‘I pray pardon this scribling on the grass in the feild and procure with all expedition my freedom from this barbarous usadg.’ (In a letter to Lord Feilding in Venice from William Harvey at Treviso, August 3, 1636.)

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE

HARVEY'S Miscellaneous Writings are not extensive. Only one piece by him has yet been discovered to have been printed during the seventeenth century. This was his account of the post-mortem examination of the body of Thomas Parr who died in 1635 at the reputed age of nearly 153 years. The MS. was given by Michael Harvey, a nephew of the author, to Dr John Betts, with whose writings it was printed in 1669. Most of Harvey's remaining MSS. are believed to have perished when the house of the College of Physicians was burnt in the Fire of London, 1666. Some, however, survived, and came into the possession of Sir Hans Sloane, with whose collections they were bought for the British Museum in 1754. By far the most important of these are his Prelectiones, or notes for his lectures on the circulation, dated 1616. This MS. has been reproduced in facsimile (no. 52) and is now well known. Extracts from another Sloane MS., de Musculis, motu locali,& c., were printed by Dr G. E. Paget in 1850 (no. 50). The remainder of the Miscellaneous Writings include his Will, a motto in an album, and letters, of which only fourteen have survived in the original MSS. Twelve of these are in the library of the Royal College of Physicians; the other two are in the Bodleian Library, and the library of Sidney Sussex College.

49 NARRATIO ANATOMICA 8° 1669

Title: De Ortu et Natura Sanguinis [rule] A Joanne Betto M.D. Regis Medico Ordinario & Collegii Londinenfis Socio. [quotation between rules] Londini, Ex Officinâ. E. T. væneuntque apud Gulielmum Grantham, ad Infigne Urfi nigri, in Aulâ Westmonafterienfi. 1669.

Collation: A8 a8 b4 B–X8 Y4; 192 leaves.

Contents: Ai blank; A2 title: A3a—a7a Ad Lectorem; a7b blank; bia—b4a Elenchus Capitum & Sectionum; b4b blank; Biff—X6b (pp. 1—316) De Ortu et Natura Sanguinis; X7 sub-title to Anatomia Thames Parri Annum Centefimum quinquagefimum fecundum & novem menfes agentis. Cum Cl. Viri Guliellmi Harvai Aliorumque Adftantium Medkorum Regiorum Obfervationibus; X8a—Y3a (pp. 319—325) Narratio Anatomica; Y3bblank; Y4a Errata; Y4b blank.