400 A Century of Science 



But the Germans are not the only sinners ; let me 

 cite an instance from near home. In the quarto 

 &quot; Hamlet &quot; of 1603 we read : - 



&quot; Full forty years are past, their date is gone, 

 Since happy time joined both our hearts as one : 

 And now the blood that filled my youthful veins 

 Runs weakly in their pipes,&quot; etc. 



Whereupon Mr. Edward Vining calls upon us to 

 observe how Shakespeare, &quot; to whom all human 

 knowledge seems to be but a matter of instinct, in 

 [these lines] asserts the circulation of the blood 

 in the veins and ; pipes, a truth which Harvey 

 probably did not even suspect until at least thir 

 teen years later,&quot; etc. 1 Does Mr. Vining really 

 suppose that what Harvey did was to discover 

 that blood runs in our veins? A little further 

 study of history would have taught him that even 

 the ancients knew that blood runs in the veins. 2 

 About fourteen hundred years before &quot; Hamlet &quot; 

 was written, Galen proved that it also runs in the 



1 The Bankside Shakespeare, vol. xi. p. xi. 



2 The writings of Hippocrates abound in examples, as in his 

 interesting explanation of congestion, extravasation, etc. (De 

 Ventis, x.-xiv., Opera, ed. Littre*, torn. vi. pp. 104-114), to cite one 

 instance out of a thousand : ETreiSaj/ ovv es T&S iraxfias Kal TTO\V- 

 at/LiOvs rcav &amp;lt;t&amp;gt;\/3)V iroXvs ar/p ftplffp, frpiaas 5e pevr), KuXveral rb 

 al/jia SiegicVai* r$ (j^v olv eV&amp;lt;TT7j/ce, ry Se vuBpus 5iee pxeTOi, rp 



etc. 



