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Home , Ralph Bathurst

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF DR. * By SIR WILMOT HERRINGHAM, K.C.M.G., C.B., M.D., F.R.C.P. HAMPSTEAD,

Part ii * difficulty made it harder for English- in. Harv ey fr om 1600 to 1628 men to study in Italy, and the Dutch On leaving Cambridge Harvey went schools rose to the first place. to Padua to complete his medical Harvey’s master in anatomy, of studies. He there appears as D. whom he always speaks in terms of Gulielmus Arveius, Anglus, first in the highest veneration, was Fabricius the list of the English students in the ‘da Aquapendente. Galileo was lectur- Universitas Juristarum for 1600. There ing to immense audiences when Harvey was also at Padua a Universitas was there, but Fabricius’ theater, Artistarum (Universitas in medieval which is still in existence, is a small Latin was used of any club association area surrounded by a steep series of or corporation), including the faculties steps on which the students stood and of divinity, medicine and philosophy, looked down upon the dissection be- to which Harvey would more properly neath, much as fifty years ago students have belonged, but the Jurists’ Uni- looked down on operations in some versitas was the more fashionable of surgical theaters at our London schools. the two. The entry is repeated in 1601, Harvey’s diploma, which is pre- and there is also a record on August 1, served at the College of Physicians, 1600, 1601, and 1602 that Harvey was is couched in very florid language, and elected Member of Council (Con- has sometimes been quoted as a proof ciliarius) of the English nation in of his early excellence, but, judging the same association, so that though from other diplomas, it was the he took his degree April 25, 1602, he language ordinarily used. It bears at appears to have remained at Padua at the top of the first page “an oval any rate until August. shield gules a dexter sleeved arm and Padua had been during the 16th hand issuant from the sinister side, century, the chief center of anatom- sustaining pale-wise a candle lighted ical research and teaching. Vesalius, argent with rays or issuant from the Eustachius, Columbus, Falloppius and flame and entwined by two serpents of Fabricius, who by dissection of the the second.”12 This shield is painted human body, which was unknown to twice in the lower cloister at Padua, Galen, had laid afresh the foundation and is reproduced also in the portrait of human anatomy, were all professors of Harvey at Ditchingham, where it is at Padua, and English physicians accompanied by the motto Piu arde beginning with Caius, who lived in the piu splende, “The more it burns, the same house with Vesalius, and Linacre, more it shines.” A copy also hangs in resorted thither to learn medicine, the library of the College of Physicians. and commonly took the Paduan m.d . In 1602, Harvey returned to Eng- In the 17th century the religious land, incorporated m.d . at Cambridge, * Part i of this article appeared in the March, 1932 issue of the Annals of Medi cal Hist ory , vol. iv, No. 2, p. 109. and settled in St. Martin’s, Ludgate. Elizabeth and King James, and died To his early years belongs the in 1605.14 following record; perhaps to 1604.13 On June 5, 1607, Harvey was elected a Fellow of the college, and on Febru- ary 25, 1609, he applied for the post To the Right Honourable Sir Thomas Lowe Knight. of Physician in Reversion, correspond- ing to what is now Assistant Phy- Whereas it hath pleased His Majesty to direct his privy seal to William Harvey sician, to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, doctor of physic for to borrow of him six bringing letters of recommendation pounds and thirteen shillings and four- from the King, obtained, perhaps, pence we whose names are underwritten through his brother John, and testi- do certify unto you that the said Doctor monials from Dr. Adkyns, President Harvey is a young man whose father is of the College of Physicians, and other yet living and that being to begin the Fellows. The Court of Governors world and to live by his profession his “granted at the contemplation of means and abilities are such as in our His Majesty’s letters that the said judgment he is unfit to lend. Mr. Harvey shall have the said office Robert Shawe Joseph Fenton next after the decease or other depar- [Signature illegible] Richard Coop ture of Mr. Doctor Wilkenson who Ric. Mapes. Edw. Grayne now holdeth the same,” provided he Adam [illegible] Henry Warden. be not then in any other employment [These persons who are unknown were that may hinder him in performing probably neighbors.] the duties of the office.15 Dr. Wilkenson died that summer, He was admitted a Candidate, which and the house committee, on August corresponds