In speaking of Harvey, it is difficult to strike out any new path in a tale that has been told so often. Yet, we may extract something out of the consideration of the times in which he lived, and the men by whom he was surrounded. He was born at Folkestone, in 1578, and commenced his travels at 19 years of age. What his previous education had been does not appear, but we find him at the age of 24 elected Doctor of Medicine at Padua—then the most famous University in the world. On his return to England he received the honour of the degree of Doctor of Medicine at Cambridge. James the First, and his son, Charles the First, favoured him with their countenance, and in 1628 he was induced to publish an account of his great discovery. As a matter of course he was at once denounced as a visionary; personal abuse was unsparingly poured upon him; but as the grand fact enunciated was not to be shaken, his enemies turned round and discovered that, after all, it was not new, and had been the doctrine of many eminent physicians from the earliest days. The old, old story: the same sickening detraction—the same miserable envy rife in every age and clime. Harvey died in 1658. Shakespeare was 14 years old when Harvey was born, and the garrulous but erudite Burton was about the same age, yet strange to say, the great poet seems to have been unknown to the men of his own generation: scholars knew nothing of poor players, and he who was born to delight and instruct the future of mankind shone with but small lustre then. The history of medicine in England now begins, although for some time subsequently medical instruction was sought for in the schools of Italy, France and Holland. The Reformation had swept away the monastic institutions; but during the depressing middle ages, all the learning that barbarism had spared took refuge in the cloister. The monks practised physic very extensively, and considering the ignorance and superstition of the period, it was natural that the vulgar should prefer the medical assistance of those who arrogated to themselves the immediate assistance of Heaven in the preparation of their remedies. The women were especially fond of consulting the monks, if there be any truth in the old epigram:— “To Esculapian monks the good wives roam What marvel, they have husbands sick at home.” The alchymists again, like their lineal descendants in our days, professed to have discovered the philosophers stone, and _universal specifics_, and they were, as they are now, believed in proportion to their presumption. The practice of medicine being chiefly engrossed by empirics and monks, the latter very readily obtained licenses from the Bishops of the various dioceses who had authority to examine candidates, without having themselves any knowledge of the subjects in question, beyond that acquired in their general education.