“1604 Nov. 24. William Harvey, Dr. of Physic, Bachelor, 26, of St. Martin’s, Ludgate, and Elizabeth Browne, Maiden, 24, of St. Sepulchre’s, daughter of Lancelot Browne of same, Dr. of Physic who consents; consent also of Thomas Harvey, one of the Jurats of the town of Folston in Kent, father of the said William; at St. Sepulchre’s Newgate.”
“1604 Nov. 24. William Harvey, Dr. of Physic, Bachelor, 26, of St. Martin’s, Ludgate, and Elizabeth Browne, Maiden, 24, of St. Sepulchre’s, daughter of Lancelot Browne of same, Dr. of Physic who consents; consent also of Thomas Harvey, one of the Jurats of the town of Folston in Kent, father of the said William; at St. Sepulchre’s Newgate.”
Dr. Browne was physician to Queen Elizabeth and to James I. He died the year following the marriage of his daughter.
Harvey’s union was childless, and we know nothing of Mrs. Harvey except that she died before her husband, though she was alive in 1645, when John Harvey died and left her a hundred pounds. She isincidentally mentioned by her husband in the following account of an accomplished parrot, who was Mrs. Harvey’s pet. Through a long life the parrot maintained the masculine character until in one unguarded moment she lost both life and reputation.
“A parrot, a handsome bird and a famous talker, had long been a pet of my wife’s. It was so tame that it wandered freely through the house, called for its mistress when she was abroad, greeted her cheerfully when it found her, answered her call, flew to her, and aiding himself with beak and claws, climbed up her dress to her shoulder, whence it walked down her arm and often settled upon her hand. When ordered to sing or talk, it did as it was bidden even at night and in the dark. Playful and impudent, it would often seat itself in my wife’s lap to have its head scratched and its back stroked, whilst a gentle movement of its wings and a soft murmur witnessed to the pleasure of its soul. I believed all this to proceed from its usual familiarity and love of being noticed, for I always looked upon the creature as a male on account of its skill in talking and singing (for amongst birds the females rarely sing or challenge one another by their notes, and the males alone solace their mates by their tuneful warblings) ... until ... not longafter the caressings mentioned, the parrot, which had lived for so many years in health, fell sick, and by and by being seized with repeated attacks of convulsions, died, to our great sorrow, in its mistress’s lap, where it had so often loved to lie. On making a post-mortem examination to discover the cause of death I found an almost complete egg in its oviduct, but it was addled.”
There are no means of knowing how Harvey spent the first few years of his married life in London, though it is certain that he was not idle. He was probably occupied in making those observations on the heart and blood vessels which have since rendered his name famous. Indeed his lectures show an intimate acquaintance with the anatomy of more than sixty kinds of animals, as well as a very thorough knowledge of the structure of the human body, and such knowledge must have cost him years of patient study. At the same time he practised his profession, and won for himself the good opinion of his seniors.
He was elected a Fellow of the College of Physicians, June 5, 1607, and thereupon he sought almost immediately to attach himself to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital.
The offices in the hospital at that time were usually granted in reversion—that is to say, a successor was appointed whilst the occupant was still in possession. Following this custom the hospital minutes record that—
“At a Court [of Governors] held on Sunday, the 25thday of February, Anno Domini 1608-9,“In presence of Sir John Spencer, Knight, President(and others).“Mr.[1]Dr.Harvey“This day Mr. William Harvey Doctor of Physic made suit for the reversion of the office of the Physician of this house when the same shall be next void and brought the King’s Majesty his letters directed to the Governors of this house in his behalf, and showed forth a testimony of his sufficiency for the same place under the hand of Mr. Doctor Adkynson president of the College of the physicians and diverse other doctors of the auncientest of the said College. It is granted at the contemplation of his Majesty’s letters that the said Mr. Harvey shall have the said office next after the decease or other departure ofMr. Doctor Wilkenson who now holdeth the same with the yearly fee and duties thereunto belonging, so that then he be not found to be otherwise employed, that may let or hinder the charge of the same office, which belongeth thereunto.”
“At a Court [of Governors] held on Sunday, the 25thday of February, Anno Domini 1608-9,
“In presence of Sir John Spencer, Knight, President(and others).
“Mr.[1]Dr.Harvey
“This day Mr. William Harvey Doctor of Physic made suit for the reversion of the office of the Physician of this house when the same shall be next void and brought the King’s Majesty his letters directed to the Governors of this house in his behalf, and showed forth a testimony of his sufficiency for the same place under the hand of Mr. Doctor Adkynson president of the College of the physicians and diverse other doctors of the auncientest of the said College. It is granted at the contemplation of his Majesty’s letters that the said Mr. Harvey shall have the said office next after the decease or other departure ofMr. Doctor Wilkenson who now holdeth the same with the yearly fee and duties thereunto belonging, so that then he be not found to be otherwise employed, that may let or hinder the charge of the same office, which belongeth thereunto.”
This grant practically gave Harvey the position which is now occupied by an assistant physician, as one who was appointed to succeed to an office in this manner was usually called upon to discharge its duties during the absence or illness of the actual holder. Harvey seems to have carried out his duties with tact and zeal, for Dr. Wilkinson, himself a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, gave him the benefit of his professional experience and remained his friend.
