SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES 147 



the body, a subject on which the biologists of antiquity had as confused ideas 

 as they had on the movement of the blood in the veins. Both Rudbeck and 

 Bartholin, indeed, were prepared to draw the obvious conclusion from their 

 discovery: since the lacteals did not, as even Aselli believed, lead to the liver, 

 but just the opposite, it was impossible for that organ to play the all-con- 

 trolling part in the digestive process which the ancients had ascribed to it. 

 Both Rudbeck's thesis and Bartholin's funeral eulogy on the liver were con- 

 firmations of this. It must be admitted, however, that in this both scientists 

 to a certain extent overshot their mark; research work in recent times has 

 revealed that a large portion of the substances from the intestinal tube — 

 carbo-hydrates, albuminous substances, and others — are received by the 

 ramifications of the cystic vein in the digestive canal and conveyed to the 

 liver, where they are converted. It would of course be absurd, however, to 

 ascribe to the opponents of Rudbeck and Bartholin greater prescience in this 

 respect; conservatism which can give no other reason for adherence to the 

 past than respect for tradition has no historical justification in face of the 

 pioneer who bases his ideas on newly-discovered facts, even though he often 

 overestimates their fundamental value. 



As has been mentioned, anatomical research during the middle and close 

 of the seventeenth century was practised with special keenness in England; 

 Harvey's achievement acted as a stimulus particularly on his own country-, 

 men. Space does not allow of a discussion of all the eminent discoverers in 

 this field of science which England produced during the era in question; one 

 or two of the most representative will be given here as examples. 



Francis Glisson (15 97-1 677) was the son of a landowner; he studied at 

 Cambridge, first philosophy and afterwards medicine. He took his doctor's 

 degree in 1634 and as early as two years later became a professor. The Civil 

 Wars, however, soon compelled him to abandon his educational activities; 

 he moved to London, where he became a practitioner of repute and one of the 

 first members of the Royal Society, the scientific association founded in 1660, 

 which has ever since been the most distinguished centre where the scientists 

 of England have gathered. Besides some purely medical works, which were 

 excellent for the period in which they were written, Glisson published two 

 pioneer works on anatomy, the one dealing with the anatomy of the liver, 

 the other with the stomach and intestines. The first gives a monographical 

 account of the liver which, for the then prevailing conditions, was an exemp- 

 lary work and laid the foundation on which the modern knowledge of the 

 anatomy of this organ rests. In memory of this, the subperitoneal tissue of the 

 liver is to this day called Glisson's capsule. But the author does not merely 

 give a detailed description of the liver; he also expounds a general biologi- 

 cal theory in connexion therewith, in which he entirely adopts Aristotle's 

 standpoint. In the component parts of the body he distinguishes matter and 



