45§ THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



land. Padua recognized the English and Scottish nations as late as 

 1738. The MSS. lists of students for the sessions 1600-01 and 1601- 

 02 begins with a " Gulielmus. Arveius. Anglus." These representa- 

 tives of voting nations had the privilege of having their " stemmata " 

 painted up somewhere within the university precincts. After a most 

 laborious search, Harvey's stemma was found covered with whitewash 

 on the concavity of the roof of the lower court-yard of the university. 

 The master and fellows of Caius College have had it restored in its 

 original colors; and very fine it is with a red ground, a white sleeve 

 and green serpents ; above it is the one word, " Anglica," and below it 

 the three words, " Gulielmus. Harveus. Anglus." Precious words, for 

 this is undoubtedly our William Harvey, then a youth of twenty-three 

 years, who a little later was to reveal something which was to place his 

 name beside the greatest names in the history of human discovery. 

 He was soon to become an epoch-maker. But as a doctor of medicine 

 later on he would be entitled also to have his coat-of-arms emblazoned 

 somewhere in his alma mater. In March, 1893, after a most tedious 

 search, the rector of that time discovered the shield with Harvey's 

 arms, but so damaged that the inscription which accompanied it was 

 lost for ever. 



A few details are preserved to us of the social conditions at Padua 

 in Harvey's time, and they show us a very miserable state of affairs. 

 Food was scanty and bad, there was no glass in the windows, which 

 were of linen; artificial light was extremely costly, and there were no 

 public entertainments. The professor of anatomy was the venerable 

 Hieronymus Fabricius ab Aquapendente, surgeon, anatomist and his- 

 torian of medicine, a great favorite with the Venetian senate, who were 

 the patrons of the chairs at Padua. The little theater in which he 

 lectured at nine each morning from October to August still exists. It 

 is of oval form, lined with oak, with steep-pitched, narrow platforms 

 (instead of seats) with low rails to lean over to watch the dissection. 

 There is a small cupola in the roof. It was not without some emotion 

 that the present writer stood one September morning on the very spot 

 where there came to Harvey the illuminating thought about the venous 

 valves. 



Harvey returned to Cambridge in 1602, when he at once took the 

 M.D. degree at his English alma mater. By 1604 he had entered upon 

 medical practise in London in St. Martin's parish; and on November 

 24 he was married in St. Sepulchre's church, Newgate, to Elizabeth 

 Brown, daughter of Dr. Lancelot Brown, who had been one of the 

 physicians to Queen Elizabeth. It was the bells of this same church 

 that for many years were tolled on the morning of an execution in the 

 prison of Newgate over the way. The Harveys had no children; his 

 wife predeceased her husband. 



