WILLIAM EAR YET. 



391 



The first author who declared, without any 

 qualifieation, that the septum of the ventricles is 

 imperforate, and that all the blood of the light 

 ventricle traverses the lungs and (except so much 

 as may be retained for the nutrition of these or- 

 gans) passes to the left ventricle, was Realdus 

 Columbus, Professor of Anatomy in the famous 

 School of Padua. The remarkable treatise, " De 

 Re Anatomica," of this able anatomist, was pub- 

 lished in 1559, or only six years after the death 

 of Servetus, of whose notions there is no evidence 

 that Columbus had any cognizance. Moreover, 

 Columbus, as able an experimenter as he was a 

 skillful dissector, deals with the question in a very 

 different way from Servetus ; so that, from his 

 time, the existence of the pulmonary circulation, 

 in the modern sense, may be said to have become 

 established. Ambroise Pare, the great surgeon, 

 writing in lo l 79, 1 refers to the course of the 

 blood through the lungs as notoriously the dis- 

 covery of Columbus. And I think not only that 

 Realdus Columbus is entitled to the whole credit 

 of this very considerable advance upon Galen's 

 views, but that he is the only physiologist, be- 

 tween the time of Galen and that of Harvey, who 

 made any important addition to the theory of the 

 circulation. 



The claim which is put forward on behalf 

 of the celebrated botanist Ciesalpinus appears to 

 me to be devoid of any foundation. 5 Many years 

 after the publication of the work of Realdus 

 Columbus, who was professor at the most famous 

 and most frequented anatomical school of the 

 time, and who assuredly was the last man to hide 

 his light under a bushel, Csesalpinus incidentally 

 describes the pulmonary circulation in terms 

 which simply embody a statement of Columbus's 

 doctrine, adding nothing, and, to his credit be it 

 said, claiming nothing. Like all the rest of the 



1 "The Work9 of Ambrose Parey," translated by 

 Thomas Johnson, 1691, p. 97. 



2 " Videmus Cssalpinum eadem de sanguinis itinere 

 per pulmonem, atque de valvularum usu quae Columbus 

 ante docuisset proponere ; causas vero sanguinis mo- 

 vendi juxta cum ignarissimis nescivisse; motus cordis 

 atque arteriarum perturbasse ; sanguinem e dextro 

 cordis ventrieulo per pulmonem in sinistrum ven- 

 triculum deferri, nullo experimento sed ingenii com- 

 nieuto probabili persuasum credidisse. De venis ab 

 injecto vinculo intumescentibus aliena omnino dix- 

 isse ; alimentum auctivnm e venis in arterias, per 

 oscula mutua vasorum sibi invicem commissorum, eli- 

 citum invita experientia docuisse." 



Not one of the ingenious pleaders for Csesalpinus 

 has yet, in my judgment, showD cause for the reversal 

 of the verdict thus delivered by the learned biographer 

 of Harvey in the edition of his " Opera Omnia," which 

 was published by the College of Physicians in 1766. 



world since venesection was invented, Ca?salpinus 

 noticed that the vein swells on the side of the 

 ligature away from the heart; and he observes 

 that this is inconsistent with the received views 

 of the motion of the blood in the veins. If he 

 had followed up the suggestion thus made to 

 him by the needful experimental investigation, he 

 might have anticipated Harvey ; but he did not. 



Again, Cannani discovered the existence of 

 valves in some of the veins in 1547; and Fabri- 

 cius rediscovered them, and prominently drew 

 attention to their mechanism, in 15*74. Never- 

 theless, this discovery, important as it was, and 

 widely as it became known, had absolutely no 

 effect in leading either the discoverers or their 

 contemporaries to a correct view of the general 

 circulation. In common with all the anatomists 

 of the sixteenth century, Fabricius believed that 

 the blood proceeded from the main trunk, or vena 

 cava, outward to the smallest ramifications of the 

 veins, in order to subserve the nutrition of the 

 parts in which they are distributed ; and, instead 

 of being led by the mechanical action of the 

 valves to reverse his theory of the course of the 

 venous blood, he was led by the dominant theory 

 of the course of the blood to interpret the mean- 

 ing of the valvular mechanism. Fabricius, in 

 fact, considered that the office of the valves was 

 to break the impetus of the venous blood, and to 

 prevent its congestion in the organs to which it 

 was sent ; and, until the true course of the blood , 

 was demonstrated, this was as likely an hypothe- 

 sis as any other. 



The best evidence of the state of knowledge 

 respecting the motions of the heart and blood in 

 Harvey's time is afforded by those works of his 

 contemporaries which immediately preceded the 

 publication of the "Exercitatio Anatomica," in 

 1628. ' And none can be more fitly cited for 

 this purpose than the "De Humani Corporis 

 Fabrica, Libri decern," of Adrian van den Spie- 

 ghel, who, like Harvey, was a pupil of Fabricius 

 of Aquapendente, and was of such distinguished 

 ability and learning that he succeeded his master 

 in the chair of anatomy of Padua. 



1 The whole title of the copy of the rare first edition 

 in the library of the College of Physicians runs : " Ex- 

 ercitatio Anatomica de motu cordis et sanguinis in 

 animalibus. Gulielmi Harvaei, Angli Medici Eegii et 

 Professoris Anatomise in Collegio Medicorum Lon- 

 dinensi. Francofnrti, sumptibus Gulielmi Fitzeri. 

 Anno MDCXXVIII." The dedications, of which that 

 to Charles I. is pasted in, as if it had been an after- 

 thought, extend to p. 9 ; the Prooemium to p. 19 ; while 

 the Exercitatio itself occupies pp. 20 to 72 inclusively. 

 There are two plates illustrative of experi ments on the 

 veins of the arm. 



