William Harvey and the Circulation of the Blood

Everybody can see upon the surface of some part of the skin, underneath that skin, pulsating tubes, which we know as the arteries. Everybody can see under the surface of the skin more delicate and softer looking tubes, which do not pulsate, which are of a bluish colour, and are termed the veins. And every person who has seen a recently killed animal opened knows that these two kinds of tubs, are connected with an apparatus which is placed in the chest, which apparatus, in recently killed animals, is still pulsating. And you know that in yourselves you can feel the pulsation of this organ, the heart, between the fifth and sixth ribs. This much of anatomy and physiology has been known from the oldest times, not only as a matter of curiosity, but because one of the great objects of men, from their earliest recorded existence, has been to kill one another, and it was a matter of considerable importance to know which was the best place for hitting an enemy.