The Gallery of Portraits: with Memoirs. Volume 1 (of 7)Malkin, Arthur Thomas
History
The Gallery of Portraits: with Memoirs. Volume 1 (of 7)
Malkin, Arthur Thomas
Biography
authority imposes on the mind.
In the year 1623 Harvey became Physician Extraordinary to James I., and
seven years later was appointed Physician to Charles. He followed the
fortunes of that monarch, who treated him with great distinction, during
the first years of the civil war, and he was present at the battle of
Edgehill in 1642. Having been incorporated Doctor of Physic by the
University of Oxford, he was promoted by Charles to the Wardenship of
Merton College in 1645; but he did not retain this office very long, his
predecessor Dr. Brent being reinstated by the parliament after the
surrender of Oxford in the following year.
Harvey then returned to London and resided with his brother Eliab at
Cockaine-house in the Poultry. About the time of Charles’s execution he
gave up his practice, which had never been considerable, probably in
consequence of his devotion to the scientific, rather than the practical
parts of his profession. He himself, however, attributed his want of
success to the enmity excited by his discovery. After a second visit to
the Continent, he secluded himself in the country, sometimes at his own
house in Lambeth, and sometimes with his brother Eliab at Combe in
Surrey. Here he was visited by his friend Dr. Ent in 1651, by whom he
was persuaded to allow the publication of his work on the Generation of
Animals. It was the fruit of many years of experiment and meditation;
and though the vehicle of no remarkable discovery, is replete with
interest and research, and contains passages of brilliant and even
poetical eloquence. The object of his work is to trace the germ through
all its changes to the period of maturity; and the illustrations are
principally drawn from the phenomena exhibited by eggs in the process of
incubation, which he watched with great care, and has described with
minuteness and fidelity. The microscope had not at that time the
perfection it has since attained; and consequently Harvey’s account of
the first appearance of the chick is somewhat inaccurate, and has been
superseded by the observations of Malpighi, Hunter, and others. The
experiments upon which he chiefly relied in this department of natural
history had been repeated in the presence of Charles I., who appears to
have taken great interest in the studies of his physician.
In the year 1653, the seventy-fifth of his life, Harvey presented the
College of Physicians with the title-deeds of a building erected in
their garden, and elegantly fitted up at his expense, with a library and
museum, and commodious apartments for their social meetings. Upon this
occasion he resigned the Professorship of Anatomy, which he had held for
nearly forty years, and was succeeded by Dr. Glisson.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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