Harvey, William

Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)

William (1578-1657), an English physician. Educated at Cambridge and Padua. He became physician to Bartholomew's Hospital, London, 1602, and later a lecturer on anatomy and surgery. Harvey was court physician to James I and Charles I. Servetus and others had an inkling of the circulation of the blood, and Harvey may have gotten hold of the idea at Padua; but, however that may be, he was the first to demonstrate that the blood is forced by the muscles of the heart out through the arteries to all parts of the body, and that it passes from the arteries through capillaries into the veins and returns to the heart for a similar trip through the lungs and back to the heart ready for the body again. Harvey published this discovery of the circulation of the blood in 1628. See Blood Harz (harts) Mountains, the most northerly range of mountains in Germany. The region is 60 miles by 30 in extent. The Brocken, its highest peak, rises 3,000 feet above the level of the sea. The Harz Mountains are covered by a system of forestry, which makes them a charming summer resort for the city people of Hanover. There are numerous small picturesque inns. This is one of the toy districts of Germany. Many of the toy houses, Noah's arks, and wooden animals on wheels, so attractive at the Christmas time, are made in the Harz Mountains. In the valleys, as might be expected, small saw mills are to be found along the streams. The Brocken is haunted by a specter, said to appear at sunset, and on the eve of Mayday witches are reputed to dance on its summit. These delusions, if we may call them so, have grown out of peculiar atmospheric conditions. At times mists from the valley rise in a perpendicular wall on which figures may be seen as though it were a curtain. People seem like giants, and domestic animals throw figures of grotesque monsters.