student, for he was elected three years in succession concilarius of the 

 English nation, as it was called. The students at Padua were divided 

 into nations for the purpose of voting for their rector, a system, for 

 instance, only just abolished in the University of St. Andrews, Scot- 



