HARVEY'S VIEWS ON THE USE OF
THE CIRCULATION OF THE BLOOD

A portrait of William Harvey by Cornelius Jonson. This picture forms the frontispiece of Guilielmi Harveii Opera Omnia, London, 1766.

HARVEY'S VIEWS ON THE USE
OF THE CIRCULATION
OF THE BLOOD

BY

JOHN G. CURTIS, M.D., LL.D.
FORMERLY PROFESSOR OF PHYSIOLOGY IN COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK

Based on a Lecture Delivered in 1907, before the
Johns Hopkins Hospital Historical
Club at Baltimore

New York
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS
1915
All rights reserved

Copyright, 1915,
By COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS.
Set up and electrotyped. Published December, 1915.

Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing Co.—Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.

PREFATORY NOTE

The writings of William Harvey, as published by him, and the letters published as part of his works, are all in Latin. The passages from Harvey's works which appear in English in the present paper are in part translations by the late Dr. Willis, with changes, sometimes considerable, by the present writer. In large part, however, the translations from Harvey are not even based upon Dr. Willis's work, but have been made by the present writer directly from the original Latin. Naturally he assumes responsibility for whatever he prints in English to represent Harvey's words; and to attempt, in print, a more minute discrimination between his own work as a translator and that of Dr. Willis would be tedious and unprofitable. Whoever may wish to make such discrimination may readily do so, however, as, in the present paper, a reference is made by page and line in the case of each translated passage, not only to the Latin text of Harvey's Opera Omnia, published by the Royal College of Physicians of London in 1766, but also to Willis's English translation thereof, published by the Sydenham Society in 1847, and entitled "The Works of William Harvey, M.D." Such references to the Sydenham Society's edition are indispensable for another purpose, viz.: in order that to each translated passage from Harvey in the present paper a context in English may readily be given by the reader.

It has seemed best that the various references to Harvey's Latin text should be made to that of the easily accessible Opera Omnia rather than to that of the rarer first editions of the several treatises. In the case of the passages quoted from the treatise De Motu Cordis et Sanguinis in Animalibus and from the treatise De Generatione Animalium, the Latin of the Opera Omnia has been collated by the present writer with that of the first editions. The first editions of the Exercises to Riolanus and of the various letters have not been accessible to him.

Much use has here been made of Harvey's private lecture notes, first published in 1886 by the Royal College of Physicians of London.

All the passages (except those from the Scriptures) quoted in the present paper from writers other than Harvey have been translated into English by the present writer directly from the original Greek text or the original Latin text, as the case may be.

JOHN G. CURTIS.

EDITORIAL NOTE

Professor Curtis, to whom I am indebted for much kindly help extended during a warm friendship of nearly thirty years, died September 20, 1913. One of his final requests was that his younger colleague arrange for the publication of the present paper, upon which its writer had been engaged for a period of several years and which happily was practically completed. This request, coming to me after the death of my friend, could be considered only as a command. It has, therefore, fallen to me to make a careful study of his text, to fill in with my own words occasional slight gaps, to make occasional verbal changes, to certify to the correctness of his numerous references, and to make the manuscript, written and in places rewritten many times with his own hand, ready for the press. This I have done with affection for his memory and with appreciation of his scholarly attainments. Dr. Curtis's work represents a more profound study of Harvey's ideas and comparison of them with those of the most important of Harvey's predecessors than has heretofore appeared. It is the work of one who from the background of the physiological science of to-day delighted in mastering the ideas of the fathers of modern physiology. If his work is to be summarized in a single sentence, it may be said that he has shown Harvey to be a disciple more of Aristotle than of Galen. Although Harvey had the courage and the originality to break away from him whose ideas had prevailed for fourteen centuries, and to find the truth in regard to the movement of the blood, he found much to approve in the master who had lived five hundred years before Galen. Harvey's true position in the world of physiological thought has not before been made known. Herein lies Professor Curtis's contribution to the history of his science.

FREDERIC S. LEE.

Columbia University,
     June 1, 1915.

CONTENTS