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Harvey's De Generatione: Its Origins and Relevance to the Theory of Circulation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

C. Webster
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Extract

De generatione was the last of the three works published by William Harvey during his lifetime. Although this work on generation was most ambitious, being the product of prolonged and detailed researches, it has received relatively little attention from modern writers. It is generally felt that this work, like William Gilbert's De mundo, departs significantly from the more pronounced empirical approach to science which characterized Harvey's first publication, De motu cordis. De generatione shows that Harvey regarded reference to teleological and vitalistic principles as necessary for the solution of crucial problems in biology. In this respect he differed from his contemporaries, the iatrochemical and iatromechanical physiologists, whose non-teleological approach seems, at least superficially, to be in sympathy with the modern biological tradition. The structure and content of De generatione are so evidently determined by Aristotle's biological writings, that the work is used to illustrate Harvey's failure to emancipate himself from the philosophical encumbrances of antiquity.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 3 , Issue 3 , June 1967 , pp. 262 - 274
Copyright
Copyright © British Society for the History of Science 1967

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References

1 Harvey, William (1578–1657), Exercitationes de generatione animalium. Quibus accedunt quaedam de partu: de membranis ac humoribus de uteri: & de concepitone, London, O. Pulleyn, 1651Google Scholar. All references will be to this edition, unless otherwise stated. In this edition, Exercitationes 4 and 5 are both numbered 4; the following Exercitationes are therefore mis-numbered. In the present article corrected numeration is given. Three editions of this work were published in Amsterdam in 1651. by Elzevir, Jansson and Ravesteyn. An English translation was published in London, 1653.

The author expresses his gratitude to Dr. Walter Pagel, for his comments on many of the subjects discussed below.

2 The modern literature concerned with De generatione is reviewed by Meyer, A. W., An analysis of the De generatione animalium of William Harvey (Stanford University Press, 1936), Foreword, 1–2, 138–153.Google Scholar Mayer's work remains the most detailed study of De generatione. Biographies give some account of the work, but they are generally concerned with Harvey's empirical discoveries. Theoretical aspects of his work on generation are considered by Needham, Joseph, A History of Embryology, Second edition, Cambridge University Press, 1959Google Scholar; Cole, F. J., Early Theories of Sexual Generation, Oxford, Clarendon, Press, 1930Google Scholar; Curtis, J. G., Harvey's views on the use of the circulation of the blood, New York, Columbia University Press, 1915.Google Scholar The latter gives a full comparative account of physiological theories, based on all Harvey's writings.

3 Gilbert, William (1544–1603), De mundo nostro sublunari philosophia nova. Opus posthumum, ed. Gruter, Isaac, Amsterdam, Elzevir, 1651.Google Scholar This work has more than incidental similarities to De generatione. Both works were attempts to solve fundamental problems of natural philosophy, which had emerged during experimental studies. Both authors retained a metaphysical standpoint based on the ideas of antiquity, such as acceptance of the macrocosm—microcosm analogy, the dominance of vitalistic explanation and widespread use of the circle symbol. Harvey's career, to a remarkable extent, recapitulated that of Gilbert. The scanty literature on De mundo is reviewed by Sister Kelly, Suzanne, The De Mundo of William Gilbert (Amsterdam, Hertzberger, 1965), Preface and 97–107.Google Scholar

4 Harvey, William, Exercitatio anatomica de motu cordis et sanguinis, Frankfort-On-Main, 1628.Google Scholar All references to the Latin edition will be to Opera omnia: a collegio medicorum Londinensi edita, London, 1766Google Scholar. Harvey in common with other authors, sometimes referred to De motu cordis as his treatise on the “motion of the blood”.

5 It has been estimated that Harvey cited Aristotle 230 (Fraser-Harris) or 253 (Tollin) times in De generatione. See Tollin, H., “William Harvey, eine Quellenstudie”, Arch. f. path. Anat. u. Physiol., lxxxi (1880), 117Google Scholar; Fraser-Harris, D. F., William Harvey's knowledge of Literature…, Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, 1934, 1097.Google Scholar Harvey's work was consciously modelled on Aristotle's Historia animalium and De generatione animalium, reference being made also to most of the remaining Aristotelian corpus. For Aristotle's influence on Harvey, see Pagel, Walter, “The reaction to Aristotle in seventeenth-century biological thought”, in: Science, Medicine and History, ed. Underwood, E. A. (London, Oxford University Press, 1953), vol. 1, 467–470Google Scholar; The Philosophy of Circles—Cesalpino—Harvey, Journal of the History of Medicine, xii (1957), 140–157Google Scholar. Plochmann, G. K., “William Harvey and his methods”, Studies in the Renaissance, x (1963), 192–210CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Lesky, Erna, “Harvey und Aristotles”, Sudhoffs Archiv f. Geschichte der Medizin, xli (1957), 289–316, 349–378.Google Scholar

