APPENDIX I 



cation has been included here: from it one may get some idea 

 of the Cavalierian grace of his style. After my friend, Dr. John 

 Fulton, kindly sent me a copy of Moreton's privately printed 

 facsimile of the original edition, I found several errors in the 

 text I had used. This fortunately necessitated careful collation, 

 resulting in some corrections in the English version. 



The translation is admittedly free, in the deliberate attempt 

 to present Harvey's thought in the current physiological 

 manner. Thus, while Harvey nowhere actually uses a word 

 which may be literally rendered "pump," it is our habit to 

 refer to cardiac action in some such term. 



The differences in Harvey's style through the book imply its 

 composition at different times. The introduction is far more 

 vigorous, and in its critical attitude, more characteristically 

 youthful than any of the remaining seventeen chapters. The 

 first chapter, on the other hand, apologizing for the effort, 

 has the grace and dignity of careful deliberation, and closes 

 with a classical quotation reflecting the meditative calm of 

 middle age. The last three chapters add little to the significance 

 of the demonstration. They illustrate the futility of theoretical 

 speculation attempting to reconcile opposing points of view 

 with inadequate data. With microscopical technique un- 

 developed, Harvey could not see the communications between 

 arteries and veins. He tried later to study the problem by a 

 sort of corrosion method, but failed to find anything resembling 

 an anastomosis except in three obscure places. At the time, he 

 tried to complete his demonstrations by metaphysical arguments 

 based on the traditional teleology. This was the antithesis of 

 the method by which he had achieved such brilliant success 

 in the preceding chapters. 



The last of the book seems to have been written some time 

 after the main part of it, when long reflection on the subject 

 had crystalized his opinion. The eighth chapter is similar in 

 style and context to the fifteenth and sixteenth, and was, I 

 think, written at about the same time. 



[136I 



