- Email: [email protected]
De Motu Cordis
238
TUllERCLE
TU BERCLE. PEBRUARY, 1928.
De Motu Cordis. THREE hundred years ago this year the printing press of William Fitzer, of Frankfort, gave to the world a .. miserably printed little quarto," written in Latin with" an intolerable number of print;r's errors," entitl~d E'Xercit~t~o anatomica de motu cordlS et sangu~ms in animalibus, by William Harvey, the Englishman. The revival of classical learning, which had done so much for the world of scholarship, had been slow to influence medicine. Rather, it had carried men's minds back to the fathers of medicine, Aristotle, Hippocrates, and Galen. That HlIorvey, after years of patient study, succeeded ~n free~ng himself from those old doctrmes whIch taught amongst other strange notions that the blood flowed backwards and forwards, ebbing to and fro like the tides, was a triumph the magnitude of which it is difficult to realise in these days. Perhaps it was not so remark· able that, consequent upon the publication of the little quarto volume, Harvey "fell mightily in his practice, and was believed by the vulgar that he was crack-brained, and all the physHians were against him." One of the vital steps in the argument which Harvey so laboriously built up was the significance of the pulmonary circulation. The lesser circulation, it is true, had been described by Columbus, by that strange religious martyr Servetus, and by others, but it waS Harvey who, metaphorically speak· ing, bridged the gap between the right and left sides of tbe heart. He himself realised that II the grand cllouse of hesitation and error" had hitherto been the puzzle of the intimate connection between the heart and lungs, and he devoted a sepa.rate chapter to the " percolation" of the blood through the substance of the lungs from the right ventricle of the heart into the pule monary veins and left ventricle. He
[February, 1928
foreshadowed, too, a subsequent work on respira.tion which, however, did not see the light. And in all this work he was at pains to give credit to the old ma.sters, Galen, Vesalius and the rest, even going so fa.r, as Professor Singer has recently pointed out, as to attribute to Galen a.n enlightened view of the pulmonary circulation which that great teacher did not possess. But Something more was involved in the discovery of the pulmonary circulation than the supplying of a vital missing link in the chain of evidence. This discovery paved the way for the study of the physiology of respiration, and opened up the road for the exploration of pule monary disease. There are still many unsolved problems in the pulmonary circulation. It is little short of marvel· lous that Harvey should have made such a great step forwal'd in the course of a few years. He lived for twenty· nine years after his thesis wa.s pub. lished, long enough to have Ma.lpighi demonstrate to him the circulation through the living capillaries by means of a simple microscope. Last, and not least, Harvey opened up a method of research which, as Professor Singer reminds us, had been neglected for nearly fifteen hundred years. The accumulated evidence in his argument, advancing sta~e by stage, is irresistible. To read the book now is to be forcibly reminded of the work of Charles Darwin. The same painstaking collectin" of evidence, the same logical presentation of the facts, the same caution and reserve which could consider difficulties dispassionately and philosophically are to be found in the work of each. Both men produced a revolution in scientific thought. Perhaps no more fitting comment on Harvey's work could be found than his own confession of scientific faith in his dedication to his colleagues of the Royal College of Physicians: II I profess both to learn a.nd to teach anatomy, not· from books but from dissections; not from the positions of philosophers but from the fabric of nature . . . I would not charge with wilful falsehood anyone who was sincerely anxious for truth, nor lay it to anyone'R door as 1Io crime that he had fallen into error."
TUllERCLE
TU BERCLE. PEBRUARY, 1928.
De Motu Cordis. THREE hundred years ago this year the printing press of William Fitzer, of Frankfort, gave to the world a .. miserably printed little quarto," written in Latin with" an intolerable number of print;r's errors," entitl~d E'Xercit~t~o anatomica de motu cordlS et sangu~ms in animalibus, by William Harvey, the Englishman. The revival of classical learning, which had done so much for the world of scholarship, had been slow to influence medicine. Rather, it had carried men's minds back to the fathers of medicine, Aristotle, Hippocrates, and Galen. That HlIorvey, after years of patient study, succeeded ~n free~ng himself from those old doctrmes whIch taught amongst other strange notions that the blood flowed backwards and forwards, ebbing to and fro like the tides, was a triumph the magnitude of which it is difficult to realise in these days. Perhaps it was not so remark· able that, consequent upon the publication of the little quarto volume, Harvey "fell mightily in his practice, and was believed by the vulgar that he was crack-brained, and all the physHians were against him." One of the vital steps in the argument which Harvey so laboriously built up was the significance of the pulmonary circulation. The lesser circulation, it is true, had been described by Columbus, by that strange religious martyr Servetus, and by others, but it waS Harvey who, metaphorically speak· ing, bridged the gap between the right and left sides of tbe heart. He himself realised that II the grand cllouse of hesitation and error" had hitherto been the puzzle of the intimate connection between the heart and lungs, and he devoted a sepa.rate chapter to the " percolation" of the blood through the substance of the lungs from the right ventricle of the heart into the pule monary veins and left ventricle. He
[February, 1928
foreshadowed, too, a subsequent work on respira.tion which, however, did not see the light. And in all this work he was at pains to give credit to the old ma.sters, Galen, Vesalius and the rest, even going so fa.r, as Professor Singer has recently pointed out, as to attribute to Galen a.n enlightened view of the pulmonary circulation which that great teacher did not possess. But Something more was involved in the discovery of the pulmonary circulation than the supplying of a vital missing link in the chain of evidence. This discovery paved the way for the study of the physiology of respiration, and opened up the road for the exploration of pule monary disease. There are still many unsolved problems in the pulmonary circulation. It is little short of marvel· lous that Harvey should have made such a great step forwal'd in the course of a few years. He lived for twenty· nine years after his thesis wa.s pub. lished, long enough to have Ma.lpighi demonstrate to him the circulation through the living capillaries by means of a simple microscope. Last, and not least, Harvey opened up a method of research which, as Professor Singer reminds us, had been neglected for nearly fifteen hundred years. The accumulated evidence in his argument, advancing sta~e by stage, is irresistible. To read the book now is to be forcibly reminded of the work of Charles Darwin. The same painstaking collectin" of evidence, the same logical presentation of the facts, the same caution and reserve which could consider difficulties dispassionately and philosophically are to be found in the work of each. Both men produced a revolution in scientific thought. Perhaps no more fitting comment on Harvey's work could be found than his own confession of scientific faith in his dedication to his colleagues of the Royal College of Physicians: II I profess both to learn a.nd to teach anatomy, not· from books but from dissections; not from the positions of philosophers but from the fabric of nature . . . I would not charge with wilful falsehood anyone who was sincerely anxious for truth, nor lay it to anyone'R door as 1Io crime that he had fallen into error."