Page:The Works of William Harvey (part 1 of 2).djvu/49

Rh upon each of the inaugural dissertations in the course of the year. Regius (Leroy), a man of much less mind and information than Drake, if we may decide from their works, was, in turn, not slow to encounter Primerose; and the spirit in which he did so, as well as the temper and taste of the reply which Primerose, true to his controversial nature, very soon produced, may, to a certain extent, be imagined from the titles of their several productions, which are given below.

Still more illustrious advocates of the Harveian circulation presented themselves in Werner Rolfink, professor of anatomy at Jena, and the celebrated Renatus Descartes. Rolfink, from his position and his popularity as a teacher, had immense influence in disseminating the new doctrine over Europe; and Descartes, under the ægis of his powerful name, was no less effective by means of his writings. Opposed in his advocacy of the Harveian views by Vopiscus Fortunatus Plempius, professor of Louvain, Descartes made himself still more thoroughly master of the subject, and when he next appears as its advocate, which he does by and by, he even appeals to the experiments he had made on living animals in support of his convictions and conclusions.

The controversy on the circulation had been carried on up to this time abroad rather than at home; Harvey seems to have won over to his side all the men of his own country who, by their education and acquirements, might have been fitted to array themselves against him: his lectures at the College of Physicians had apparently satisfied all his contemporaries. But now one of Harvey's own countrymen made his