6 See Needham, J., op. cit., 149Google Scholar, “He did not break with Aristotelianism, as a few of his predecessors had already done, but on the contrary lent his authority to a moribund outlook which involved the laborious treatment of unprofitable questions.”

7 Next to Aristotle, Fabricius was the most cited authority in De generatione; being mentioned 132 times. Sir Charles Scarburgh suggested that Harvey was a disciple and friend of Fabricius, see Payne, L. M., “Sir Charles Scarburgh's Harveian Oration, 1662”, Journal of the History of Medicine, xii (1957), 158–164; 160Google Scholar. However, this is not supported by documentary evidence from Harvey's works, although mistranslation of one passage (“ut nic Fabricio patrocinium parem”, De generatione, 19) has led modern authors to suggest that Harvey actively assisted Fabricius at Padua. See Franklin, K. J., William Harvey: Englishman (London, MacGibbon and Kee, 1961), 112Google Scholar. Willis, R. translated the above passage “by way of helping out Fabricius”, Works of William Harvey M.D. (London, Sydenham Society, 1847), 194Google Scholar (hereafter referred to as “Willis”). However, the passage simply indicates that Harvey “supported” Fabricius. The translation of 1653 avoided Willis's mistake. I owe this point to Dr. Pagel. For the influence of Fabricius's ideas on Harvey, see The Embryological Treatises of Hieronymus Fabricius of Aquapendente, ed. Adelmann, H. B. (Ithaca, New York, Cornell University Press, 1942), 113–121.Google Scholar

8 The Anatomical Lectures of William Harvey, ed. Whitteridge, G. (Edinburgh and London, E. and S. Livingstone, 1964), 127, 179, 257.Google Scholar

9 See especially De motu cordis in Opera omnia, 30–31; 40–41; 75–76.Google ScholarWillis, , 28–29, 38–39, 73–74Google Scholar; Meyer, , op. cit. (2), 4–6.Google Scholar

10 Willis, , xlvii–xlviii.Google Scholar

11 Harvey, William, Exercitatio anatomica de circulatio sanguinis. Ad Joannem Riolanum filium Parisiensem, Cambridge and Rotterdam, 1649Google Scholar. Opera omnia, op. cit., 136.Google Scholar The relevant passage was translated in 1653, 186: “If I may speak freely, I do not think that these things are so (as they are commonly believed) for there are many things which persuade me to that opinion, which I will take notice of in the generation of creatures [in generatione partium], which are not fit here to be rehearsed; but it may be things more wonderful than these, and such as will give more light to natural Philosophie shall be publish'd by me.” A. W. Meyer defends the above translation of the above inserted Latin passage; Harvey's appraisal of his De generatione, Bulletin of the History of Medicine, xi (1942), 265–272.Google Scholar

12 De generatione, Epistle Dedicatory by George Ent. After the completion of the present article came the publication of SirKeynes', GeoffreyLife of William Harvey, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1966.Google Scholar On p. 334 this suggests that George Ent collected the manuscript of De generatione from Harvey in the winter of 1648–49. The present author interprets this evidence rather differently—see p. 266.

13 It is often suggested that Ent edited and possibly improved the Latin style of De generatione. However, Harvey must have played an active role in editing the text, since his letter to Nardi of 15 July 1651, gave his “part in the labour of putting to press my work ‘On the Generation of Animals’” as the reason for the delay of his letters. Opera omnia, 619Google Scholar; Willis, , 603.Google Scholar Harvey's letter to Slegel of 7 April 1651, announced that the work had just appeared; Opera omnia, 613Google Scholar; Willis, , 596–597.Google Scholar

The Transcripts of the Stationers' Company, 1640–1708, ed. Rivington, , Plomer, and Eyre, (London, 1913), vol. 1, 362Google Scholar, shows that the work was entered in the register by Prujean and Smith of the College of Physicians on 20 March 1651 as “Harveius De Generatione Animalium, Latin and English”. Thus it is quite possible that the English translation was made by this date, although it was not published until 1653.

