NATURE 



417 



THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 1901. 



THE HISTORY OF PHYSIOLOGY. 

 Lectures on the History of Physiology during the Six- 

 teenth, Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. By 

 Sir M. Foster, K.C.B., M.P., M.D., D.C.L., Sec. R.S., 

 Professor of Physiology in the University of Cam- 

 bridge. Pp. 310. (Cambridge : University Press.) 

 THERE is no more fascinating chapter in the history 

 of science than that which deals which physiology, 

 but a concise and at the same time compendious 

 account of the early history of the subject has never 

 before been presented to the English reader. Physio- 

 logists therefore owe a debt of gratitude to Sir Michael 

 Foster for supplying a want which was widely felt. The 

 following is a short account of the contents of the book, 

 to which no higher praise can be given than to say that 

 it is worthy of the reputation of its author. 



As already remarked, the subject itself is a fascinating 

 one, and it is rendered the more so by the manner in 

 which it is treated in these lectures,^ which abound with 

 interesting biographical details and with quotations from 

 the works of the early masters of science. The work is 

 one which will interest circles far wider than physiological, 

 for so intimately are the natural sciences interconnected 

 that it is impossible to write the history of any one with- 

 out constantly referring to points in the history of others. 

 This must especially be so with physiology, which is 

 directly based upon anatomy, physics and chemistry. It 

 is not therefore surprising to find that the first lecture 

 is devoted to the work of Vesalius and the early history 

 of anatomy. 



Andreas Vesalius was born in Brussels on December 

 31, 1514; his father was apothecary to the Emperor 

 Charles Y., and his mother, " to judge by her maiden 

 name, Isabella Crabbe, was probably of English extrac- 

 tion.'' He studied at Louvain and at Paris, in the latter 

 place under Jacobus Sylvius and Guinterius. That was 

 a time when neither anatomy nor medicine was recog- 

 nised outside the pages of Galen : if the facts were not 

 reconcilable with Galen, so much the worse for the facts ; 

 it was rank heresy to teach otherwise. But Vesalius 

 early determined to investigate for himself, and, although 

 he had to resort for his material to the graveyard and 

 even to the gibbet, where, he says, " ' to the great con- 

 venience of the studious, the bodies of those condemned 

 to death were exposed to public view,' " he was not to be 

 deterred from his purpose. At the age of twenty-one he 

 migrated to Venice, and was almost immediately appointed 

 to teach surgery and anatomy at the University of Padua. 

 Here his opportunities for study were far greater than in 

 Paris or Louvain, and after five years' patient labour he 

 produced his great work " On the Structure of the 

 Human Body," which was published at Basel in 1543. 

 "This book," says Foster, " is the beginning, not only of 

 modern anatomy, but of modern physiology." 



It is true that Vesalius dealt but little with physiology, 

 being for the most part content to teach the Galenic doc- 

 trines, he himself saying that "'he accommodated his 



the Cooper 



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NO. 1 66 1, VOL. 64] 



' Lane Lectures " '. 

 I of 1900. 



statements to the dogmas of Galen, not because he 

 thought that these were in all cases consonant with truth, 

 but because in such a new great work he hesitated to lay 

 down his own opinions, and did not dare to swerve a 

 nail's breadth from the doctrines of the Prince of 

 Medicine.' " 



But he no doubt recognised that the new truths about 

 anatomy which he was promulgating involved the modi- 

 fication or rejection of the old dogmas. And it is certain 

 that the publication of his work was so received, for the 

 storm of opposition which it raised from the orthodox 

 teachers of the time proved sufficient to terminate 

 Vesalius' career as an anatomist. In disgust he burnt 

 all his manuscripts, and accepted the post of Court 

 Physician to Charles V. This was in 1544, and, although 

 he lived some twenty years longer and was able to see 

 his work beginning to bear fruit, he himself produced no 

 more. 



While it is clear that \'esaliu5 did not really believe 

 that the blood passed from the right heart to the left 

 through the septum, as Galen supposed, it was Servetus, 

 the Unitarian physician who was burnt at the stake by 

 Calvin, who, in a theological work written in 1 546 and 

 published in 1553, first cleariy enunciated the opinion 

 that the communication occurs through the lungs. But 

 how far this opinion was the result of experiment and 

 observation and how far it was mere conjecture is diffi- 

 cult to say ; in any case Servetus' suggestion had little 

 influence upon the progress of physiology, nor was it 

 accepted until, in the course of the following century, the 

 proofs were furnished by Harvey. Like all great dis- 

 coveries, that of Harvey was led up to by the work of 

 previous observers, more than one of whom arrived very 

 near the truth. This is the case, as we have seen, with 

 Servetus so far as the pulmonary circulation is con- 

 cerned, with Cssalpinus, and with Realdus Columbus 

 (who is, however, supposed to have " cribbed " from a 

 manuscript of Servetus). Fabricius of Aquapendente, 

 Harvey's master, supplied in his discovery of the valves 

 of the veins one of the most important facts upon which 

 Harvey's doctrine of the circulation was based. But 

 there can be no difference of opinion as to the fact that 

 the history of physiology itself and all advance in surgery 

 and medicine begins with Harvey, for until the action of 

 the heart and the circulation of the blood were under- 

 stood there could be no correct understanding of the 

 working of any part of the animal mechanism. To this 

 subject the second lecture is accordingly devoted. 



Harvey was born in 1578 at Folkestone. He took his 

 degree at Cambridge in 1597, studied four years under 

 Fabricius at Padua, became physician to St. Bartholo- 

 mew's Hospital in 1609, and "ventured in 1615 to 

 develope, in his 'Lectures on Anatomy' at the College 

 of Physicians, the view which he was forming concerning 

 the movements of the heart and of the blood. But his 

 book, his Excrcitatio, did not see the light until 1628." 

 He was physician to Charies I., after whose death "he 

 retired into private life, publishing in 165 1 his treatise, 

 De generationc animaliuin, . . . and on June 3, 1667, he 

 ended a life remarkable for its effects rather than for its 

 events." 



" His wonderful book, or rather tract, for it is little 

 more, is one sustained and condensed argument." Up 



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