Page:The Harveian oration, delivered before the Royal College of Physicians, Wednesday, June 27th, 1877 (IA b22314623).pdf/6

 duced experimental proof of the circulation in 1593, that Harvey could in 1628 adduce nothing more than a fresh proof of the circulation in the venous valves, discovered by Fabricius ab Aqua- pendente as early as 1574, by demonstrating that the said valves must oppose the centrifugal move- ment of the blood in the veins. Ceradini main- tained that Harvey's merit really consists in having sustained and won a battle against ignorance and prejudice by divulging the dis- covery of Cesalpino.

Although the claims of Andrea Cesalpino of Arezzo have been put forward and amply discussed -by none, perhaps, more fully and justly than by Dr. Willis in his admirable Life of Harvey*— it has appeared to bc, under the circumstances, a duty of the Harveian orator of the present year to search the original works of Cesalpino, and to ascertain whether contemporary and later history have erred in awarding to our countryman the palm which really belongs to a greater predecessor of his. One thing appears indisputable: that, whatever Cesalpino has written, his views on the circulation were not considered of much con- sequence, and certainly not subversive of the old Galenic doctrines, at the time that Harvey resided in Padua, and subsequently Schlegel in Venice

Prefixed to the Sydenham Society's edition of the Works of William Harvey, 1847, p. 60.