Was William Harvey's commitment to experimentation reflected in his clinical practice?

Abstract

The physician and physiologist Dr William Harvey is known for having discovered that the heart pumps arterial blood round the whole body and receives venous blood from the periphery, which it forwards to the lungs for reoxygenation. Harvey's discovery was based on anatomical and physiological evidence and experiments using ligatures of varying tensions. As a clinician, however, Harvey does not appear to have appreciated the value of experiments in assessing treatment effects. Although he criticised Galenic views about the clinical value of experience and authority in the absence of accompanying empirical evidence, two handwritten prescriptions that he wrote for his friend and future biographer John Aubrey provide evidence that he conformed with Galenic theory when it came to drug therapy in clinical practice. This was consistent with his senior position in the College of Physicians, whose Pharmacopoeia Londinensis was based on Galenic principles, an appreciation of which was required for entry into the College. Harvey's prescriptions reflect this and open a window onto 17th-century therapeutic practice and the personal elements on which such practice was sometimes based.

Keywords: Galenic theory; John Aubrey; William Harvey; experimental medicine; humoral theory.

Figure 1.

Harvey’s illustrations of the ligature experiment that he considered crucial in confirming the circulation of the blood.

Figure 2.

“Quomodo nisi experientia” One of Harvey’s annotations of Galen’s text, as published in 1640 and therefore written between 1640 and 1657, when Harvey died (available free from Google eBooks).

Figure 3.

The central section of William Harvey’s three-part prescription for John Aubrey, 1653.

Figure 4.

William Harvey’s prescription for John Aubrey, 1655.