But I drop my pen, dipped in milk, not in gall, as I trust you will see, and even excuse me for presuming to criticize so great a man, chosen by nature herself as one of her most favoured sons 99 1

Laudatus a laudato! Let all who have lately carped at Harvey's title, two centuries and a half after the tongues of the great men we quote were mute, take example from the illustrious discoverer of the lymphatic system, and henceforth cease from their unworthy clamour.

rare.

Specimens of Harvey's handwriting are extremely A man in his position must have written many letters in his lifetime; but few of them have been preserved; no more than nine being found in the collected edition of his works published by the College of Physicians in 1766; and to these only one or two have since been added. The one we owe to Dr. Aveling, who had it from the Bodleian Library, is plainly written from abroad and addressed, as Dr. Aveling believes, to Mr. Secretary Dorchester, sometime in the year 1631, when Harvey was in attendance on the Duke of Lennox during his travels. The burden of the letter is to petition that heHarvey-be retained in his office of Physician to the Royal Household, and that Dr. Bethune or Dr. Chambers may be appointed to perform its duties during his absence, instead of Dr. Metzler, who

1 De Lacteis Thoracis, &c. 2 ❝ Memorials of Harvey," 1875.

appears to have been brought in; "the King's Majesty having declared to him that no prejudice should arise to him through his attendance on the Duke."

In the course of this letter Harvey speaks of “the miseryes of the Cuntreys we have passed. I can only complayne that by the waye we could scarce see a dogg, crow, kite, raven, or any bird or any thing to anatomise; only sum few miserable poeple the reliques of the war and the plauge, where famine had made anatomies before I came. It is scarce credible, in soe ritch, populous, and plentiful cuntreys as these weare, that so much misery, desolation, poverty, and famine, should in soe short a time be as we have seen. I interpret it well, yt will be a greate motive for all heare to have and procure an assurance of a settled peace. It is time to leave fighting when ther is nothing to eate, nothing to be kept and gotten, and the same partyes robb one the other if they but get out of sight.

"Your hon. humble servant,

"WILL. HARVEY."

It would be difficult to sum up in fewer words the desolation that waits on war-and such a war as that on the traces of which Harvey and his party were following the Thirty Years War, from which Germany, after more than two centuries, has hardly yet recovered. How characteristic of the man, too, in

his own special sphere-there was not even anything

to anatomise!

His

The letter to Vlackveld was written the very year -even within a few weeks of the writer's death. friend must have been urging him to say something on the subject of the lacteal and lymphatic vessels, then engaging a great deal of the attention of anatomists. But he informs his correspondent that the application of the spur is all in vain. He feels his right to demand his release from duty; yet would he be ever honourably considered by his contemporaries, and begs his friend Vlackveld to love him to the

last.

By permission of the President and Censors of the College of Physicians, I am privileged to add one more to the short tale of Harvey's Letters; and as it is at once of a friendly and properly professional character, I think it must prove interesting. The letter is addressed to Dr. Baldwin Hamey, an able physician in his day, and a somewhat intimate friend of Harvey. It was lately discovered by Dr. Munk, the worthy Harveian Librarian to the College, whilst casually turning over a volume of MS. letters addressed to Hamey, and is to the following effect.

"Vir doctissime, humanissime, mihi carissime!

"Fæmina videatur mihi tamen ex ægri relatione, habitu et victus consuetudine (salvo tuo judicio), esse à passione colica eaque calida et biliosa.

qua

Esto

quod antehac evacuatur fuit pix, tamen jam subesse vel hippocondrii vel regione epigastrica apostema haud credo; tactu enim aliquid percepissem vel tumidum vel tensum. Laudo itaque tuum de sanguinis missione judicium; plethoricum ejus corpus liberaliori victui dabitum, calidum, robustum et assuetum id postulat; laudo præterea evacuationem cum pillulis Chologogis, addit: Euphorbii ß, multum enim præstat in sedandis doloribus cholicis. Laudo frequentum usum pulveris ex ebore et calcaneo cervi. Reliqua tuo Reliqua tuo relinquo consilio.

Jan. 19.

"Vale, mi amantissime,

"Tuus ex anima,

1 "Most learned, humane, and dear Sir !

"GUL. HARVEIUS."1

"The woman appears to me, from her own account and her mode of life (with deference to your judgment), to be affected with a cholic. passion of a hot and bilious nature. Suppose it was pitchy stuff that was formerly discharged, still I do not believe that there is any imposthume in the hypochondriac or epigastric region; I should else have detected either some enlargement or some tension there. I therefore approve of your decision as to blood-letting; the plethoric body of the patient, accustomed to generous diet, hot, robust, and vigorous, requires it. I also commend purging by the Chologogue Pills, with half a scruple of Euphorbia added; this medicine having an excellent effect in soothing colic pains. I also advise the frequent use of the powder of ivory and calcaneum cervi. Everything else I leave to your discretion.

Jan. 19.

"Farewell, my very dear Sir,

“Yours with all my heart,
"WM. HARVEY."

298

SECTION XV.

THE NOTE-BOOK OF 1616, AND ORIGIN OF THE IDEA OF

THE CIRCULATION.

I have already had occasion to refer to Harvey's memorandum book of 1616, of which a small but characteristic portion was selected and interpreted for Dr. Sieveking by Mr. Bond, the learned keeper of the MSS. in the British Museum. This fragment Dr. Sieveking had photographed, and shewed to his auditors when he delivered the Harveian Oration of 1877. Failing myself to discover any other equally interesting paragraph in the note-book, I too have had it photographed from the original, but upon wood, and carefully cut, so as to present the reader at once with an enduring fac-simile of the handwriting of Harvey, and of the earliest record we have from himself of his great discovery; the original and interpretation being as follows: