

8 PATHFINDERS OF PHYSIOLOGY 



"It is plain from the structure of the heart that the blood is 

 passed continuously through the lungs to the aorta as by the two 

 clacks of a water bellows to raise water. 



"It is shown by the application of a ligature that the passage of 

 the blood is from the arteries into the veins. 

 ( "Whence it follows that the movement of the blood is constantly 



t< ^ in a circle and is brought about by the beat of the heart." It was 

 ^ / not until twelve years after this important announcement that he 

 S(^ proclaimed it to a wider audience. 



' Harvey's literary style was somewhat figurative. He loved to 



indulge in metaphors — witness: 



An cerebrum rex, whether the brain is king. 

 Nervi majistratus, the nerves his ministers. 

 Musculi cives populus, the muscles the, citizens or the people. 

 He also draws a similtude liking the brain to a military com- 

 mander, the leader of an orchestra, an architect, and he speaks of the 

 muscles and nerves as subordinate officers. 



Year by year Harvey delivered the Lumlian lectures to the Col- 

 lege of Physicians. His private practice grew so as to be fairly lucra- 

 tive. 



Harvey and Bacon — In 1618 he was appointed physician to 

 James I. In 1631 he was appointed physician in ordinary to King 

 James' son, Charles I. Not only gained he an entrance to the house- 

 hold of the king but he, was employed in .the homes of the most dis- 

 tinguished nobles. Among others he attended Sir Francis Bacon, 

 who was always a weak and ailing man with a disposition to be hypo- 

 chondriac. "In William Harvey and Francis Bacon," says Gorton, 

 may be observed two men like planets in conjunction; bom in the 

 same generation, each illustrious in the annals of history, the one in 

 philosophy, the other in science but in striking contrast to each 

 other. The one was a thinker, the other was an actor; one con- 

 ceived methods, the other put methods into operation; one was an 

 academic philosopher, the other a man of science and discovery; one 

 immortalized himself by his profundity of thought, the other by his 

 contribution to science. Both were stars in the firmament of great 

 men, but long after one has become dim or gone out, the other will 

 continue to shine with splendor." 



Though honored by England's Lord Chancellor as the custodian 

 of his health, Harvey evidently failed to be impressed with Bacon's 

 greatness even as philosopher, for speaking of him, Harvey refers to 

 him as "writing philosophy like a Lord Chancellor." 



p Publication of His Work on the Circulation — In 1628, the crown- 



^ ing event of his life took place when he published his well considered 

 /and matured account of the circulation of the blood. He had demon- 

 strated his ideas of the circulation for twelve years before publishing 

 them, which event occurred in the fiftieth year of his life. This 

 monumental work of the great physiologist was accomplished while yet 

 in his thirties. Why Harvey should allow so much time to elapse be- 

 tween the event of his epochal discovery and its publication is not 

 clear. Evidently the passion to rush into print was not so great as 

 it is with the investigator of to day. It is interesting to note, how- 



