Synopses & Reviews
William Harvey (1578-1657) was one of the greatest figures in the history of medicine. His major contribution to the medical sciences was his discovery of the circulation of blood. He was also the personal physician to both James I and Charles I. William Harvey's natural philosophy was a view of the world that he developed during his education in Cambridge and Padua. It contained ways of structuring knowledge, formulating questions, and arriving at answers that directed the program of work in which he discovered the circulation of the blood. This book, the most extensive discussion of Harvey to be published in over 25 years, reports extensively on the views of those who argued for and against him. Professor French studies the major changes in natural philosophy in a period considered central to the history of science, and argues that natural philosophy, and particularly Harvey's specialty within it--anatomy--were theocentric. This work, which makes extensive use of primary (Latin) sources and is illustrated throughout with seventeenth-century illustrations, should be of value to historians of medicine and physicians interested in the history of their field.
Review
"...a fascinating book." Choice"Roger French gives us a learned, intellectual history of William Harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood and its eventual acceptance. It can be used as a handy summary of Harvey's ideas and contemporary debates about them, but it also introduces an important argument about the leading place of learned medicine in the development of experimental natural philosophy....French's book ought to be welcomed both for his sound summary of the course of the early modern arguments over the motion of the heart and the circulation of the blood, and for his arguments placing Harvey (and medicine more generally) at the heart of the scientific revolution of early modern Europe." Harold J. Cook, American Historical Review"French's careful analysis of the Demotu cordis itself, separating the discoveries of the 'forceful systole' and of the pulse from the inference to the circulation, seems especially significant for the understanding both of Harvey's discovery itself and of the many misunderstandings that followed." Isis
Synopsis
William Harvey's natural philosophy was a view of the world that he had put together during his education in Cambridge and Padua. It contained ways of structuring knowledge, formulating questions and arriving at answers that directed the programme of work in which he discovered the circulation of the blood. Harvey addressed himself to people with related philosophies, and it is necessary to be aware of seventeenth-century modes of exposition and evaluation of knowledge if we are to understand how Harvey's contemporaries reacted to his work. This book, the most extensive discussion of Harvey to be published for over twenty-five years, reports extensively on the views of those who wrote for and against him. It is a study of a major change in natural philosophy and of the forces which acted for and, equally important, against change. In a period traditionally central to historians of science, it is argued here that natural philosophy, and particularly Harvey's specialty within it - anatomy - was theocentric. Harvey's contribution was experiment; and the revolution which occurred in the seventeenth century was concerned not with science but with experiment and the status of natural knowledge.
Table of Contents
List of figures; Acknowledgments; Introduction; 1. Natural philosophy and anatomy; 2. Harveyâs sources in Renaissance anatomy; 3. Harveyâs research programme; 4. The anatomy lectures and the circulation; 5. The structure of De motu cordis; 6. Early reactions in England; 7. Overseas; 8. Two natural philosophies; 9. Circulation through Europe; 10. Back to Cambridge; 11. Harvey and experimental philosophy; Index.