14 Turnbull, G. H., Hartlib, Dury and Comenius, London, Liverpool University Press, 1947Google Scholar; Samuel Hartlib, Oxford, 1920.Google Scholar

15 Hartlib's Journal or “Ephemerides” is preserved in Sheffield University Library. It is quoted by kind permission of Lord Delamere.

16 See Webster, C., “William Harvey's conception of the heart as a pump”, Bulletin of the History of Medicine, xxxix (1965), 508–517.Google Scholar Warner was a proponent of the idea of “circulation” but the evidence from his remaining manuscripts does not give any indication whether he meant this in the Harveian sense, or in the sense used by such authors as Cesalpino. His manuscript is undated.

17 Turnbull, G. H., Child, Robert, Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, xxxviii (1959), 21–53.Google Scholar

18 Thomas Smith (1626–1661) was at Christ's College between 1640 and 1661. His correspondence with Hartlib was due to two particular problems. Smith had difficulty in obtaining academic preferment and he seems to have relied on Hartlib's influence at Christ's College. Secondly, Smith was involved in establishing Cambridge as a centre for printing Arabic and Persian texts. Hartlib appears to have obtained the type for this enterprise. Hartlib had many contacts at Cambridge and he corresponded with some of the leading scholars there, including Henry More, Abraham Wheelock, Benjamin Whichcote, John Hall and John Worthington. Hartlib's correspondence with Smith is in the Hartlib papers, Bundle XV. For Smith, see Peile, J., Biographical Register of Christ's College, 1910; vol. 1, 468.Google Scholar

19 Dr. (later Sir) Thomas Browne (1605–1682) attained fame through the publication of his Religio medici, 1642; his second work, Pseudodoxia epidemica: Enquiries into very many received tenets, London, 1646Google Scholar, was also highly popular.

20 Pseudodoxia epidemica … The second edition, corrected and much enlarged by the author. Together with same marginall observations, and a table alphabeticall at the end. London, 1650.

21 It is interesting that Browne carried out Smith's suggestions about marginal notes and index. The author of these was anonymous—signed N.N. in the Advertisement. Keynes, in his Bibliography of Sir Thomas Browne (Cambridge, 1924), 51–53Google Scholar suggests, that the author was the Rev. Whitefoot of Norwich. However, it is equally possible that the notes and index were compiled by Smith himself, for not only did he suggest their composition, but also wrote to Browne informing him that he had made extensive notes on Religio medici, which had been circulated among his Cambridge friends. See letter from Smith to Browne (February 1647), in Browne's Works, ed. Wilkins, S. (London, 1846), vol. i, 359–360.Google Scholar

22 De motu cordis, Willis, 80, “But of these things, more in our Treatise on Respiration”.

23 Ibid., 74. “But these matters will be better spoken of in my observations on the formation of the foetus, where many propositions … will be discussed.” The statements of Child and Smith are supported by a quotation from a letter written by Needham, Caspar to Evelyn, John, 5 04 1649Google Scholar, “Dr. Harvey's picture is etcht … I'l send you a proof with your books that you may bind it up with his book De generatione”. Thus the publication of Harvey's work was imminent in the spring of 1649. The letter is quoted from Keynes, , op. cit. (12), 333Google Scholar; he gives the author incorrectly as Joseph Needham.

24 For a discussion of Browne's embryological ideas see Merton, E. S., Science and imagination in Sir Thomas Browne (New York, King's Crown Press, 1949), 34–60Google Scholar; Needham, J., op. cit. (2), 131–133Google Scholar; Huntley, F. L., “Sir Thomas Browne, M.D., William Harvey, and the metaphor of the Circle”, Bulletin of the History of Medicine, xxv (1951), 236–247.Google Scholar

25 Pseudodoxia epidemica (3rd edition, 1658), 181, 206.Google Scholar Both are references to De generatione.

26 SirDigby, Kenelm (1603–1665). Two treatises: in the one of which, the nature of bodies; in the other, the nature of mans soule; is looked into: in the way of discovery, of the immortality of reasonable soules, Paris, 1644; London, 1645.Google Scholar I have used the latter edition. The reference to Harvey's views on generation is on 276. For a consideration of Digby as an embryologist, see Needham, J., op. cit. (2), 120–131Google Scholar; Grenell, R. G., “Sir Kenelm Digby, Embryologist”, Bulletin of the History of Medicine, x (1941), 48–52.Google Scholar

27 Digby spent much time abroad; he probably saw Harvey's manuscript at about the same time as Browne, since he was on the Continent between 1635 and 1638. He returned to England in November 1638 and remained until 1643; being imprisoned from the outset of the civil war in 1642 until the summer of 1643, when he was exiled to France. See Petersson, R. T., Sir Kenelm Digby, London, Jonathan Cape, 1956.Google Scholar

28 De generatione, 218, 251.Google Scholar

29 De generatione:

15, Willis, 188–189, notes on an emu, made during James I's reign—before 1625.

