Page:The Harveian oration 1911.djvu/14

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THE TREATMENT OF CONSUMPTION 3


Discovery of the Mechanism of the Circulation by Harvey.

Such was the state of knowledge when Harvey commenced his long and painstaking series of researches and observations, and he prefaces his account of them with the following words, with which all students of cardiac pathology have probably some time or other felt sympathy:—

“When I first gave my mind to vivisections as a means of discovering the motions and uses of the heart, and sought to discover these from actual inspection and not from the writings of others, I found the task so truly arduous, so full of difficulties, that I was almost tempted to think with Frascatorius that the motion of the heart was only to be comprehended by God. For I could neither rightly perceive at first when the diastole took place, nor when and where dilatation and contraction occurred by reason of the rapidity of the motion, which in many animals is accomplished in the twinkling of an eye, coming and going like a flash of lightning, so that the systole presented itself to me now from this point, now from that; the diastole the same; and then everything was reversed, and motions occurring as it seemed, variously and confusedly together.

“At length by using greater and daily diligence, having frequent recourse to vivisections and employing numerous observations, I thought I had

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