1543), in the library of the city in which it was published, some years ago, and that in it there is not a word on the valves of the veins! The same excellent authority informs me that he discovered a copy of the Cananus bound up with a number of very ordinary pamphlets among the books of the Hunterian Museum of Glasgow, so that it can now be consulted without going quite so far as Ferrara. It is somewhat singular that one in general so critically exact as Haller should be found speaking of Cananus as the inventor valvularum venosarum. And he was not without the opportunity of perusing the book in which common report says the discovery is announced, for he speaks of having had two copies of it for inspection. (Conf. Bib. Anat., Tom. i. sub voc. Cananus.)

SARPI.

SARPI (Paul), of the order of the Servites, one of the most eminent of the host of eminent men his country has produced, was born at Venice in the middle of the first half of the sixteenth century. Educated for the Church and entering the priesthood, he joined the order of the Servites in the year 1566. A man of great natural talent and vast learning, Sarpi was also what was much rarer in those days, one of the freer spirits of the world, and in consequence fell under the suspicion of heresy. But he was wary as well as wise; of irreproachable life, and regular in outward observance, nothing tangible on the score of religion could be brought against him. He did not the less escape the mortal enmity of the Hierarchs of the Church of Rome, for having come to the aid of his native city in its differences with them and their aggressive head, Pope Paul V. In such mortal despite was he held by the Roman Pontiff and his advisers, that nothing short of his life was held forfeit sufficient for the stand he enabled his country to make against their encroachments. Unassailable on

public and legal grounds, assassination was the means adopted for getting rid of the formidable enemy. In an open street of Venice, accordingly, he was way. laid by a band of hired assassins, and stretched for dead on the pavement with as many as fifteen terrible wounds, each of itself as it seemed a death to life. Against all hope, however, after a struggle protracted over many months, he gradually recovered, and lived for years to do further good and influential work against Papal tyranny and aggression.

It is not of the patriot or friar, however, that we have here to speak, but of the anatomist; for he has been repeatedly credited with having preceded Fabricius of Aquapendente in his knowledge of the valves of the veins, and Harvey in his discovery of the circulation of the blood.

In the published works of Sarpi, which I have searched through, there is not a word on either the valves of the veins or the circulation of the blood. It is his friend and biographer, Fra Fulgenzio, who informs us that he was aware of the existence of these appendages, and from them had inferred the circulation. This statement has of course been repeated by all the subsequent biographers of Sarpi and historians of the circulation. Happily we have lately had a translation by a lady' from the original MS. of Fulgenzio, preserved in the archives of Venice, so that we can now judge of the

1 "The Life of Paul Sarpi, from Original Sources." By Arabella G. Campbell. Lond., 1869. 8vo.

grounds on which the reports of Sarpi's anatomical acquirements and conclusions have been circulated.

"There are many eminent and learned physicians," says Fulgenzio, "still living, who know that it was not Fabricius of Aquapendente but Fra Paolo Sarpi who, considering the weight of the blood, came to the conclusion that it would not continue stationary in the veins without there being some barrier adequate to retain it, and which by opening and shutting should afford the motion necessary to life. Under this opinion he dissected with ever greater care and found the valves. Of these he gave an account to his friends in the medical profession, particularly to l'Aquapendente, who acknowledged it in his public lectures, and it was afterwards admitted in the writings of many illustrious men."

In the life of Sarpi by Francesco Griselini, appended to an edition of the Father's works which I have consulted, the new biographer gives essentially the same story, but improves upon his predecessor Fulgenzio ; and it were easy to quote another and yet another of the prejudiced persons, who on hearsay evidence, and in absolute ignorance of the subject they write about, yet think themselves entitled to pronounce definitively on the merits or demerits of the men whose lives they misrepresent.

Nor is the statement of Fulgenzio and his followers all that has been urged for the illustrious defender of his country's rights against Papal aggression. Pietro

Gassendi, a more notable man than any of Sarpi's biographers, in his Life of his friend Peiresc,' informed him on a certain occasion that " William Harvey, an English physician, had lately published an excellent book on the course of the blood in the body; and among other arguments in favour of his views had appealed to the valves of the veins of which he had heard something from d'Aquapendente, but of which the real discoverer was Sarpi the Servite. On this he, Peiresc, desired to be furnished with the book, and to have an opportunity of examining the valves of the veins, the pores of the septum, denied by Harvey, and various other matters of which I myself will satisfy him." In this way it comes that haphazard reports get transformed into statements of facts, and honour well won in one direction is given in another in which it is altogether undeserved. We have, therefore, no evidence to show that Sarpi discovered the valves of the veins, and very certainly he knew no more of the circulation of the blood than his contemporaries of Padua and Pisa.

1 Vita viri illustri Claudii de Peiresc. Paris, 1641. 4to.