ng has arisen
in connection with Harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood.
He did not discover that the blood moved,--that was known to Aristotle
and to Galen, from both of whom I have given quotations which indicate
clearly that they knew of its movement,--but at the time of Harvey not a
single anatomist had escaped from the domination of Galen's views.
Both Servetus and Colombo knew of the pulmonary circulation, which was
described by the former in very accurate terms. Cesalpinus, a great
name in anatomy and botany, for whom is claimed the discovery of the
circulation, only expressed the accepted doctrines in the following
oft-quoted phrase:

"We will now consider how the attraction of aliment and the process
of nutrition takes place in plants; for in animals we see the aliment
brought through the veins to the heart, as to a laboratory of innate
heat, and, after receiving there its final perfection, distributed
through the arteries to the body at large, by the agency of the spirits
produced from this same aliment in the heart."(30) There is nothing
in this but Galen's view, and Cesalpinus believed, as did all his
contemporaries, that the blood was distributed through the body by the
vena cava and its branches for the nourishment of all its parts.(*) To
those who have any doubts as to Harvey's position in this matter I would
recommend the reading of the "De Motu Cordis" itself, then the various
passages relating to the circulation from Aristotle to Vesalius. Many
of these can be found in the admirable works of Dalton, Flourens,
Richet and Curtis.(31) In my Harveian Oration for 1906(32) I have dealt
specially with the reception of the new views, and have shown how long
it was before the reverence for Galen allowed of their acceptance. The
University of Paris opposed the circulation of the blood for more than
half a century after the appearance of the "De Motu Cordis."

(30) De Plantis, Lib I, cap. 2.

(*) Cesalpinus has also a definite statement of the circlewise
process.--Ed.

(31) J. C. Dalton Doctrines of the Circulation, Philadelphia,
1884; Flourens Histoire de la decouverte de la circulation du
sang, 2d ed., Paris, 1857; Charles Richet Harvey, la circulation
du sang, Paris, 1879; John G. Curtis Harvey's views on the use of
Circulation, etc., New York, 1916.

(32) Osler An Alabama Student and Other Biographical Essays,
Oxford, 1908, p. 295.

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