30, Willis, 208–210, a visit to Scotland made in 1633.

32, Willis, 211, a meeting with Joseph of Aromatari in Venice, 1636.

156–157, Willis, 382–383, treatment of Philip Herbert (1619–1669), probably in 1637.

229, Willis, 482, date 1633 given.

30 De generatione:

54 (tractatu nostro de motu cordis & sanguinis.), Willis, , 241.Google Scholar

166 (libello nostro de motu sanguinis in animalibus.), Willis, , 396.Google Scholar

152 (libello de motu sanguinis), Willis, , 377.Google Scholar

See footnote 4.

31 De generatione, 154Google Scholar; Willis, 380–381Google Scholar “The admirable circulation of the blood originally discovered by me, I have lived to see admitted by almost all; nor has aught as yet been urged against it by any one which has seemed greatly to require an answer.”

32 Cremonini, C., Apologia pro doctrinae Aristoteles, Venice, 1627.Google Scholar (De generatione, 246.)Google Scholar Of course, Fabricius was cited far more than any other seventeenth-centry author—see footnote 7. While Fabricius was cited 132 times, all other seventeenth-century authorities were cited only 15 times.

33 Sennert, D., Hypomnemata physica, Wittemberg, 1636.Google Scholar (De generations, 137, 143–144.)Google Scholar

34 Harvey also mentioned Duval, J., De hermaphroditis, Rouen, 1612Google Scholar (De generatione, 13)Google Scholar, fils, J. Riolan, Anthropographia, 2nd edition, Paris, 1626Google Scholar (De generatione, 221)Google Scholar, Parisanus, Aemilius, Nobilium exercitationum libri duodecim de subtilitate, Venice, 1621 and 1623Google Scholar; or Paris, 1623 (De generatione, 35, 43 ff.)Google Scholar mentioned seven times. Harvey had little respect for this work, but he ignores the 1635 edition, which contains an attack on the theory of circulation.

35 SirDigby, Kenelm, Two treatises, 1644 (see footnote 25)Google Scholar. SirBrowne, Thomas, Pseudodoxia epidemica, 1646 (see footnote 19)Google Scholar. Ross, Alexander, The Philosophicall Touch-stone, London, 1645Google Scholar. Highmore, Nathaniel, The History of Generation, London, 1651.Google Scholar This was dated 15 May and registered in the Stationers Register (footnote 13) on 2 August 1651, 375. Highmore also seems to have known of De generatione before its publication, possibly through Sir Kenelm Digby. Highmore was a friend of Harvey. He dedicated his Corporis disquisitio anatomica of 1651 to Harvey, his “amico suo singulari”. It is therefore strange that Harvey appeared unaware of Highmore's embryological researches. Harvey's correspondence (see Willis, 615) indicates that he lost contact with Highmore in about 1648.

36 See footnote 7.

37 Particularly Exmitationes 1–48.

38 See pp. 265–267. As the title of De generatione suggests (see footnote 1 ), the work is a collection of separate tracts. Even the major section headed “De generatione” is of a composite nature. Needham, J., op. cit. (2), 134–135Google Scholar analyses the contents into 5 divisions:

(1) and (2) may even have been sold separately. Richard Walmesley of Dunkenhalgh, Lancashire, recorded his book purchases in a note-book. On 19 April 1658 he entered “Dr. Harvey's De ovo”; on 27 April he had “Dr. Harvey's book of generation”. Personal communication from Mrs. M. Brigg of Blackburn.

39 Franklin, K. J., op. cit. (7), 85–98.Google Scholar See p. 265 and Payne, L. M., op. cit. (7)Google Scholar, this gives Scarburgh's list of Harvey's lost manuscripts.

40 Ibid.Aubrey, John, Brief Lives, ed. Clarke, A. (Oxford, 1898), vol. i, 300Google Scholar. George Bathurst is not to be confused with Ralph Bathurst—also of Oxford.

