Anatomical videos

Visualising Harvey's De motu cordis.  Harvey's masterpiece (Image 1) is not only a landmark treatise in this history of anatomy and physiology: it is also a brilliant example of the experimental method applied to the discipline of medicine.  Harvey claimed to have written the book, not from reading other books, but from studying living things themselves. But the technology of his day did not afford readers of his treatise the same privilege: the four famous figures reproduced here (Images 2-3) are the only visual adis contained in the entire book. Unless they had access to a whole programme of experimentation themselves, readers of De motu cordis have not only had to accept his testimony on trust, but also to tax their own imaginations in attempting to understand the observations he describes.

Video. In order to repair this deficiency, the Royal College of Physicians used the new medium of film to produce a pioneering educational video illustrating the key stages of Harvey's work with animated diagrams and footage of key dissections and experiments. First undertaken in 1928, then reworked in 1957, and refreshed for a third time in 1971-2, even the latest version seems at first sight rather dated in presentation; but its content is that of an eduational classic, 'highly recommended' by Dr. W.F. Bynum (Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine) 'as ...one of the best films ever produced on the history of medicine...'

Proposal for enhancement. The core of the video narrates the key sequence of experiments using Harvey's own words. In order to increase still further the value of this video as an aid to the close study of the text, The Medical Cabinet team will cross-reference each stage of the video with the relevant passages of the text, so that they can more easily be consulted in parallel.