52 LIGHT IX i)ARKLVESS. 



must he content to know that such is the case, and spend a little 

 time in trying to understand how it is done, as no one can have even 

 a rough idea of how to keep an animal machine going at its best pace 

 unless he understands a little about the circulation of the 

 blood, 



103. — Early in the year 1550 au exiled Spaniard named 

 Servetus published a work in which he pointed out that all 

 the blood in the body was regularly sent from the heart to the 

 lungs, and brought back in a purified state to the heart. This 

 grand discovery was regarded as a greater crime than the 

 comparatively small discovery of Galileo in proving that the 

 planets circulated round the sun, so that instead of being 

 tortured, imprisoned, and humiliated, and threatened as poor 

 old (lalileo was, just 80 years afterwards, this young and truly 

 great and able man was burned in the autumn of the same year 

 in which he published his book. He had previously incurred the 

 fatal enmity of both the Pope and of Calvin, by pointing out 

 that neither of them were infallible, and now he dared to add the 

 doctors to the list of his powerful persecutors, by giving positive 

 proofs to the world that they had muddled away for thousands 

 of years without learning the A B C of their profession, or 

 knowing anything about the lieautiful machine, the whole 

 management of which they presumed to monopolise. Of course 

 the doctors declared that the blood did not circulate, and helped 

 the priests and parsons to hunt up all his books and put them in 

 the fire. In this they succeeded so well that only three copies 

 were left, and this great flood of light and knowledge was shut 

 out from mankind for just three quarters of a century. 



104. — Still the blood would circulate, and in 1628 Harvey 

 had the honour of publishing a book in which the great discovery 

 of Servetus was repeated and completed by showing something 

 of the purpose for which the blood was purified in the lungs, 

 and what was done with it afterwards. Since then physiologists 

 have been continually discovering some beneficial purpose 

 accomplished by this circulation, and the greatest minds have 

 learned to bow down in reverence to a process so complete, so 

 comprehensive, and so economical. Physiologists, anatomists. 



