Chapter 4 Synopsis and Critique

Chapter 4 Synopsis and Critique

Synopsis:

Chapter Four, entitled “The Broken Heart of the Republic,” begins with Thomas Willis’ education. He became a student of Oxford in 1638. It was there that his life would begin to unravel both personally and communally.

King Charles was becoming more and more detested throughout England. While he was taking the people’s money, he had Laud persecute the Puritans and other rebels forming secret courts. The church services, requested on King Charles behalf, were the beginnings to a launch of war. When King Charles called Parliament, angry Puritans and landowners were enraged by the rules. Charles tried to negotiate with Parliament whom was not content with compromise. Enemies of the king imprisoned some of Charles advisors while Charles opponents slipped away quietly, humiliating his power and enraging Parliament. War had begun in the country. Formerly an educational atmosphere, Oxford became the place for the training of militia and the preparation of weapons and gear. At this point, Willis’ future as a clergyman was not looking pleasant so he averted his attention to medicine. On August 22, 1642, only a few months into Willis’ medicinal training, Charles assembled his troops and declared war. Charles had one the first battle of the English Civil War at Edgehill on October 23. Oxford became the new capital. In Oxford, the soldiers became ill by an outbreak of typhus. Thomas Willis described this epidemic as “so grievous that in short time after, either side left off, and from that time, for many months, fought not with the enemy but with the disease” and stated that “ the very air seemed infected.” Though Willis had only a few months of training under his belt, he had developed a “doctor’s eye” and observed the disease as it spread from the returned soldiers to the soldiers at home to the town to the countryside. He observed the whelks and spots of the skin, the disordered pulse, and the raging heat. Both his father and stepmother was taken ill by the epidemic and died. Willis believed that only if the King would return home, could order be restored throughout the lands. A pamphlet had even arisen pleading with the King to return home to cure Londoners of the King’s Evil. By this time Parliament was advancing towards Oxford. King Charles only advantage was his well trained, disciplined army. He asked for volunteers to defend the city, amongst them was Thomas Willis. Upon returning to Oxford after two years, Willis could see much had changed. Seven thousand soldiers were now stationed in Oxford. Oxford was once a reputable, “healthy country city” but now a “sick, foul slum.” People wandered the streets, rats began to multiply and plague began to spread throughout Oxford and more lives were lost as a result. While stationed in Oxford, Willis spent his time teaching himself medicine. He read any books he came across and talked to anyone with some medical knowledge.

One of the King’s physicians was a teacher named William Harvey. Harvey had made a discovery twenty years earlier: “the heart sends blood through the body in a loop.” Harvey tested his observations with experiments. Harvey looked to Aristotle as a leader. Forty years earlier, Harvey had studied under Hieronymus Fabricius, who showed that the eyes pupils respond to light and gave the first proper account of the placenta’s function. Harvey understood that Fabricius had made an error about the anatomy of the veins. Fabricius concluded that the little doors must slow down the blood as it flowed away from the heart through the veins. Harvey, on the other hand, recognized a great importance in these floodgates. He believed that “if these little doors were designed for blocking the flow of blood”, it must have meant that “the veins must carry blood toward the heart, not away from it.” He studied animals to verify that this was correct and found that the more he studied the blood, the more important it became. Harvey was so reputable that he was asked to teach at the College of Physicians. He was fascinated with the brain though he left behind no theories of how the worked. He said, “The brain itself neither sees nor hears, and so forth, yet it does all these things.” He is considered today to have been a “proto-psychologist” and was “one of the few physicians who could cure devils in the head.” Although the brain was of no importance since “sensation does not derive from the brain,” Harvey believed that the blood could feel. During his time at court, he served the King James with a deep devotion saying, “The King… is the foundation of his Kingdom, the sun of the world around him, the heart of the republic, the foundation whence all power, all grace, doth flow.” Harvey continued to explore the heart and blood. He predicted blood traveling through the veins towards the heart and that a pulse was caused “when the heart drove surging waves of blood into the arteries.” He said the blood in the body could be recycled over and over again. He contemplated his theories of the little doors and experimented to in fact verify there truths. When King James past and Charles inherited the throne, Harvey and the King became the best of friends. King Charles was considerate when listening to the ideas that most would dismiss. In 1628, Harvey released his book, The Motion of the Heart. It was disregarded and unaccepted by the people because he was making claims in experiments using autopsies. His reputation was diminishing to a crazed scientist. Taking the criticism with an open mind, he decided to do more research with the help of the King. He met a man by the name of Montgomery who had been wounded as a young boy that left an injury with a hole in his chest. When Harvey looked into the man’s chest, he saw the human heart beating. He wrote, “I was almost tempted to think… that the motion of the heart was only to be comprehended by God.” Harvey followed his King to Nottingham, and at the battle of Edgehill, and finally to Oxford where he was treated like a prisoner. His entire life’s work was taken from him by looters and ran sackers.

In 1644, when Thomas Willis had volunteered to be in the war, Harvey was there treating the sick for plague, typhus, and malaria. Many started to understand Harvey’s theories and vowed to learn about the body through observations and experimentation. In fact, Willis would follow Harvey’s example for the rest of his life. “Willis would search for the true nature of blood, which would lead him to the brain, the nerves, and ultimately the soul.”

During the war, Oliver Cromwell came to be a great leader who would further discipline its military. Cromwell overlooked the fact that he was one of the first beginning to establish a democracy; not only a political one, but a religious one as well. Many threats, such as Overton’s mockery, were sent to the conservative orders in Oxford which ridiculed the Aristotelian idea of the soul. Mortalists claimed to preach true Christianity saying the soul was mortal and if the body was dead, an immaterial soul would not be able to break out of a material body.

In the meantime, Archbishop Laud had been beheaded by Parliament for treason. In April of 1646, King Charles sneaked out of Oxford disguised as a servant leaving his people behind. By June of 1646, Oxford forces surrendered to Parliament. Harvey left unnoticed. Willis had left his home where his life had unraveled just a few years prior. The war, in particular the devastation of defeat, was shared by the entire King’s people who were forced to move on and begin a new life.

Critique:

I found myself to be very involved while reading Chapter 4 of Soul Made Flesh. The first thought to cross my mind was that of Willis who “was taught to resolve any controversy by finding a relevant passage in Galen or Aristotle.” In science, I cannot fathom the idea of looking to philosophers for answers. It surprised me that Willis would not have contemplated experimenting with his theories. However, I did find it very interesting that Willis was one of the first to describe the clinical outbreak of typhus, the whelks and spots of the skin, the disordered pulse, and the raging heat. I can only imagine what he thought when he first came into contact with the epidemic.

I also found it very interesting that William Harvey had made the discovery that the heart sends blood through the body in a loop. I liked the way that Harvey thought, to the degree that he looked at the body for himself and tested his observations with experimentation. To me, he seemed like a “think it through” kind of man who wouldn’t conduct only one experiment to come to some conclusion.

In addition to Harvey, his teacher Fabricius was quite appealing. I thought it was intriguing that he showed that the eye’s pupils respond to light and gave the first correct account of the placenta’s function. But it shocked me to find that Fabricius mistook the function of the valves (“little doors”). However, I was reassured when Harvey noticed this mistake. And I can only envision his reaction to seeing Montgomery’s heart beating within his chest. I also found it very fascinating that Harvey studied the embryology of a chicken at least in the sense to investigate the heart and blood.

Overall, the chapter was very engaging with all the different theories and observations made by these scientists. I feel that science back then was so different from what it is today. By this, I mean looking to philosophy to answer the questions posed by these scientists or dissecting any animal that could bring them one step further to some observational conclusion.