It seems possible that John Harvey’s position at Court enabled him to obtain from the King the letters recommendatory which rendered his brother’s application so successful at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. However this may be, Harvey did not long occupy the subordinate position, for Dr. Wilkinson died late in the summer of 1609, and on August 28 in the same year Harvey offered himself to the House Committee “to execute the office of physician of this house until Michaelmas next, without any recompensefor his pains herein, which office Mr. Doctor Wilkinson, late deceased, held. And Mr. Doctor Harvey being asked whether he is not otherwise employed in any other place which may let or hinder the execution of the office of the physician toward the poor of this hospital hath answered that he is not, wherefore it is thought fit by the said governors that he supply the same office until the next Court (of governors). And then Mr. Doctor Harvey to be a suitor for his admittance to the said place according to a grant thereof to him heretofore made.” The form of his election therefore was identical with that which is still followed at the Hospital in cases of an appointment to an uncontested vacancy. The House Committee or smaller body of Governors recommend to the whole body or Court of Governors with whom the actual appointment lies.
Harvey performed his duties as physician’s substitute at the hospital until—
“At a Court [of Governors] held on Sunday the 14thday of October 1609.“In presence of Sir John Spencer, Knight, President(and others).“Dr.Harvey.“This day Mr. William Harvey Doctor of Physicis admitted to the office of Physician of this Hospital, which Mr. Dr. Wilkenson, deceased, late held, according to a former grant made to him and the charge of the said office hath been read unto him.”
“At a Court [of Governors] held on Sunday the 14thday of October 1609.“In presence of Sir John Spencer, Knight, President(and others).
“Dr.Harvey.
“This day Mr. William Harvey Doctor of Physicis admitted to the office of Physician of this Hospital, which Mr. Dr. Wilkenson, deceased, late held, according to a former grant made to him and the charge of the said office hath been read unto him.”
The charge runs in the following words; it is dated the day of Harvey’s election:—
“October 14, 1609.“The Charge of the Physician of St. Bartholomew’sHospital.“Physician.“You are here elected and admitted to be the physician for the Poor of this Hospital, to perform the charge following, That is to say, one day in the week at the least through the year or oftener as need shall require you shall come to this hospital and cause the Hospitaller, Matron, or Porter to call before you in the hall of this hospital such and so many of the poor harboured in this hospital as shall need the counsell and advice of the physician. And you are here required and desired by us, in God his most holy name, that you endeavour yourself to do the best of your knowledge in the profession of physic to the poor then present, or any other of the poor at any time of the week which shall be sent home unto you by theHospitaller or Matron for your counsel, writing in a book appointed for that purpose such medicines with their compounds and necessaries as appertaineth to the apothecary or this house to be provided and made ready for to be ministered unto the poor, every one in particular according to his disease. You shall not, for favour, lucre, or gain, appoint or write anything for the poor but such good and wholesome things as you shall think with your best advice will do the poor good, without any affection or respect to be had to the apothecary. And you shall take no gift or reward of any of the poor of this house for your counsel. This you will promise to do as you shall answer before God, and as it becometh a faithful physician, whom you chiefly ought to serve in this vocation, is by God called unto and for your negligence herein, if you fail, you shall render account. And so we require you faithfully to promise in God his most holy name to perform this your charge in the hearing of us, with your best endeavour as God shall enable you so long as you shall be physician to the poor of this hospital.”
“October 14, 1609.
“The Charge of the Physician of St. Bartholomew’sHospital.
“Physician.
“You are here elected and admitted to be the physician for the Poor of this Hospital, to perform the charge following, That is to say, one day in the week at the least through the year or oftener as need shall require you shall come to this hospital and cause the Hospitaller, Matron, or Porter to call before you in the hall of this hospital such and so many of the poor harboured in this hospital as shall need the counsell and advice of the physician. And you are here required and desired by us, in God his most holy name, that you endeavour yourself to do the best of your knowledge in the profession of physic to the poor then present, or any other of the poor at any time of the week which shall be sent home unto you by theHospitaller or Matron for your counsel, writing in a book appointed for that purpose such medicines with their compounds and necessaries as appertaineth to the apothecary or this house to be provided and made ready for to be ministered unto the poor, every one in particular according to his disease. You shall not, for favour, lucre, or gain, appoint or write anything for the poor but such good and wholesome things as you shall think with your best advice will do the poor good, without any affection or respect to be had to the apothecary. And you shall take no gift or reward of any of the poor of this house for your counsel. This you will promise to do as you shall answer before God, and as it becometh a faithful physician, whom you chiefly ought to serve in this vocation, is by God called unto and for your negligence herein, if you fail, you shall render account. And so we require you faithfully to promise in God his most holy name to perform this your charge in the hearing of us, with your best endeavour as God shall enable you so long as you shall be physician to the poor of this hospital.”
Dr. Norman Moore says that, as physician, Harvey sat once a week at a table in the hall of the hospital, and that the patients who were brought to him sat byhis side on a settle—the apothecary, the steward, and the matron standing by whilst he wrote his prescriptions in a book which was always kept locked. The hall was pulled down about the year 1728, but its spacious fireplace is still remembered because, to maintain the fire in it, Henry III. granted a supply of wood from the Royal Forest at Windsor. The surgeons to the hospital discharged their duties in the wards, but the physician only went into them to visit such patients as were unable to walk.
