as the dissection of healthy and well-constituted bodies contributes essentially to the advancement of philosophy and sound physiology, so does the inspection of diseased and cachectic subjects powerfully assist philosophical pathology." This was precisely the course which Morgagni followed and happily lived in some considerable measure to achieve; it is that also which it has been the business of modern pathology, through the illustrious line of the Baillies, Laennecs, Andrals, Louis, Cruveilhiers, Carswells, Richard Brights, Riolans, Rokitanskys, and many others, to render ever more and more complete.

Returning to our history, we find that Riolan did not fail to reply to Harvey; but without adducing a single fact calculated either to put himself in the right, or to prove his critic in the wrong. He even misunderstands Harvey at times; and shows himself nettled at the present which the English anatomist makes him of a "Third Circulation "-that, namely, through the heart, in addition to the two he has himself imagined. "This third circulation," says Riolan, "is an absurdity; for the vessels of the heart draw blood from the larger circulating vessels beyond or near the organ; consequently, not from its ventricles; so that there can be no third circulation, nothing being taken from the heart or returned to it." But whence, we may

1 Responsio ad duas exercitationes anatomicas postremas Gulielmi Harvei de Circulatione Sanguinis. Paris, 1649. And in Opusc. Anat. Paris, 1652.

ask, comes the coronary artery, and whither tends the coronary vein? The circulation through the heart, adduced by Harvey, is in fact an epitome in little of the circulation through the body in great.

Riolan's doctrine of the circulation scarcely found a single abettor and never bore fruit. It stood a barren ear amidst the lusty harvest that soon sprang up and overspread the lands from the seed sown by Harvey. Riolan, nevertheless, turning his unbelief of the truth into a faith, went on teaching his untenable doctrine to the end of his days; but so completely had physiological opinion changed ere long, that the Administration interposed, with a view to give what had come to be seen as the truth a chance of being heard, and inaugurated a second Chair of Anatomy at the Jardin du Roi. The occupant of this was Pierre Dionis, 1 a distinguished surgeon and accoucheur as well as an able anatomist. A younger man than Riolan, and committed to no theory of his own on the motion of the blood, but open to the truth and free to own his convictions, Dionis proceeded forthwith, to the delight of the students who flocked to his lectures, to teach anatomy in conformity with the new doctrine of the Harveian Circulation.

1

1 Anatomie de l'homme suivant la Circulation du Sang et les Nouvelles Découvértes. Paris, 1690. 8vo.

251

SECTION VII.

HARVEY'S VIEWS BEGIN TO BE GENERALLY ACCEPTED

DE BACK, SCHLEGEL, WALÆUS, PECQUET, BARTHOLIN, LICETUS.

HARVEY must now, indeed, have seen his views assured of general reception at no distant date. In the course of the same year in which he himself answered Riolan, Dr. de Back, of Amsterdam, published his work on the Heart,' which is written entirely in harmony with the Harveian principles, and Riverius, Professor of Medicine in the University of Montpellier, publicly defended and taught the circulation of the blood. 2 The following year, Paul Marquard Schlegel, of Hamburg, produced his commentary on the Motion of the Blood, in which he addresses himself particularly to a refutation of Riolanus, whose scholar he had been, and at the same time shows himself so thoroughly at home in the general question, that he is able to throw further confirmatory light on many of its elements by new and ingenious experiments and considerations.

3

Harvey must have been pleased with Schlegel's work, which is indeed a most able and exhaustive

1 De Corde. Amst., 1649. In English, 12mo. Lond., 1653.

2 A candour for which he was by and by summoned by an adherent of the old school to resign his chair!

3 De Sanguinis Motu Commentarius. 4to. Hamb., 1650.

criticism of the whole subject of the circulation; for he by and by sends the German author a copy of his own book "On Generation," with an admirable. letter, which has happily been preserved.

Another writer who had great influence in spreading a knowledge of Harvey's views was Jo. Walaus,' Professor of Leyden. After having ventilated the subject through the inaugural dissertation of Roger Drake, of which mention has already been made, he came forth in his own name in two excellent epistles addressed to Thos. Bartholin. In these he gives his assent almost without reservation to everything Harvey has advanced; and his letters, calling others into the field, particularly his correspondent Bartholin, and Fortunius Licetus, of Bologna,2 a copious letter writer, who went at great length into the question, North and South were amply supplied with information on the new and important discovery of the great English anatomist.

The students of 1628 and 1630, although educated in unbelief of the circulation, had, by this time come into possession of some of the professorial chairs; and, truth being ever victorious in the end, the young professors, having escaped from leading-strings and made enquiry for themselves, were now proclaiming the better faith through greater knowledge that had sprung up within them. Harvey had himself received the

1 Epistolæ duæ de Motu Sanguinis et Chyli ad Thom. Bartholinum. 12mo. Leid., 1652.

2 De Quæsitis per Epistolas a claris Viris responsa, Fortunio Liceto Authore. Part. vii. Bonon. et Utin., 1640–50.

2

seeds of his discovery in Italy; but she was slow to recognize him whom she had so powerfully contributed to form, as she has of late been the most forward of all in her mistaken attempts to rob him of his title of Discoverer. It was not, in fact, until 1651, that Harvey's views were in any way recognized beyond the Alps, when Trullius, a Roman professor, expounded and taught them, much about the same time as Pecquet of Dieppe,' Bartholin of Copenhagen, and Walæus of Leyden, men of original mind, of learning and research, gave in their adhesion to the new doctrine, and spread it far and wide by their teaching and writings. The victory of the circulation may be said to have been finally won when Plempius, of Louvain, the old antagonist of Descartes on the subject, retracted all he had formerly written against it, convinced of its truth, as he so candidly informs us, by the very pains he took to satisfy himself of its erroneousness, and publicly proclaimed his conversion : "Primum mihi hoc inventum non placuit," says the worthy Plempius—" 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

1 1 Experimenta nova Anatomica, sup. citat.

2 Anatomia ex Casp. Bartholini Parent. Instititut. ad Sanguinis Circulationem tertium Reformata. 8vo. Leid., 1651.

3 Epistolæ duæ, sup. citat.