Pictures from the Past of the Healing Arts / Orvostörténeti Közlemények – Supplementum 18-19. (Budapest, 2000)

Pictures from the Past of the Healing Arts - Guide to the Exhibition

forth a refined description about the system of valves in the veins in his De venerum ostiolis (1603). He had suggested that the valves obstruct blood to flow back to the limbs and allow it only to direct centrally even from parts of the body that are below the heart. Harvey's studies at Padua were characteristically inspired by these theories on the function of venous valves. After he had been graduated in medicine in April 1602 he returned to England and settled in London. In 1609 he obtained the post of physician to St. Bartholomew's Hospital. Among his many celebrated patients were the Lord Chancellor Francis Bacon, the Earl of Arundel and two royal persons, James I., and Charles I. In 1616 he began a course of lectures at the College of Physicians in which he first brought forward his views upon the movements of the heart and blood. Nevertheless, it came about but twelve years later in 1628 that he published the Exercitatio anatómiça de motu cordis et sanguinis (An Anatomical Disquisition Concerning the Motion of the Heart and the Blood), his tract about blood movements that were based on the results of his experiments and comparative investigations of animals. The epoch-making work was published in Frankfurt am Main. Harvey's discovery gave rise to a violent controversy among anatomists whose majority insisted: 'It is preferable to be wrong together with Galen than acknowledge Harvey's truth'

. Harvey did not defend his thesis against the attacks. His fundamental discovery did not need any further explanation, it stood for itself and eventually, during his lifetime, received admiration. Harvey's way of thinking is well characterized by his famous statement: 'A question raised correctly is already a significant step towards the correct answer

.' A coloured illustration represents Harvey's doctrine; the enlarged photo shows his portrait (No. 17) and you can also see his signature. And you can see a facsimile copy of his diploma (No. 15) and the original copy of his other famous work, the Exercitationes de Generationç Animalium (Disquisitions Concerning the Generation of Animals) published in Amsterdam, 1662 (No. 14). 2. The discovery of the microscope and theories of medicine in the 16th-17th centuries The first microscope was a simple system of magnifying glasses, co-built probably by two Dutchmen: Zacharias and Johann Jansen before 1600. Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) receiving the news of its construction decided to fabricate his own instrument, which he named occhialino (monocle). These first magnifiers, which might have been used by keeping them in hands, were mainly for fun like e.g. flea watching. Microscope, the term itself was first mentioned in a letter of Johan Faber (1570-1640), a court physician to Pope Orbán VIII {pontificat 1623-1644), in 1625. The application of microscope to the study of animal and vegetable structure produced interesting results in the labours of Marce lo Malpighi (1628-1694). His discoveries were so important that he may be considered to be the founder of 38