the day, but they revived Greek ideals and introduced scientific methods.
The great practical acquisition of the century was a new anatomy. Vesalius and his followers gave for the first time an accurate account of the structure of the human body, and while thus enlarging and correcting the work of Galen, contributed to weaken the almost divine authority with which he dominated the schools. Nearly another century passed before chemistry, in the hands of Boyle and others, reached its modern phase, but the work of Paracelsus, based on that of the ‘pious Spagyrist’, Basil Valentine, by showing its possibilities, had directed men’s minds strongly to the new science. Of the three, the new spirit alone was essential, since it established the intellectual and moral freedom by which the fetters of dogma, authority, and scholasticism were for ever loosened from the minds of men.
Into this world, we may say, stepped a young Folkestone lad, when, on the last day of May, 1593, he matriculated at Cambridge. Harvey’s education may be traced without difficulty, because the influences which shaped his studies were those which had for a century prevailed in the profession of this country. We do not know the reason for selection of Caius College, which, so far as I can gather, had no special connexion with the Canterbury school. Perhaps it was chosen because of the advice of the family physician, or of a friend, or of his rector; or else his father may have known Caius; or the foundation may already have become famous as a resort for those about to ‘enter on the physic line’. Or, quite as likely, as we so often find in our experience, some trivial incident may have turned his thoughts towards medicine. When he carpe
