Medicine: Blood

In the jaunty but therapeutically casual days of the 17th century two men often sat late over their wine cups. The one was dressed in silks and at his side a slim sword swung. The other's garb was black, but his eyes gleamed in candlelight. Sword-swinger was England's Charles I; the eyes gleamed in the head of Dr. William Harvey, no ordinary leech. Last week 100 chosen doctors from the world over gathered in London to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the royal leech's book* which first told the world that blood completes a...

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