THE CIRCULATION OF THE BLOOD 463 



Some of Harvey's experiences were unique; he dissected the body 

 of one of the oldest men that ever livedo Thomas Parr. Old Parr, a 

 native of Shropshire, died in 1635, aged 152 years; he had lived under 

 nine British monarchs. Harvey found no physical signs of senility in 

 the body, no lime in the costal cartilages. He suggests that the sudden 

 change from the old man's simple fare to the rich food of Lord 

 Arundel's establishment was the cause of death. Harvey tells us that 

 old Parr lived on sour milk and rancid cheese; he thinks he survived 

 in spite of this diet, the followers of Metchnikoff would tell us that he 

 lived so long on account of it. 



Another of Harvey's curious experiences was the affair of the Lan- 

 cashire witches. This reveals the gross superstitions that could flourish 

 in 1634 and engage the attention of the king, a bishop or two, a secre- 

 tary of state and the Lord Privy Seal. A boy playing truant in the 

 woods in Lancashire swore that he had been carried off by a witch, 

 Mother Dickenson. She bore him over fields and forests till she came 

 to a barn where seven other witches were having supper when, he said, 

 they assumed the shapes of all sorts of animals. This rigmarole and 

 a great deal else was actually believed. The king commanded the Earl 

 of Manchester to order a commission of medical men, one of whom was 

 Dr. Harvey, to empower certain midwives to examine the bodies of 

 these women, to see whether they had any marks on them indicating 

 anything unnatural. The examination was carried out in Dr. Harvey's 

 presence, and, of course, nothing was found. "We have no scrap of 

 evidence to make us think that Harvey in any way shared the popular 

 superstition as to these women; he was merely carrying out the royal 

 commands. 



In personal appearance Harvey was of short stature ; " of the lowest 

 stature " and " little Dr. Harvey " are the phrases used to describe him. 

 At thirty-seven years old, his hair was black; his eyes small and black. 

 He seems to have been restless, full of energy, rapid of utterance, given 

 to gesture and to playing with the handle of a small dagger he wore. 

 His handwriting was exceptionally illegible even for that time. From 

 all we can gather, his temper was irritable ; " choleric " is the word 

 used of him again and again. If this was so, Harvey wrote very cour- 

 teously to his most tiresome opponents, as Professor Huxley has 

 remarked. Seeing that he lived to the age of seventy-nine, and came 

 through the fatigues that he did, he must have had a fairly good 

 constitution. 



Harvey was very fond of coffee, a beverage in his day by no means 

 universally taken; and on his own confession he occasionally drank 

 freely of spirituous liquors. In later life he suffered from sciatica and 

 gout, that disease of the intellectual hierarchy. His grandniece told 

 Dr. Heberden in 1761 that her great ancestor, in his later years, sub- 



