Page:The rise of physiology in England - the Harveian oration delivered before the Royal College of Physicians, October 18th, 1895 (IA b24974778).pdf/70

 fire; the aliment we take in las in it in a fixed state the real life, and this does not become active until it has got into the lungs, for there it is freed from its prison."1

Note v, p. 35.

An amusing instance of the sort of attacks which were made on Harvey is to be met with in a pamphlet dedicated to Sir Thos. Mayerne, to be found in Somer's Tracts, second collection, vol. ii, p. 423. The pamphlet is entitled "A most certaine and true Relation of a strange Monster or Serpent found in the left Ven- tricle of the Heart of Johu Pennant, Gentleman of the Age of 21 years. By Edward May, Doctor of Philosophy and Physick, and Professor elect of them in the College of the Academy of Noblemen called the Museum Minerve. Physician also extra- ordinary unto her most sacred Majesty Queen of Great Britain, &c," 1639. The attack on Harvey is in a fool-note, and runs as follows: Ilere those men may be handsomely questioned who say that the pulse is nothing else but the impulse of the blood into the arteryes or the systole of the heart; what was become of the pulse in this man all the while, that the whole blood betooke itself into the heart? here was either a living man without pulse or pulse without the systole of the heart. For what could the arteries receive when nothing was to be received? Or how could there be pulse when there was no impulse into the arteryes? The pulse then doubtless is om another eause, and is a farre other matter than most men conceive: for there are in a sound man 4-150 pulsations in an houre, in a sick man, some percute ferers and diseases, above 35,600 and more, which cannot be from so many several expressions or receptions of the blood; for it is im- possible the heart should make compression and the arteryes apertion so often in that space. Nay, in Dicrot, Caprizant, and other inordinate pulses, diverse pulses strike in lesse space than the open mouth of an artery can open, shut, and open again, which

Essays and Observations, edited by R. Owen, vol. i, p. 113.