The Works of William Harvey M.D.: Translated from the Latin with a life of the authorHarvey, William
Science
The Works of William Harvey M.D.: Translated from the Latin with a life of the author
Harvey, William
Blood -- Circulation -- Early works to 1800; Embryology -- Early works to 1800; Physiology -- Early works to 1800
But these matters will be better spoken of in my observations on the
formation of the fœtus, where many propositions, the following among the
number, will be discussed: Wherefore is this part formed or perfected
first, that last?--and of the several members: what part is the cause of
another? And many points having special reference to the heart, such as:
Wherefore does it first acquire consistency, and appear to possess life,
motion, sense, before any other part of the body is perfected, as
Aristotle says in his third book, De partibus Animalium? And so also of
the blood: Wherefore does it precede all the rest? And in what way does
it possess the vital and animal principle? And show a tendency to
motion, and to be impelled hither and thither, the end for which the
heart appears to be made? In the same way, in considering the pulse:
Wherefore one kind of pulse should indicate death, another recovery? And
so of all the other kinds of pulse, what may be the cause and indication
of each. So also in the consideration of crises and natural critical
discharges; of nutrition, and especially the distribution of the
nutriment; and of defluxions of every description. Finally, reflecting
on every part of medicine, physiology, pathology, semeiotics,
therapeutics, when I see how many questions can be answered, how many
doubts resolved, how much obscurity illustrated, by the truth we have
declared, the light we have made to shine, I see a field of such vast
extent in which I might proceed so far, and expatiate so widely, that
this my tractate would not only swell out into a volume, which was
beyond my purpose, but my whole life, perchance, would not suffice for
its completion.
In this place, therefore, and that indeed in a single chapter, I shall
only endeavour to refer the various particulars that present themselves
in the dissection of the heart and arteries to their several uses and
causes; for so I shall meet with many things which receive light from
the truth I have been contending for, and which, in their turn, render
it more obvious. And indeed I would have it confirmed and illustrated by
anatomical arguments above all others.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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