The office of physician carried with it an official residence rented from the governors of the hospital at such a yearly rent and on such conditions as was agreed upon from time to time. Harvey never availed himself of this official residence, for at the time of his election he was living in Ludgate, where he was within easy reach of the hospital. For some reason, however, it was resolved at a Court of Governors, held under the presidency of Sir Thomas Lowe on July 28, 1614, that Harvey should have this residence, consisting of two houses and a garden in West Smithfield adjoining the hospital. The premises were let on lease at the time of the grant, but the tenure of Harvey or of his successor was to begin at its expiration. The lease did not fall in until 1626,when Harvey, after some consideration, decided not to accept it. It was therefore agreed, on July 7, 1626, that his annual stipend should be increased from £25 to £33 6s. 8d. In these negotiations, as well as in some monetary transactions which he had with the steward of the hospital at the time of his election as physician to the hospital, we seem to see the hand of Eliab, for throughout his life William was notoriously open-handed, indifferent to wealth, and constitutionally incapable of driving a bargain.
Until the year 1745 the teaching of Anatomy in England was vested in a few corporate bodies, and private teaching was discouraged in every possible way, even by fine and imprisonment. The College of Physicians and the Barber Surgeons’ Company had a monopoly of the anatomical teaching in London. In the provinces the fragmentary records of the various guilds of Barber Surgeons show that many of them recognised the value of a knowledge of Anatomy as the foundation of medicine. In the universities there were special facilities for its teaching. But subjects were difficult to procure, and dissection came to be looked upon as part of a legal process so inseparably connected with the death penalty for crime that it was impossible to obtain even the body of a “stranger” for anatomical purposes.
The Act of Parliament which, in 1540, united the Guild of Surgeons with the Company of Barber Surgeons in London especially empowered the masters of the united company to take yearly the bodies of four malefactors who had been condemned and put to death for felony for their “further and better knowledge, instruction, insight, learning, and experience in the science and faculty of surgery.” Queen Elizabeth, following this precedent, granted a similar permission to the College of Physicians in 1565. The Charter allowed the President of the College of Physicians to take one, two, three, or four bodies a year for dissection. The radius from which the supply might be obtained was enlarged, so that persons executed in London, Middlesex, or any county within sixteen miles might be taken by the college servants.
The proviso would appear to be unnecessary, considering the great number of executions which then took place and the small number of bodies which were required, but it probably enabled the subjects to be obtained with greater ease. The executions in London were witnessed by great crowds, who often sided with the friends of the felons, and rendered it impossible for the body to be taken away for dissection. The Charter of James I. enlarged these powers byallowing the College of Physicians to take annually the bodies of six felons executed in London, Middlesex, or Surrey.
Little is known in detail of the manner in which Anatomy was taught by the College of Physicians, but the labours of Mr. Young and Mr. South have given us an accurate picture of the way in which it was carried out by the Barber Surgeons in London. We may be sure that in so conservative an age the methods did not differ greatly at the two institutions, especially as the Barber Surgeons usually enlisted the services of the better trained physicians to teach their members both Anatomy and Surgery.
Anatomy was taught practically in a series of demonstrations upon the body; but as there was no means of preserving the subject, it had to be taught by a general survey rather than in minute detail. The method adopted was the one still followed by the veterinary student. A single body was dissected to show the muscles (this was the muscular lecture); another to show the bones (the osteological lecture); another to show the parts within the head, chest, and abdomen (the visceral lecture). The osteological lecturer was not always identical with the visceral lecturer, nor he with the lecturer upon the muscles,though some great teachers, like Reid and Harvey, gave a course upon each subject.
The Demonstrations usually took place four times a year, and were called Public Anatomies, because the subject was generally a public body—that is to say, it was a felon executed for his misdeeds. There was also an indefinite number of Private Anatomies. The attendance of surgeons at the Public Anatomies was compulsory. The attendance at the Private Anatomies was by invitation. It was illegal for any surgeon to dissect a human body in the City of London, or within a radius of seven miles, without permission of the Barber Surgeons’ Company; and in 1573 the Company’s Records for May 21st contain the minute: “Here was John Deane and appointed to bring in his fine of ten pounds (for having an Anatomy in his house contrary to an order in that behalf) between this and Midsummer next”—an enormously heavy punishment when we remember the relative value of money in those days. Whenever a surgeon wished to dissect a particularly interesting subject, it was termed a Private Anatomy, and it was generally performed at the Hall of the Company after due permission had been asked for and obtained, the surgeon inviting his own friends and pupils, the Company inviting whom it chose.
Every effort was made to insure the punctual attendance at the public or compulsory anatomies, for it was enacted in 1572 that every man of the Company using the mystery or faculty of surgery, be he freeman, foreigner, or alien stranger, shall come unto the Anatomy lecture, being by the beadle warned thereto. And for not keeping their hour, both in the forenoon and also in the afternoon, and being a freeman, shall forfeit and pay at every time fourpence. The foreigner (or one who was not free of the Company) in like manner, and the stranger sixpence. The said fines and forfeits to be employed by the anatomists for their expenses. Excuses were sometimes admitted, for a few years earlier Robert Mudsley “hath licence to be absent from all lecture days without payment of any fine because he hath given over exercising of the art of Surgery and doth occupy only a silk shop and shave.” In later years, the higher the position of the defaulter in the Company, the heavier was his fine for non-attendance; so that the assistants of the Company, who corresponded to the Council of the present Royal College of Surgeons, were fined 3s. 4d. for each lecture they missed.
