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Richard Lower: Anatomist and Physiologist
The cardiovascular research of William Harvey (1578-1657), based on what he “could discover [of] the function and offices of the heart's movement in animals through the use of my own eyes,” and summarized in De Motu Cordis (1628), marked the birth of modern circulatory physiology and made him one of the truly great physicians in medical history (1-3). Harvey's school of Oxford physiology, dismissed by the English Civil War (1642-1657), was revived in the last years of the Commonwealth under the leadership of Robert Boyle (1627-1691) and Thomas Willis (1621-1675) and attracted many hard-working and productive students whose works are still insufficiently appreciated (3-5). One of the most versatile and resourceful of them was Richard Lower (1632-1691) (Table[3-6]).
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Lower, a Cornishman, matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford, in February 1650 from Westminster School in London. Among his fellow students at both institutions were Christopher Wren (1632-1723), microscopist, physiologist, artist, and architect; John Locke (1632-1704), physician, political scientist, and philosopher; and Robert Hooke (1631-1703) of Hooke's law, later resident scientist of the Royal Society. When Willis was appointed Sedleian Professor of Natural Philosophy in 1660, Lower, Wren, Locke, and Hooke became his students and associates, actively engaging in anatomic and physiologic research (3-6). Before Lower went to London in 1666, he earned a bachelor's degree, a master's degree, and a medical doctorate. From 1656 through 1666, Lower brought his extraordinary skill in anatomical dissection to Willis's pioneering study of the central nervous system and cerebral circulation—assistance that was graciously acknowledged by Willis in his classic monograph, Cerebri anatome (1664):
But for the more accurate accomplishment of [dissection] I had not sufficient leisure, and perhaps, not sufficient ability, so I was not ashamed to summon … others. I employed … Richard Lower, a doctor of outstanding learning and …
