The architecture of the mitral valve.

Abstract

I am glad to describe the architecture of the mitral valve, a choice of words that interests me because the term architecture implies much more than "anatomy". I presume that an architect designs a building with its function in mind; he should consider both form and function. As a student I gained the impression that anatomy was concerned essentially with form, and that physiology dealt with function. This is, of course, an unsatisfactory division and a change of thought is seen today in that anatomy now concerns itself with function as much as form and has even introduced a change of name. A department of anatomy is now called a department of human biology or of biological structure etc. The change is significant but it is by no means new. In this very College, although not in this building, William Harvey over 300 years ago gave his lectures on anatomy. If you read these you will perceive at once that he was presenting function as well as form ; physiology as well as anatomy. The Oxford Dictionary gives 1615 as the earliest date on which the term physiology was used. In 1628 William Harvey published his immortal book which he called "Exercitatio anatornica de motu cordis et sanguinis in animalibus", that is "Anatomical studies on the motion of the heart and the blood". It is clear from Harvey's title and from his other writings, and especially from his long series of Lumleian lectures, that he did not differentiate between anatomy and physiology. In his lectures he defines anatomy as "the faculty which through inspection and dissection reveals the uses and actions of the parts". To us this definition includes physiology and, as you know, Harvey's discovery is generally accepted as the beginning of physiology. Obviously in Harvey's time the term "anatomy" had a wider and fuller connotation than it had when I was a medical student. It comprised both anatomy and