



Produced by Amy E. Zelmer





WILLIAM HARVEY AND THE DISCOVERY OF THE CIRCULATION OF THE BLOOD

By Thomas H. Huxley


[1]



I DESIRE this evening to give you some account of the life and labours
of a very noble Englishman--William Harvey.

William Harvey was born in the year 1578, and as he lived until the year
1657, he very nearly attained the age of 80. He was the son of a small
landowner in Kent, who was sufficiently wealthy to send this, his eldest
son, to the University of Cambridge; while he embarked the others in
mercantile pursuits, in which they all, as time passed on, attained
riches.

William Harvey, after pursuing his education at Cambridge, and taking
his degree there, thought it was advisable--and justly thought so, in
the then state of University education--to proceed to Italy, which
at that time was one of the great centres of intellectual activity in
Europe, as all friends of freedom hope it will become again, sooner or
later. In those days the University of Padua had a great renown;
and Harvey went there and studied under a man who was then very
famous--Fabricius of Aquapendente. On his return to England, Harvey
became a member of the College of Physicians in London, and entered into
practice; and, I suppose, as an indispensable step thereto, proceeded
to marry. He very soon became one of the most eminent members of the
profession in London; and, about the year 1616, he was elected by the
College of Physicians their Professor of Anatomy. It was while Harvey
held this office that he made public that great discovery of the
circulation of the blood and the movements of the heart, the