to the membership of the 28, provisionally appointed Harvey to College of Physicians of the present execute his office until the Court time, on August 7, 1604. For some should meet. On October 14, the reason his examination was inter- Court made the appointment. All rupted. He presented himself for the officers of the Hospital to the present first time on May 4, 1603, ubi examina- day receive a charge on appointment, tus ad omnia satis apte respondit. and Harvey’s Charge is preserved in Nihilo minus in alium tempus dilatus the Journals and printed at length est cum conniventia ad Praxin, that is, by Sir D’Arcy Power.16 he was allowed to practice though A curious episode occurred a week the examination was left unfinished. later, when John Harvey prosecuted He was examined a second time Marten Llewellyn the Steward of the on April 2, 1604, and on August Hospital for a debt of £52.10.0, long 7, was again examined and elected overdue to William Harvey. The (et eligitur). He was formally admitted steward was ordered by the Lord a sworn “Secundum formam Statuto- Mayor and Aidermen to pay the rum pro Candidatis” on Oct. 5, follow- whole of his yearly stipend of £10 to ing. On November 24 of that year Dr. Harvey till the debt should be he was married at St. Sepulchre’s, at fully paid.17 the corner of Giltspur Street, to In 1613 Harvey was appointed Elizabeth, daughter of Dr. Lancelot Censor of the College of Physicians. Browne, who was Physician to Queen It was an office of great responsibility then, as it is now. He was appointed James 1 to William Harvey Censor again in 1625, and in 1629. Royal Letters, Warrants. On August 4,1615, he was appointed Trustye and welbeloved, wee greet you Lumleian Lecturer to the College. well. Whereas we were graciously pleased The Lumleian was a lectureship on heretofore to promise you the next place surgery and anatomy founded by which should fall voyde by death, resig- Lord Lumley at the instance of Dr. nation or otherwise of Dr. Attkins, Dr. Mayerne, Dr. Chambers or Dr. Lister, Caldwell in 1581. Lord Lumley was a our foure physitians in ordinarie which Knight of the Bath and highly re- wee intend shall be certainly performed, spected for his character. He died in we have though fitt neverthelesse out of 1609 without issue. Dr. Caldwell was our speciall favor unto you, in respect a well-known and respected physician both of your ability in your profession who had the unusual honor of being and allso of your long being our servant appointed Censor the very day that extraordinary, to lett you knowe that in he was elected Fellow, December 22, the meantyme your attendance upon our 1559. He was President in 1570 and Person shall be as gratefull and with as died in 1584. A regular course extend- much freedome to waite as our other ing over six years was laid down for physitions doe. Given under our signet at the lectures, which were to consist of our pallace of Westmr. the third day of ffebruary in the twentieth year of our readings from received authors on Raigne of Great Brittain, ffrance and surgery with comments, partly in Ireland. Latin and partly in English, together with dissections in the winter. Harvey, In March, 1625, he and his brother John however, gave his first anatomical were admitted Members of Gray’s lectures, on the viscera, on April 16, Inn and in that month he attended 17 and 18, 1616. His notes, half King James in his last illness. Latin and half English, written in his When, in 1626, the House of Com- execrable handwriting, were found, mons accused Buckingham of High after they had long been lost, in the Treason before the House of Lords, British Museum, in 1876. They were the thirteenth Article of the Accusa- photographed, deciphered and printed tion stated that the Duke had been by the College. guilty of “transcendent presumption” On May 7, 1618, the College pub- in administering to the King a plaster lished the “Pharmacopoeia Londinen- and a posset, which the physicians sis,” in which Harvey, who had been a did not advise, and the ingredients member of the committee which dealt of which were unknown. Harvey had with it, is described as Medicus been examined by a Committee of Regius juratus. This is the first intima- the House before they drew up this tion of his appointment as Physician charge. The popular belief was that to the King. Buckingham, being out of favor with In February, 1620, he was appointed the old King and in intimate friend- with Mayerne and Clement on a ship with Charles, had poisoned the Committee to watch the proceedings father to place the son on the throne. of the Surgeons. The following letter Traces of this opinion may be found or warrant, mentioned by Lawrence18 in the speeches of the *accusers. But in his Life, was written to Harvey by * It is repeated long afterwards