William Harvey

“ Contemporary with Galileo, and ranking but little below him in influence upon the modern world, was William Harvey. Harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood, combined with the truly scientific methods by which he reached, and afterward proved, his great result, has placed his name high on the roll of science. Not only does his work stand at the foundation of modern anatomy and medicine, but it has given him place in the ranks of great philosophers as well. ”

“ He was the most successful of the merchant brothers, and to his watchful care William owed much of his material wealth; for Aubrey says that “William Harvey took no manner of care about his worldly concerns, but his brother Eliab, who was a very wise and prudent manager, ordered all not only faithfully but better than he could have done for himself.” Eliab had estates at Roehampton, in Surrey, [8] and at Chigwell, in Essex. He built the “Harvey Mortuary Chapel with the outer vault below it” in Hempstead Church, near Saffron Walden. ”

“ The armies were then disbanded, and for a time peace seemed to be restored. The King again visited Scotland, and a meeting of the Estates was held, whilst in London the Long Parliament met on the 3rd of November, 1640, and chose Lenthall their Speaker.
Harvey must have witnessed all these events, for he was in close personal attendance upon the King during the whole time. He received a warrant by Royal Sign Manual whilst the King was at York, addressed to the Comptroller of the Household and dated the 25th of September, 1640, by which the King gives £200 to Dr. William Harvey for his diet. ”

“ He was buried at Hempstead, in Essex, and was 64‘lapped’ in a leaden case, which was shaped in form of the body, with a label bearing the illustrious name of William Harvey, M.D., on his breast.
The last will and testament of men who lay claim to any celebrity appear to us to merit notice as indicative of character. Harvey’s will did not in any way belie his life. He left his faithful steward and brother, Eliab Harvey, the bulk of his property in money and land, as likewise (Aubrey thinks out of tender sentiment) his silver coffee-pot ”

“ It was immediately deposited in the sarcophagus in the presence of the President, the Office Bearers, and many Fellows of the Royal College of [174] Physicians. A leaden case was also deposited within the sarcophagus containing the quarto edition of Harvey’s works in Latin, edited in 1766 by Drs. Akenside and Lawrence, with a memorial bottle hermetically sealed and containing a scroll with the following memorial:
“The body of William Harvey lapt in lead, simply soldered, was laid without shell or enclosure of any kind in the Harvey vault of this Church of Hempstead, Essex, in June, 1657. ”

“ William Harvey (1578-1657) .—I will be brief in my sketch of the crowning hero of the story of the circulation of the blood. William Harvey was born of a highly-respectable Kentish family, April 1, 1578—wanting one year of three centuries ago. Great men have chiefly come of superior and noble-minded mothers. ”

“ Fabricius could observe, and he could describe; but he wanted the combining intellect that infers, the imagination that leads to new ideas—to discovery. Though he did little himself, however, to advance the sum of human knowledge, he proved a tooth in the wheel that has since put in motion the whole machinery of modern medical science. He it was who sowed the seed, little dreaming of its kind, which, finding one spot of congenial soil, sprung up a harvest that has continued to nurture the world of physiological science to the present hour. ”

“ The work on which he had been chiefly engaged at Oxford, and indeed since the publication of his treatise on the circulation in 1628, was an investigation into the recondite but deeply interesting subject of generation. Charles I. had been an enlightened patron of Harvey’s studies, had put the royal deer parks at Windsor and Hampton Court at his disposal, and had watched his demonstration of the growth of the chick with no less interest than the movements of the living heart. Harvey had now collected a large number of observations, though he would probably have delayed their publication. ”

“ This view of Fabricius is therefore both imperfect and incorrect; inasmuch as he does not think of what nature performs in fact in the work of generation, so much as of what in his opinion she ought to do, betrayed into this by his comparison with the edifice reared by art. As if nature had imitated art, and not rather art nature!—mindful of which he himself says afterwards: [288] “It were better to say that art learned of nature, and was an imitator of her doings; for, as Galen everywhere reminds us, nature is both older and displays greater wisdom in her works than art.” ”

“ He had lived frugally in Shropshire until shortly before his death, when he was brought to London by Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, who showed him to the King. Harvey examined the body on the 16th of November, 1635, the birthday—as he is careful to note—of Her Serene Highness Henrietta Maria, Queen of Great Britain, France, and Ireland. The notes of the autopsy came into the possession of Harvey’s nephew Michael, who presented them to Dr. Bett, and they were not printed until 1669, when they were [112] published in Dr. Bett’s work “On the Source and Quality of the Blood.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is rather curious, moreover, to find Harvey, in his work on Generation, not entirely escaping the pitfall of which he was so well aware, and which he shunned so successfully in his earlier production. In the work on the Heart, he sets out with the certainty that the whole of the notions of the ancients on the heart and blood are untenable; and then, taking Nature for his guide, his fine intellect never once suffers him to stray from the right path. ”

“ About this time he gave up engraving altogether and devoted himself entirely to drawing on wood.
William Harvey was a great and highly-gifted artist, a true man, a friend and counsellor to us from the time of our earliest efforts to the day of his death. He was a fine conversationalist, brimful of anecdotes, chiefly concerning a notable group of artists, authors, [Pg 15] and men of law, many of whom had gone, and others who were then passing away. As an illustrator he held the town for many years, and in connection with Charles Knight did much to popularise black and white work ”

