466 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



ment of the blood, and so brought health to the world and immortality to himself, 

 who was the only one to free from false philosophy the origin and generation 

 of animals, to whom the human race owes its acquirements of knowledge, to 

 whom Medicine owes its very existence, chief Physician and friend of their 

 Serene Highnesses James and Charles, Monarchs of the British Isles, a diligent 

 and highly successful Professor of Anatomy and Surgery at the College of 

 Medicine at London; for them he built a famous Library and endowed it and 

 enriched it with his own patrimony. Finally after triumphal exertions in 

 observation, healing and discovery, after various statues had been erected to him 

 at home and abroad, when he had traversed the full circle of his life, a teacher 

 of Medicine and of medical men, he died childless on June 3 in the year of 

 grace 1657, in the eightieth year of his age, full of years and fame. 



The Royal College of Physicians, of which he had been president in 

 1654, benefited greatly under Harvey's will, but it had already found 

 him a noble benefactor during his life. In 1651 he had built a library 

 and a museum for the college at Amen Corner; and, as acknowledg- 

 ment, the Fellows erected a statue of him in their hall which was de- 

 stroyed in the fire of London. Harvey assigned to the college his patri- 

 monial estate of Burmarsh in Kent, a donation which provided the sal- 

 ary of the librarian and keeper of the museum. He also instituted an 

 annual oration in praise of the benefactors of the college, and provided 

 for an honorarium to the orator and for the expenses of an annual 

 banquet. The Harveian oration has been delivered each year since that 

 time; it is considered one of the greatest honors that can be paid to a 

 Fellow to appoint him Harveian orator. 



Curiously enough, there is no biography of Harvey that can be 

 called authoritative. The only contemporary account of him, for it 

 can not be called a biography, is by his friend, John Aubrey, the anti- 

 quary, the same iVubrey who has left us some facts about Shakespeare. 

 This is an unsatisfactory, slight, gossiping account written by a 

 medical layman. Quite the best life of Harvey is from the pen of 

 Mr. D'Arcy Power, F.S.A., F.E.C.S., in the "Masters of Medicine" 

 series. To it I have been indebted for many facts. Although, there- 

 fore we have no complete contemporary biography of the greatest epoch- 

 maker in medicine, we can glean enough to show us in what esteem he 

 was held by certain very different kinds of persons. Hobbes, of Malmes- 

 bury, placed him alongside Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler, and de- 

 clared "he first gave the true science of the human body." In another 

 book Hobbes wrote of Harvey, as " the only man I know that, conquer- 

 ing envy, hath established a new doctrine in his life time." 



The highly acute and ingenious natural philosopher Eobert Hooke, 

 F.E.S., mentions Harvey's discoveries alongside those of Pecquet, 

 Bartholinus, Willis and Glisson. The great Descartes in one of his let- 

 ters writes of Harvey, thus : 



As to the circulation of the blood, there he has his triumph, and the honor 

 of first discovering it, for which medicine owes him much. 



Thomas Bartholinus, of Copenhagen, said: 