41 See footnote 13.

42 See Wilkie, J. S., Harvey's immediate debt to Aristotle and to Galen, History of Science, iv (1965), 103–123 (103)CrossRefGoogle Scholar: “The direct influence of Aristotle is much in evidence in the Exercitationes de generations animalium, but this is a late work, published in 1651 when Harvey was 73; and even did we not know its date we should suspect from internal evidence, that it was the work of a man past his prime. Thus we learn from it only the extent to which Harvey was an Aristotelian in his old age.”

43 Curtis, J. G., op. cit., 152–157Google Scholar; Pagel, W., “The Philosophy of Circles—Cesalpino-Harvey”, Journal of the History of Medicine, xii (1957), 140–157.Google Scholar

44 De generatione, 249.Google Scholar

45 De generatione, 248–250Google Scholar; Pagel, W., “William Harvey and the Purpose of Circulation”, Isis, xlii (1951), 22–38 (28–31).Google Scholar

46 De motu cordis, in Opera omnia, 1, 84–85.Google Scholar It is clear from the latter quotation that Harvey had come to recognize that the idea of the heart's primacy in physiology was a correlative of its primacy in embryology.

47 Prelectiones, ed. Whittridge, , op. cit., 257.Google Scholar “WH rather it is blood which is the primary source of both the liver and the heart as I have seen.”

De motu cordis, in Opera omnia, 30–31. Harvey described the earliest stages in the development of the chick. The first sign of life was a pulsating drop of blood—(Inest primum ante omnia gutta sanguinis, quae palpitat). This introduced the suspicion that the heart was not the primum vivens et ultimum mortens. He concluded by drawing the analogy, which was to become influential in his later writings, between the innate powers of movement of the semen and blood (spiritus prolificus palpitando).

Although these doubts about the primacy of the heart were clearly expressed in the two above works, in both, Harvey overwhelmingly retained the idea of that supremacy.

48 De generatione, especially Exercitationes 50, 51, 52 and 72. Quibus clare constat, sanguinem esse partem genitalem, fontem vilae, primum vivens & ultimo moriens, sedemque animae primariam; in quo (tanquam in fonte) color primo & praecipue abundat, vitetque; …, 151–152.

49 Ibid., 250.

50 See Walker, D. P., “The astral body in Renaissance medicine”, Journal of the Courtauld and Warburg Institute, xxi (1958), 119–133.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

51 De generatione, 154–155.Google Scholar Here Harvey finds support from Aristotle, etc., p. 151 provides support from the Old Testament, Leviticus, xvii. 11 and 14.

52 See footnote 11.

53 Keynes, G., Bibliography of the writings of William Harvey (Cambridge University Press, 1928), 33Google Scholar: “The treatise (De circulatione sanguins) is not of primary importance and since 1650 it has been properly regarded as merely an appendix to De motu cordis.”

54 Curtis, J. G., op. cit., see footnote 2.Google Scholar

55 De circulatione sanguinis, in Opera omnia, 137–138.Google Scholar

56 Ibid., 136, see also footnote 11.

57 Ibid., 119–120, 137; “… et distensionis primam causam calorem innatum esse, primamque distensionem esse in sanguine ispo … in eoque ultimo estinctam” (137).

58 Ibid., 137.

59 Ibid., 137–138.

60 Ibid., 113–120.

61 Ibid., 118, “An, inquam, sanguinis motum sequantur Spiritus, tanquam vel sanguinis partes sint, …”

63 Ibid., 118–119.

63 Ibid., 111–113.

64 The differences in theoretical viewpoint between Harvey's two works on circulation has recently been reiterated by Hill, C., “William Harvey and the idea of monarchy”, Past and Present, xxvii (1964), 54–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and in subsequent discussions with Mrs. Whitteridge, G. in Past and Present, xxx & xxxi (1965)Google Scholar. Hill suggests that a possible cause for the change in Harvey's theoretical ideas was his experience of the transition from monarchy to republic—the heart's supremacy being analogous to the monarchial system of government, the primacy of the blood to the republican. Clearly, if De generatione was composed by 1638, this position would prove untenable. Hill makes an alternative point that, independent of the causes for the change in Harvey's views, publication of theories which had a republican connotation was delayed until after the extinction of the monarchy. The present author prefers to regard the internal causes already discussed as sufficient reason for the delay in publication of De generatione; see pp. 269–270.