HAEVEY. 35 •a very ricli merchant, possessed noble seats of his own, and was worth at least 3000Z. per annum. At ten years of age, he was sent to the gram- mar-school in Canterbury ; and having there laid a proper foundation of classical learning, was re- moved to Gonville and Caius College, in Cam- bridge, and admitted as a pensioner in May 1593. After spending about five years at the University, in those academical studies which are preparatory to a learned profession, he went abroad for the ac- quisition of medical knowledge, and, travelling through France and Germany, fixed himself, in his twenty- third year, at Padua. The university of this city was then in the height of its reputation for the study of physic, for which it was principally indebted to Fabricius ab Aqua- pendente, the professor of anatomy *, whose lec- tures Harvey attended with the utmost diligence. Fabricius taught the existence of valves in all the veins of the body ; and from that moment his in- teUigent pupil endeavoured to discover the use of these valves. This inquiry was the foundation of his after fame. He took his doctor's degree at Padua, in 1602, when he was only twenty-four years of age. In the course of the same year he returned to
- There is still to this day exhibited to strangers at Padua, a very
ancient anatomical theatre, which is said to have been the one built by Fabricius at his own expense. Circular seats, rising almost perpendicularly one above the other, now nearly black with age, give to the small apartment, which is wainscoted with curiously carved oak, a most solemn and venerable appearance. The lectures were given by candle-light, as, from the construction of the theatre, no other light coiild be admitted; but this, indeed, is considered to be the best mode of exhibiting to a class the various subjects which are required for the elucidation of an anatomical lecture. D 2