“ Head and shoulders, to the right, nearly full face; wearing a dark gown with wide falling collar and tassels loosely tied. The face is thoughtful, with a full moustache and pointed beard. Head covered with a skull-cap allowing the hair to escape below it and exposing a wide brow. The canvas is signed very obscurely in the corner, just above the right shoulder, ‘C. J. 1641’. It is attributed to Janssen and was bought by Mr. Erich at a sale. It appears doubtful whether the portrait represents Dr. William Harvey. ”

“ His friendship with Harvey, commenced at Oxford, continued unabated to the end of his patron’s life; and when on July 28, 1656, Harvey presented to the College of Physicians the title-deeds of his paternal estate in Kent and resigned his Lumleian lectureship, the office was transferred to Charles Scarborough. In his will, too, Harvey makes affectionate mention of his friend, and bequeaths to him his surgical instruments and his velvet gown, so that literally as well as metaphorically Harvey’s mantle fell upon Sir Charles Scarborough, and he nobly sustained the charge, great as it was. ”

“ The ears are placed entirely out of position, the large, redundant [176] head of hair is altogether out of character, imaginary and badly executed, and the drapery of the shoulders is simply despicable.” We have nevertheless to thank the rude sculptor for the care he has devoted to the face, and we are enriched by the knowledge supplied to us by a great contemporary authority in sculpture, that the true lineaments of William Harvey, as they were seen at the time of his death, are still in our possession—lineaments which indicate a face at once refined, reflective, and commanding. ”

“ If ever the world was an oyster for a youth the world of Harvey and the fullness thereof was an oyster to Thomas Van Dorn. He had all that the crude western community cherished: the prestige of money, family, education, and that indefinable grace and courtesy of body and soul that we call charm. And Harvey people seemed to be made for him. He liked their candor, their strength, their crass materialism, their bray and bluster, their vain protests of democracy and their unconscious regard for his caste and culture. ”

“ The surrender of Oxford in 1645 marks the period of Harvey’s severance from the Court and of his practical retirement from public life. He was now 68; a martyr to gout, childless, and suffering under a series of heavy bereavements, he can have had but little heart to re-enter upon an active professional life in London. His twin brothers Matthew and Michael died in 1643. ”

“ We can imagine no discomfiture while the heavenly light shines through us. Harvey, though he thought with humility of his past as impotent and ignoble in respect of action, felt with his rich vivid consciousness that he was capable of entering into her subtlest emotions. He could not think of the future without her; he could not give up the hope of drawing nigh with her to those mysteries of life which haunted them both. ”

“ Portrait of a lady in the dress of the reign of Queen Elizabeth; in the corner of the picture appears “obiit 25 Maii 1622.” (5) , (6) and (7) Portraits of ladies in the dress of the eighteenth century. (8) Portrait of a gentleman in the dress of Charles II.’s time. (9) Portrait of a gentleman in the dress of Queen Anne’s reign.
[11]
II
Early Life
Very little is known of the early life of William Harvey. His preliminary education was probably carried on in Folkestone, where he learnt the rudiments of knowledge, gaining his first acquaintance with Latin. ”

“ Anglus Med. Reg. et Anatomie professor. Londin: May 8 A.D. 1641.”
[“‘For toil the Gods sell everything.’
“This was willingly written as a mark of friendship for the noble young Doctor Philip de Glarges by William Harvey, the Englishman, Physician to the King and Professor of Anatomy.
“At London 8 May A.D. 1641.”]
Nothing appears to be known of De Glarges except that he was a wandering student of medicine, theology, and philosophy, and an ardent collector of autographs. He seems to have graduated at the Hague in 1640 when he defended a thesis upon palpitation of the heart. ”

“ On the 16th of August, 1642, the King left London, and six days later his standard was raised at Nottingham. Harvey accompanied him. The newly raised troops belonging to the Parliament, as yet ignorant of the trammels of discipline, broke into the houses of suspected persons, rifled them of their contents and often sold their booty for the merest trifle. Harvey had been living in his official lodgings at Whitehall, and though he attended the King, not only with the consent, but at the desire of the Parliament, he was very rightly suspected of being a vehement Royalist. ”

“ It is a three-quarter length on canvas measuring 4 ft. 31⁄2 in. by 3 ft. 41⁄2 in., and represents Harvey standing and leaning lightly upon a crutch stick which he holds in his right hand, whilst in his left is a handkerchief with a gold fringe. He is dressed soberly in black with the plain white collar. The hair is iron-grey and long, as we know that he usually wore it. The face is small, drawn, pointed, with a good strong brow and forehead and a delicate mouth, shaded but not concealed by the small moustache and slightly peaked beard. ”

“ In Oxford he very soon settled down to his accustomed pursuits, unmindful of the clatter of arms and of the constant marching and countermarching around him, for the city remained the base of operations until its surrender in July, 1646. Aubrey says that he first saw Harvey at Oxford “in 1642, after the Edgehill fight, but [I] was then too young to be acquainted with so great a doctor. I remember he came several times to our College [Trinity] to George Bathurst, B.D., who had a hen to hatch eggs in his chamber, which they opened daily to see the progress and way of generation.” ”

“ Harvey was a man of the most liberal education, and lived in an age when every man of liberal education wrote and conversed in Latin with ease at least, if not always with elegance. Harvey's Latin is generally easy, often elegant, and not unfrequently copious and imaginative; he never seems to feel in the least fettered by the language he is using.
Harvey, if eager in the acquirement of knowledge, was also ready at all times to communicate what he knew, "and," as Aubrey has it, "to instruct any that were modest and respectful to him. ”

“ The Wills of great men have always been looked on as calculated to throw light on the character of their authors; and I have, therefore, great pleasure in presenting to the medical world, for the first time, the Will of William Harvey. ”