Books: The Harvard Classics Volume 38

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BATTLE OF SAINT DENIS, 1567

As for the battle of Saint Denis, there were many killed on both
sides. Our wounded withdrew to Paris to be dressed, with the
prisoners they had taken, and I dressed many of them. The King
ordered me, at the request of Mme. the Constable's Lady, to go to
her house to dress the Constable; who had a pistol-shot in the
middle of the spine of his back, whereby at once he lost all
feeling and movement in his thighs and legs ... because the
spinal cord, whence arise the nerves to give feeling and movement
to the parts below, was crushed, broken, and torn by the force of
the bullet. Also he lost understanding and reason, and in a few
days he died. The surgeons of Paris were hard put to it for many
days to treat all the wounded. I think, mon petit maistre, you
saw some of them. I beseech the great God of victories, that we
be never more employed in such misfortune and disaster.

VOYAGE OF THE BATTLE OF MONCONTOUR. 1569

During the battle of Moncontour, King Charles was at Plessis-les-
Tours, where he heard the news of the victory. A great number of
gentlemen and soldiers retreated into the town and suburbs of
Tours, wounded, to be dressed and treated; and the King and the
Queen-mother bade me do my duty by them, with other surgeons who
were then on duty, as Pigray, du Bois, Portail, and one Siret, a
surgeon of Tours, a man well versed in surgery, who was at this
time surgeon to the King's brother. And for the multitude of bad
cases we had scarce any rest, nor the physicians either.

M. le Comte de Mansfeld, Governor of the Duchy of Luxembourg,
Knight of the Order of the King, was severely wounded in the
battle, in the left arm, with a pistol-shot which broke a great
part of his elbow; and he withdrew to Borgueil near Tours. Then
he sent a gentleman to the King, to beg him to send one of his
surgeons, to help him of his wound. So they debated which surgeon
they should send. M. le Marechal de Montmorency told the King and
the Queen that they ought to send him their chief surgeon; and
urged that M. de Mansfeld had done much toward the victory.

The King said flat, he would not have me go, and wished me to
stop with himself. Then the Queen-mother told him I would but go
and come back, and he must remember it was a foreign lord, who
had come, at the command of the King of Spain, to help him. then
he let me go, provided I came back very soon. So he sent for me,
and the Queen-mother with him, and bade me go and find the Lord
de Mansfeld, wherever he should be, to do all I could for him to
heal his wound. I went to him, with a letter from Their
Majesties. When he saw it, he received me with good-will, and
forthwith dismissed three or four surgeons who were dressing him;
which was to my very great regret, because his wound seemed to me
incurable.

Now many gentlemen had retreated to Borgueil, having been
wounded: for they knew that M. de Guise was there, who also had
been badly wounded with a pistol-shot through the leg, and they
were sure that he would have good surgeons to dress him, and
would help them, as he is kindly and very generous, and would
relieve their wants. This he did with a will, both for their
eating and drinking, and for what else they needed: and for my
part, they had the comfort and help of my art: some died, others
recovered, according to their wounds. M. le Comte Ringrave died,
who was shot in the shoulder, like the King of Navarre before
Rouen. M. de Bassompierre, colonel of twelve hundred horse, was
wounded by a similar shot, in the same place, as M. de Mansfeld:
whom I dressed, and God healed. God blessed my work so well, that
in three weeks I sent them back to Paris: where I had still to
make incisions in M. de Mansfeld's arm, to remove some pieces of
the bones, which were badly splintered, broken, and carious. He
was healed by the grace of God, and made me a handsome present,
so I was well content with him, and he with me; as he has shown
me since. He wrote a letter to M. le Duc d' Ascot, how he was
healed of his wound, and also M. de Bassompierre of his, and many
others whom I had dressed after the battle of Moncontour; and
advised him to ask the King of France to let me visit M. le
Marquis d' Auret, his brother: which he did.

THE JOURNEY TO FLANDERS. 1569

M. le Duc d' Ascot did not fail to send a gentleman to the King,
with a letter humbly asking he would do him so much kindness and
honour as to permit and command his chief surgeon to visit M. le
Marquis d' Auret, his brother, who had received a gunshot wound
near the knee, with fracture of the bone, about seven months ago,
and the physicians and surgeons all this time had not been able
to heal him. The King sent for me and bade me go and see M. d'
Auret, and give him all the help I could, to heal him of his
wound. I told him I would employ all the little knowledge it had
pleased God to give me.

