Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 450

JEAN RIOLAN (1580-1657) Opuscula anatomica nova. . . . Instauratio magna physicae & medicinae, per novam doctrinam de motu circulatorio sanguinis in corde. Typis Milonis Flesher 1649 [4] 536 pp. 18.7 cm.

Riolan was a brilliant Parisian anatomist, but he was the leading opponent and most persistent critic of Harvey's teaching on the circulation of the blood. He was the critic whom Harvey took most seriously, but Harvey remained silent for twenty-one years, until the appearance of this book, to which Harvey replied in two essays published together in the same year. These appeared in later editions of Harvey's De motu cordis (see No. 423). Riolan maintained the belief in partial circulation through the lungs and that the chief circulation was through the septum of the heart. Curiously enough, "Riolan maintained that if dissections no longer agreed with the descriptions of Galen, it should be attributed to the fact that nature had changed since Galen's time, but that one should not admit that Galen was wrong" (Arturo Castiglioni, A history of medicine. New York, 1946. p. 519). A large portion of this work is on the anatomical works of Spiegel, Bartholin, Du Laurens, Bauhin, Hofmann, Vesling, and Parisano.

See Related Record(s): 423

Cited references: Cushing R168; Osler 733; Russell 703; Waller 8000

Gift of John Martin, M.D.