PREFACE. 



WHEN, at the instance of the governing body of the 

 Sydenham Society, I undertook to edit the Works of the 

 immortal Discoverer of the Circulation of the Blood, in 

 English, I believed that the chief of these Works were 

 already extant in our language, in such a shape as would 

 make little more from an editor necessary than a careful 

 revision of the text. I had unwarily adopted the idea, very 

 gratuitously originated by Aubrey, that Harvey was what is 

 called an indifferent scholar, and that the English versions 

 of his writings were the proper originals, the Latin versions 

 the translations. Having access to the handsome edition of 

 Harvey's Works in Latin, revised by Drs. Lawrence and Mark 

 Akenside, and published by the College of Physicians in 1766, 

 I had always referred to that when the course of my studies 

 led me to consult Harvey. Of the English versions, or any 

 other edition, I knew little or nothing. On proceeding to my 

 new duty of English editor, however, I immediately saw that 

 the masterwork of Harvey on the MOTIONS of the HEART 

 and BLOOD, far from having the character of an originally 

 English writing, must have been rendered into English by 

 one but little conversant with the subject, that it was both 

 extremely rebutting in point of style and full of egregious 

 errors, and that nothing short of an entirely new translation 

 could do justice to this admirable treatise, or secure for it, at 

 the present day, the attention it deserved. Full of zeal, and 



