Oddlet: William Harvey · 1 min read
Oct 25, 2026
Montgomery's Ribs
William Harvey, the physician who proved blood circulates, once reached through a hole in a young viscount's ribs and took hold of the beating heart.
William Harvey was small, dark-eyed, and gouty. He proved in 1628 that blood circulates. Physician to James I, then to Charles I. Founder of the modern understanding of the heart.
He could not learn a thing by report. He had to see.
He vivisected deer from the royal parks. He opened snakes, fish, eels, snails, frogs, chickens, pigeons, oysters. When his wife's tame parrot died in her lap, he opened it and drew a nearly complete egg from its oviduct. It had been female. He performed the post-mortem on his own father. Then on one of his sisters. What else was family for.
In Ireland he found Hugh Montgomery, a young viscount whose childhood chest wound had never quite closed over. The heart was visible through a hole in the ribs.
He brought him to the King.
He reached in and took hold of the beating heart. Montgomery felt nothing. The King did the same.
Montgomery outlived him.
Know someone who’d love this?
- Wikipedia - William Harvey — Comprehensive biography with dates, education, royal appointments, marriage, animal experiments, Edgehill account, and death circumstances.
- Encyclopaedia Britannica - William Harvey — Standard reference biography; source for the statement that Harvey conducted private dissections including those of his father and sister.
- Royal College of Physicians Museum - To war with William Harvey: the Battle of Edgehill — Detailed account of Harvey's role at Edgehill on 23 October 1642 guarding the young princes, including the hedge/book/cannonball story from Aubrey.
- Wikisource - The Works of William Harvey / Life of William Harvey (Robert Willis translation) — Willis's 19th-century biographical preface; source for the parrot anecdote, Aubrey quotations, and Elizabeth Browne / brother Eliab material.
- Project Gutenberg - William Harvey by D'Arcy Power — Full-length biography by D'Arcy Power; details on the parrot dissection, Bacon relationship, marriage to Elizabeth Browne, death at Roehampton, and brother Eliab's role.
Rhea darwinii
Darwin was halfway through dinner in Patagonia before he realised the small ostrich on his plate was the rare species he'd been hunting for months.
The Bread of Shame
Francis Egerton, 8th Earl of Bridgewater — Fellow of the Royal Society, prebendary of Durham — dined every night in Paris with a dozen dogs in tailored coats and linen napkins, each attended by its own footman.
The Assessor of Heaven
Sweden's chief mining assessor spent thirty years cataloguing iron ore before dining alone in a London tavern, looking up, and being appointed by the Lord to survey heaven.
Wonder, delivered.
A fresh Oddlet in your inbox every morning, a full day before everyone else. True, strange and under a minute.
Free forever. Unsubscribe anytime.