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Science Forum Index » Philosophy Forum » History of Physiology : William Harvey
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| Frederick |
 Posted: Thu Dec 25, 2003 6:34 pm |
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HISTORY OF PHYSIOLOGY: WILLIAM HARVEY (1578-1657)
ScienceWeek http://www.scienceweek.com
The following points are made by Jole Shackleford (citation
below):
1) The monumental treatise of William Harvey (1578-1657), which
established new directions for physiological research and forever
changed the way the operations of the human body were conceived,
was a rather small volume with one illustration and the
unassuming title /Anatomical Exercise on the Motion of the Heart
and Blood in Animals/. Published in 1628, it is considered to be
one of the most important textbooks in the history of medicine
and made Harvey familiar to most modern physicians as one of the
pioneers of modern medicine. Yet his book is not about medicine
as it was conceived in the 17th century, which would encompass
study of the parts of the body, the diseases that afflict us, and
the methods of treatment that aim to restore and maintain our
health. It is not even about human anatomy the way it was taught
then, that is, the study of the locations, shapes, and presumed
uses of the various major organs. It is instead an extended
series of propositions and observations about the operation of
one particular organ, the heart, and the vessels connected to it.
2) Since Harvey's time we have come to think of the
cardiovascular system as one unified system, but in the early
17th century it was still viewed the way the ancient Greeks had
viewed it -- as a group of separate organs and systems, each with
its own independent function. The venous system was believed to
transport blood from the liver to the rest of the body, including
the heart, in order to provide it with nutrition. The arterial
system was thought to transport blood that had been refined in
the heart and endowed with some sort of vitality, either vital
heat or some kind of spirit that gave energy to the body. The
heart was seen to serve two functions: the right side received a
portion of the blood from the veins and furthered it to the lungs
for their nourishment; the left side heated blood that it
received through the wall separating the two halves (the cardiac
septum). It was considered a possibility that a small amount of
blood also came to the left ventricle from the lungs, but their
main function was thought to provide air to moderate the natural
heat in the left ventricle and prevent it from overheating the
blood.
3) A proper amount of heat was considered a necessary condition
for health and therefore was of great concern to physicians. Too
little heat was a sign of weakness and decline (old people were
regarded as deficient in heat and moisture), and too much heat
(fever) could overcome the body. Patients with fevers were often
bled, in part to cool them, and weak patients were given
"cordials", which warmed and fortified the heart (the cor in
"cordial" means "heart" in Latin). The lungs were regarded as
ventilators, whose principal function was to cool the heart and
perhaps also to provide it with vital spirit or air, which would
then be mixed with the blood in the left ventricle.
4) Harvey singled out these four basic parts of the body for
study and argued that they worked together for one purpose: the
circulation of the blood. His book is not a medical textbook, but
rather what we might call a scientific monograph: a philosophical
inquiry into the operation of one aspect of animal physiology.
This distinction is not important today, when we hardly blink at
the wide variety of kinds and disciplines of pure research that
are part of modern medicine, but in early modern Europe, medicine
and natural philosophy were still distinct disciplines.
5) Even though Harvey was a royal physician, a member of the
College of Physicians, and a lecturer in anatomy, his book was
regarded as a philosophical treatise. Although it was admittedly
important for medical scholars, the book was addressed mainly to
those who were interested in philosophical issues and not
strictly medical ones. This distinction was a reflection of the
teaching traditions at the universities, where medicine was
dominated by the teachings of Galen (c.130-c.200), and natural
philosophy depended on the works of Aristotle (384-322 BC) and
the commentaries based on them. In practice, however, medicine
and philosophy were tightly bound.
6) This was partly the legacy of Galen, who realized that healing
would remain an inferior craft unless it was integrated with
philosophical theory and therefore became an intellectual pursuit
as well. Medieval physicians realized the same thing and made
medicine an academic field and a part of the university
curriculum by requiring students to study Aristotelian philosophy
before they studied medicine as a graduate subject. But the two
fields of study persisted as distinct disciplines: medicine was
about the health and healing of humans, whereas natural
philosophy was about the organization, operation, and purpose of
the natural world, and included anatomy and physiology only
insofar as the human body was part of nature. Harvey's book fell
within the second category.
Adapted from: Jole Shackleford: William Harvey and the Mechanics
of the Heart. Oxford University Press 2003, p.45. More
information at:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0195120493/scienceweek
ScienceWeek http://www.scienceweek.com
--
Best,
Frederick Martin McNeill
Poway, California, United States of America
mmcneill@fuzzysys.com
http://www.fuzzysys.com
http://members.cox.net/fmmcneill/
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Phrase of the week :
"There is no doubt that great revolutions of human scientific
thought will occur in the next century, and in the century after
that, and in thousands of centuries afterward. So which of our
current pet scientific dogmas will be among the first washed away
by new facts and sudden clarities?" -- Anonymous
 )))Snort!)
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