William Harvey

BY

D’Arcy Power, F.S.A.,

F.R.C.S. Eng.

SURGEON TO THE VICTORIA HOSPITAL FOR CHILDREN,
CHELSEA

LONDON

T. FISHER UNWIN

PATERNOSTER SQUARE

MDCCCXCVII

Copyright by T. Fisher Unwin, 1897, for Great Britain
and Longmans Green & Co. for the
United States of America

To

DR. PHILIP HENRY PYE-SMITH, F.R.S.

IN RECOGNITION OF HIS PROFOUND KNOWLEDGE OF

THE PRINCIPLES ADVOCATED BY HARVEY, AND

IN GRATITUDE FOR MANY KINDNESSES

CONFERRED BY HIM UPON

THE AUTHOR

PREFACE

It is not possible, nor have I attempted in this account of Harvey, to add much that is new. My endeavour has been to give a picture of the man and to explain in his own words, for they are always simple, racy, and untechnical, the discovery which has placed him in the forefront of the Masters of Medicine.

The kindness of Professor George Darwin, F.R.S., and of Professor Villari has introduced me to Professor Carlo Ferraris, the Rector Magnificus, and to Dr. Girardi, the Librarian of the University of Padua. These gentlemen, at my request, have examined afresh the records of the University, and have given me much information about Harvey’s stay there. The Cambridge Archæological Society has laid me under an obligation by allowing me to reproduce the Stemma which still commemorates Harvey’s official connection with the great Italian University. Dr. Norman Moore has read the proof sheets; his kindly criticism and accurate knowledge have added greatly to the value of the work, and he has lent me the block which illustrates the vileness of Harvey’s handwriting.

I have collected in an Appendix a short list of authorities to each chapter that my statements may be verified, for Harvey himself would have been the first to cry out against such a gossiping life as that which Aubrey wrote of him.

D’ARCY POWER.

May 20, 1897.

CONTENTS

WILLIAM HARVEY

I
Harvey’s Lineage

The history of the Harvey family begins with Thomas Harvey, father of William, the discoverer of the circulation of the blood. The careful search of interested and competent genealogists has ended in the barren statement that the family is apparently descended from, or is a branch of the same stock as, Sir Walter Hervey, “pepperer,” or member of the ancient guild which afterwards became the important Company of Grocers. Sir Walter was Mayor of London in the year reckoned from the death of Henry III. in November, 1272. It was the noise of the citizens assembled in Westminster Hall clamouring for Hervey’s election as Mayor that disturbed the King’s deathbed.

The lineage would be a noble one if it could be established, for Hervey was no undistinguished Mayor. He was the worthy pupil and successor of Thomas Fitzthomas, one of the great champions in that struggle for liberty which ended in the death of Simon de Montfort, between Evesham and Alcester, but left the kingdom with a Parliament. Hervey’s counsels reconstituted in London the system of civic government, and established it upon its present base; for he assumed as chief of the executive the right to grant charters of incorporation to the craftsmen of the guilds. For a time his efforts were successful, and they wrought him much harm. But his idea survived, and in due season prevailed, for the companies have entirely replaced the guilds not only in London but throughout England.

It would be truly interesting if the first great discoverer in physiology could be shown to be a descendant of this original thinker on municipal government. The statement depends for the present on the fact that both bore for arms “argent, two bars nebulée sable, on a chief of the last three crosses pattée