Every effort was made to render the lecturessuccessful. The best teachers were obtained; they were paid liberally, and each lecturer or reader was himself assisted by two demonstrators. Each course lasted three days—a lecture in the morning, a lecture in the afternoon, and a feast between the two lectures. As the anatomies were a public show, we may feel sure that Pepys attended one, and, as usual, he gives a perfectly straightforward account of the proceedings. He records under the date February 27, 1662-1663: “Up and to my office.... About eleven o’clock Commissioner Pett and I walked to Chyrurgeon’s Hall (we being all invited thither, and promised to dine there), where we were led into the Theatre: and by and by comes the reader Dr. Tearne, with the Master and Company in a very handsome manner: and all being settled, he begun his lecture, this being the second upon the kidneys, ureters, &c., which was very fine; and his discourse being ended, we walked into the Hall, and there being great store of company, we had a fine dinner and good learned company, many Doctors of Phisique, and we used with extraordinary great respect.... After dinner Dr. Scarborough took some of his friends, and I went along with them, to see the body alone, which we did, which was a lusty fellow, a seaman that was hanged for a robbery.I did touch the dead body with my bare hand: it felt cold, but methought it was a very unpleasant sight.... Thence we went into a private room, where I perceive they prepare the bodies, and there were the kidneys, ureters, &c., upon which he read to-day, and Dr. Scarborough, upon my desire and the company’s, did show very clearly the manner of the disease of the stone and the cutting, and all other questions that I could think of.... Thence with great satisfaction to me back to the Company, where I heard good discourse, and so to the afternoon lecture upon the heart and lungs, &c., and that being done we broke up, took leave and back to the office, we two, Sir W. Batten, who dined here also, being gone before.” Pepys’ interest in this particular lecture lay in the fact that he had himself been cut for stone, a disease which seems to have been hereditary in his mother’s family. Dr. Scarborough, who had been the Company’s lecturer for nineteen years, was the friend and pupil of Harvey, whose interest had obtained the post for him. He seems to have been succeeded by Dr. Christopher Terne, assistant physician to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, whose lecture Pepys heard.
The cost of the lectures and demonstrations wasdefrayed at first by the Corporations, but in course of time, benefactors came forward and bequeathed funds for the purpose. In the year 1579 there was a motion before the Court of the Barber Surgeons’ Company concerning a lecture in surgery “to be had and made in our Hall and of an annuity of ten pounds to be given for the performance thereof yearly by Master Doctor Caldwall, Doctor in phisick; but it was not concluded upon neither was any further speech at that time.” No reference to the proposal occurs subsequently in the minute books, so that the idea was probably abandoned, no doubt upon the ground that it would lead to additional expense which the Company was unprepared to meet. The annuity was only ten pounds a year, and in 1646 the cost of the lectures, including the dinners, amounted to £22 14s. 6d., or without the feasts to £12 14s. 6d. It is now obvious that the Company did a very stupid thing, for in 1581, two years later, Lord Lumley in conjunction with Dr. Caldwell, and at his instance, founded the Lumleian lectureship at the College of Physicians. The surgeons thus lost a noble benefaction which should of right have belonged to them and with which Harvey might still have been associated, for whilst hewas lecturing at the College of Physicians, Alexander Reid, his junior in years as well as in standing, was lecturing at the Barber Surgeons’ Hall in Monkwell Street.
The Lumleian lecture was a surgery lecture established at a cost of forty pounds a year, laid as a rent charge upon the lands of Lord Lumley in Essex, and of Dr. Caldwell in Derbyshire.
Its founders were two notable men. Lord Lumley, says Camden, was a person of entire virtue, integrity, and innocence, and in his old age, was a complete pattern of true nobility. His father, the sixth baron, suffered death for high treason, but the son was made a Knight of the Bath two days before the coronation of Queen Mary. He was one of the lords appointed to attend Queen Elizabeth at her accession, in the journey from Hatfield to London, and at the accession of James I. he was made one of the Commissioners for settling the claims at his coronation. He died April 11, 1609, without surviving issue. Dr. Caldwell had enjoyed unique honour at the College of Physicians. He was examined, approved, and admitted a Fellow upon 22nd December, 1559, and upon the same day he was appointed a Censor. He became President in1570, and was present at the institution of the lecture in 1582. He was then so aged, his white head adding double reverence to his years, that when he attempted to make a Latin oration to the auditors he was compelled to leave it unfinished by reason of his manifold debilities. And in a very short time afterwards the good old doctor fell sick, and as a candle goeth out of itself or a ripe apple falleth from a tree, so departed he out of this world at the Doctors’ Commons, where his usual lodgings were, and was buried on the 6th of June immediately following, in the year 1584, at S. Ben’et’s Church by Paul’s Wharf, at the upper end of the chancel.
The design of the benefaction was a noble one. It was the institution of a lecture on Surgery to be continued perpetually for the common benefit of London and consequently of all England, the like whereof had not been established in any University of Christendom (Bologna and Padua excepted). An attempt had been made to establish such a lectureship at Paris, but the project failed when Francis I. died, on the last day of March, 1547.
