Harvey and the transit of the blood from the arteries to the veins 'per porositates' / by W.S. Forbes.

  • Forbes, William Smith, 1831-1905.
Date:
1878
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Harvey and the transit of the blood from the arteries to the veins 'per porositates' / by W.S. Forbes. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    G The fact, too, that nouns abstract in form were nearly as often concrete in sense as not, shows that Harvey’s words were not open to this miscon- ception. For it was well known that Cicero spoke of “magnas clientelas” when he meant “multos clientes.” And that when Tacitus spoke of “fa- miliaritates ejus” in the case of Agricola, he meant “familiares ejus.” A multitude of such cases could be alleged. Especially is the plural use of the word to be observed as decidedly militating against the notion that it was used by Harvey in an abstract sense. A living tongue is kept supple by daily use; it is pliant; we find that a new tinge is often imparted to words already in use, and by assimilating foreign idioms it creates new expressions for new ideas. The dead languages, on the contrary, are fixed, having been cast into moulds by races of men long since passed away; there is no change in them. The modern word “porosity” is alloyed—it is below the standard of rtopoj. But because, in the stream of to-day, the word is changed, shall we be taught that the distant fountain was not clear, and possessed not the virtue once attributed to it by Harvey? And used, too, as it was, by him for many reasons, as conveying the meaning the ancients gave it? Well may Coleridge tell us that “the position of science must be tried in the scales of the jeweller; not like the mixed commodities of the market, on the weighbridge of common opinion and vulgar usage.” The further assertion of Drs. Lawrence and Aikenside, namely, that Har- vey believed “the blood to be delivered in an oblique way into the veins, in the way the ureters proceed into the bladder, and the common chole- doch duct enters the intestine,” is an error, promulgated under the sanc- tion of the Royal College of Physicians of London (unwittingly), and con- sequently received and believed, and has done more to cloud the view of Harvey’s teaching on this point than any other agency of which I am aware. I do not believe that such a view could be taken by one pro- perly construing Harvey’s text, and taking, singular and combined, the meaning and intent of his words. The passage from which this idea is taken by the authors of Harveii Vita, is found in the letter of Harvey to his friend Paul Siegel, of Hamburg, and is dated London, April, 1651. I have seen this letter of Harvey only in the Royal College of Physi- cians’ edition of 1766. I will give my translation of the words of Harvey as found in his letter to Siegel in this edition; beginning on page 617 at the words “ Quasris autem,” and ending with the words “adigere queas.” ‘ ‘ But you will ask what on earth is this contrivance ? what on earth these ducts? Certainly the little arteries,' which are always smaller, shall I not say twice, or three times, than the veins (which they accompany, and to whicli they gradually approach), and at length are lost in the coats of the veins: so that I may believe that the blood borne forward by them (the little arteries) flows ' In using the word “ arteriolaj” in this place instead of the word “ porositates” as heretofore, Harvey increases the strength of his position in pointing out the continuous channels in which the blood flows in passing the periphery.