I went off, escorted by two gentlemen, to the Chateau d' Auret,
which is a league and a half from Mons in Hainault, where M. le
Marquis was lying. So soon as I had come, I visited him, and told
him the King had commanded me to come and see him and dress his
wound. He said he was very glad I had come, and was much beholden
to the King, who had done him so much honour as to send me to
him.

I found him in a high fever, his eyes deep sunken, with a
moribund and yellowish face, his tongue dry and parched, and the
whole body much wasted and lean, the voice low as of a man very
near death: and I found his thigh much inflamed, suppurating, and
ulcerated, discharging a greenish and very offensive sanies. I
probed it with a silver probe, wherewith I found a large cavity
in the middle of the thigh, and others round the knee, sanious
and cuniculate: also several scales of bone, some loose, others
not. The leg was greatly swelled, and imbued with a pituitous
humor ... and bent and drawn back. There was a large bedsore; he
could rest neither day nor night; and had no appetite to eat, but
very thirsty. I was told he often fell into a faintness of the
heart, and sometimes as in epilepsy: and often he felt sick, with
such trembling he could not carry his hands to his mouth. Seeing
and considering all these great complications, and the vital
powers thus broken down, truly I was very sorry I had come to
him, because it seemed to me there was little hope he would
escape death. All the same, to give him courage and good hope, I
told him I would soon set him on his legs, by the grace of God,
and the help of his physicians and surgeons.

Having seen him, I went a walk in a garden, and prayed God He
would show me this grace, that he should recover; and that He
would bless our hands and our medicaments, to fight such a
complication of diseases. I discussed in my mind the means I must
take to do this. They called me to dinner. I came into the
kitchen, and there I saw, taken out of a great pot, half a sheep,
a quarter of veal, three great pieces of beef, two fowls, and a
very big piece of bacon, with abundance of good herbs: then I
said to myself that the broth of the pot would be full of juices,
and very nourishing.

After dinner, we began our consultation, all the physicians and
surgeons together, in the presence of M. le Duc d' Ascot and some
gentlemen who were with him. I began to say to the surgeons that
I was astonished they had not made incisions in M. le Marquis'
thigh, seeing that it was all suppurating, and the thick matter
in it very foetid and offensive, showing it had long been pent up
there; and that I had found with the probe caries of the bone,
and scales of bone, which were already loose. They answered me:
"Never would he consent to it"; indeed, it was near two months
since they had been able to get leave to put clean sheets on his
bed; and one scarce dared touch the coverlet, so great was his
pain. Then I said, "To heal him, we must touch something else
than the coverlet of his bed." Each said what he thought of the
malady of the patient, and in conclusion they all held it
hopeless. I told them there was still some hope, because he was
young, and God and Nature sometimes do things which seem to
physicians and surgeons impossible.

