world any idea of the circulation of the blood through the entire body. He pointed out the familiar fact that the veins swell below and not above the bandage tied around a limb, which demonstrated that veins return the blood to the heart and not toward the external parts of the body. He also says, "The blood conducted to the heart by the veins receives there its perfection, and, this perfection acquired, it is carried by the arteries to all parts of the body."
Certainly no man can describe the general circulation more concisely or better than this.
Thus it appears in evidence that, over half a century before Harvey's discovery, Andreas Cæsalpinus lifted the veil which concealed the mysteries of Nature, sufficiently to obtain quite a clear understanding of both the lesser and the greater circulation of the blood.
His countrymen are determined to proclaim his priority, and contest the claims of Harvey for the right to wear the laurels, as will appear from the following extract taken from a recent medical journal:[1]
"A monument in honor of Andrea Cesalpino was unveiled in the University of Rome, October 30, 1876, with imposing ceremonies. The Italians claim for Cesalpino the merit of having discovered the circulation of the blood more than fifty years prior to Harvey's discovery. Dr. Giulio Ceradini, Professor of Physiology in the University of Genoa, seems to have been the orator of the day, and he recommends that over the entrance of the Pisa school, where Cesalpino first taught his discovery, there be placed the following inscription: 'Andrea Cesalpino, of Arezzo, Lecturer on Medicine in the University of Pisa, after the correction of Galen's errors as to the function of the liver and the veins, discovered the circulation of the blood through the whole body, which circulation he made manifest by vivisections after ligatures had been applied to the veins, and which in his "Quistioni Peripatetiche" and "Quistioni Mediche," pubhshed in 1569 or 1593, using the word "circulation" itself, he fully described. Ill-advised was the English Harvey, who, in 1628, dared to arrogate to himself the discovery of this mighty truth.' "
Hieronymous Fabricius ab Aquapendente (1537-1603).—Jerome Fabricius was very celebrated in his day. The republic of Venice settled upon him a yearly stipend of a thousand crowns in gold, and honored him with a statue and a golden chain; but his immortal honor consists in having discovered the valves of the veins, the anatomical proof of the circulation, and in having been the teacher of Harvey.
He discovered the valves of the veins in 1574. He saw that they open toward the heart, and that the blood could only move in that direction, the reverse of what takes place in the arteries, which have no valves. Fabricius saw the fact, but did not understand the proof it furnished that the blood moved in a continuous circuit.
The March and April numbers of the American reprint of the London Lancet, of 1877, contain two little articles, by Sampson
- ↑ New York Medical Journal, December, 1876, p. 667.
