100 YEARS AGO

Harvey delivered his first course of Lumleian Lectures in 1616. It was in these lectures that he first propounded his views on the circulation of the blood, and demonstrated the anatomical and experimental evidence on which his conclusions were based. These demonstrations were, as he tells us, annually repeated at the Lumleian Lectures for nine successive years. It was only after this long probation that Harvey ventured to give his discoveries to the world. This he did in the form of a small Latin quarto of 76 pages⃛. This little book is in several respects a remarkable one. It constitutes the earliest record we possess of a really scientific investigation in the domain of biology based on systematic observation and experiment. Although written 270 years ago, the work is essentially modern in tone and method. It is, in fact, the precursor and prototype of the scientific “monograph” of our own day, and stands favourable comparison with the best master-pieces of recent times. In this treatise Harvey established absolutely the fact of the circulation of the blood, and the fact that the heart was the propulsive agent in the movement. But he was unable, from his want of a microscope, to indicate the precise path along which the blood travelled from the terminal arteries to the commencing veins. He erroneously conjectured that the blood percolated the organs and tissues as water percolates the earth and produces springs and rivulets.

From Nature 24 March 1898.

50 YEARS AGO

Objectivity was never Malinowski's method. Like all great teachers, he was prone to generalize recklessly from a special instance in order to drive home a point of principle⃛. The social scientist can never hope to be entirely detached, and it is arguable how far he can, or should, avoid imposing his own value-judgments upon the material of his study. My own feelings, in the present instance, are that it would need only a slight recasting of Malinowski's argument to demonstrate that totalitarian Russia rather than democratic America is the true heir to the ‘proto-democracy’ of archaic primitives, and this makes me suspicious of the whole procedure.

From Nature 27 March 1948.