THE TEN FOREMOST MEN 175 



The list of ten men given below is based on the 

 influence exerted by certain advances with which 

 they were prominently connected, rather than merely 

 on the high quality of their individual output as 

 scientific investigators. In some cases the highest 

 intellectual rank and the most eminent researches are 

 combined in one individual of wide influence, in 

 other instances, the influence of certain happy dis- 

 coveries (as in the case of Mendel) are out of pro- 

 portion to the relative rank of the man as a bi- 

 ologist. 



1. Harvey. Passing over Aristotle, who undoubt- 

 edly was the greatest scientific investigator of an- 

 tiquity, and beginning with the revival of science in 

 the sixteenth century, it seems to the writer that 

 the pioneer work of Wm. Harvey (1578-1657) re- 

 quires first recognition. He was at once observer and 

 experimenter. The influence of his work on the 

 circulation of the blood was profound and construc- 

 tive. It not only gave for the first time a rational 

 basis for the progress of physiology but also provided 

 biological science with a new method and stimulated 

 investigation. His book on the movement of the 

 heart and the blood (De Motu Cordis et Sanguinis) 

 published in 1628, is a biological classic. He also 



