DISCOVERY OF CIRCULATION OF THE BLOOD. 305 



Let every man who has in any manner contributed to the final 

 discovery have his just proportion of credit for what he has done, but 

 let no man try to rob Harvey of the glory, which is rightfully his, of 

 having perfected our knowledge of this wonderfvil function, modestly, 

 lucidly, and with great forbearance and dignity, in view of the unkind 

 opposition and even vindictive hatred which his teachings engendered. 



John Aubrey,' who was at Harvey's funeral, and " helpt to carry 

 him into the vault," tells us he had heard him (Harvey) say " that 

 after his booke of the circulation of the blood came out, he fell mightily 

 in his practice ; 'twas believed by the vulgar that he was crack- 

 brained, and all the physitians were against his opinion and envyed 

 him." 



I cannot follow the history of the opponents to Harvey's new 

 doctrines. I will mention a few of the most potent, beginning with 

 Primrose, of Scotland ; Parisanus, of Venice ; Caspar Hpifmann, the 

 learned and laborious professor of Nuremberg ; Joannes Veslingius, 

 professor at Padua ; and end with Riolanus and Guy Patin, of Paris. 

 Neither will time permit me to more than mention a few of the 

 powerful defenders and promulgators of this new doctrine, as it was 

 always called, among whom were Roger Drake, his own countryman ; 

 Werner Rolfink, professor at Jena ; Renatus Descartes ; Sir George 

 Ent, his biographer; and Peter Dionis, who taught it in the Jardin 

 du Roi by order of Louis XIV. all praise be to this King of France. 



Dionis says, " I was chosen to demonstrate in your royal garden 

 the circulation of the blood and the new discoveries, and I acquitted 

 myself of this duty with all the ardor and the exactitude which the 

 orders of your majestic deserve." 



All this looks as if the predecessors of Harvey had failed to dis- 

 cover or to teach the true motion of the heart and blood. It was 

 twenty-three years after Harvey's publication that Italy, which now 

 claims the entire credit of the discovery, admitted the truth of the 

 new doctrine ; and about the same time John Pecquet, of Dieppe, and 

 Thomas Bartholin, the Dane, gave in their adhesion to the new doc- 

 trine, and spread it far and near in their writings. The victoiy was 

 complete when Plempius, of Louvain, who had fought Descartes so 

 valiantly, made the following retraction : 



" This discovery did not please me at all at first, as I publicly testified both 

 by word of mouth and in my writings ; but, by-and-by, when I gave myself up 

 with firmer purpose to refute and expose it, lo ! I refute and expose myself, so 

 convincing, not to say merely persuasive, are the arguments of the author ; I 

 examine the whole thing anew and with greater care, and, having at length 

 made the dissection of a few live dogs, I find that all his statements are most 

 true." 



Harvey knew nothing of the capillary vessels ; these were demon- 



' Aubrey, " Lives of Eminent Persons," 8vo, London, 1813. 

 VOL. XI. 20 



