Page:The Harveian oration, 1893.djvu/31

 Descartes? Surely his contemporaries were better judges of the novelty of his views than we are!

2nd. Admitting that Servetus and Columbus taught the doctrine of the lesser circulation, we need but a moment’s thought to convince us that no complete knowledge of this part of the subject was possible until the existence of a systemic circulation was established; for the one is physically impossible without the other.

3rd. The title of Harvey’s great work is not, as it is sometimes quoted, “The Circulation of the Blood,” but “De Motu Cordis et Sanguinis.” He first showed that the flesh, or parenchyma, of the heart is true muscle, that the heart is not a passive chamber receiving the blood, but a contractile organ expelling it. Until the motive power of the heart was understood there could be no true theory of the circulation.