Some recently discovered letters of William Harvey, with other miscellanea / by S. Weir Mitchell ; with a bibliography of Harvey's works by Charles Perry Fisher.
- William Harvey
- Date:
- 1912
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Some recently discovered letters of William Harvey, with other miscellanea / by S. Weir Mitchell ; with a bibliography of Harvey's works by Charles Perry Fisher. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.
22/88 page 8
![Then came the statement during his lecture course of his great discovery. The day of his first lecture, in 1616, is memorable, for Shakespeare died a week later, and on the same date Cervantes. It is hard to realize as possible the contemporary silence on this grave announcement, but when, preceded by twelve more patient years of self-assuring labor, his book at last came out in 1628, there was interest enough, and the discovery aroused ample medical comment hostile or favorable. None came from the laity. Although Bacon (if we may trust Aubrey) was at some time Harvey's patient, there is no word about the circulation in the philosopher's many volumes. So rare, indeed, are the evidences outside of medical literature of any interest in Harvey's revelation that it seems worth while to quote Robert Boyle's account of a far later interview with Harvey. It is not mentioned by the biographers. And I remember,^ that when I asked our famous Harvey, in the only discourse I had with him (which was but a while before he died), what were the things that induced him to think of a circulation of the blood? He answered me, that when he took notice, that the valves in the veins of so many parts of the body were so placed, that they gave free passage to the blood towards the heart, but opposed the passage of the venal blood the contrary way; he was invited to ^ The Works of Robert Boyle, London, 1744, vol. iv, page 593. [8]](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21173370_0022.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