The reader of the Lumleian lecture was to be a Doctor of Physic of good practice and knowledge who was to be paid an honest stipend, no less inamount than that received by the Regius Professors of law, divinity, and physic, in the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. The lecturer was enjoined to lecture twice a week throughout the year, to wit on Wednesdays and Fridays, at ten of the clock till eleven. He was to read for three-quarters of an hour in Latin and the other quarter in English “wherein that shall be plainly declared for those that understand not Latin.”
The lecturer was appointed for life and his subjects were so arranged that they recurred in cycles. The first year he was to read the tables of Horatius Morus, an epitome or brief handling of all the whole art of surgery, that is, of swellings, wounds, ulcers, bone-setting, and the healing of broken bones commonly called fractures. He was also to lecture upon certain prescribed works of Galen and Oribasius, and at the end of the year in winter he was directed “to dissect openly in the reading place all the body of man, especially the inward parts for five days together, as well before as after dinner; if the bodies may last so long without annoy.”
The second year he was to read somewhat more advanced works upon surgery and in the winter “to dissect the trunk only of the body, namely, from thehead to the lowest part where the members are and to handle the muscles especially. The third year to read of wounds, and in winter to make public dissections of the head only. The fourth year to read of ulcers and to anatomise [or dissect] a leg and an arm for the knowledge of muscles, sinews, arteries, veins, gristles, ligaments, and tendons. The fifth year to read the sixth book of Paulus Aegineta, and in winter to make an anatomy of a skeleton and therewithall to show the use of certain instruments for the setting of bones. The sixth year to read Holerius of the matter of surgery as well as of the medicines for surgeons to use. And the seventh year to begin again and continue still.”
The College of Physicians made every effort to fulfil its trust adequately. Linacre, its founder and first President in 1518, allowed the Fellows to use the front part of his house—the stone house in Knightrider Street, consisting of a parlour below and a chamber above, as a council room and library, and the college continued to use these rooms for some years after his death, the rest of the premises being the property of Merton College, Oxford. At the Institution of the Surgery lecture the Fellows determined to appropriate the sum of a hundred pounds out of theircommon stock—and this proved to be nearly all the money the College possessed—to enlarge the building and to make it more ornamental and better suited for their meetings and for the attendance at their lectures. The result appears to have been satisfactory, for two years later, it was ordered, on the 13th of March, 1583-1584, that a capacious theatre should be added to the College thus enlarged.
Dr. Richard Forster was appointed the first Lumleian lecturer, and when he died in 1602, William Dunne took his place. Dunne, however, did not live to complete a single cycle of lectures for Thomas Davies was elected in May, 1607. The College then again began to outgrow its accommodation, and as the site did not allow of any further additions to the buildings, a suitable house and premises were bought of the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul’s in Amen Corner, at the end of Paternoster Row. The last meeting of the College in Linacre’s old house in Knightrider Street, took place on the 25th of June, 1614, and its first meeting in Amen Corner was held on the 23rd of August, 1614. Dr. Davies died in the following year, and on the 4th of August, 1615, William Harvey was appointed to the office of Lumleian lecturer, though hispredecessor was not buried until August 20th. He continued to occupy this post until his resignation in 1656, when his place was taken by (Sir) Charles Scarborough. The duties of the lecturer, no doubt, had been modified with each fresh appointment, but even in Harvey’s time, there is some evidence to show that the subjects were still considered in a definite order.
Harvey, in all probability, began to lecture at once upon surgery as the more theoretical portion of his subject, but it was not until April, 1616, that he gave his first anatomical lecture. It was a visceral lecture for the terms of the bequest required that it should be upon the inward parts. At this time Harvey was thirty-seven years of age. A man of the lowest stature, round faced, with a complexion like the wainscot; his eyes small, round, very black and full of spirit; his hair as black as a raven and curling; rapid in his utterance, choleric, given to gesture, and used when in discourse with any one, to play unconsciously with the handle of the small dagger he wore by his side.
The MS. notes of his first course of lectures are now in the British Museum. They formed a part of the library of Dr. (afterwards Sir Hans) Sloane,which was acquired under the terms of his will by the nation in 1754. For a time the book was well known and extracts were made from it, then it disappeared and for many years it was mourned as irretrievably lost. But in 1876 it was found again amongst some duplicate printed books which had been set aside, and in the following year it was restored to its place in the Manuscript Department. The notes were reproduced by an autotype process, at the instigation of Sir E. H. Sieveking, and under the supervision of a Committee of the Royal College of Physicians. This facsimile reproduction was published in 1886 with a transcript by Mr. Scott, and an interesting introduction from the pen of Dr. Norman Moore. The original notes are written upon both sides of about a hundred pages of foolscap, which had been reduced to a uniform size of six inches by eight, though the creases on the paper show that they have been further folded so as to occupy a space of about eight inches by two. These leaves have been carefully bound together in leather which presents some pretensions to elegance, but it is clear that the pages were left loose for some years after they were written. There seems to be no doubt that Harvey used the volume in its present form whilst he was lecturing, for three small threads of twine havebeen attached by sealing wax to the inner side of the cover so that additional notes could be slipped in as they were required. It must be assumed that Harvey did this himself, for he wrote so badly and the notes are so full of abbreviations, interlineations, and alterations, as to render them useless to any one but the author.
