VOL. XXXVI

NO. 1

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MONG the wonderful achievements of the preceding century was the introduction of antiseptic surgery. The world resounds with its triumphs. Heralded by anesthesia, the handmaiden of surgery-a contribution to science than which none was ever more beneficent-and followed by the illumination of the hitherto obscure field of bacteriology, antisepsis and its sisters, anesthesia and bacteriology, have combined to make the present time the most brilliant epoch in the annals of the art of healing.

Yet, nearly three hundred years ago, as great a light had burst upon the scientific horizon when William Harvey published his discovery of the circulation of the blood. For years he had perceived faint glimmerings of the truth, and had labored incessantly toward the full understanding of this mystery of nature which had baffled wise men in all the ages.

William Harvey was born in 1578 at Folkestone, England. His family belonged to the yeoman class. Fuller says he was one of " week" of sons, and, being the eldest, was bred to learning. He received his early edu

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cation at the grammar school at Canterbury, but in 1597 he began the study of medicine at the University of Padua in Italy, then a great school, which some little time previously had an enrollment of 18,000 students. He graduated with high honors. His diploma mentions his admirable conduct as well as his wonderful powers of mind. He is described as an active, energetic young man, short of stature, with round face, olive skin, flashing black eyes, long dark beard and a most intellectual expression.

He returned to England in 1602, but did not come into any prominence until 1607, when he was elected to a Fellowship in the College of Physicians of London. During these years he was probably making the struggle of all medical men who have risen to eminence-doing good without hope of reward; spending days and nights in study and investigation; burning with enthusiasm, yet content to wait; alternately depressed and hopeful. But he was not poor. His brothers, to whom he was most tenderly attached and with whom (first one, then another) he made his home, were wealthy merchants and anxious to aid him. No doubt he mingled

with the world, making friends and frequenting the coffee-houses then just coming into vogue.

In 1609 he was elected physician to St. Bartholomew's Hospital, a very honorable post, for which he was recommended by King James himself. This made him widely known and brought him a large practice. But the hospital life of that day was very different from what we know at present, and hospitals with rare exceptions (Milan, for instance) were rude structures, generally a number of wards radiating from a central chapel. But slight attention was paid to hygiene.

Fancy a hospital in which the resident physician, except in cases of emergency, was not expected to visit a patient in the wards, but simply gave advice concerning the cases which the surgeons brought to his notice. The interne wore a gorgeous and costly robe provided by the Governors, which, according to our modern ideas, was strangely out of place in the infected wards. The resident physician exercised general supervision over the surgeons, who were regarded as inferior to the physicians. They were liable to prosecution and fine if they attempted to combat disease with internal remedies; yet, notwithstanding these strictures, one of them, John Woodhull, conferred a priceless boon on humanity by teaching the profession how they might prevent scurvy, at that time and throughout the Middle Ages one of the most destructive diseases known, whose advent in camp and fleet had heralded disaster to the expeditions of the greatest generals and the most fearless admirals,

In 1616 he delivered the Lumleian Lectures (annually delivered to this day) on Anatomy and Surgery, and astonished his hearers by his peculiar theory of the circulation of the blood concerning which scientists had held the most diverse views.

His lectures attracted the attention of King James and in 1623 Harvey was made physician extraordinary to the King. On Charles's

accession in 1625, he became the trusted physician of the Court, and was so much in demand that he was obliged to shun practice in order to secure time for his experiments. By the King's desire he accompanied members of the royal family on their travels, he was attached to embassies to foreign countries, and was the King's companion in his frequent long journeys about the kingdom. All this enhanced his reputation, for, wherever possible, he continued his experiments and gave demonstrations. He did not get his knowledge from books, but from what he actually observed in dogs, pigs, serpents, frogs, toads, fishes, slugs, oysters, lobsters, insects and chicks in the shell. Charles, himself, was an amateur doctor, and it became the fashion for the Court to drop in at Harvey's laboratory to see his experiments. In the mornings here might be found gravelooking statesmen, beaux in lace ruffles and high-heeled shoes, gay maids of honor and gallant noblemen. The King allowed Harvey to use the royal herd of deer for his experiments, the Court being most interested in his researches into generation. He quaintly tells how, after a rare finding, he "forthwith sought his Majesty and showed him the treasure in the presence of many persons." One day a young nobleman fell and gashed a hole in his side through which the lungs, as was supposed, could be seen. The King gave command that Harvey should go and lay open the side for inspection. To the latter's joy, it was the heart he saw, not the lungs. He, therefore, carried the young man, as he tells us, "alive and well and without detriment," into the King's presence, and together they observed the motions of the heart, touched the ventricles as they contracted, and found the organ to be insensible. The King watched just as eagerly his demonstration of the growth of a chick as he did the movements of the living heart. Harvey, this bold seeker after truth, was far from being the typical court physician-fawning, self-seek