THE first edition of this Bibliography was published in 1928, and on that occasion I wrote in the preface:

'The year 1628, in which William Harvey's treatise De Motu Cordis was first published, is now recognised as having seen the birth of modern physiological and biological science. Harvey's writings have therefore acquired a historical importance which places them in a class apart from most of the medical and scientific publications of the seventeenth century, and the three hundredth anniversary of the appearance of his first book seems to be the proper occasion for the production of a full record of their purely bibliographical aspect. The full understanding of Harvey's preeminence is reflected in the eagerness shewn by medical libraries and private buyers to collect his books, and in the consequent increase of their market value, which has in the last five years been out of proportion even to the general rise in the value of all works of antiquarian interest.

‘Harvey published only three books during his life, so that the task of compiling a detailed bibliography of his works has been a fairly simple one. I have deliberately restricted it to the record of his own works because I have felt that an attempt to widen its scope by including an account of the controversies aroused by the announcement of his discoveries would result in the expenditure of much time without any corresponding advantage to scientific or bibliographical knowledge. Harvey's critics, though vociferous enough in their day, have now mostly sunk into an oblivion in which they may be allowed to remain. Harvey himself has given us the cue by his almost complete abstinence from any controversial writings.’

Up to the year 1928 the only important source of bibliographical information about Harvey's works was the list compiled by Mr Charles Perry Fisher, Librarian to the College of Physicians in Philadelphia, and published in 1912. Three hundred copies of my fuller and more complete bibliography were printed in 1928; the edition was sold out in a few weeks, and the book has been difficult to obtain ever since.