77 6 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



not possibly have studied, in dead animals "the motion of the 

 heart and blood in animals." To found his great thesis on a 

 broad basis of experiment, Harvey vivisected a great many kinds 

 of animals, from his own person to " shrimps, snails, and shell- 

 fish." 



Chapter I of Harvey's great work, De Motu Cordis et Sanguinis 

 in Animalibus,* begins, " Cum multis vivorum dissectionibus (uti 

 ad manum dabantur) animum ad observandum primum appuli 

 quo cordis motus usum," etc. 



Chapter II is entitled Ex vivorum dissectione, qualis sit cordis 

 motus. 



Chapter III is entitled Arteriarum motus qualis ex vivorum 

 dissectione. 



Chapter IV is entitled Motus cordis et auricularum qualis ex 

 vivorum dissectione. 



The argument that Harvey was led to his discovery by " rea- 

 soning upon the valves in the veins," as stated by Boyle, is well 

 answered by his translator, Willis, \ who points out at some 

 length that " when we turn to Harvey himself, in his works we 

 nowhere find that he approaches his subject from the quarter now 

 particularly indicated " (i. e., from the purpose of the valves in 

 the veins). 



Even Harvey was attacked during his life on the ground that 

 the discovery of the circulation was of "no use" (Willis, p. 258), 

 " because men still continued to die." 



For Harvey the blood passed through the flesh (per partium 

 porositates), and not until the microscope was available was it 

 possible for Malpighi to discover the capillary circulation in 

 1661. This he did in the exposed lung of a living frog. 



In recent years Claude Bernard J greatly advanced our knowl- 

 edge of the circulation by demonstrating, wholly by vivisectional 

 methods, that the flow of the blood is regulated by a nervous 

 mechanism continuously acting to contract or dilate the vessels 

 according to the requirements of each organ or part of the body. 

 Thus it is seen that every important step in the advance of our 

 knowledge of the circulation of the blood has been made by vivi- 

 section and could not possibly have been made in any other way. 



Similarly, the testimony of Sir Charles Bell is constantly ad- 

 duced to prove the futility of vivisection. Bell is the anatomist 

 to whom, with Magendie and Johannes Miiller, we owe the first 



* Harvei Opera, 1737, or The Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals. Sydenham 

 edition, London, 1847. 



f Willis. William Harvey, a History of the Discovery of the Circulation of the Blood. 

 London, 1878, pp. 301 ff. 



% 01. Bernard. Lecons sur le Diabete. Paris, 1877, p. 43. 



