Most undergraduates studying the history of medicine or history of science will inevitably encounter William Harvey’s De Motu Cordis at some stage as one of those key ‘revolutionary’ moments in the standard narrative of the development of Western scientific thought. The medium by which you are first exposed to Harvey can make all the difference: for me, alongside Willis’s translation of the primary text, was the 1971 documentary William Harvey and the Circulation of the Blood, sponsored and produced by the Royal College of Physicians and the Wellcome Library. Featuring a trumpeted introduction announcing that a recreation of a momentous discovery was about to unfold before the student’s eyes, the film (an update of earlier versions made in 1928 and 1957) takes the viewer through a colourful visual sketch of the pre-Harvey Galenic model of blood circulation and heart function, followed by a series of vivisection demonstrations on various animals, and, most famously, a probe poking through a ventricle while the narrator exclaimed in Harvey’s words ‘By my troth… there are no such pores…’. (Although since 1971 there has been further historical analysis of such ‘swearing’ exclamations, and, as Marjorie O’Rourke Boyle has recently pointed out, different translations have rendered this merhercule to mean ‘By Hercules’.) When it became my turn to teach Harvey, I similarly assigned the VHS recording of this film from the library as supplementary viewing, along with the primary text of Willis’s translation and secondary readings for the broader context – for example, works by Jerome Bylebyl and Roger French.
This is why Jarrett Carty’s updated text is a slick and welcome alternative to cobbling together this diverse (albeit useful) array of sources. As an introduction to Harvey for undergraduates, it is accessible and clear, and this is where the real strength of Carty’s updated translation and notes lies. Inspired by and aimed at teaching an undergraduate audience, this source is a most useful addition to any medical history lecturer’s reading list. The sleek volume moves quickly into the primary text, although not without a helpful introduction on Harvey’s life and early influences, including his time at Padua and his series of Lumleian lectures, all embedded within the broader intellectual and political context in which his discovery was made and articulated to various audiences at the time.
Beyond the advantage of its compact elegance, however, is the fact that Carty has provided an overdue update of Robert Willis’s original translation – something which has not been done since it first appeared in 1847. Carty has updated and clarified the Latin for modern audiences, again making it a bit more digestible at the level of undergraduates and general interest readers, although more seasoned Harvey scholars might also appreciate the added clarity, or where there is confusion, he has left the original Latin. For example, making reference to the 1928 translation by Chauncey Leake, Carty identifies confusion over the vena arteriosa and arteriae venosae for which Leake criticised Willis, and so Carty diplomatically leaves the original Latin in the text as a point for Harvey scholars to consider.
As Harvey himself was in some places a bit lax in providing notes, Carty has also filled in some of these gaps by providing added analysis and context in footnotes which would be helpful for readers who might not yet have had exposure to secondary analysis of Harvey’s work. For example, Harvey’s reference to ‘the learned Hofmann’ is brief in the original translation, and Carty provides further information on who Caspar Hofmann was, and how he and Harvey’s correspondence further refined Harvey’s theory on the movement of the the blood through the heart. Moreover, throughout the notes, there is consistent emphasis on and explanations of Harvey’s philosophical leanings, which keep the reader firmly grounded in the broader landscape of scientific thought at the time. For example, when Harvey mentions ‘superior bodies’, Carty reminds readers how this alludes to Aristotelian cosmic physics; or, when Harvey is discussing decayed material, the notes expand on how Harvey subscribed to some notion of spontaneous generation and provide helpful detail on this theory and its origin, which the general reader or new student in the history of science may not have yet encountered. As a teaching resource, these notes add great value to the primary text. These features all show the sign of a careful and thorough consideration of Harvey’s writing and Willis’s translation, as well as consultation of appropriate secondary literature on the life and work of William Harvey; this new edition of De Motu Cordis will be of benefit for both instructors and students.