To restore the warmth and nourishment of the body, general
frictions must be made with hot cloths, above, below, to right,
to left, and around, to draw the blood and the vital spirits from
within outward. ... For the bedsore, he must be put in a fresh,
soft bed, with clean shirt and sheets... Having discoursed of the
causes and complications of his malady, I said we must cure them
by their contraries; and must first ease the pain, making
openings in the thigh to let out the matter. ... Secondly, having
regard to the great swelling and coldness of the limb, we must
apply hot bricks round it, and sprinkle them with a decoction of
nerval herbs in wine and vinegar, and wrap them in napkins; and
to his feet, an earthenware bottle filled with the decoction,
corked, and wrapped in cloths. Then the thigh, and the whole of
the leg, must be fomented with a decoction made of sage,
rosemary, thyme, lavender, flowers of chamomile and melilot, red
roses boiled in white wine, with a drying powder made of oak--
ashes and a little vinegar and half a handful of salt. ...
Thirdly, we must apply to the bedsore a large plaster made of the
desiccative red ointment and of Unguentum Comitissoe, equal
parts, mixed together, to ease his pain and dry the ulcer; and he
must have a little pillow of down, to keep all pressure off it.
... And for the strengthening of his heart, we must apply over it
a refrigerant of oil of waterlilies, ointment of roses, and a
little saffron, dissolved in rose-vinegar and treacle, spread on
a piece of red cloth. For the syncope, from exhaustion of the
natural forces, troubling the brain, he must have good
nourishment full of juices, as raw eggs, plums stewed in wine and
sugar, broth of the meat of the great pot, whereof I have already
spoken; the white meat of fowls, partridges' wings minced small,
and other roast meats easy to digest, as veal, kid, pigeons,
partridges, thrushes, and the like, with sauce of orange,
verjuice, sorrel, sharp pomegranates; or he may have them boiled
with good herbs, as lettuce, purslain, chicory, bugloss,
marigold, and the like. At night he can take barley-water, with
juice of sorrel and of waterlilies, of each two ounces, with four
or five grains of opium, and the four cold seeds crushed, of each
half an ounce; which is a good nourishing remedy and will make
him sleep. His bread to be farmhouse bread, neither too stale nor
too fresh. For the great pain in his head, his hair must be cut,
and his head rubbed with rose-vinegar just warm, and a double
cloth steeped in it and put there; also a forehead-cloth, of oil
of roses and water-lilies and poppies, and a little opium and
rose-vinegar, with a little camphor, and changed from time to
time. Moreover, we must allow him to smell flowers of henbane and
water-lilies, bruised with vinegar and rose-water, with a little
camphor, all wrapped in a handkerchief, to be held some time to
his nose. ... And we must make artificial rain, pouring water
from some high place into a cauldron, that he may hear the sound
of it; by which means sleep shall be provoked on him. As for the
contraction of his leg, there is hope of righting it when we have
let out the pus and other humors pent up in the thigh, and have
rubbed the whole knee with ointment of mallows, and oil of
lilies, and a little eau-de-vie, and wrapped it in black wool
with the grease left in it; and if we put under the knee a
feather pillow doubled, little by little we shall straighten the
leg.

This my discourse was well approved by the physicians and
surgeons.

The consultation ended, we went back to the patient, and I made
three openings in his thigh. ... Two or three hours later, I got
a bed made near his old one, with fair white sheets on it; then a
strong man put him in it, and he was thankful to be taken out of
his foul stinking bed. Soon after, he asked to sleep; which he
did for near four hours; and everybody in the house began to feel
happy, and especially M. le Duc d' Ascot, his brother.

The following days, I made injections, into the depth and
cavities of the ulcers, of Aegyptiacum dissolved sometimes in
eau-de-vie, other times in wine, I applied compresses to the
bottom of the sinuous tracks, to cleanse and dry the soft spongy
flesh, and hollow leaden tents, that the sanies might always have
a way out; and above them a large plaster of Diacalcitheos
dissolved in wine. And I bandaged him so skilfully that he had no
pain; and when the pain was gone, the fever began at once to
abate. Then I gave him wine to drink moderately tempered with
water, knowing it would restore and quicken the vital forces. And
all that we agreed in consultation was done in due time and
order; and so soon as his pains and fever ceased, he began
steadily to amend. He dismissed two of his surgeons, and one of
his physicians, so that we were but three with him.

Now I stopped there about two months, not without seeing many
patients, both rich and poor, who came to me from three or four
leagues round. He gave food and drink to the needy, and commended
them all to me, asking me to help them for his sake. I protest I
refused not one, and did for them all I could, to his great
pleasure. Then, when I saw him beginning to be well, I told him
we must have viols and violins, and a buffoon to make him laugh:
which he did. In one month, we got him into a chair, and he had
himself carried about in his garden and at the door of his
chateau, to see everybody passing by.

The villagers of two or three leagues round, now they could have
sight of him, came on holidays to sing and dance, men and women,
pell-mell for a frolic, rejoiced at his good convalescence, all
glad to see him, not without plenty of laughter and plenty to
drink. He always gave them a hogshead of beer; and they all drank
merrily to his health. And the citizens of Mons in Hainault, and
other gentlemen, his neighbours, came to see him for the wonder
of it, as a man come out of the grave; and from the time he was
well, he was never without company. When one went out, another
came in to visit him; his table was always well covered. He was
dearly loved both by the nobility and by the common people; as
for his generosity, so for his handsome face and his courtesy:
with a kind look and a gracious word for everybody, so that all
who saw him had perforce to love him.

