The man who discovered the circulation of the blood / [David Fraser Fraser-Harris].

  • David Fraser Fraser-Harris
Date:
1913
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The man who discovered the circulation of the blood / [David Fraser Fraser-Harris]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    land. Padua recognized the English and Scottish nations as late as 1738. The MSS. lists of students for the sessions 1600-01 and 1601- 02 begins with a “ Gulielmus. Arveius. Anglus.” These representa¬ tives of voting nations had the privilege of having their “ stemmata ” painted up somewhere within the university precincts. After a most laborious search, Harvey’s stemma was found covered with whitewash on the concavity of the roof of the lower court-yard of the university. The master and fellows of Caius College have had it restored in its original colors; and very fine it is with a red ground, a white sleeve and green serpents; above it is the one word, “ Anglica,” and below it the three words, “ Gulielmus. Harveus. Anglus.” Precious words, for this is undoubtedly our William Harvey, then a youth of twenty-three years, who a little later was to reveal something which was to place his name beside the greatest names in the history of human discovery. He was soon to become an epoch-maker. But as a doctor of medicine later on he would be entitled also to have his coat-of-arms emblazoned somewhere in his alma mater. In March, 1893, after a most tedious search, the rector of that time discovered the shield with Harvey’s arms, but so damaged that the inscription which accompanied it was lost for ever. A few details are preserved to us of the social conditions at Padua in Harvey’s time, and they show us a very miserable state of affairs. Food was scanty and bad, there was no glass in the windows, which were of linen; artificial light was extremely costly, and there were no public entertainments. The professor of anatomy was the venerable Hieronymus Fabricius ab Aquapendente, surgeon, anatomist and his¬ torian of medicine, a great favorite with the Venetian senate, who were the patrons of the chairs at Padua. The little theater in which he lectured at nine each morning from October to August still exists. It is of oval form, lined with oak, with steep-pitched, narrow platforms (instead of seats) with low rails to lean over to watch the dissection. There is a small cupola in the roof. It was not without some emotion that the present writer stood one September morning on the very spot where there came to Harvey the illuminating thought about the venous valves. Harvey returned to Cambridge in 1602, when he at once took the M.D. degree at his English alma mater. By 1604 he had entered upon medical practise in London in St. Martin’s parish; and on November 24 he was married in St. Sepulchre’s church, Newgate, to Elizabeth Brown, daughter of Dr. Lancelot Brown, who had been one of the physicians to Queen Elizabeth. It was the bells of this same church that for many years were tolled on the morning of an execution in the prison of Newgate over the way. The Harveys had no children; his wife predeceased her husband.
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