Harvey, William, 1578-1657; Physicians -- England -- Biography
Harvey graduated as Doctor of Medicine at Padua in 1602 in the
presence, it is said, of Fortescue, Willoughby, Lister, Mounsell, Fox
[disguised in the Records as Vulperinus], and Darcy, some of whom
remained his friends throughout life. The eulogistic terms in which his
diploma is couched leave no doubt that his abilities had made a deep
impression upon the mind of his teachers. By some means it came into
the hands of Dr. Osmond Beauvoir, head master of the King's School,
Canterbury, by whom it was presented to the College of Physicians of
London on September 30, 1766. The diploma is dated April 25, 1602,
and it confers on Harvey the degree of Doctor of Physic, with leave
to practise and to teach arts and medicine in every land and seat
of learning. It further recites that "he had conducted himself so
wonderfully well in the examination, and had shown such skill, memory,
and learning that he had far surpassed even the great hopes which
his examiners had formed of him. They decided therefore that he was
skilful, expert, and most efficiently qualified both in arts and
medicine, and to this they put their hands, unanimously, willingly,
with complete agreement, and unhesitatingly."
Armed with so splendid a testimonial Harvey must have returned at once
to England, for he obtained the degree of Doctor of Medicine from the
University of Cambridge in the same year. The University records of
Padua seemed to show that he maintained a somewhat close relationship
with his Italian friends for some years afterwards as the following
entries appear:--
"1608-9 xxi. julii d. Gulielmus Herui, anglus.
ix-xxx d. Gulielmus Heruy.
30 D. Gulielmus Heruy anglus die xx aug. cons. anglicae electus."
The entries are given as they stand in Dr. Andrich's book, "De natione
Anglica." They need further elucidation, for they either refer to some
other person of the name of Harvey, or they point to visits made by
Harvey in some of his numerous continental journeys. It is somewhat
remarkable that all the records are found in the annals of the jurist
university when Harvey should have belonged to the humanists. Perhaps
the prestige of the dominant University more than compensated for the
separation from his colleagues who were studying medicine. Indeed
the separation may have been only nominal, for the students of the
humanist and jurist universities might have sat side by side in the
lecture theatre and in the dissecting room, just as members of the
different colleges still do in Oxford. But party distinctions ran high
at the time, and there was probably no more social intercourse between
the members of the two universities than there is now between the
individuals of different corps in a German university.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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