30 Harvey and the [lect. 



doctrine of the passage through the solid septum, the changed 

 view on this point makes no essential change in his general 

 views on the circulation. These still remain Galenic ; the 

 veins still carry blood to all parts of the body. "This is the 

 " use of the veins, to carry blood to all parts of the body in 

 " order to nourish them ; for all the members of the body are 

 " nourished by blood alone, wherefore nature made the veins 

 " hollow for the sake of their function that like streams they 

 " might pervade the body." He did not grasp the true mean- 

 ing of the discovery on which he prides himself, and others 

 after him as we shall see also failed to see it. But did he 

 really himself make the discovery ? 



His book as we have seen was not published until 1559. 

 In no other writing had he published the discovery; we have 

 no record of when he began to teach this new doctrine of the 

 pulmonary circulation. He may have taught it orally to his 

 students, or its appearance in the posthumous work may have 

 been the first occasion of its being made known. We cannot 

 tell ; but we may be well sure that he had not arrived at the 

 new truth before he came to Rome while he was still at Padua 

 or Pisa, seeking to win fame. 



Now his teaching of the pulmonary circulation is almost 

 identical with that of Servetus, and resembles it in the absence 

 of the far-reaching conclusions which may be drawn from the 

 fact. 



As we have seen Servetus in 1546 sent to Curio in Padua 

 a manuscript copy of his Restitutio ; this Columbus may have 

 seen. Again when the edition of the published Restitutio was 

 burnt in 1553, some few copies escaped; one of these may have 

 found its way to Rome before Columbus had sent his work 

 to the press. 



Columbus might have taken the idea from Servetus. But 

 what right have we to accuse Columbus of what is in reality 

 a theft? Vesalius too might have seen if not Curio's manuscript 

 copy, at least one of the escaped prints of 1553, before he 

 published the second edition of his Fabrica in 1555. But 

 Vesalius does not describe the pulmonary circulation; in his 

 edition of 1555, he merely accentuates the doubts about the 



