CHAPTER III

William Harvey and Experimental Observation, 39

Harvey's work complemental to that of Vesalius, 39. Their combined labors laid the foundations of the modern method of investigating nature, 39. Harvey introduces experiments on living organisms, 40. Harvey's education, 40. At Padua, comes under the influence of Fabricius, 41. Return to England, 42. His personal qualities, 42-45. Harvey's writings, 45. His great classic on movement of the heart and blood (1628), 46. His demonstration of circulation of the blood based on cogent reasoning; he did not have ocular proof of its passage through capillaries, 47. Views of his predecessors on the movement of the blood, 48. Servetus, 50. Realdus Columbus, 50. Cæsalpinus, 51. The originality of Harvey's views, 51. Harvey's argument, 51. Harvey's influence, 52. A versatile student; work in other directions, 52. His discovery of the circulation created modern physiology, 52. His method of inquiry became a permanent part of biological science, 53.