18 STUDIES IN ADVANCED PHYSIOLOGY. 



book was written in Latin, as was usual in those times, and 

 is called Exercitatio Anatomica de Motui Cordis et San- 

 guinis in Animalibus. A copy of this original edition is 

 now in the Astor Library in New York. It seems curious, 

 however, that Harvey should not have believed in a direct 

 anastomosing of the arteries and veins. Such a notion had 

 been advanced by former anatomists, and it seems but nat- 

 ural that Harvey should at once have accepted this view to 

 explain the translation of the blood from the arteries to the 

 veins, the only missing point to establish his discovery. 

 Just how the translation is effected Harvey was unable to 

 answer. 



Harvey's discovery made a profound impression upon 

 the thinkers of his day. It was a revolution in the accepted 

 doctrines of more than 2,000 years. It did away with the 

 somewhat fascinating "vital spirits," with the "moving 

 force" inherent in "arterial blood," and with the mystic 

 functions ascribed to the heart and lungs. It made the 

 heart a mere muscular pump, it explained all the valves of 

 the heart and veins simply as those of an ordinary water 

 pump, it explained the mysterious pulse as a mere wave 

 caused by the contraction of the heart forcing the inert 

 blood into the arteries, just as would have occurred if water 

 instead of blood had been used. It did away with the idea 

 of two kinds of blood, venous and arterial, and showed that 

 one was changed into the other in the lung by being put in 

 contact with the air. Men are always slow to part with 

 ideas that have the prestige of the past, and so we find 

 Harvey's views at once stubbornly opposed. The learned 

 physician, James Primerose, wrote a lengthy treatise oppos- 

 ing Harvey's views in which he criticises Harvey very 

 severely for taking "too great license in impugning the 

 doctrine of the ancients." 



LATER INVESTIGATORS. 



Harvey's experiments were, however, so convincing that 

 it was useless to question them, but the authority of Galen 



