MOTION OF THE HEART AND BLOOD 



doubts removed, and how much obscurity cleared 

 up by the truth and light here given.^ It opens 

 up a field so vast that were I to scan it further or 

 investigate it more fully this little effort would 

 swell to a huge volume which perhaps would take 

 more than my ability or span of life to finish. 



In the following chapter, therefore, reference 

 will only be made to the functions and causes de- 

 rived from an anatomical study of the heart and 

 arteries. Even here I shall find much which may 

 be explained by my theory, and which in turn will 

 make it more clear. Above all, I wish to confirm and 

 illustrate it by anatomical reasoning. 



There is one point, however, which might be 

 noted here, although it belongs more properly in 

 my discussion of the function of the spleen.^ From 



* Did Harvey mean this treatise to be a "preliminary communica-^ 

 tion?" It seems doubtful that there would be much to add to what 

 is here written or to what may be inferred from it. Harvey probably 

 was honest in the remark here made, — he realized what still could 

 be done but was willing to let others take up the burden, while he 

 himself was anxious to let it drop. 



^ This paragraph seems to have been another after-thought. If 

 Harvey ever wrote a discussion of the function of the spleen, it was 

 apparently lost with his other papers during the plunderings of the 

 Civil War. If this note is an example of the many observations Har- 

 vey felt could be made in the light of his doctrine, it would better 

 have been omitted. A typical Galenical argument, straining to find 

 the "design" in nature, this is the antithesis of most of the clear-cut 

 observations and explanations in this book. The majority of these 

 are directly in the modern spirit of simple description with an at- 

 tempted explanation of the mechanism involved. Harvey was in 

 fact among the first to emphasize the how in physiology, rather than 

 the more conceited and arrogant why. 



[113] 



