xlii THE LIFE OF HARVEY. 



intellects, in possession of the seats and places of authority, 

 regarded them as idle dreams ; and upon the faith of this con- 

 clusion, their author was set down and treated by the vulgar 

 as a crackh rained innovator. Two years, however, elapsed 

 before aught in contravention of the new doctrines saw the 

 light, and this came at length not from any of the more 

 mature anatomists of Europe their minds were made up, 

 the thing was absurd but from a young physician, of the 

 name of Primerose, of Scottish descent, but French by birth. 

 Primerose had been a pupil of Joannes Riolanus, professor of 

 anatomy in the University of Paris ; he had doubtless listened 

 to his master's demonstration of the absurdity of the Harveian 

 doctrine of the circulation, and by and by he set himself 

 down, by way apparently of exercising his ingenuity, to try 

 the question, not by fact and experiment, but by the precepts 

 he had imbibed from his teacher and the texts of the ancients 

 The essay of Primerose 1 may be regarded as a defence of the 

 physiological ideas of Galen against the innovations of Harvey 

 It is remarkable for any characteristic rather than that of a 

 candid spirit in pursuit of truth ; it abounds in obstinate de- 

 nials, and sometimes in what may be termed dishonest perver- 

 sions of simple matters of fact, and in its whole course appeals 

 not once to experiment as a means of investigation. Harvey, 

 having already, and in the very outset of his work, demon- 

 strated the notions untenable which it was Primerose' s purpose 

 to reassert and defend, of course deigned him no reply ; he 

 could never dream of going over the barren ground he had al- 

 ready trodden, in the hope of convincing such an antagonist. 



.JSmylius Parisanus, a physician of Venice, was the next to 

 assail the Harveian doctrine of the circulation, 2 and still with 



1 Entitled ' Exercitationes et Auimadversiones in Librum Harvei de Motu Cordis 

 et Sanguinis/ 4to, London, 1630. 



2 In his work entitled ' Lapis Lydius de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis,' folio, Venet. 

 1635. 