The title-page, which is almost illegible, is written in red ink. It runs, “Stat Jove principium, Musae, Jovis omnia plena. Prelectiones Anatomiae Universalis per me Gulielmum Harveium Medicum Londinensem Anatomie et Chirurgie Professorem. Anno Domini 1616. Anno aetatis 37 prelectae Aprili 16, 17, 18. Aristoteles Historia Animalium, lib. i. cap. 16. Hominum partes interiores incertae et incognitae quam ob rem ad caeterorum Animalium partes quarum similes humanae referentes eas contemplare.” The motto prefixed to the title-page that “everything is full of Jove” is an incorrect quotation from the third Eclogue of his favourite author Virgil, of whom he was so enamoured that after reading him for a time he would throw away the book with the exclamation, “He hath a devil.” This particular line appears especially to have struck his fancy, for he quotes it twice in his treatise on development, and he works out the idea which it represents in his fifty-fourth essay.He there shows that he understands it to mean that the finger of God or nature, for with him they are synonymous terms, is manifest in every detail of our structure whether great or small. For he says: “And to none can these attributes be referred save to the Almighty, first cause of all things by whatever this name has been designated—the Divine Mind by Aristotle; the Soul of the Universe by Plato; the Natura Naturans by others; Saturn and Jove by the Gentiles; by ourselves, as is seemly in these days, the Creator and Father of all that is in heaven and earth, on whom all things depend for their being, and at whose will and pleasure all things are and were engendered.” He thus opened his lectures in a broad spirit of religious charity quite foreign to his environment but befitting the position he has been called upon to occupy in the history of science.
These notes of Harvey’s visceral lecture are of especial value to us though they are a mere skeleton of the course—a skeleton which he was accustomed to clothe with facts drawn from his own vast stores of observation, with the theories of all his great predecessors and with the most apposite illustrations. Fortunately they deal with the thorax and its contents so that they show us the exact point whichhe had reached in connection with his great discovery of the circulation of the blood and the true function of the heart. The notes therefore are interesting reading quite apart from the peculiarities of their style.
Harvey was so good a Latin scholar, and during his stay in Italy had acquired such a perfect colloquial knowledge of the language that it is clear he thought with equal facility in Latin or in English, so that it is immaterial into which language he put his ideas. He uses therefore many abbreviations, and whole sentences are written in a mixture of Latin and English, which always sounds oddly to our unaccustomed ears, and often seems comical. Thus, in speaking of the lungs and their functions, he says, “Soe curst children by eager crying grow black and suffocatednon deficiente animali facultate,” and in speaking of the eyes and their uses, he says, “Oculi eodem loco, viz., Nobilissimi supra et ante ad processus eminentes instar capitis in a Lobster ... snayles cornubus tactu pro visu utuntur unde occuli as a Centinell to the Army locis editis anterioribus.” Sometimes he embodies an important experimental observation in this jargon as in the example, “Exempto corde, frogg scipp, eele crawle, dogg Ambulat.”
The more important and original ideas throughoutthe notes are initialled WH., and this seems to have been Harvey’s constant practice, for it occurs even in the books which he has read and annotated, whilst to other parts of his notes he has appended the sign Δ.
The lectures were partly read and partly oral, and we know from the minute directions laid down by the Barber Surgeons Company the exact manner in which they were given. The “Manual of Anatomy,” published by Alexander Reid in 1634, has a frontispiece showing that the method of lecturing adopted in England was the same as that in use throughout Europe. The body lay upon a table, and as the dissections were done in sight of the audience, the dissecting instruments were close to it. The lecturer, wearing the cap of his doctor’s degree, sate opposite the centre of the table holding in his hand a little wand[2]to indicate the part he mentions, though in many cases the demonstration was made by a second doctor of medicine known as the demonstrator, whilst the lecturer read his remarks. At either end of the table was an assistant—the Masters of the Anatomy—with scalpel in hand ready to expose the different structures, and to clear up anypoints of difficulty. The audience grouped themselves in the most advantageous positions for seeing and hearing, though in some cases places were assigned to them according to age and rank.
The lecturer upon Anatomy, apart from the fact that he was a Doctor of Physic was a person of considerable importance in the sixteenth century. The greatest care was taken of him, as may be understood from the directions which the Barber Surgeons gave to their Stewards in Anatomy or those members of the Company who were appointed to supervise the arrangements for the lectures. They were ordered “to see and provide that there be every year a mat about the hearth in the Hall that Mr. Doctor be made not to take cold upon his feet, nor other gentlemen that do come and mark the Anatomy to learn knowledge. And further that there be two fine white rods appointed for the Doctor to touch the body where it shall please him; and a wax candle to look into the body, and that there be always for the doctor two aprons to be from the shoulder downwards and two pair of sleeves for his whole arm with tapes, for change for the said Doctor, and not to occupy one Apron and one pair of sleeves every day which is unseemly. And the Masters of the Anatomy thatbe about the body to have like aprons and sleeves every day both white and clean. That if the Masters of the Anatomy that be about the Doctor do not see these things ordered and that their knives, probes, and other instruments be fair and clean accordingly with Aprons and sleeves, if they do lack any of the said things afore rehearsed he shall forfeit for a fine to the Hall forty shillings.”
