JS*otes to Introductory Lecture, 



Xote 28. 



Anatomists might have reasonahly concluded that Galen's 

 anatomical descriptions had been taken from brutes ; he- 

 pause, although he says, he had dissected many of the latter, 

 yet he makes no mention of having examined human bodies : 

 we know also that he expressly advises physicians to prac- 

 tice the dissections of apes and monkeys, and not to lose the 

 opportunity of dissecting human subjects if by chance, the 

 German war, or any other accident, they should find one ; 

 and had Galen ever dissected a human body, his vanity which 

 is so conspicuous in his writings would not have permitted 

 him to conceal the fact. Vesalius first discovered that 

 Galen- s description of the human body was formed from the 

 dissection of brutes, by comparing his descriptions with the 

 actual structure of the parts as laid open by the knife, and 

 for this service to medicine and to truth he excited the en- 

 mity of all the medical professors, who had been promulgat- 

 ing Galen's mistatements, as truths. 

 ^''otes 29, 30. 



Trans. Royal Soc. London, 1797. 

 ^"ote 31. 



Harvey's account of his discovery is entitled " Exercitatio 

 Anatomica de Cordis et sanguinis motu," It is an extraordi- 

 nary circumstance that the circulation of the blood through 

 the body, should not have been discovered before tlie time of 

 Harvey, considering that the fact (although not founded on 

 experiment) is plainly asserted by Plato, whose writings liad 

 been so long familiar to the learned world. " The heart, 

 says he, is the centre or knot of the blood vessels : the spring 

 or fountain of the blood which is carried impetuously round: 

 the blood is the pabulum, or food of the flesh : and for the 

 purpose of nourishment, the body is laid out into canals, like 

 those which are drawn through gardens, that the blood may 

 be conveyed, as from a fountain to every part of the pervi- 

 ous body." 



