40 HERBERT ALBERT RATNER 



He waited for 12 years, however, until 1628, before he pub- 

 Hshed his great work entitled, An Anatomical Exercise on the 

 Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals. In this classic he 

 foniially demonstrated the true nature of the heart and that 

 the motion of the blood was circular. This work is relatively 

 short and takes up 86 pages in the standard English edition of 

 his collected works.^ In 1648 Harvey's demonstration was at- 

 tacked in a treatise published by Dr. Jean Riolan of Paris. 

 Harvey answered his critic in two lengthy letters published in 

 Cambridge in 1649. 



Harvey's second famous work, Anatomical Exercises on the 

 Generation of Animals, which is over five times the length of 

 the first, appeared in publication in 1651 through the solicita- 

 tion and under the direction of Dr. George Ent, a well-known 

 physician of the period. 



In his personal life and professional career Harvey had a wide 

 circle of acquaintances and friends. Though it is not certain 

 whether he knew Galileo who was a fellow student at Padua, 

 he knew most of the leading contemporaries of his day. This 

 included Boyle, Hooke, Hobbes, Dryden, Cowley, Descartes, 

 Gilbert, Wren, Bacon and others, in addition to prominent 

 physicians and anatomists. 



Harvey was extremely well-read and made reference in his 

 lectures and writings to the Greek philosophers and scientists of 

 the fourth through the seventh centuries, B. C, to many Greek 

 writers of the Christian era, to numerous Latin writers includ- 

 ing many of the poets, to Albert the Great, and to numerous 

 Renaissance men of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. In 

 all, he made reference to approximately 100 authors in his 



^ The Works of William Harvey, M. D. (London: Printed for the Sydenham 

 Society, 1847): Translated from the Latin by Robert Willis, M. D. It includes 

 An Anatomical Exercise on the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals; The 

 First Anatomical Exercise on the Circulation of the Blood to John Riolan; A 

 Second Exercise to John Riolan, in Which Many Objections to the Circulation of 

 the Blood are Refuted; Anatomical Exercises on the Generation of Animals, to 

 Which are Added, Essays on Parturition, On the Membranes and Fluids of the 

 Uterus, and on Conception; and miscellaneous items (Harvey's will, autopsy of 

 Thomas Parr and nine short letters) . 



