Page images
PDF
EPUB
[graphic][merged small][merged small]
[graphic][merged small]

William Harvey.

BORN A. D. 1578.-died a. D. 1657.

THIS celebrated anatomist was born on the first of April 1578, at Folkeston in Kent. He was the eldest of seven children, the second of whom, Eliab, afterwards became a great Turkey merchant and amassed a considerable fortune. He was educated at the grammar school in Canterbury. At the age of 15 he went to the university of Cambridge, where he was admitted a pensioner of Gonville and Caius college. The situation of pensioner is described by his biographer, Dr Laurence, to be one in which the individual is not supported on the foundation but pays his own expenses; the word being used in a sense directly opposite to the ordinary one. After six years spent in Cambridge in the study of the philosophy of the day, he went abroad for the purpose of acquiring medical information, the university of Padua being then in high reputation. The anatomical chair was then filled by the celebrated Fabricius ab Aquapendente, of whom Harvey became an attentive follower. The chair of medicine was filled at the same time by Minadous, and that of surgery by Casserius. In this university he took the degree of doctor in medicine in the year 1602; on his diploma are the signatures of the celebrated professors above mentioned, fac similes of which will be found in the London edition of his works, published in 1766.

As usual with physicians of his day, he graduated a second time in the university of Cambridge, on his return to England in 1602. He commenced practice in London as one of the candidati of the college of physicians, of which he was elected a fellow three years afterwards. He was now appointed successor to Dr Wilkinson as physician to St Bartholomew's hospital; and this gentleman dying the year after, he entered on the duties of his office. In 1604, he married the daughter of Dr Lancelot Browne, but had no children. At the age of thirtyseven he was appointed lecturer on anatomy and surgery to the college of physicians; and in the course of the lectures delivered there, he first explained his views respecting the circulation of the blood. The manuscript copy of these lectures fell into the possession of Sir Hans Sloane, and afterwards, along with the rest of his valuable collection, became the property of the British museum in which they are now to be found. Some years ago a set of relics of equal value was presented to the college of physicians by the earl of Winchelsea, a descendant of the brother of Harvey. They consist of six tables or boards on which the blood-vessels and arteries of the body are spread out and dried which, it is probable, were made by Harvey himself, and employed for the purpose of demonstration, in the course of his anatomical lectures, He was chosen lecturer in 1615, and it is believed that he first mentioned his discovery in 1619, though his manuscript De Anatomia Universa,' refers the date of his acquaintance with it to 1616. In order that we may appreciate properly the views introduced into anatomy by Harvey, it will be necessary that we take a glance at the ideas respecting the circulation of the blood which prevailed previous to his time. The works of Galen and others, show that in ancient times there was

[blocks in formation]

;

« PreviousContinue »