PREFACE. vii 



peared in English before. They will be found both highly 

 interesting and important. To render them was a light and 

 pleasant task. In a word, the English reader is now pre- 

 sented with an entirely new translation of the writings of 

 William Harvey; everything of our illustrious countryman 

 worthy of publication that has come down to us, being here 

 included. 1 



The reader will perceive that I have abstained from anno- 

 tation and commentary in the course of my labour. The 

 purpose of the Council of the Sydenham Society, as I under- 

 stood it, was to give the Works of William Harvey in English 

 now, as he himself gave them in- Latin two centuries ago. 

 Entirely approving of this intention, I felt that anything like 

 corrections of statements and opinions, which could so readily 

 have been made under the lights of modern physiology, would 

 have been impertinencies, and I therefore abstained from 

 them. To have carried out and completed the history of 

 Harvey's two grand subjects, would also have been easy; but 



1 A certain MS. of Harvey's, frequently referred to as bearing the date of 1616, 

 and containing the heads of his first course of Lectures at the College of Physi- 

 cians on the Heart and Blood, is not now in existence, or at all events is not now 

 to be found. At the present time there are only two MSS. at the British Museum 

 which bear Harvey's name. Of these, one contains notes on the Muscles, Vessels, 

 and Nerves, and on the Locomotion of Animals ; the other may be characterized as 

 a book of Receipts or Prescriptions, and though partly the work of a contemporary, 

 contains notes of cases that occurred after Harvey's death. The former MS. is as 

 certainly in Harvey's handwriting as the latter is not. In Dr. Lawrence's* time 

 there must have been a third MS. entitled ' De Anatomia Universa,' and it was 

 here, in the index viz. which referred to the principal facts in the anatomy of the 

 heart and of the circulation of the blood, that the dates April 16, 17, 18, an. 1616, 

 were encountered. Mr. Pettigrew (Portrait Gallery, vol. iv, Harvey, p. 8) , with the 

 assistance of Sir Fred. Madden, made search for this MS. a few years ago, but failed 

 to meet with it. A renewed search for this important document has been attended 

 with no better success. 



* Vide his Life of Harvey, prefixed to the edition by the College of Physicians 

 p. xxxi. 



