Page:The Harveian oration, delivered before the Royal College of Physicians, Wednesday, June 27th, 1877 (IA b22314623).pdf/15

 eminent modern French physiologists. Flourens,* who in his Histoire de la Circulation du Sang, gives evidence of a minute study of the authors who preceded Harvey, says: "Lorsque Harvey parut, tout, relativement à la circulation, avait été indiqué ou soupçonné, rien n'était établi. Rien n'était établi, et cela est si vrai que Fabrice d'Acqua- pendente, qui vient après Césalpin et qui découvre les valvules des veines, ne connait pas la circula- tion." And it may be added that he quite misinterpreted the functions of the valves.

A careful study of the entire subject appears fully to justify the opinion expressed by Dr. Willis,t that Cesalpino, tried by a moderately searching criticism, presents himself to us as but very little further advanced than the ancients in his ideas on the motion of the blood; and, again, that "The world saw nothing of the circulation of the blood in Servetus, Columbus, Cæsalpinus, or Shakespeare, until after William Harvey had taught and written."

We all know that Harvey did not evolve his doctrine out of his inner consciousness, but that by intense application and the study of vital

au Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle de Paris, 1854, p. 28. An excellent summary of the history of the circulation is given in Mr. Lewes's Physiology of Common Life (vol. i. p. 259, 1859), in which the claims of Harvey and his predecessors are fairly and succinctly set forth. + The Life of Harvey introduction to Sydenham Society's edition of Harvey's Works, p. 63.
 * Histoire de la Circulation du Sang, par P. Flourens, Professeur