The chief citizens of Mons came one Saturday, to beg him let me
go to Mons, where they wished to entertain me with a banquet, for
their love of him. He told them he would urge me to go, which he
did; but I said such great honour was not for me, moreover they
could not feast me better than he did. Again he urged me, with
much affection, to go there, to please him; and I agreed. The
next day, they came to fetch me with two carriages: and when we
got to Mons, we found the dinner ready, and the chief men of the
town, with their ladies, who attended me with great devotion. We
sat down to dinner, and they put me at the top of the table, and
all drank to me, and to the health of M. le Marquis d'Auret:
saying he was happy, and they with him, to have had me to put him
on his legs again; and truly the whole company were full of
honour and love for him. After dinner, they brought me back to
the Chateau d'Auret, where M. le Marquis was awaiting me; who
affectionately welcomed me, and would hear what we had done at
our banquet; and I told him all the company had drunk many times
to his health.

In six weeks he began to stand a little on crutches, and to put
on fat and get a good natural colour. He would go to Beaumont,
his brother's place; and was taken there in a carrying-chair, by
eight men at a time. And the peasants in the villages through
which we passed, knowing it was M. le Marquis, fought who should
carry him, and would have us drink with them; but it was only
beer. Yet I believe if they had possessed wine, even hippocras,
they would have given it to us with a will. And all were right
glad to see him, and all prayed God for him. When we came to
Beaumont, everybody came out to meet us and pay their respects to
him, and prayed God bless him and keep him in good health. We
came to the chateau, and found there more than fifty gentlemen
whom M. le Duc d'Ascot had invited to come and be happy with his
brother; and he kept open house three whole days. After dinner,
the gentlemen used to tilt at the ring and play with the foils,
and were full of joy at the sight of M. d'Auret, for they had
heard he would never leave his bed or be healed of his wound. I
was always at the upper end of the table, and everybody drank to
him and to me, thinking to make me drunk, which they could not;
for I drank only as I always do.

A few days later, we went back; and I took my leave of Mdme. la
Duchesse d'Ascot, who drew a diamond from her finger, and gave it
me in gratitude for my good care of her brother: and the diamond
was worth more than fifty crowns. M. d'Auret was ever getting
better, and was walking all alone on crutches round his garden.
Many times I asked him to let me go back to Paris, telling him
his physician and his surgeon could do all that was now wanted
for his wound: and to make a beginning to get away from him, I
asked him to let me go and see the town of Antwerp. To this he
agreed at once, and told his steward to escort me there, with two
pages. We passed through Malines and Brussels, where the chief
citizens of the town begged us to let them know of it when we
returned; for they too wished, like those of Mons, to have a
festival for me. I gave them very humble thanks, saying I did not
deserve such honour. I was two days and a half seeing the town of
Antwerp, where certain merchants, knowing the steward, prayed he
would let them have the honour of giving us a dinner or a supper:
it was who should have us, and they were all truly glad to hear
how well M. d' Auret was doing, and made more of me than I asked.

On my return, I found M. le Marquis enjoying himself: and five or
six days later I asked his leave to go, which he gave, said he,
with great regret. And he made me a handsome present of great
value, and sent me back, with the steward, and two pages, to my
house in Paris.

I forgot to say that the Spaniards have since ruined and
demolished his Chateau d' Auret, sacked, pillaged, and burned all
the houses and villages belonging to him: because he would not be
of their wicked party in their assassinations and ruin of the
Netherlands.

I have published this Apologia, that all men may know on what
footing I have always gone: and sure there is no man so touchy
not to take in good part what I have said. For I have but told
the truth; and the purport of my discourse is plain for all men
to see, and the facts themselves are my guarantee against all
calumnies.

ON THE MOTION OF THE HEART AND BLOOD IN ANIMALS
BY WILLIAM HARVEY
TRANSLATED BY ROBERT WILLIS
AND REVISED BY ALEXANDER BOWIE

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

William Harvey, whose epoch-making treatise announcing and
demonstrating the ejaculation of the blood is here printed, was
born at Folkestone, Kent, England, April 1, 1578. He was educated
at the King's School, Canterbury, and at Gonville and Caius
College, Cambridge; and studied medicine on the Continent,
receiving the degree of M.D. from the University of Padua. He
took the same degree later at both the English universities.
After his return to England he became Fellow of the College of
Physicians, physician to St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and Lumleian
lecturer at the College of Physicians. It was in this last
capacity that he delivered, in 1616, the lectures in which he
first gave public notice of his theories on the circulation of
the blood. The notes of these lectures are still preserved in the
British Museum.

