HARVEY AND EXPERIMENTAL OBSERVATION 45 
best portrait of Harvey, since the one painted by Jansen, 
now in possession of the Royal College of Physicians, is 
believed to be the best one extant. The picture reproduced 
here shows a countenance of composed intellectual strength, 
with a suggestion, in the forehead and outline of the face, of 
some of the portraits of Shakespeare. 
An idea of his personal appearance may be had from the 
description of Aubrey, who says: “ Harvey was not tall, but of 
the lowest stature; round faced, with a complexion like the 
wainscot; his eyes small, round, very black, and full of spirit; 
his hair black as a raven, but quite white twenty years before 
he died; rapid in his utterance, choleric, given to gesture,” 
etc. 
He was less impetuous than Vesalius, who had published 
his work at twenty-eight; Harvey had demonstrated his ideas 
of the circulation in public anatomies and lectures for twelve 
years before publishing them, and when his great classic on 
the Movement of the Heart and Blood first appeared in 1628, 
he was already fifty years ofage. This isa good example for 
young investigators of to-day who, in order to secure priority 
of announcement, so frequently rush into print with imperfect 
observations as preliminary communications. 
Harvey’s Writings.—Harvey’s publications were all great; 
in embryology, as in physiology, he produced a memorable 
treatise. But his publications do not fully represent his 
activity as an investigator; it is known that through the 
fortunes of war, while connected with the sovereign Charles I 
as court physician, he lost manuscripts and drawings upon 
the comparative anatomy and development of insects and 
other animals. His position in embryology will be dealt 
with in the chapter on the Development of Animals, and he 
will come up for consideration again in the chapter on the 
Rise of Physiology. Here we are concerned chiefly with his 
general influence on the development of biology. 
