TRANSLATOR'S POSTSCRIPT 



The argument in the other chapters from two to fourteen 

 proceeds with certain characteristics that introduced an entirely- 

 new method of approach in physiological problems. These are 

 (i) the careful analysis of phenomena observed (chapters two 

 to five); (2) the devising of experimental procedures to test a 

 proposed hypothesis (chapters ten, eleven, and thirteen), and 

 (3) the startling innovation of quantitative reasoning to prove 

 a proposed theory (chapters nine, ten, and thirteen). Harvey 

 was among the first to use the practical methods of science as 

 we do now: observation, hypothesis, deduction, and experi- 

 ment. This is neither scholastic Aristotelianism nor Bacon's 

 laborious accumulation of data and its manipulation by the 

 cumbersome tables of the Novum Organum. The sixth and 

 seventh chapters, on the pulmonary circulation, are puzzling. 

 There is a good discussion of the comparative and embryological 

 aspects of the subject, and then a peculiar use of the traditional 

 authority of Galen as evidence. One may find almost all kinds 

 of logic in Harvey. 



In order to bring out the significance of Harvey's work in 

 regard to our modern knowledge of cardiac function, and to 

 relate it to the slow development of this knowledge, footnotes 

 have been added to the translation. I hope they will appeal to 

 medical students and interested laymen. For specialists in the 

 history of medicine, they may seem superfluous, in spite of my 

 effort to make them as brief and inconspicuous as possible. 

 Most of the information in them has been culled from the 

 standard authorities in physiology and its history. A running 

 account of the development of Harvey's demonstration and its 

 influence was to have been appended, but will have to wait 

 till later. A chronology of his life has been added. For my 

 information and point of view I am indebted to a host of 

 Harvey enthusiasts, Haeser, Willis, Munk, Foster, Dalton, 

 Curtis, Osier, D'Arcy Power, Hemmeter, Garrison, and Singer. 

 For scholarly inspiration I am grateful to Dr. George Sarton, 

 Dr. Percy Dawson, and Dr. William Snow Miller. For cheerful 



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