The question touching the Discovery of the Circulation of the Blood, which will ever make Servetus an object of interest to the medical profession, and had been in abeyance for some considerable time past, has been brought under renewed consideration of late, and busts and statues of several learned and meritorious individuals have been inaugurated to their memory as ‘discoverers of the circulation.’ In the porch of the Instituto Antropologico of Madrid, for example, there is a statue raised by Dr. Velasco to the memory of Michael Servetus on this score, and we have but just heard of a bust set up at Rome to Andrea Cæsalpino on the same ground. So distinguished a physiologist as Dr. Valentin, moreover, has come forward as an advocate of the claims of another and until now unheard of discoverer of ‘the great physiological fact’ in anticipation of Harvey. In his work entitled, ‘Versuch einer physiologischen Pathologie des Herzens,’ Leipzig, 1866, Dr. Valentin will be found saying that ‘it must now be conceded that the pulmonary circulation was known to Servetus in 1553 [and he might have added, to Realdus Columbus in 1559], and both this and the general systemic circulation to Ruini, in 1598. That the pulmonic or lesser circulation--more properly the passage or mode of transference of the blood from the right to the left side of the heart--was known to Servetus and to both Columbus and Cæsalpinus after him, there can be no question; but I have assured myself, from a careful study of the works of these distinguished individuals, that none of them, least of all Ruini [Dell’ Anatomia del Cavallo, Bologna, 1598], was fully or truly informed on the subject. None of them apprehended the circulation of the blood as did Harvey, and as we his followers do in the present day. It were out of place did I pursue this subject further now; but I hope to take it up anon in a new ‘Life of Harvey,’ long meditated and all but completed, in which I shall show that after all that had been done by those who went before him, there still wanted the combining intellect, the inductive genius of a Harvey to bring light out of darkness, order out of confusion, and to lay the foundations, strong and sure, of our modern physiology and rational medicine by proclaiming the heart the moving power, and the arteries and veins the channels of a continuous, general circulation of the blood. LONDON: PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE AND PARLIAMENT STREET _HENRY S. KING & CO.’S PUBLICATIONS._ A DISCOURSE ON TRUTH. By RICHARD SHUTE, M.A. Senior Student and Tutor of Christ Church, Oxford. Large post 8vo. cloth, price 9s. PHYSIOLOGICAL ÆSTHETICS. By GRANT ALLEN, B.A. Large post 8vo. cloth, price 9s. ETHICAL STUDIES: CRITICAL ESSAYS IN MORAL PHILOSOPHY. By F. H. BRADLEY. Large post 8vo. sewed, price 2s. 6d. Mr. SIDGWICK’S HEDONISM. By F. H. BRADLEY. AN EXAMINATION OF THE MAIN ARGUMENT OF ‘THE METHODS OF ETHICS.’