PORTRAITS
OF
DR.   WILLIAM  HARVEY

PUBLISHED FOR THE HISTORICAL SECTION
OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF MEDICINE
BY
HUMPHREY MILFORD
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
LONDON   NEW YORK   TORONTO   MELBOURNE   BOMBAY

1913


OXFORD
PLATES AND LETTERPRESS
PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
BY HORACE HART

PREFACE

THE Council of the Royal Society of Medicine determined in 1912 to form a section for the study of the History of Medicine. The section immediately became popular, and one of its first actions was to arrange for the issue of occasional fasciculi dealing with such subjects in medical history as did not lend themselves readily to discussion. Mr. William Roberts pointed out in 1903 that the iconography of medical men had not yet received adequate attention, and he published (The Athenaeum, No. 3960, Sept. 19, 1903, p. 388) an account of the portraits of Dr. William Harvey which was afterwards revised and reissued in Dr. Weir Mitchell’s privately printed Some Memoranda in regard to William Harvey, M.D. (New York, 1907). This account of the portraits of William Harvey was not illustrated, but it showed that many pictures existed. The Council of the Historical Section directed their Secretaries to obtain photographs of some of the portraits and write a short account of each, whilst they invited their President to superintend the reproductions in such a manner as to enable them to be issued at a moderate cost to those who wished to know how the great master of physiology appeared to his contemporaries. The present fasciculus is the result. It proves that the undoubted and contemporary portraits of Harvey are more numerous than was expected, either because ‘the honest little Doctor’ liked to have his picture painted, or, as is the more likely, because he could not resist the importunity of artists whom he must often have desired to help pecuniarily. Numerous portraits of gentlemen of the seventeenth century with peaked beards and white collars also exist, and some of them are labelled with Harvey’s name. A comparison with the genuine portraits shows that these spurious ones can be divided into two groups: those which may have been portraits of Harvey’s brothers, supposing that a family likeness existed, and those which are clearly not portraits of any member of the Harvey family even though they are labelled with William Harvey’s name.

The genuine portraits, as they are seen in this collection, arranged in the order of apparent age, show that Harvey had a long face, not unlike that of Charles I, with refined features, and that his expression, always thoughtful, became one of settled melancholy as he grew older. His hands especially seem to have attracted the attention of the better painters; wonderfully shapely with long, thin, and nervous fingers, they seem made for delicate dissection and experimental work. His dress was a reflex of his character—in earlier years rich but not gaudy; in later years—after the execution of the King his master—always in sad colours relieved by muslin or lawn of the finest quality for collar and wristbands, but never again with lace or embroidery. A man of deep feeling, prone to anger, of the smallest stature, on the whole lovable when he was not racked by gout or sciatica.

The section of the History of Medicine owes its best thanks to those gentlemen who have allowed photographs to be made of the portraits in their possession, as well as to Mr. William Fleming of the Royal College of Physicians of London, to Mr. Sidney H. Badcock of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, to Mr. Emery Walker, and to the Clarendon Press, with its courteous Controller, for much help willingly given.

July, 1913.

CONTENTS