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was published at " Franckfort " on the Main, then the great centre of 

 the book trade. It was dedicated to Charles I. : — 



" Most Serene King ! The heart of animals is the foundation of their life, the 

 sovereign of everything within them, the sun of their microcosm, that upon which all 

 growth depends, from which all power proceeds. The King, in like manner, is the 

 foundation of his kingdom, the sun of the world around him, the heart of the republic, 

 the fountain whence all power, all grace doth flow " 



The MS. of Harvey's lectures, bearing date 1616, was reproduced 

 in autotype by a committee of the Royal College of Physicians of 

 London, in 1886, under the title Prcelectiones Anatomia? Universalis. 

 This annus mirabilis marks also the death of Shakespeare. 



" The object of the publication was to present and make public the original notes of 

 the lectures in which Harvey, in 1616, set forth for the first time his discovery of the 

 circulation." " It was from Aristotle, he says, that he obtained the first direction to the 

 true explanation of the movements of the heart, and he quotes the father of science 

 more often than any other author. Galen comes next in the order of frequency of 

 quotation ; while of the moderns Vesalius, Columbus, Falloppius, Fernelius, Laurentius, 

 Nicholaus Massa, Bauhin, and Piccolhomini are the writers whose opinions he most 

 often discusses. In classical literature he had read Plautus as well as Virgil and 



Horace He was learned in the Scriptures, and knew something of the Latin 



fathers." "He had dissected animals of all kinds, and refers to the anatomy of more 

 than eighty." 



In 1632 Harvey was appointed physician to Charles, and 

 became his devoted friend. Charles showed a decided taste for ait 

 and encouraged the study of the sciences. He placed at Harvey's 

 disposition the deer in the Royal parks, which helped him to prosecute 

 his researches in embryology. As physician to the King, Harvey 

 was present on Sunday, 23rd October, 1642, at the battle of Edgehill, 

 and every one knows the account given by Aubrey, how with the 

 two boy princes, the Prince of Wales and Duke of York, under his 

 charge — the elder was afterwards Charles II., the younger James II. 

 — he withdrew with them under a hedge reading a book. It is even 

 suggested that the book was his favourite treatise of Fabricius upon 

 generation. He accompanied the King to Oxford, and Aubrey says 

 that during his brief stay here " I remember he came several times to 

 our College (Trinity), to George Bathurst, B.D., who had a hen to 

 hatch eggs in his chamber, which they opened daily, to see the 

 progress and way of generation." 



Harvey remained in the service of the King until 1646, when 

 feeling the effects of age— he was already sixty-eight and sorely tried 

 by repeated attacks of gout — he retired into private life. Five years 

 later, in 1651, he published his second great work, De Generation? 

 Animalium. He died in 1657, set. 79, and was buried at Hemp- 

 stead in Essex. Harvey died without issue, and his wife pre- 

 deceased him. He gave the College of Physicians the value of his 

 paternal estate to pay the salary of the librarian, and for an annual 



