On Monday the celebrations began in honour of the tercentenary
of the publication of William Harvey's work on the circulation of the blood—Exercitatio Ana- tomica de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis. This treatise was as great and daring a challenge to settled belief as was Galileo's assertion about the earth and the sun. Harvey, too, might have exclaimed " Eppur ri muove ! " although he had never retracted his theory. He demonstrated conclusively that the blood is pumped by the heart through the arteries and so on to the veins. He made his observations with the help of a simple magnifying glass, but they were amazingly careful. To-day science can show the whole prcicess of the circulation of the blood on a film, but this exhibition with its immense. magnification of detail only confirms majestically the process described in Harvey's famous book.
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