Page:The advancement of science by experimental research - the Harveian oration, delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, June 27th, 1883 (IA b24869958).pdf/26

22 and unravel what the motions really are, and how they are performed."

Again he writes, "the very opposite of the opinions commonly received ap- pears to be true; inasmuch as it is generally believed that when the heart strikes the breast and the pulse is felt without, the heart is dilated in its ventricles and is filled with blood; but, the contrary of this is the fact, and the heart when it contracts is emptied. Whence the motion which is generally regarded as the diastole of the heart is in truth its systole; and in like manner the intrinsic motion is not the diastole but the systole; neither is it in the diastole that the heart grows firm and tense, but in the systole, for then only, when tense, is it moved and made vigorous."

One quotation further from the works of Harvey; he writes, "What remains to be said upon the quantity and source of the blood which thus passes, is of so novel and unheard of a character, that I not only fear injury to myself from the envy of a few, but I tremble lest I