In the MS. of the thorax, or, as he calls it,
the "parlour" lecture, there are about a hundred references to some
twenty authors. The remarkable thing is that although those lectures
were repeated year by year, we have no evidence that they made any
impression upon Harvey's contemporaries, so far, at least, as to excite
discussions that led to publication. It was not until twelve years
later, 1628, that Harvey published in Frankfurt a small quarto volume
of seventy-four pages,(27) "De Motu Cordis." In comparison with the
sumptuous "Fabrica" of Vesalius this is a trifling booklet; but if not
its equal in bulk or typographical beauty (it is in fact very poorly
printed), it is its counterpart in physiology, and did for that science
what Vesalius had done for anatomy, though not in the same way. The
experimental spirit was abroad in the land, and as a student at Padua,
Harvey must have had many opportunities of learning the technique of
vivisection; but no one before his day had attempted an elaborate piece
of experimental work deliberately planned to solve a problem relating to
the most important single function of the body. Herein lies the special
merit of his work, from every page of which there breathes the modern
spirit.
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