Let every man who has in any manner contributed to the final discovery have his just proportion of credit for what he has done, but let no man try to rob Harvey of the glory, which is rightfully his, of having perfected our knowledge of this wonderful function, modestly, lucidly, and with great forbearance and dignity, in view of the unkind opposition and even vindictive hatred which his teachings engendered.
John Aubrey,[1] who was at Harvey's funeral, and "helpt to carry him into the vault," tells us he had heard him (Harvey) say "that after his booke of the circulation of the blood came out, he fell mightily in his practice; 'twas believed by the vulgar that he was crackbrained, and all the physitians were against his opinion and envyed him."
I cannot follow the history of the opponents to Harvey's new doctrines. I will mention a few of the most potent, beginning with Primrose, of Scotland; Parisanus, of Venice; Caspar Hoffmann, the learned and laborious professor of Nuremberg; Joannes Veslingius, professor at Padua; and end with Riolanus and Guy Patin, of Paris. Neither will time permit me to more than mention a few of the powerful defenders and promulgators of this new doctrine, as it was always called, among whom were Roger Drake, his own countryman; Werner Rolfink, professor at Jena; Renatus Descartes; Sir George Ent, his biographer; and Peter Dionis, who taught it in the Jardin du Roi by order of Louis XIV.—all praise be to this King of France.
Dionis says, "I was chosen to demonstrate in your royal garden the circulation of the blood and the new discoveries, and I acquitted myself of this duty with all the ardor and the exactitude which the orders of your majestic deserve."
All this looks as if the predecessors of Harvey had failed to discover or to teach the true motion of the heart and blood. It was twenty-three years after Harvey's publication that Italy, which now claims the entire credit of the discovery, admitted the truth of the new doctrine; and about the same time John Pecquet, of Dieppe, and Thomas Bartholin, the Dane, gave in their adhesion to the new doctrine, and spread it far and near in their writings. The victory was complete when Plempius, of Louvain, who had fought Descartes so valiantly, made the following retraction:
"This discovery did not please me at all at first, as I publicly testified both by word of mouth and in my writings; but, by-and-by, when I gave myself up with firmer purpose to refute and expose it, lo! I refute and expose myself, so convincing, not to say merely persuasive, are the arguments of the author; I examine the whole thing anew and with greater care, and, having at length made the dissection of a few live dogs, I find that all his statements are most true."
Harvey knew nothing of the capillary vessels; these were demon-
- ↑ Aubrey, "Lives of Eminent Persons," 8vo, London, 1813.