The whole business of a public anatomy was conducted with much ceremony, and every detail was regulated by precedent. The exact routine in the Barber Surgeons’ Company is laid down in another series of directions. The clerk or secretary is instructed in his duties in the following words: “So soon as the body is brought in deliver out your tickets which must be first filled up as followeth four sorts:—The first form, to the Surgeons who have served the office of Master you must say: Be pleased to attend &c. with which summons you send another for the Demonstrations: to those below the Chair [i.e., who have not filled the office of Master of the Company] you say: Our Masters desire your Company in your Gown and flat Cap &c. with the like notice for the Demonstrations as you send to the ancient Master Surgeons. To the Barbers, if ancient masters, yousay: Be pleased to attend in your Gown only, and if below the Chair, then: Our Masters desire &c. as to the others above, but without the tickets for the demonstrations.
“The body being by the Masters of Anatomy prepared for the lecture (the Beadles having first given the Doctor notice who is to read) and having taken orders from the Master or Upper Warden [of the Company] of the Surgeons’ side concerning the same, you meet the whole Court of Assistance [i.e., the Council] in the Hall Parlour where every gentlemen cloathes himself [i.e., puts on his livery or gown], and then you proceed in form to the Theatre. The Beadles going first, next the Clerk, then the Doctor, and after him the several gentlemen of the Court; and having come therein, the Doctor and the rest of the Company being seated, the Clerk walks up to the Doctor and presents him with a wand and retires without the body of the Court [i.e., the theatre in which the assemblage of the company technically constituted a “court”] until the lecture is over when he then goes up to the Doctor and takes the wand from him with directions when to give notice for the reading in the afternoon which is usually at five precisely, and at one of the clock at noon, which hepronounces with a distinct and audible voice by saying, This Lecture, Gentlemen, will be continued at five of the clock precisely. Having so said he walks out before the Doctor, the rest of the Company following down to the Hall parlour where they all dine, the Doctor pulling off his own robes and putting on the Clerk’s Gown first, which it has always been usual for him to dine in. And after being plentifully regaled they proceed as before until the end of the third day, which being over (the Clerk having first given notice in the forenoon) that the lecture will be continued at five of the clock precisely (at which time the same will be ended) he attends the Doctor in the clothing room where he presents him folded up in a piece of paper the sum of ten pounds, and where afterwards he waits upon the Masters of Anatomy and presents each of them in like manner with the sum of three pounds, which concludes the duty of the Clerk on this account.
“N.B.—The Demonstrator, by order of the Court of Assistants, is allowed to read to his pupils after the public lecture is over for three days and till six of the clock on each day and no longer, after which the remains of the body is decently interred at the expence of the Masters of Anatomy, which usuallyamounts unto the sum of three pounds seven shillings and fivepence.”
The study of Anatomy seems to have been regarded universally as an exhausting occupation, for throughout Europe it was the custom to present the auditors with wine and spices after each lecture, unless some more substantial refreshment was provided.
Harvey’s lectures at the College of Physicians were probably given with similar ceremony to those just described. His first course was delivered on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, April 16, 17, and 18, 1616. On the following Tuesday, April 23rd, Shakespeare died at Stratford-on-Avon, and on the succeeding Thursday, April 25th, he was buried in the chancel of the parish church.
At the beginning of his lectures Harvey lays down the following excellent canons for his guidance, of which the sixth seems to indicate that he was acquainted with the works of John of Arderne—
1. To show as much as may be at a glance, the whole belly for instance, and afterwards to subdivide the parts according to their position and relations.2. To point out what is peculiar to the actual body which is being dissected.3. To supply only by speech what cannot be shown on your own credit and by authority.4. To cut up as much as may be in the sight of the audience.5. To enforce the right opinion by remarks drawn from far and near, and to illustrate man by the structure of animals according to the Socratic rule [given by Aristotle and affixed as an extract to the title-page of the lectures[3]]. To bring in points beyond mere anatomy in relation to the causes of diseases, and the general study of nature with the object of correcting mistakes and of elucidating the use and actions of parts for the use of anatomy to the physician is to explain what should be done in disease.6. Not to praise or dispraise other anatomists, for all did well, and there was some excuse even for those who are in error.7. Not to dispute with others, or attempt to confute them, except by the most obvious retort, for three days is all too short a time [to complete the work in hand].8. To state things briefly and plainly, yet not letting anything pass unmentioned which can be seen.9. Not to speak of anything which can be as well explained without the body or can be read at home.10. Not to enter into too much detail, or into too minute a dissection, for the time does not permit.11. To serve in their three courses according to the glass (i.e., to allot a definite time to each part of the body). In the first day’s lectures the abdomen, nasty, yet recompensed by its infinite variety. In the second day’s lecture the parlour [i.e., the thorax?]. In the third day’s lecture the divine banquet of the brain.
1. To show as much as may be at a glance, the whole belly for instance, and afterwards to subdivide the parts according to their position and relations.
2. To point out what is peculiar to the actual body which is being dissected.
3. To supply only by speech what cannot be shown on your own credit and by authority.
4. To cut up as much as may be in the sight of the audience.
5. To enforce the right opinion by remarks drawn from far and near, and to illustrate man by the structure of animals according to the Socratic rule [given by Aristotle and affixed as an extract to the title-page of the lectures[3]]. To bring in points beyond mere anatomy in relation to the causes of diseases, and the general study of nature with the object of correcting mistakes and of elucidating the use and actions of parts for the use of anatomy to the physician is to explain what should be done in disease.