by Milton James 1 in 1623: in the “Defensio,” Ch. v. “Nero” inquis Harvey’s evidence shows that the which his fame commonly rests. “Ex- medicaments used had been found of ercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis benefit both by Warwick and Buck- et Sanguinis.” ingham, that the King, who “took Harvey’s whole life was dominated divers things whether they would [or] by two remarkable books, the “De not, undervaluing physicians,” desired Motu” which occupied him until he to use them, and that Harvey, though was fifty, and the “De Generatione” not advising the plaster because he which was published when he was did not know its ingredients, it being seventy-three. This seems a fitting “a secret of a man of Essex” [Reming- occasion to review the work of the ton of Dunmow who attended War- first part of his life, and in order to wick], “gave way to it, thinking it understand it we must consider the easy and could do no harm,” which it state of knowledge before his time. evidently did not. The drugs in the The first physiological question posset apparently were known and which presented itself to the ancients the King drank it once or twice and was: Why does the body remain warm commended it.19 during life and become cold after All historians have agreed in believ- death? We moderns answer it by ing Buckingham innocent, but there saying that through all the minute can be no doubt about his “transcend- and intricate changes which the assim- ent presumption.” ilation of food involves, one great In 1626 Harvey was offered an principle is maintained. The body official residence in the precincts of takes in oxygen, and a vast variety of St. Bartholomew’s where many nota- preparations of carbon, converts them ble people lived, but refused it,20 and into carbon dioxide, which is dis- received instead an increase of salary charged through the lungs, and in from £25 to £33.6.8. the process of conversion produces In 1627 he served on a committee heat as does every machine which appointed by the College at the re- burns coal or any other form of quest of the Privy Council, to report carbon. This action takes place only on some alum works in St. Botofph’s, during life, but what life is we know Aidgate, which the committee con- no more than the ancients. We our- demned as a nuisance.21 selves have only reached this explana- By Gwynne’s death in November, tion since the discovery of oxygen by 1627, a vacancy was made in the Lavoisier, who perished in the French Electi. The position was offered to Revolution, but the ancients guessed Mayerne, but as he excused himself on that something of the kind took place, account of his constant employment though their notions were dominated at Court, Harvey was elected. by the facts of the kitchen rather than He was elected Treasurer of the by those of the laboratory. They College in 1628, and in that year he drew their analogies most often from published at Frankfurt the book on a boiling sauce-pan. It is not until the 16th century that Caesalpinus uses similes from chemistry. They “matrem suam ferro necavit”; Carolus et patrem et regem veneno. That and many always connected the “natural” heat other passages are a lasting disgrace to (calor innatus, deppaala tp.(pvros) with the Milton. blood, and ascribed it to some kind of “concoction” or “fermentation,” to the portal system of veins. He for their similes recall now one and thought that it carried the products now the other, which took place in of the “first concoction” (roughly the veins and especially in the heart. the same as “digestion”) to the liver, The latter was considered the hottest and then after a “second concoction” place in the body. in the liver, returned the blood, now The second problem was respira- provided with “natural” spirit and tion. What function had the lungs? suitable for nourishment, to the same Aristotle thought that their only parts. He thus gave the portal veins purpose was to reduce by the proxim- a double function, first collective and ity of the cold air inspired, the exces- then distributive, in which the blood sive heat generated in the heart. Galen ran in opposite directions. The in- made an advance on this. He thought ferior vena cava distributed the same that the blood generated waste prod- blood from the liver downwards to ucts (Juligines, rd \tyvva)8es, like the the other parts of the body below smoke from a lamp) which escaped the diaphragm, while the vena cava through the lungs and the skin, and superior, which was thought to be that it also received from the inspired continuous with it, carried it to the air something which in the heart upper parts. changed it from purple to scarlet, But a small part of the “natural” and turned what he called the “nat- or “nutritive” blood went by the ural” Spirit (Trvev/j-a