HANDBOOK OF PHYSIOLOGY 



NEUROPH^'SIOLOGY 1 



FIG. I. Portrait of William Gilberd from an oil painting on wood, found by Silvanus P. Thompson 

 in an antiquary's shop. The artist and the authenticity of the date on this portrait are unknown. 

 The portrait is now in the possession of Miss Helen G. Thompson, by whose courtesy it is repro- 

 duced here. The photograph of Tymperleys,' Gilberd's home at Colchester, was taken in 1957 

 when the house was undergoing extensive restoration. A portion only of the house dates from Gil- 

 berd's time. (Photograph by courtesy of Dr. G. Burniston Brown.) 



Bacon's methodolos;y was iioi on the nervous .system 

 but on the circulation of the blood. Harvey's magnif- 

 icent treatise De Motu Cordis (14) was a model for 

 workers in all branches of physiology to follow. This 

 small book (it has only 72 pages) was the first major 

 treatment of a physiological subject in dynamic 

 rather than static terins. By experiment Harvey dis- 

 proved the Galenist doctrine that the motion of the 

 blood in the arterial and venous systems was a tidal 

 ebb and flow, independent except for .some leakage 

 through 'pores' in the interventricular septum. By 

 further designed experiments Harvey proved his own 

 hypothesis "that the blood in the animal body is im- 

 pelled in a circle, and is in a state of ceaseless motion." 

 Harvey had advanced this hypothesis in 1616 but, 



14. H.^RVEV, VViLLI.aiM (i 578- 1 657). Exercttatin analomica de 

 motu cordis et sanguinis in animiilihus. Frankfurt : Fitzeri, 

 1628; translated into English by VVillius and Keys, Car- 

 diac Classics, 1 94 1, p. 19. 



15. H.ARVEV, \V. Praelecliones anatomiae universalis. London: 

 Churchill, 1886. (Reprint of Harvey's Lumleian lecture 

 1616.) 



as a forerunner of modern scientific method, had 

 proceeded to verify it before publishing his book. 

 But even this triumph of the empirical method did 

 not unseat in Harvey's thinking the belief in a soul 

 located in the blood ('anima ipsa esse sanguis') (15). 

 Harvey was Galenist enough to accept the rete mirabile 

 as the destination of the blood within the craniitm, 

 although doubt as to its existence in man had already 

 been raised by Berengario da Carpi (16, i 7) a hun- 

 dred years before. Harvey (18) had his own \'iews 

 of nervous function. "I believe," he said, "that in the 

 nerves there is no progression of spirits, but irradia- 

 tion; and that the actions from which sensation and 



16. Berengario da Carpi, Giacomo (1470- 1550). Com- 

 menlaria cum amplissimus addilionibus super analomia Mun- 

 dtni. Bologna : Benedictis, 1 52 1 . 



17. Berengario da Carpi, G. Isagogae breves, perlucidae. In: 

 Analomiam hurnani corporis, ad suorum scholasticorum preces 

 in lucem edilae. Bologna, 1522; translated into English by 

 H. Jackson, under the title A description of the Bnd\ of Mnn, 

 being a practical Anatomy. London, 1664. 



18. Harvey, W. Praelecliones Analo?nwe Universalis, autotype 

 reproduction edition. Philadelphia: Cole, 1886. 



