ies he made the following
statements: first, that the heart is erected and raises itself up into
an apex, and at this time strikes against the breast and the pulse is
felt externally; secondly, that it is contracted every-way, but more
so at the sides; and thirdly, that grasped in the hand it was felt
to become harder at the time of its motion; from all of which actions
Harvey drew the very natural conclusion that the activity of the heart
consisted in a contraction of its fibres by which it expelled the blood
from the ventricles. These were the first four fundamental facts which
really opened the way for the discovery of the circulation, as it did
away with the belief that the heart in its motion attracts blood into
the ventricles, stating on the contrary that by its contraction it
expelled the blood and only received it during its period of repose or
relaxation. Then he proceeded to study the action of the arteries and
showed that their period of diastole, or expansion, corresponded with
the systole, or contraction, of the heart, and that the arterial pulse
follows the force, frequency and rhythm of the ventricle and is, in
fact, dependent upon it. Here was another new fact: that the pulsation
in the arteries was nothing else than the impulse of the blood within
them. Chapter IV, in which he describes the movements of the auricles
and ventricles, is a model of accurate description, to which little has
since been added. It is interesting to note that he mentions what is
probably auricular fibrillation. He says: "After the heart had ceased
pulsating an undulation or palpitation remained in the blood itself
which was contained in the right auricle, this being observed so long as
it was imbued with heat and spirit." He recognized too the importance of
the auricles as the first to move and the last to die. The accuracy and
vividness of Harvey's description of the motion of the heart have been
appreciated by generations of physiologists. Having grasped this first
essential fact, that the heart was an organ for the propulsion of blood,
he takes up in Chapters VI and VII the question of the conveyance of the
blood from the right side of the heart to the left. Galen had already
insisted that some blood passed from the right ventricle to the
lungs--enough for their nutrition; but Harvey points out, with Colombo,
that from the arrangement of the valves there could be no other view
than that with each impulse of the heart blood pas