6. Not to praise or dispraise other anatomists, for all did well, and there was some excuse even for those who are in error.
7. Not to dispute with others, or attempt to confute them, except by the most obvious retort, for three days is all too short a time [to complete the work in hand].
8. To state things briefly and plainly, yet not letting anything pass unmentioned which can be seen.
9. Not to speak of anything which can be as well explained without the body or can be read at home.
10. Not to enter into too much detail, or into too minute a dissection, for the time does not permit.
11. To serve in their three courses according to the glass (i.e., to allot a definite time to each part of the body). In the first day’s lectures the abdomen, nasty, yet recompensed by its infinite variety. In the second day’s lecture the parlour [i.e., the thorax?]. In the third day’s lecture the divine banquet of the brain.
Harvey adheres pretty closely in his visceral lecture to the programme which he had thus laid down for his own guidance.
The first set of notes deal with the outside of the body, and the abdomen and its contents. The second portion contains an account of the chest and its contents; whilst the third portion is devoted to a consideration of the head with the brain and its nerves. Only nine pages of the ninety-eight which the book contains are allotted to the heart. The scheme of the lectures is first to give a general introduction in which the subject is arranged under different headings, and then to consider each part under a variety of sub-headings. Harvey’s playfulness is shown even in theintroduction. Each main division is indicated by a roughly drawn hand, and each hand is made to point with a different finger. The first hand points with its little finger, and has the other fingers bent, though the thumb is outstretched as if applied to the nose of the lecturer. The next heading is indicated by an extended ring finger, the next by the middle finger, whilst the later ones are mere “bunches of fives,” or single amputated digits. In his description of the abdomen Harvey shows himself fully alive to the evils of tight-lacing, for, in speaking of the causes of difficult respiration he says, “young girls by lacing: unde cut their laces.” After a full discussion of the situation and functions of the various parts of the abdominal viscera, he passes on to the thorax and enunciates his memorable discovery in these remarkable words, which are initialled to show that he thought the idea was peculiarly his own:—
“It is plain from the structure of the heart that the blood is passed continuously through the lungs to the aorta as by the two clacks of a water bellows to raise water.“It is shown by the application of a ligature that the passage of the blood is from the arteries into the veins.“Whence it follows that the movement of the blood is constantly in a circle, and is brought about by the beat of the heart. It is a question therefore whether this is for the sake of nourishment or rather for the preservation of the blood and the limbs by the communication of heat, the blood cooled by warming the limbs being in turn warmed by the heart.”
“It is plain from the structure of the heart that the blood is passed continuously through the lungs to the aorta as by the two clacks of a water bellows to raise water.
“It is shown by the application of a ligature that the passage of the blood is from the arteries into the veins.
“Whence it follows that the movement of the blood is constantly in a circle, and is brought about by the beat of the heart. It is a question therefore whether this is for the sake of nourishment or rather for the preservation of the blood and the limbs by the communication of heat, the blood cooled by warming the limbs being in turn warmed by the heart.”
Here the notes on the heart end abruptly, and Harvey passes on to consider the lungs. These few sentences show, however, that he had discovered the circulation, and that although he delayed for twelve years to make his results public he was unable to add any important fact in the interval.
The College of Physicians still preserve some interesting memorials of this portion of Harvey’s Lumleian lectures. They consist of a series of six dissections of the blood vessels and nerves of the human body, which are traditionally reported to have been made by Harvey himself. The dissections are displayed upon six boards of the size of the human body, and they exhibit the complete system of the blood vessels separated from the other parts so as to form diagrams of the circulatory apparatus. They have been made with such care that one of the series still shows the semilunar valves at the beginning of theaorta. These “tabulae Harveianae” were kept for many years at Burley-on-the-Hill, the seat of the Earls of Winchelsea, one of whose ancestors—Heneage Finch—the Lord Chancellor Nottingham, married Elizabeth, a daughter of William Harvey’s younger brother Daniel.
Harvey continued his Lumleian lectures year by year, but we know nothing more of them until 1627, when he delivered a series of lectures upon the anatomy and physiology of the human body, more especially of the arm and leg, with a description of the veins, arteries, and nerves of these parts. This was clearly the Muscular lecture, and if he had followed the course prescribed by the founders of the lecture it should have been given in the years 1619 and 1625, for the years 1621 and 1627 should not have embraced an anatomical course. The notes of the Muscular lecture are in the Sloane collection at the British Museum, where they have been preserved by as happy an accident as those of the much more important Visceral lecture. The volume consists of 121 leaves with writing upon both sides of each page. The notes are as rough and as concise as those of the Visceral lecture, and the language is again a mixture of Latin and homely English. They show, like thetreatise on development, that Harvey had by no means emancipated himself from the trammels of authority. He felt for Aristotle what many of us still feel for John Hunter, for he said of his great Master that he had hardly ever made any discovery in connection with the structure of an animal but that Aristotle either knew of it or explained it. He seems to have given his fertile imagination full play in these lectures, and amongst a wealth of similes we find:—