In 1618 Harvey was appointed physician extraordinary to James I,
and he remained in close professional relations to the royal
family until the close of the Civil War, being present at the
battle of Edgehill. By mandate of Charles I, he was, for a short
time, Warden of Merton College, Oxford (1645-6), and, when he was
too infirm to undertake the duties, he was offered the Presidency
of the College of Physicians. He died on June 3, 1657.

Harvey's famous "Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis et
Sanguinis in Animalibus" was published in Latin at Frankfort in
1628. The discovery was received with great interest, and in his
own country was accepted at once; on the Continent it won favor
more slowly. Before his death, however, the soundness of his
views was acknowledged by the medical profession throughout
Europe, and "it remains to this day the greatest of the
discoveries of physiology, and its whole honor belongs to
Harvey."

DEDICATION

TO HIS VERY DEAR FRIEND, DOCTOR ARGENT, THE EXCELLENT AND
ACCOMPLISHED PRESIDENT OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS, AND TO
OTHER LEARNED PHYSICIANS, HIS MOST ESTEEMED COLLEAGUES.

I have already and repeatedly presented you, my learned friends,
with my new views of the motion and function of the heart, in my
anatomical lectures; but having now for more than nine years
confirmed these views by multiplied demonstrations in your
presence, illustrated them by arguments, and freed them from the
objections of the most learned and skilful anatomists, I at
length yield to the requests, I might say entreaties, of many,
and here present them for general consideration in this treatise.

Were not the work indeed presented through you, my learned
friends, I should scarce hope that it could come out scatheless
and complete; for you have in general been the faithful witnesses
of almost all the instances from which I have either collected
the truth or confuted error. You have seen my dissections, and at
my demonstrations of all that I maintain to be objects of sense,
you have been accustomed to stand by and bear me out with your
testimony. And as this book alone declares the blood to course
and revolve by a new route, very different from the ancient and
beaten pathway trodden for so many ages, and illustrated by such
a host of learned and distinguished men, I was greatly afraid
lest I might be charged with presumption did I lay my work before
the public at home, or send it beyond seas for impression, unless
I had first proposed the subject to you, had confirmed its
conclusions by ocular demonstrations in your presence, had
replied to your doubts and objections, and secured the assent and
support of our distinguished President. For I was most intimately
persuaded, that if I could make good my proposition before you
and our College, illustrious by its numerous body of learned
individuals, I had less to fear from others. I even ventured to
hope that I should have the comfort of finding all that you
granted me in your sheer love of truth, conceded by others who
were philosophers like yourselves. True philosophers, who are
only eager for truth and knowledge, never regard themselves as
already so thoroughly informed, but that they welcome further
information from whomsoever and from wheresoever it may come; nor
are they so narrow-minded as to imagine any of the arts or
sciences transmitted to us by the ancients, in such a state of
forwardness or completeness, that nothing is left for the
ingenuity and industry of others. On the contrary, very many
maintain that all we know is still infinitely less than all that
still remains unknown; nor do philosophers pin their faith to
others' precepts in such wise that they lose their liberty, and
cease to give credence to the conclusions of their proper senses.
Neither do they swear such fealty to their mistress Antiquity,
that they openly, and in sight of all, deny and desert their
friend Truth. But even as they see that the credulous and vain
are disposed at the first blush to accept and believe everything
that is proposed to them, so do they observe that the dull and
unintellectual are indisposed to see what lies before their eyes,
and even deny the light of the noonday sun. They teach us in our
course of philosophy to sedulously avoid the fables of the poets
and the fancies of the vulgar, as the false conclusions of the
sceptics. And then the studious and good and true, never suffer
their minds to be warped by the passions of hatred and envy,
which unfit men duly to weigh the arguments that are advanced in
behalf of truth, or to appreciate the proposition that is even
fairly demonstrated. Neither do they think it unworthy of them to
change their opinion if truth and undoubted demonstration require
them to do so. They do not esteem it discreditable to desert
error, though sanctioned by the highest antiquity, for they know
full well that to err, to be deceived, is human; that many things
are discovered by accident and that many may be learned
indifferently from any quarter, by an old man from a youth, by a
person of understanding from one of inferior capacity.

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