464 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



stituted sugar for salt in his food. This observation is rather inter- 

 esting in the light of the modern notion that excess of common salt 

 leads to a retention of sodium urate in the tissues; it looks as though 

 Harvey had found this out by experience. 



As regards portraits of this epoch-maker, we are fortunate in pos- 

 sessing more than one. I have mentioned the van Bemmel, the engrav- 

 ing of which by Houbraken is well known. The oil painting in the 

 upper Library Hall of the Royal College of Physicians, represents Har- 

 vey in later life. It was painted by Cornelius Jansen and survived the 

 fire of London. There is also a head by an unknown artist in the Na- 

 tional Portrait Gallery in London ; this is the portrait reproduced in the 

 memorial edition of the " De Motu" (Canterbury, 1894). In the rooms 

 of the Royal Society in Burlington House, there hangs another head, 

 a portrait of Harvey done by Jan de Reyn ; it is undated. 



My learned friend, Sir James Sawyer, M.D., of Birmingham, Eng- 

 land, points out an interesting difference between the styles of dress in 

 the two portraits, the Jansen and the de Reyn ; in the former the collar 

 is that of a cavalier, in the latter of a Cromwellian. Harvey lived eight 

 years under the commonwealth; and Sir James's inference is that he 

 altered his dress to accord better with the more solemn taste prevailing 

 during the period of Cromwell's power. 



As regards statues of Harvey, there are only two in the open air in 

 England, as far as I know. One in stone is high up on the pediment of 

 the building of the College of Physicians in Pall Mall where he stands 

 between Linacre and Sydenham : the other is of bronze on a high ped- 

 estal on Folkestone Leas ; there he stands looking out across the Chan- 

 nel away to those lands where he received his inspiration and where he 

 was first sympathetically understood. 



In connection with Harvey's religious position, we have hardly any 

 facts to go on. Some have surmised that because he travelled with the 

 Earl of Arundel, Harvey also must have been a Roman Catholic. I 

 hardly think that a papist would have begun his will in the words he 

 does 



In the name of the Almighty and Eternal God. Amen! I do most humbly 

 render my soul to Him that gave it, and to my blessed Lord and Saviour, Christ 

 Jesus; and my body to the earth to be buried. 



In any case, the prince of biologists can not be accused of irrever- 

 ence, far less of atheism. Harvey was the very opposite of irreligious. 

 Once and again in his writings he alludes to divine purposes and de- 

 signs. He says when he first looked at the beating heart, its move- 

 ments were so tumultuous as to be comprehended by God alone. Re- 

 ferring to the valves in the veins, he says they were so placed by divine 

 purpose. 



William Harvey died at Roehampton in Surrey, on the third of 



