And yet in
that sum total was contained, I may say, the materials of two
revolutions in as many of the main branches of biological science. If
Harvey's published labours can be condensed into so small a compass,
you must recollect that it is not because he did not do a great deal
more. We know very well that he did accumulate a very considerable
number of observations on the most varied topics of medicine, surgery,
and natural history. But, as I mentioned to you just now, Harvey, for
a time, took the royal side in the domestic quarrel of the Great
Rebellion, as it is called; and the Parliament, not unnaturally
resenting that action of his, sent soldiers to seize his papers. And
while I imagine they found nothing treasonable among those papers, yet,
in the process of rummaging through them, they destroyed all the
materials which Harvey had spent a laborious life in accumulating; and
hence it is that the man's work and labours are represented by so
little in apparent bulk.
What I chiefly propose to do to-night is to lay before you an account of
the nature of the discovery which Harvey made, and which is termed the
Discovery of the Circulation of the Blood.
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