ANATOMY. 
grand work on the structure of the human 
body, with numerous elegant figures, sup- 
posed to have been dravtn by the celebrated 
Titian. This work contains such a mass of 
new information, that it may justly be con- 
sidered as forming an sera in the history of 
anatomy. We cannot help being surprised, 
that so young a man could have investigated 
the subject so deeply, at a time when dissec- 
tion was esteemed sacrilegious, and was 
therefore carried on secretly* with great 
danger and difficulty. The great reputation 
of Vesalius procured for him the esteem and 
confidence of Charles V. who maide him his 
physician, and kept him about his person in 
all his expeditions. His zeal for science 
proved the cause of his death : for having 
opened a person too. soon, the heart was 
seen to palpitate. He was condemned to 
perform a pilgrimage to Jerusalem ; and as 
he was returning to take the place of anato- 
mical professor at Venice; he was ship- 
wrecked on the island of Zante, and perish- 
ed of hunger. It would be unjust to pass 
oveiv unnoticed the names of Fallopius, and 
of Eustachius, who were contemporary with 
Vesalius, and contributed greatly to the ad- 
vancement of .anatomy. 'I he anatomical 
plates drawn and engraved by the latter are 
executed with an accuracy which cannot fail 
to excite surprise, even in an anatomist of 
the present day. 
From the time of Vesalius, the study of 
anatomy gradually diffused itself over Eu- 
rope ; insomuch that for the last hundred 
and fifty years it has been daily improving 
by the labour of many professed anatomists 
in almost every country of Europe. 
In the year 1628 , our immortal country- 
man Harvey published his discovery of the 
circulation of the blood. It was by far the 
most important step that has been made in 
the knowledge of annual bodies in any age. 
It not only reflected useful lights upon what 
had been already found out in anatomy, 
but also pointed out the means of further 
investigation, and accordingly we see that, 
from Harvey to the present time, anatomy 
has been so much improved, that we may 
reasonably question if the ancients have been 
further outdone by the modems in any other 
branch of knowledge. From one day . to 
another there has been a constant succession 
of discoveries, relating either to the struc- 
ture or functions of our body ; and new ana- 
tomical processes, both of investigation and 
demonstration have been daily invented. 
Many parts of the body, which were not 
known in Harvey’s time, have since then 
been brought to light ; and of those, which 
were known, the internal composition and 
functions remained unexplained ; and indeed 
must have remained inexplicable, without 
the knowledge of the circulation. 
The principal facts relating to this subject 
were known before the time of Harvey : it 
remained for him to reject the specious con- 
jectures then maintained concerning the 
blood’s motion, and to examine the truth 
of those facts, which were then known, and 
by experiments to discover those which re- 
mained to be detected. This he did, and 
thereby rendered his name immortal. 
It seems proper in this place to review 
the several steps which were made in the 
investigation of this important subject. Hip- 
pocrates believed that all the vessels com- 
municated with each other, and that the 
blood underwent a kind of flux and reflux 
from and to the heart, like the ebbing and 
flowing of the sea. The anatomists at Alex- 
andria adopted a wrong but ingenious opi- 
nion ; as they found the arteries empty, and 
the veins containing blood, in their dissec- 
tions, they imagined that the former were 
tubes for the distribution of air, and .gave 
them that name, which they have retained 
ever since ; and that the veins were the only 
channels for the blood. Galen ascertained 
that the blood flowed both by the arteries 
and veins, though he knew not then its na- 
tural course. On the revival of anatomy 
in Europe, the pulmonary circulation was 
known to many eminent men. This was 
certainly the base with Servetus, who fed a 
sacrifice, on account ot his religious opinions, 
to the savage bigotry and intolerance of 
Calvin. Fabricius ab Aquapendente, the 
preceptor of our famous Harvey, particu- 
larly described the valves of the veins, the 
mechanism of which would absolutely pre- 
vent the blood from flowing in those ves- 
sels towards the extremities. When Har- 
vey returned from his studies in Italy, his 
attention being excited to the subject, he 
began those experiments, by which he 
learned and demonstrated the fact of the 
circulation. Harvey’s first proposition of 
the subject impresses conviction so strongly 
on the mind, that we are left in perfect 
astonishment, how a circumstance so lumi- 
nously evident should have remained so long 
unobserved. It must be granted, that the 
heart projects about two ounces of blood 
into the arteries at every pulse ; what then, 
it may be asked, becomes of this large 
quantity of blood unless it circulates ? It 
must be granted that the heart receives 
