MOTION OF THE HEART AND BLOOD 



by the erosion of the artery itself, it was daily getting 

 larger, and was distended with each pulsation by 

 the rush of blood from the artery. Post mortem 

 examination showed the relation of the parts. The 

 pulse in this same arm was small because the greater 

 part of the blood to it was intercepted by the tumor. 

 Wherever the motion of the blood in the arteries 

 is impeded, by compression, by infarction, or by 

 interception, there is less pulsation distally,^ since 

 the beat of the arteries is nothing else than the 

 impulse of blood in these vessels. 



' It is remarkable that the clinical applications of Harvey's work 

 were so long neglected. Here and later he clearly indicates how his 

 views may aid in diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis. The practicing 

 physicians, however, would have none of it. Even some manuscript 

 notes of Wm. Cullen's (17 12-1790) lectures on the Practice of Physic, 

 over a century later, only refer casually to the use of Dr. Harvey's 

 observations on the control of hemorrhage. It may be that the practi- 

 cal success of Thomas Sydenham (1624-1689) as a physician focused 

 attention on the neat pigeon-holing scheme of his classification of 

 disease by symptoms (nosology), so that the applications of the^new 

 work in anatomy and physiology to medicine were overlooked. 



37 



